The Ringer-Verse - ‘Star Wars: Galactic Racer,’ ‘Ace Combat 8,’ and ‘Gears of War: E-Day’ Reactions | Button Mash

Episode Date: October 2, 2026

Ben, Matt James, and Steve Ahlman marvel at how many good games are coming out in quick succession and wonder whether this is the best week ever for Button Mash material. Then they share their extensive, spoiler-free impressions (and rankings) of three big, brand-new releases: ‘Star Wars: Galactic Racer,’ ‘Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve,’ and ‘Gears of War: E-Day.’ (0:00) Intro(7:42) ‘Star Wars: Galactic Racer’(45:04) ‘Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve’(1:10:37) ‘Gears of War: E-Day’(1:36:18) Outro Host: Ben LindberghGuests: Matt James and Steve AhlmanProducer: Devon RenaldoAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Ringerverse, your nexus feed for all things fandom. I am Marcus. Excuse me. Ben Lindberg, senior editor for The Ringer, and your host here at Button Mesh, coming to you, as always, from our studio inside Mike Tomlin's massive Minecraft city. All the beautiful views. He's very few conscious. Coach put some serious time into that place.

With me is Ringer, senior audio producer, Steve. Wings of Steve. Alman. Hi, Steve. Good. I'm overlooking my aquarium in my master bedroom, along with the amazing view of the baseball stadium. Thank you, Mike Tomlin.

Please go to our parks department and fix everything. I will not criticize him for spending time on video games. Not on this podcast. On the Ringer NFL show, who knows, but not on button mesh. Also with us is Ringer deputy art lead Matt Brumack. James. Hi, Matt. Hi, I too, like an open floor plan.

So I did not when I actually had to work in an office. But fortunately, that is no longer my lot in life. Guys, I am giddy. I am giddy about gaming. Often we ease into our main topic on the pod with some banter about news. But there's no time for that today. We'd love to do a deep dive on Mike Tomlin's massive Minecraft City, but there's just no time. The news is video games are good, specifically three new ones.

Not three new old ones, though it is, as always, a big time for remasters and re-releases. The Witcher 3, Wild Hunt, remastered. Dynasty Warriors 3, complete edition remastered. Ghost of Yote complete edition. Those are out. People are playing those. They're having a good time. But we have three brand new games.

Two of them in long running, venerable franchises. One, based on well-established IP. But nonetheless, hot off the presses, we will be discussing. the first Star Wars racing game in about 25 years Star Wars Galactic Racer. And then we will be getting into Ace Combat 8 Wings of Thieve and Gears of War E-Day, both of which are sequels to 2019 predecessors and prettier and longer and arguably better than what we have seen before. Has there been a better button mash week?

This is just a wonderland. Our cup overfloweth. This is a cornucopia. I mean, I could stand to talk about how bad Sony and Microsoft are for 10 minutes. No. We can not do that for once. We can just talk about great video games for once. That sounds good to be.

Yeah, I want to just take a moment. I think this pod will be pure appreciation. Obviously, we will have some quibbles and we will find some faults. But mostly we're going to be talking about three new games that we really liked. And just to pause and survey the landscape here for a second because we focus so much on the remasters and the remakes and the re-releases. And we do a lot of nostalgia-centric content here at the Ringer and on buttonmash specifically. We talk about some of the greatest gaming years. We do redrafts.

We talk about November 2004 when every great game came out at the same time. And we did an episode on, hey, Half-Life 2 and Halo 2. Remember when those both came out at the same time where we did a whole 2004 video. video games episode. We're living in the good old days right now. I mean, it's hard to have that perspective and take a breath because we're playing three new games for every single episode we do. But this run of two or three months here, it's just so fast and furious. We knew that this was coming as everyone tried to cram in all their big games in before GTA6. But there have been some games that have taken us by surprise that kind of came out of nowhere and just a lot of the

most anticipated games have hit and have really delivered. So last week, we had to do three and one. And we talked about Control Resonant and we talked about Silent Hill Townfall. And we talked about Fire Emple on Fortune's Weave. And now we've got three more that maybe are even more up my alley. So we have no time to sort of take a breath and smell the roses and get our bearings. But I do just want to highlight that, boy, games are good right now. It's insane. When I had to tell people that I had to not hang out or not chat because I had to play games for this podcast, it was the most like champagne problems that this job has ever fortunately been able to give me because it was the most time consuming and annoying that I've ever been to anybody that knows me.

Yet, nonetheless, you ditched us twice to make dinner. I had to make dinner for my girlfriend, all right? I've got a line there. We got culinary exploits. I need to know more about your culinary side here. When you're in New York for Comic Con, can you make me a home-cooked Steve Allman meal? I mean, I need to. How many courses are we talking here? Let me tell you something.

The air fryer is basically the AI of cooking. There's no humanity in it, but it's basically cheating. I have an air fryer. You'll feel right at home. Just come on over. We can play local co-op instead of online co-op. But, yeah, it's just, it's an incredible run that we are on, right? now. And we're talking about these three sci-fi games that just grab you and don't let go. And we have all

spent varying but substantial amounts of time with all three of them. And our theme for today will just be borrowed from Dr. Ian Malcolm must go faster. That is the motto of these three games. And that's also our motto as we try to cram all three into one episode, which will be a tough assignment because any one of these games could carry an entire podcast. That's how much we have to say. So to quote another wise 90s movie icon, you must have Jedi reflexes if you host pods. I think that's how that line goes. There are weeks when I play games

partly out of obligation. And it's just, hey, I host a video game podcast. These are the big video games. Got to do it. Then there's this week when, if I were not hosting a video game podcast, I would still just be seated in front of my TV for dozens of hours playing all three of these games.

Great graphics. incredible sound design. Lots in common here. So I am just happy as a pig and shit, as the saying goes, which as I understand it, pigs are actually pretty hygienic creatures. This is a hurtful porcine stereotype that they are happy and shit. But I was happy in whatever we were playing. To woke on here, Ben.

No, yeah, not at all. Who will defend the pigs? The pigs are very smart. They got a bad rap. But really, I'm happy in the opposite of shit. because that is what we have been playing this week. So we have not finished all three of these games because how could we possibly? But consider these well-informed impressions more so than maybe full-fledged reviews.

But we have seen a ton, though not enough. I want to see even more. And of course, we will be steering clear of spoilers. We'll be talking about some plot premises and just sort of the setup and how these games do on the story side, but we won't be giving away specific twists that you will not have access to very early in your experience playing these games. So the order is going to be Galactic Racer, Ace Combat, and Gears. Not necessarily in order of quality, but honestly, it's tough to say because there's not a lot of daylight between these games, quality-wise, for me. Maybe at the end we can do our personal rankings of them if we can agonizingly choose.

But let's begin with Galactic Racer developed by Fuse Games. published by Secret Mode out October 6th for Windows, PS5, and Xbox series. As I alluded to, I believe this is really the first Star Wars racing game in about a quarter century, because all the Star Wars racing video games were compressed within about a three-year phantom menace inspired spanned. You had Star Wars Racer, of course, the classic in 99. Then there was Racer Revenge, also sandwiched between those two. There was Super Bombad Racing.

Never let it be said that we forgot about Super Bomb Bad Racing on button mesh. There was also Racer Arcade. All of those came out in the blink of an eye, and then these games go away. And finally, they have returned in the form of Star Wars Galactic Racer. So guys, give me your high-level takes. Obviously, we were pretty hyped for this. We're spoiled because we just played Star Wars Zero Company a couple months ago, and that was a great Star Wars game.

Are we going? Two for two. Steve, thoughts on Galactic Racer. We're absolutely going two for two, Ben. I got to sample this very briefly at Summer Games Fest, and I had to immediately tell you guys that's like, this might be my game of the year just on hype alone, because there's a very specific feeling in the idea that racing games,

when done properly, like it might be my favorite genre only because, I spend the most time in it only so rarely. I think I've only spent this amount of time in probably like burnout three and this game. It's incredible. I think that it's going to

at jump kind of rub people the wrong way because this is not a racing game as you might imagine it to be. It's not like either, it's neither open world nor like an arcadey forward game. even though like there are arcade modes, but it's essentially a roguelike. And I think that the idea behind making a sort of small mini-story campaign

around improving your vehicles and getting faster and getting better and learning how to build out a sort of hyper-speed racing vehicle in a Star Wars setting is inspired. And I don't think there's been anything that's kind of close to this as far as racing games are concerned. Matt, what do you think? Well, I think this is a fantastic game and I've really been enjoying my time with it. I think that I'm probably, of the three of us, I'm probably going to be the lowest one on it, which is surprising, I guess. But I really like the format of this being a rogue-like racer. I think that's a smart way to do it.

You still have ways to kind of weave in a little story there. And a lot of the upgrades, the upgrade path is pretty engaging. And I will also say that the very game modes here are very good and useful and kind of inform one another. I just think it's a really well thought out and put together game. And the things that kind of rub me the wrong way are like minor gripes that I have that I don't think you guys have at all. Because this game is just the headline of it is that this is fantastic. And if you're excited about this, you should stay excited about it. Yeah.

So, Steve, if you like Burnout 3, then that's good news because Fuse games, the developer of this game, was founded by senior developers from Criterion Games. That's the studio that worked on Need for Speed and Burnout. So that lineage is very much on display here. It feels a little bit like that with the Star Wars bells and whistles and vehicles. And I think the structure is pretty brilliant. I guess I'd call it a rogue light as opposed to a rogue like. Really, the distinction between those terms has been all but lost and they're used often interchangeably. But just in the sense that there is persistent progression, it's not that every run you are starting over from scratch.

You do gain abilities and you level up and you take that into your next run. But just when I thought that we had had every possible mashup of Rogue Light or like meets Genre X, maybe this has been done before. But I don't know that it's been done as well or as prominently. And it feels overdue. It's like why would this not have happened before? Because racing feels perfect for that. Because racing itself is a repetitive activity, right? you're going around and around the tracks and the same sort of selection of tracks.

And so why not? It doesn't feel like they tried to force it into a rogulight mold. Not only do you get better because you know the scenery and you know the shortcuts and you know which things kind of look like a shortcut. And it turns out is just a solid wall that you crash into because I had more than a few of those happened to me. But also you can gradually just build out your abilities and build up your vehicle. and gain that sense of mastery. So it just, it felt like a completely organic, natural fit for this blend of genres. I couldn't agree more.

I also think that a thing that this game does really well outside of the fact that this is a roguelike is kind of incorporating the feeling of what it's like to fly a spaceship in the fictional world of Star Wars because everything that we've known in Star Wars, like take the Millennium Falcon, for example. It's basically a cobbled together hunk of junk that can go insanely fast, but you've got to constantly maintain all of these systems and kind of like divert power to this

X, Y, and Z. And that's kind of true when it comes to most other vehicles in Star Wars. And this is kind of no different where you have different ways of deploying speed. You basically have two turbo buttons of like, okay, make speeder go faster in the afterburner and the Ramjet. And both of those things,

if that are abilities that give you an additional boost. Yeah, exactly. And not only based on the type of build that you want to make for your vehicle, there are the ways that you have and attain, not so much power-ups, but abilities for your vehicles are an interesting balance in things

that are to be maintained and constantly manicured. And also, again, I think that might be why Matt bumped up against this so much because it is a lot to take in at the moment because there are so many things that you think about using. I didn't think about using autopilot for a while

because I'm like, why would I want to autopilot my vehicle? I want to drive the car. But then when you go down this like weaving, very narrow, like threading needle tunnel, you're like, okay, well, maybe I too turn on the autopilot for that. And knowing that like the autopilot is like, you can do all of your pre-system checks if you possibly fit that one into your roster.

It's a very kind of amazing balance of containing the chaos of what these machines in Star Wars is. And I thought that was really, really great. So what did you bump up against other than various surfaces on race tracks, Matt? Well, like I said, they're just kind of, I think that whenever you have like a rogue light, you're going to, you know, you're going to lose a lot, right? You're going to fail a lot. And that's good here.

And there are a lot of complex systems to learn. So I think the start of this game, the beginning of it for people, I think people are going to be surprised at how challenging it is to grasp all of these things. Like Steve, you were talking about the fact that you have Afterburner and you have the Ramjet, right? So you have basically a turbo button that will activate the afterburner or whatever.

And then you click the right stick in to switch over to Ramjet. And these things are kind of like recharging separately. And you have four different abilities on your directional, on your D pad that you can each fire off with the L1 button. And there are so many different paths through each course that you have to learn. You have to learn the course. Every time you have to learn the course, you're not going to get through a new course doing a good job the first time, almost ever,

because they're almost designed to toss you off. And you'll have to learn them mirrored as well because they're very often mirrored. So you have the tracks. You have to learn all the abilities that you have. You have to learn the ins and out of the kind of vehicle that you're racing. there's a lot to grasp so the start of it

can be a little challenging and this game is constantly just filled with NPCs just being like you suck, you're bad so like... But they're also, sorry, also they're like you run into them all the time and you're also kind of the homies like you're like oh what's up you motherfucker

I beat you last time want to try out my new speeder bike yeah okay go for it. Yeah I think it's the design of it is great in that, you know, I was saying you have to learn all of these things. So they have a mode, they have an arcade mode in this game that has just a bunch of different challenges that I think do a good job of helping you figure out the fastest way through particular courses. And then they have a scenario mode, which gives you a random sort of scenario with a character

that is there to kind of teach you how to use all of these abilities. So there is just a tremendous amount of knowledge to learn, to, to practice yourself to put into this. And it can be overwhelming at first. And this is, without spoiling anything, this has several acts, right? So basically, you know, you have to go through this entire tour a few times

to get to the very end of the game. And the very first tour is short and sort of a training kind of thing. and then the game opens up a bit and you start seeing more of the systems and you see how deep and complex it is. And there are just a few little things here and there. Like there's eventually like a level cap

on how many permanent upgrades you can have for your vehicle, which was a little frustrating when you hit it without knowing that it was going to be there. I will also say like, and this is, this is, it sounds nitpicky, but it's also kind of not My thumb hurts. When you're clicking in for Wadjet, I'm saying that.

Because the accelerator is on, let's talk PlayStation controller, the X button, right? And you're sort of The accelerators on the X button. No, R2 for me. Oh, really?

Yeah, R2. Button mapping. Wait, what? Oh, no, I'm sorry, the boost button. The after button. Oh, yeah, afterburn. Yeah, okay. It might as well be the accelerator.

Yes. There are courses where you're basically using the RAM jet for the entire time. You're pressing this button a tremendous amount. You're holding it down for less. Between this and Ace Combat, my thumbs definitely, I'm forming some calluses. So the afterburner is on X. And then the square button is sort of like the hard turned button. So for me at least, I'm putting like the bend of my thumb on the X and then the top of my thumb over. the square button and that that x button just ends up i guess i'm pressing super hard but you need to have your finger over both of those buttons like at the same time i had the same sort of issue with ace combat because the the yaugh is r1 l1 and then the throttle is r2 or break with l2 i think

and then i i will follow up with you on that ace combat uh on that i'll get to that our fingers are our hands, our controllers putting in some work this week for sure. Yeah. That's like a thing. I like would legit have to like stop playing after a while because the game is so intense that I guess I must just be just absolutely grinding my thumb into this controller. Yeah. It's been by a while for you. That might be nine or ten hours though.

But yeah, an unreasonable amount of time. Yeah. You probably, doctors recommend that you take a break anyway at that point. Yeah, you won't have this problem. Yeah. Although, I mean, this is, you know, look, last week we talked about three really good games, but those were not games that I could just kind of get into a flow state and play endlessly. Those were games that were sort of heavier or had more natural breaks built in.

All three of these games just couldn't put them down, really, except when I had to pick up the next one because we had to podcast about it. Like, these are the kinds of games that are built to suck you in for hours on end. and they just propel you into the next run, into the next level, into the next act so seamlessly. And I think the second to second moment to moment racing action of Galactic Racer is great, right? It is. It entails that F0. The sense of speed. This is so fast.

It's almost uncontrollable, but not quite feeling. That's the sweet spot where you feel like you kind of do need Jedi reflexes to stay in control. and you're just always white knuckling it and literally, I guess, in Matt's case, and just redlining on the screen and also in your brain. And that's what you want with a Star Wars racing game, obviously. So all of that is great. It looks great. It nails the, oh, this feels like Star Wars.

This sounds like Star Wars. I know you were raving about the sound design, Steve. I mean, every time you kick in the ramjet and then you feel it. If you were playing on PS5 as I was with the dual sense and then you get the haptics and it's just and it's like, you know, your cheeks are blown back. I don't know about you guys, but there are three perspectives that you can play this game from, a third person behind the vehicle, a first person and sort of an intermediate. And I pretty much had to do third person just to get a little more distance from the blistering speed of the track.

Because, when you're pod racing, have you gone in first person mode? Yeah, it's. You can't see anything. It's impossible to see. Well, you're only a human, you know. I know. But you have two massive jet engines that take up your 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock, and you just have to look through like a narrow, narrow window.

And it's hilariously impossible to see. That's what you want. You don't want it to be some staid pedestrian pace. This is Star Wars Galactic racer must go faster. So I think, yes, the complexity can be a bit intimidating at first. There is a learning curve. But then that depth is an asset eventually. It is.

Because as you're going run after run and you're upgrading the base stats of your vehicle and then you're picking up favors from your mechanic character, Hebe, not that kind of favor, like a favor that enhances your racing ability. That's what I'm referring to. And abilities that you're unlocking and just all kinds of stuff that as you're racing, it's not purely the quick twitch, just turn here, but you're balancing, okay, my, this boost is ready. That other boost, the cool down is almost done.

Okay, time to trigger that. Now my ability is ready. You know, there's kind of a PV, well, P, I guess, when multiplayer. Yeah, PV self, but also PV versus other racers, NPC or otherwise, where, you know, you're trying to ram them and avoid being ran. And so you get some kind of cool cinematic mini cutscenes when there's contact and someone goes spiraling, craning off into a wall and then people blow up. And so there's all kinds of abilities that really enhance the experience and helped me

because I'm not that big a racing game guy, as I've talked about before. And so having a little bit more meat to it helped me stay invested. I will say that the main disappointment for me and maybe my expectations were too high. when I play a racing game, I'm always thinking, what's my motivation here? You know, I'm trying to put myself into the character and I want some sort of narrative. And that is maybe part of the reason why racing games don't grab me often. And most people, I think, don't care because your motivation is going around the track faster than everyone else. And that is sufficiently fun for most people.

But I'd like a little more. And that's why, say, the latest forza kind of left me cold a bit because as, as cool and beautiful as it was and everything. The story is just so bare bones. And I think there's an opportunity there. There's that game clutch coming out in 2027 from Maverick games that's kind of taking on Forza and is aiming to be Forza plus a good story. And I was hoping that that's what we would get with Galactic Racer.

And maybe I was spoiled a bit by Zero Company because Zero Company has just one of the best Star Wars stories in gaming or just in Star Wars period in a genre that does and always lend itself to the best stories. I wanted something similar here. You guys have maybe seen a bit more than I have. I haven't finished this, but based on what I've seen, it's fine, but it's fairly flimsy. It's, you know, you're a character called Shade.

You're trying to get revenge on the racetrack against a character called Kestar. These are mostly original characters with some cameos and crossovers in moderation, much like Zero Company. This is set in the aftermath of the original trilogy, The New Republic, Mandelorian era, doesn't really matter all that much. And so I was hoping for a bit of a meteor narrative than we actually got here.

I don't know whether that will bother other players. I don't know whether that bothered you, too. I don't think it bothered me. I just didn't have that much of an expectation for a story in this game. And I think it has enough of a story. I think the worst thing you could have done would be to kind of bog down the player. between races with narrative that's not particularly interesting. And I think that, you know, there actually is a little bit of that where you're kind of talking

to some characters here and there and you're just like, I don't care. Come on, man. Let me pick my thing. Right. Honestly, I feel like there might have been too much of that at some points because most of that is broken up in between when you're like going to, like, once you finish like a certain circuit of races on a planet, you then go to. to another planet before you start, then you have

the opportunity to like go into this sort of hub world where you make repairs and talk to your like either benefactor or your mechanic and all these things. And I'm like, I kind of just wanted, I almost wanted these to be menus and have like all of my stuff just to be sorted out at once because I wanted to get right back into the action and to have to like physically walk from like one end of my ship to the end of the thing to get to my car. I'm like, okay, we could maybe streamline this a little bit.

But I don't think the story was the problem. Yeah. But because there wasn't much to it, I guess is why I wanted to skip past it. So maybe there should have been even less or could have gone the other way and maybe more and better. Because with a lot of road lights, you know, Hades, for instance, right? I almost look forward to dying in Hades because then I get to go back to the hub. And I get to catch up with all the characters with the great writing and the great sound and the great art design and do all my level. and everything else. And zero company. It's not the same sort of game, but you know, you go back to

your hub and you wander around and you listen to people and you talk to people and it's just all quite compelling. And it wasn't so much here. And so when a run ended and I had to go back to this pretty small, self-contained central area where you can wander around and you can talk to a few people or you can just sort of overhear people as they talk to each other. There's just not much to it really. And so I guess it's a testament to how good the racing is that I just really wanted to get back on the track, but also it's semi an indictment, I think, of everything else than the racing, then there wasn't much grabbing me. You know, there was occasional clever banter. You wonder around, like, you know, you overhear Darius Pax, who's the race organizer, and he's talking about how he knew

Java, but he didn't see the bad side of Java. He just kept his head down. And yeah, there was a man frozen in carbonites, but, you know, the Jabba he knew wasn't so bad. Or in exchange about how maybe Sibulba took down the huts and the empire because they banned him from racing. Can't put anything past Sibulba. So some kind of funny stuff like that, but just not a ton to the core narrative. No, and it's basically just like, you know, you're from the same planet as the main villain. You were like from a humble background and he's a Nepo baby.

rich kid. I don't know. I thought it was funny. I liked that guy. I love a rich, like, I love the ski resort bully. I love that guy. He's like, you know who my father is. You know what my global?

Like, I like that. But yeah, kind of a one-note character, but an entertaining, tried and true note. I liked Hebe, the mechanic, the Ardenian, but yeah, it's, yeah, don't go in expecting zero company or some mind-blowing story. The fact that it has any story. at all, even if it's somewhat window dressing. I was just hoping for more, but maybe expecting too much. But that's okay because the game, the racing, the galactic racing, that's the hook here.

And it's a very barbed hook. It's a great hook. It will absolutely hook you. But it will also absolutely frustrate you at times. And I think that that is good to a degree because you need some resistance to feel like you're making progress. and you absolutely will get through sections and feel like, wow, I earned that. I absolutely earned that.

I got way better at this track. I got way better at using my skills. Like, I can't believe I'm actually as good now as I got. And that only comes through failure, right? Through not making it through. And I do think, though, that, you know, I haven't finished this game yet. I'm very late into it,

but I decided when we're getting down to sort of the last few days before this pod and we had these three games to focus on, I didn't want to spend my time trying to beat this game as fast as possible because it's a very frustrating thing to try to do to a rogue light. Because you don't know if you're right on the edge of finishing this

or if you still have a way to go, right? because ultimately it all comes down to like the end race of a tour, right? That's sort of the structure of this is on each tour essentially you make your upgrades, you place as high as you can to get more assets and then eventually there's one big race at the end and you got to take first in that race, right? And I think that towards the back of this game, these tours get, very, very long. And there are mistakes you can make in a split second

that have tremendous repercussions. And so you're going to have to be patient with this. You're going to have to expect to lose. You're going to have to expect to fail. And don't try to rush this game. Let it kind of come to you. If you're getting frustrated in one mode of the game, switch to another mode for a little while.

All of the modes feed into each. other, like I said, really well. You'll learn something in another mode that will help you in the other mode. It's just really well designed in that way. But I did find like I felt a little bit like there, back in the day, when you'd play NBA jam, there was this feature called CPU assist, right? Which is basically the developers, you can disable it with a code, but it's in there by default where if you're doing too well, the.

the programmers made it so that there'll be a little bit of a comeback on you from the other team, right? And I think I could kind of feel a little bit of that sentiment going in this where like I was absolutely ripping through a tour at one point. And I got this upgrade that was like every time you land, you get shielded. And I was like, hell yeah, that's awesome. And I applied that. And like the second I hit a wall in this game, I have a critical malfunction. and that malfunction changes

one of your upgrades, what it does. And so instead of landing and becoming shielded, that was like, when you land, you become concussed. And I was like,

that's, what? Are you kidding me? Yeah. So now I'm having to avoid, yeah, I have to avoid jumps entirely and then that cascades

into another critical failure, which hits another of my, and like these things can just sort of layer on top of each other in ways that feel cruel at times and can kill an entire run, which become, like I said, very long by the end. So you're going to get absolutely

frustrated in this game, but you'll also have moments of real elation and earned win. Brother, I had the worst malfunction happened where I was doing like a basically an after burner ramjet

build where I'm like, I can like harmonize both of those at the same time. So it's like once you fully deplete one, then it refueles the other. And I get a malfunction that says once you run out of, if you fully run out of afterburner, your vehicle explodes. Yep. I got that one. Yeah. I, I wanted to throw the controller out the window. Like, it completely screwed me. It is through luck of the job. There's always an element of randomness. But I did appreciate that, A, the status effect. So say you're on the ice planet and you can freeze. And then you have to make a calculated decision, do I want to

drive through the heating arch, knowing that I might well smack into the side of it and cause a crash? Or do I want to be in a frozen state, which means I'm just sort of slipping and sliding all over the track? And so I like that kind of decision. And then, yes, those faults, those impairments, it's a little bit different from some rogulights. Obviously, there's always a tradeoff. And, you know, you want to take this thing. There's a downside to that power. But here it's like they give you a power and then maybe take it away or it backfires on you sometimes literally.

And it always pissed me off. But also I was like, all right. I see what you're doing here. You know, you threw a little wrench into my path here. And this is actually kind of challenging and fun. And now I have to, it affects how I race. And so, yeah, there's some of that rubber banding that that goes on in a lot of racing games, I think. And also you have to make a decision.

There's an elimination. mode, a type of race, where it's kind of like the elimination mode in Mario Kart world, basically, like, you know, the last people get lopped off and you have to finish top three. And if you don't, then you're done, your run is done. And you also have to decide, like, am I willing to do that? Can I can I skip around it? So there are a lot of interesting decisions. And a lot of stuff that gets unlocked, you know, you sort of start with four planets and then you unlock an additional couple. If you're wondering, is Tatween in the game? Well, is it a Star Wars game?

Then yes, Tatween is in the game. But it's fine. It's a racing game. It should be. And there's kind of a cool little prologue teaser of what's to come at the start where you get to try out various vehicles quickly before you actually unlock them. That's really, really cool. Yeah, that's smart.

It's a lot of the game. Yeah, just whetted my appetite for more because otherwise you'd be waiting hours to unlock everything. So there are four vehicle types. Which was yours, because you have your land speeders, kind of your basic ones, your speeder bike fast, but not durable. And then your skim speeders, which can kind of turn sharply and go up on their side. And then, of course, pod racers. What was your vehicle of choice, Steve?

It was absolutely the speeder bike. Basically because of the added speed, the fact that you can put a lot of efforts and points into cornering, that's basically where the sound design love of this game for me really kicked in because every time that you like hold square to like essentially drift you when you release that you have this like immediate boost of speed and the sound design that comes out of that is like basically like vents like pouring out and you feel like the heat come right out of the engine and it was incredible like I love playing in the speeder bike pod racers are undrivable which is correct, which is the correct thing to do. Like pod racers are supposed to be incredibly good enough. Yeah. Matt, what about you? I was skim speeder all the way.

Me too. That cornering. Love me a skim skim skater. Yes. The maneuverability. Yeah, I just, I would dump a lot into resistance, which is essentially your, like, strength, how easy it is for you to explode on the track. So I would dump a lot into resistance and go with the skim speeder a lot.

The Pod Racer, yeah, is very ridiculously fast. Without spoiling anything, this game has an interesting dynamic here where when you're in that Hubworld, there is a character that you can talk to that has you sort of playing these flashbacks to the glory days of Pod Racing. If you're playing Galactic Racer, you could probably guess what it is. But anyway, you play a lot of it. all these flashbacks and you actually get to spend some time with

those pod racers and you have to do challenges in these pod racers which can be very difficult but you unlock new like weapons in the game through these flashbacks it's a really smart smart like

change of pace when you're on a tour and you do this little like side mission podcast race to maybe unlock weapons it's a really good like like rhythmic break in your tours that are there. I was a skim speeder guy all the way too. Just love the tight cornering and the slim profile when you're up on your side.

And you can go between those very narrow passageways. It's, you know, the base speed and durability like at a lower. But yeah. So, but a lot to choose from high skill ceiling. And it will support multiple play types. And lots of little fun touches. is there's, well, there's active reload in gears, of course, but there's also sort of an active reload here, a critical recovery feature when you slam into a wall, but don't fully explode yourself,

and you have to basically time a button press with a meter to recover more quickly from that. That was fun. I love that there's something to do before the race starts. Of course, there's the, you know, time, the pressing the fuel at the right perfect point. But also, you can kind of prime your abilities and, you know, and your boost, your after burner by entering a little button sequence correctly in the seconds before the race start. So that was sort of fun at a time when usually you're just staring at something. So lots of fun little touches like that.

The side bet mechanic is really good. Oh, yeah. I do lament that there's no local split screen, which my daughter and I were disappointed to discover when we tried to play this game together. Now, one reason why we're not fully reviewing this or issuing some sort of final score here is because we play. this in the pre-release period when they were only a couple of windows in which to try multiplayer online, that is. And obviously, that's a big part of the game. And Matt, you were able to try it out during one of those. So what were your multiplayer impressions? Man, people are good at this game. And you're going to be good at this game and other people are going to be good at this game.

And the format of the multiplayer mode, there are a few different multiplayer modes. But the main draws is sort of this tour mode where the structure of it is you have, I think, 12 people in like a lobby, and you have a five-race tour, which is sort of just a truncated, uh, mashed, mashed down version of, of the single player game where everyone is racing these five races in between them. You're getting upgrades and you're, you're putting points into your, your build out and the character that you choose, like, starts with certain abilities. And you go through all these five races,

and then there's a sixth race where it doesn't really necessarily matter how you've done in the past five, because it's all about who wins this sixth race. And it is really fun. It's a really cool mode. And there are unlocks to, there are tons of unlocks to earn in the multiplayer mode that some are cosmetic. Some are, you know, new characters, which can give you a different load out at the beginning. There's a lot to it.

It's really competitive. I am a little bit concerned that with how high the skill ceiling can go with this game, that you might end up with a situation where it could be hard for you to have fun with this game online if you're not sort of in it at the jump. But that's a concern down the road, I suppose. The gist of it is that it's a really great fun structure. And you learn a lot about the game playing against other real people and not just the computer. And the length of this tour mode gives you just enough time to like almost form rivalries with people on the track.

These people you don't know, obviously, but you've been seeing them for five races. And you're like, oh, this motherfucker's going to try to hit me again. Or like, oh, I don't have to worry about this guy because he's just going to hit the wall anyway. Like, yeah. It's a really fun experience. And I'm not typically drawn to multiplayer experiences online against strangers. And I could see that this is going to be a great time. Stranger danger.

That's good. Better safe than sorry. Well, I hope that this game succeeds and that they continue to support it. and produce new content for it. And hopefully we won't go another couple decades before the next Star Wars Racing Game. And, you know, video games are kind of carrying the franchise in the latter part of this year.

So I'm happy that Zero Company and Galactic Racer more or less lived up to the hype. And maybe we can get a Starship racing game at some point. Where's our Kessel Run game? I don't know how that would work exactly. I'm just the ideas guy here. What is a parsec? You know?

Yeah, compete to post the fewest. Post the fewest parsecs and not get sucked into the maw. I don't know how that game will work. But anyway, we had some notes, but overall, really good game. I dug it. That's a Sybobo species joke. Anyway, we should transition to it. Now this is podcasting.

All right. Let us go to another type of vehicular combat and flying fast game. Ace Combat 8, Wings of Thieve. Developed and published by Bandai Namco out now for Windows, PS5, and Xbox series. And guys, is that Shadow Squadron's music? Oh, oh. Thought you guys were going to join me, but that's okay. Those are the bad guys, Steve.

Those are the bad guys. That's their music. You will get used to that theme song, because every time you encounter your nemesis in this game, Shadow Squadron, And they enter chanting their little theme song over the radio, which sort of sounds like Matthew McConaughey's money chant from Wolf of Wall Street. Look, I love Ace Combat. This game also supports multiplayer. It has a full-fledged single-player campaign.

Same goes for gears, of course, single-player and multiplayer. And again, both of these franchises have been dormant since 2019. And that is too long. and I am a longtime lover of Ace Combat. I go back as a lot of people do, I think, to Ace Combat 4 on the PS2 in 2001. You know, I've been into Flight Sims of various stripes my whole life as a gamer, but really got hooked on this kind of arcade-y flight sim in that era with Ace Combat 4. Air Force Delta for Dreamcast in 99.

Oh, wow. Love that game. Yeah, yeah, that's a good one. But wow, what a game that was. And so I am thrilled that Ace Combat has returned. Again, Ace Combat 7 was back in 2019. So this game, I alluded to this earlier, but with Ace Combat, usually you're looking at a five to ten hour campaign. I mean, these things are in and out.

This one is way longer. This is 30 levels. This is probably 20-ish hours, depending on your playing pace. About 24 for me. Okay. And look, maybe there are things that could be trimmed. We will talk about that in a second. But yeah, we have complained at times about some games being a little repetitive or padded. And hey, maybe Onamusha would have been better as a 20-hour game than a 40-hour game. But I am not here to tell you that Ace Combat is better as a five-hour game than at least a 15-hour game. Give me more Ace Combat. This is almost the perfect amount of Ace Combat. Same goes for gears, but we'll get to that in a second. They really did go in on the story here. And that's not the strongest.

Yeah. There's a whole, I mean, there's like a prequel series of, like a mini series of videos that they made to kind of get you situated in this world. It's set in the usual alternate universe of Ace Combat, Strange Real, you know, where it's sort of like. Sure. kind of modeled on earth-like countries and conflicts, but not exactly. And it's set in the near future and everything is just a little bit more sci-fi and advanced and Japanese and sort of anime-ish.

And so they really went all in on the narrative and the cutscenes and all of that here. And again, we won't spoil it, but just the premise basically. The premise is quite cool, I think. So basically the setup, it's almost like a Battlestar Galactica sort of scenario where you are outmanned and outgunned and you're on the run and your Battlestar is the aircraft carrier endurance and you're sort of like the last survivor of this conflict. You know, you've been attacked by Sotoa and they've decimated your forces and you're just sort of, you know, sailing around and trying to survive and launching strikes and stuff. And the Wings of Thieve that the subtitle refers to is a prophet. propaganda campaign, essentially a sci-op, where they are trying to build up this not actual flying ace into an ace in order to inspire people and drum up the Wings of Thieves' achievements on social media. And it gets weirder from there because that's kind of a cool setup. And this is really not spoiling anything that doesn't happen in the first few minutes.

but the actual Wings of Thieve as you start the game gets killed almost immediately and you become the new Wings of Thieve except the old dead Wings of Thieve is like possessing you or something. It's like hanging around in your head. Yeah. Yeah. Just doing monologues. It's like just doing sort of like hard-boiled detective fiction noirish monologues while you are sailing, flying around. shooting stuff down. It's like.

Interjecting what numbers he likes. Just lots of numbers and intoning just. It's, you know, it's like the expanse where Detective Miller is like there, but not there. And it's like, I met this guy for five minutes.

It's like, why is he inhabiting my brain? But it's just weird enough and over the top enough that it kind of works for me in a weird way. I have a theory about why they did that too. Okay. Go ahead. Here it is.

The main protagonist, the character you play, is a completely silent protagonist. Yes. And I think that that's a bit of a mistake. And I think that the solve for that was, we'll have another character that is in your head. It's not your monologue. It's the dead guy's monologue.

So that was, I think, a bit of an inelegant solve. Which is, like, ridiculous because they didn't need to do that anyway. It could have just been, you didn't have to make a silent-a-d-d-gagin. And don't kill him. Yeah. It's fine. It's so weird because it's like a lavishly produced campaign with, and I appreciate that it's not just mission briefing, mission briefing.

There's some time between the levels and like first-person scenarios and settings where you're kind of getting to know your wing people and getting to be on the ship and looking around. And, you know, yeah, I want to be gender-eclusive here. And, you know, just like you're on the ship and it's grounding you a little bit, literally and figuratively. And so I like that, except it is so strange and off-putting where everyone's talking to you and you are mute. You are silent. You are an old-school video game protagonist who has no character and no dialogue. Your name is Rex, but half the time people call you Ray for some reason, which is not entirely.

clear? It's clear. It's just that like she gets your name wrong and then she keeps saying it. It's the same thing that my mother-in-law does to my sister-in-law. She was like, I got your name wrong at first. And so you're just, you know, you're going to call you that for a while. We don't care. It's a cute nickname. Right. Yeah. It's like it's like the, you know, was the grink there, I guess, famous tweet where, you know, you mispronounced something once and it sticks to you. But it's weird because they talk to you and direct questions at you and you don't say anything and they just take your silence in stride. And sometimes during missions, and they're like, oh, let's get the same. Yeah.

It's like, you're just classic. Classic Rex or Ray or whatever his name is. And during, it's just the strong silent type, I guess. And during missions, they will often ask you like, should we do this or should we do that? Should we go after the planes or should we go after the ships? And you won't say anything, but you can on the D-pad say yes or no. And they're just like, all right, Rex says, let's do this. So it's a very strange choice.

But sort of, it's almost anachronistic. It's like, you know, this is a series that dates back to the mid-90s. And so they're very much current gen production values. And yet there's also this sort of old school video trapping. The tone of it is very like metal gear. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Like PS1, PS2, uns seriousness. Yes. There's also a subplot about this fake oasis Brit pop ripoff band called Purple Magic. And you hear so much about Purple Magic and you hear some of the songs, which actually are kind of catchy. But like this one guy, Koster, is constantly talking about Purple Magic. And someone says, hey, Koster, why do you like that band so much? And he says, because they sing about the lonely skies and their songs take me to new heights. That's the kind of dialogue that we're dealing with here.

And it's like, I don't know if it's translation, localization, or whether it's entirely intentionally, just strange and over the top. But either way, like, if you're on the same wavelength as this game, like, I wouldn't say the writing, the dialogue is good, exactly. But it's it's memorable, I guess. And, you know, the larger overarching setup and plot is kind of cool. And I always appreciate that Ace Combat, when it really does go all in on the side. sci-fi stuff, and you get like land battleships, which can just like, I don't even really know how they move. They just look like battleships, but they're on land, as the name says, and they just go sailing or rolling around and you have to take them out. Or there are giant, massive planes that

you have to take down and sort of, you know, almost like a bullet hell kind of boss battle, where you're just taking down individual components of the planes. And then you have like space elevators, and you have rockets that you have to intercept on the way to space, and you have satellites that are shooting down projectiles, and you have to intercept them. All that stuff is actually really cool. And I love that that Ace Combat just has that side to it, because if it were too realistic, then it would be boring.

I like that it's just totally heightened. If I could say only one thing about this game, is that this game is drunk. And I don't think that anything about this, like if I could make this into like a personified character this game it's like uh you see talent dangan nights you see uh like will feral's dad played by uh oh my god i forgot his name but it's basically that it's like insane if you're not first you're last and then it's going to do like a donut out and peel out and drive off into the sunset that's what this game is doing yes and

only by the stake of the whole time you have yeah and you have obi ones for ghost talking to you and telling you where to go and what to do. It's just, it's really something. Now, you know, it lasts a little long sometimes. And it's, uh, it coming back to our, our galactic racer discussion. There are times what I'm like, can we get back to the cockpit now? Can we get to our next mission? Because this is a little more background on this conflict that I necessarily need here. But I kind of enjoy the, you know, the squadmate stuff. And, you know, otherwise they'd just be disembodied voices in your headset. So getting to know them. a little bit is kind of cool.

But the action itself is extremely ace combat. So if you've played an ace combat game before, you will have a pretty good sense of what you're in for here, which is good news for me. But the game looks glorious. It is beautiful. It's stunning. Oh, my goodness.

Yeah, I mean, I'm playing on PS5 pro. Congratulations. Bragg. Yeah. And you guys are compiling your shaders and upgrading your graph. cards and whatever else you PC Master Race folks do. Actually, I wanted to talk about that for a second because

yeah, we played on PC. This is kind of like the rare PC experience where like I boot up a game on the PC. It auto detects some settings. I load into it. I forget to even ever check and look at them or fiddle with them ever. Yeah. Because

it just instantly was like oh, it looks amazing. It runs amazing. I don't need to touch anything. It's just it is. One of the more console experiences I've had on PC. Even if that was like medium settings, would you care? Like, not really. It looks incredible.

And it's not even like a lot of flying games where everything looks okay from 30,000 feet. And then you get up close and personal. And it looks pretty pixelated and the textures look ugly. No, it looks great to ground level. And the water looks great. And the sunbeams bursting through the clouds. And the clouds themselves. and they're so pillowy.

And the moisture on your plane's windshield or whatever. The water droplets, the condensation that streams away as you're flying through moisture. It's, oh my gosh, it's so beautiful. I don't know if you could technically if you call it a skybox when you're playing the game in the sky. But it looks great up there and all the vehicles and planes and everything are very lovingly, faithfully modeled. And it has like actual implications for the game. too, because sometimes you are visually finding your way to things. And it doesn't always tell you where to go, which I know you weren't in love with at times, Matt, but it was helpful because

everything is rendered in such fidelity. Like there are times where, you know, your radar's jammed or you just, you're in a bunch of clouds and weather and you just have to visually identify things. And maybe you have to, you know, you're escorting a certain plane or you're trying to hunt down certain planes and you have to track their contrails or there are like planes that are doing laser targeting for the satellite, et cetera. And so you have to follow the laser back to the plane or follow the contrails in and out of the clouds to catch up with these planes. And it's all just perfectly clear because it's just it looks so next gen.

It's just it's beautiful. So and it sounds great too, which is another theme of all three of these games. It's just super... The soundtrack of this game is amazing. It's amazing. Shout out to Purple Magic. And some of the musical moments that accompany, some of the more critical moments in the game

are just really well choreographed and really raise the bar of your experience. Just great music throughout. Yeah, you will want the expert control scheme, in my opinion, because there is the standards, And there's the expert, which you don't have to be an expert to play, to be clear. So it's really misledled. But if you played any kind of.

Yeah. It's sort of like standard and simple or simplistic. Simplified. Simplified. Yeah. It's not even easier, really. It's simpler, but it would be harder. I didn't spend it.

In some ways, it's harder because you're just, yeah, you're less agile because the expert, you can roll and ya and you can turn more effectively. And so even if it's slightly more complex, it actually gives you better control over the planes. And, you know, I love the range of planes. You unlock them, of course. That's a big part of the appeal. And they feel really different and distinctive in terms of how they handle and how fast they go and what the loadouts are. There's a somewhat surprising amount of customization here when it comes to. I appreciated that.

It's, you know, like there's all sorts of, it's not unlike Galactic Racer, I guess, where you unlock parts and you equip them and you can kind of tailor it to a particular mission. And there's even sort of a minimum standard you have to hit if you're doing a mission that's more air to air or air to ground. You have to kind of have the right wing planes and your own plane and load out and all the rest of it. So, you know, it's not like full on flight sim. It's still Arcadian ace combat, but there's a touch of that at least. I really liked customizing my loadout for each particular mission. And I think that it's really great that there is that customization.

But the reason why that customization is so great, I think, is because the ultimate star of this game, to me, is the mission variety that necessitates all of these different builds. I played, I finished this game. I played there all 30 missions. And, you know, Ben, you were like talking about game length and like, is this? overstuffed or is it too much or is it too little? I could have just kept going with this 24 hours in, 30 missions deep. The variety of what you're doing in all of these missions is just incredible. You never feel like you're just doing the same thing over and over and over again.

They manage to keep it fresh. Like your objectives vary, like you're just everything about it. somehow each admission just feels so fresh and new. It's really the best thing about this game to me. Yeah, yeah, because that can be the pitfall of this kind of game because it can feel very rinse and repeat because you're just in a plane and you're looking at your radar and then there's a green icon on the screen and you go that way.

It would be so easy to make it monotonous. Yeah, you fly until it goes red and you lock on and then you fire a couple missiles and then you go to the next target and rinse and repeat. And there are some games where it's like that, but they really did, yeah, if you're going to go 30 levels deep in an ace combat, it can't just be dog fighting as good as the dog fighting is. And I love in these games where you actually do get up close and personal and sometimes it really becomes about the flight and you're kind of flying in and around things and targeting specific things on ships. And so, yeah, that variety is really important, I think.

And it's funny. Like, I like hardcore flight sims too. And there are just little touches of that in ace combat, which always feels kind of grafted on where sometimes you can take off on your own or you can land on your own. Or, you know, there's a little. Yeah, refueling or icing and things like that. And it feels almost out of place because it's just it's ace combat, you know. It's not really complex. It's not like you're in the simulator, getting your license here.

But I always do those just to immerse myself more. You know, if there's, because you can always press a button to skip the landing sequence. I never do. I always want to come in for the manual landing. There is an achievement for doing all of those. Yeah. Okay. Good.

I'm glad that my efforts will be. I couldn't do it. I, I know. Well, yeah. There's no time for fuel. It's pretty. It's pretty darn impressive. And unlike Galactic Racer, I typically played this one in first person,

although I would then go out to third person just to admire the view and the graphics and everything. Especially like, oh man, the sonic boom effect when you go through the sound barrier. Really cool. It sounds so cool. It looks so cool. Yeah, it's the best. I don't really know what the war is about at this point. It's hard for me even to tell whether I'm the good guys or the baddies.

Oh, we didn't care about that in Top Gun Maverick. We don't need to care about it here. Yeah. I mean, the Satoans dress in somewhat Nazi-esque garb. So I'm going to go with they're the badies. But you know what? I was confused a little bit too, or just not certain that we're the bad guys. And then there's a certain point at the game where, which I won't spoil, where you're like, okay, well, they're definitely the bad guys.

So by default, we have to be the good guys. We are the good. Relatively speaking, yeah. My one complaint, I guess, about the progression is that the. skill tree, which is really a plane or parts tree, is sort of awkwardly laid out, I guess, where you have to kind of like zoom around this big map of parts that each leads to a different plane and you have to unlock a bunch of stuff that I had no interest in in order to get to the stuff that I was interested in. And so, you know, it was it was laid out in kind of a

convoluted way. I think, though, that that actually kind of encouraged me to try things that I wasn't going to because I unlocked these parts that I had no interest in. There was eventually a mission focused on a certain

thing where I was like, okay, well, I do have this part that can make this better, so I'll try this. And so I agree that it is convoluted, the layout of it, but I also think that it did lead to me, like, actually doing some experimentation. that I wouldn't have otherwise have done.

Okay. Great game. Let's not go seven years between Ace Combat installments, please, Bandai Namco. No. In fact, if people pre-ordered this game, which generally I don't really recommend, but there was a pre-order bonus of Ace Combat Zero, the Belkin War, the 2006 game, a port for modern platforms. This is the Belkin War, not the Balkan War.

This is strange real, remember people, but, you know, the computer. speakers or whatever, right? Exactly. Yeah. So that's a pretty good game, too, if you need a little bonus there. And I'm going to dive into that because I don't think I mentioned this, but this is my first ace combat ever. Oh, wow.

I have somehow never played. Oh, wow. And I actually want to speak to that a little bit because I've heard for, you know, a long time that this series is great and just haven't ended up engaging with it until now. and, you know, my review of this game is glowing, and I absolutely loved it. But I will say that in the first, I don't know, five to five, six, seven hours, something like that,

there was a bit of an adjustment. There was, like, I did sort of struggle with some things that I think if you played Ace Combat before, you probably wouldn't even register. But there are some things that you're kind of expected to know that you maybe don't, that it doesn't maybe explicitly tell you about too much or just like getting used to the targeting system. Like there are things you have to kind of learn before you really kind of get

the game, I feel like. So if you're playing this and you're hearing how great it is and you haven't touched an ace combat before, give it some time, give yourself some time to, like, really get acquainted with the controls, and as well as, like, one of my big things that I've pushed up against at the start

was, like, the game during a mission will not show you, like, in your HUD, like, what your objective is. You have to really be listening to what everyone is saying over the radio. Yeah, you need some situational awareness. And you have to get a sense of like what they're saying like when it's important. Because I feel like a lot of the ways these missions work isn't like a finite thing.

It's more like they'll be like, oh, we're getting attacked over here. And you don't have to like necessarily like always get rid of all of that. But you have to work on that for now. And then they'll tell you all this thing is getting and you have to go work on that. right and and there's this learning that that takes place over time of you like understanding what the game wants of you because it's not necessarily always so direct in telling you right because it's kind of like uh in a weird way overcooked because you have an objective but there's always these small things that are no i love an overcook comparison across genres

what i i hope that it's an apt one but like it's it's the fact that it's like it's a very small like hurdle or detraction from your main thing that keeps things lively. And it's always something, it's always about adapting to it. It's never like a distraction. Overcooked is what you were doing when we wanted to play gears and you had to make dinner this week. Okay. All right. He might have been cooking the right of house. Cool your jets. Cool your jets, Limburg. No, I'm sure it was delicious. It's a, I'm great. You know, you're you're fostering some relationships and not others, but you're probably making the right choice there. My plans are measured in centuries, Ben, all right?

We can. Anyway, glad you guys got your wings. Two new flyboys on button mesh. Many previous ace combats for you to explore now that you have gotten on board. And even if the original Wings of Thief was a fraud and a fake, we aren't. We're legit. We're, we're aces many times over. Do you want to tell me what Thief is, just to clarify?

Thief is the capital of the of the country. that you are aligned with and trying to restore and retake. I love fake shit like that. I love fake countries with dumb names. I would sacrifice anything for thief. All right. Last but not least, Gears of War E-Day, developed by the Coalition and people can fly and published by Xbox Game Studios, a few of which still exist, including the Coalition for now.

Count them while you have them. For the coalition. Yes, yes. Out for Windows and Xbox, but not PS5, because the console wars are back on again. This is technically coming out October 6, just like Ace Combat. It's also available now if you paid for early access. And of course, it will be available via Game Pass. This is a prequel to the original gears that takes us back to the beginning, or before the beginning, 14 years before the first game,

takes us back to the titular E-Day, Emergence Day, when the grubs, the locusts emerged from the planet core and invaded. And we are once again inhabiting the very big and heavy shoes of Marcus and Don as well as some new squad mates. And I seem to recall, Steve, that you were musing about whether gears still had the juice because we were talking about Xbox and Halo and Microsoft wanting to really double down on its core franchises, but a lot of them have seen better days. And again, there hasn't been a new gears in a while. And so we were wondering, you know, other than ports and remasters and such. And so we were wondering, does gears still have that sort of buzz?

And based on what we've played of Gears of War E-Day, I think the answer is yeah. I think there's as much juice in this series as there is running through the veins of Dom and Marcus. It's absurd really because the first years of war came out for the Xbox 360 and I remember that being not only a fantastic game but a bit

of a culture shift and the thing that like gave the waste high cover genre pretty much its namesake because of the fact that its cover system was so innovative and really was great at giving

a sort of battle encounters that were both like hectic and fun and incredibly strategic while being so action forward. And that being iterated over the years, it seems like it didn't really, like, to me at least, somebody who hasn't been keeping up on it that much, has innovated that well. But given this game, like, I think we kind of needed a return to four. And that's exactly what this is. Because, like, as many, as many games as there are in the Gears franchise, I really don't think that any for a while have had that big of an impact of staying power.

I tried the Xcom one that they put out, and that was kind of fun. But other than that, like, nothing in the Gears universe has ever really grabbed me or, like, I've been interested in at all. So, E-Day is something that's really, really interesting because, Because it has all of these classic types of gameplay elements that have either been in Gears or in other games. And it's just all solid enough to make the presentation around a Gears game excellent. And I think I'll end with the fact that this might be the most gorgeous game of the year. This might be like the best looking game I have seen in a very long time. A lot of contenders for that title this year.

I'm staggered for that matter. I'm staggered by how good this game looks. Yeah. And this was one where Matt was compiling shaders. But I guess it was worth the way. Ben was, we played this co-op, the three of us. And Ben was on his Xbox, not pro. Yeah.

And Steve and I. Yeah. Not a pro Xbox. I'm sorry. Steve and I were on PC and Ben went to the bathroom or something at one point. He came back and Steve and I were just like, deep into like frame gen and like upscaling talk. Let me tell you something.

You run a benchmark on this thing and you're like, oh, mama, this could look good. Yeah. And that's the great. It's the game within the game. That's what I'm saying. Being a PC gamer, that's the second game from every game.

Yeah. Yeah. It's gorgeous. Now, of course, I remember Gears games always looking gorgeous because they always did by the standards of the day. And so in my mind's eye, they kind of always looked like this, but of course they didn't. This is beautiful.

And we were just transfixed. We were spellbound by, you know, I'd be like, look at those floodlights over there. Look at how the lights are glowing. Or we would pause to admire the puddles, which were just, you know, ray traced to the hilt and reflecting everything around them and looking like real puddles. And of course, it has the super stylized, heightened kill zone slash Warhammer meets Doom design aesthetic that's just kind of iconically gears. It looks like that, but more so maybe.

But yeah, the fidelity of it is just, oh, and the sound, which again, you know, we focus on the graphics, but we're given the sound design some, some love this week because every, I mean, the explosions, every gun has some sort of M1, Gherrand or Grand kind of cue where it's, you know, ping. Yeah, there's like a, you know, oh, the clip's almost empty. I'm almost ready to reload here, which is important to know sonically because active reload returns. And I've got to say active reload remains a really good gimmick, I think. Really fun.

It's really fun. It just adds something to what otherwise would be root button presses and, oh, I'm out of ammo. I'll just press the reload button. It gamifies reloading. And it's a simple little thing. And, you know, when games go too heavy on quick time events or whatever and it becomes all about that, Well, that's not great if it's based around that. But if it's, say, pragmata or gears or something like that where there's so much going on that when you also add a little sort of simple, you know, button pressing and directional stuff and timing mechanisms, that actually enhances everything and keeps you super plugged into the action.

So yeah, it looks great. Sounds absolutely incredible. So feast for the eyes and ears. And just so much fun, Matt. I mean, we played this together when we could, all three of us. And then when Steve had to whip up some delectable morsels, then we substituted some NPCs, some NP steves. But really, like, when we were all playing together, it was great. When Matt and I were playing duos, it was great.

And one thing I like about gears, you know, you're almost always with people. You're with your squad. and the NPC AI is actually pretty impressive. They were reviving us when we were downed. Not always,

but most of the time pretty reliably. Yeah, when they could, I'd say. And the, you know, the AI of the,

everything AI, but the enemies will, it is. That's what we used to call AI before that. Before AI. That was just like a politically neutral term.

Yeah. The enemies, will occasionally, you know, swarm you from different angles and flank you and stuff. Yeah. Pretty nice. I think just like in general,

like you said, Steve, this is like not trying to reinvent the wheel here. It's not trying to do anything like super bold or new with the Gears franchise. But man,

it's just a really freaking good campaign of gears. It just feels really gears of worry and the set pieces and the like how many times would we be playing this game and like you turn a corner and you're like whoa look at this shit yeah it's the pacing of the whoa look at this shit moments is like relentless it's just like yeah yeah had so many times where like we would clear a little area and then we'd just be like that was nuts yeah that was wild

And it's the moment to moment encounters that are really, really fun and inventive. And I wish I could remember the original Gears of War feeling. But I feel like it was this where every encounter was kind of like, oh, man, we were really pushed up against it. We almost got out of there. Or like we almost didn't make it out of that. And I really, really like that idea of like just riding that fine line of difficulty, chaotic battles and a very like good enemy AI design to keep you on your toes because like

I I'm the type of person that likes to equip my shotgun charge right into a battle and like make some dudes explode because it really sounds you know the rest of us will revive you and that's fine yeah and then you'll revive game and then I'll do it again and it's really really fun it's a cover system in this game for a reason new shotgun people yeah and yeah and that cover system is for the enemy not for me. I don't think... You're trapped in here with me.

Yeah, exactly. Motherfathers. No, I don't think that there's... I don't think there's anything that I can really do to sum up how fun this needs to be with friends. And I think Gears knows that, or these developers know that, because they're heavily investing in both online and split screen couch co-op in the year of Our Lord 2026.

Yes, thank you. That is a real big tip. No. But I'm glad that I... Maybe she just make her dinner, man. Maybe that. Yeah, she turned five this week. Happy Birthday Sloan.

I think she's maybe slightly young for gears. But yeah, we'll get there someday. And it's nice that we have the ability to play that way. But yeah, it's just set piece after set piece after set piece. It's like the climaxes for most games are. the preludes to the actual set piece in this game, where it's just like, just when you think it can't go bigger, there is some more enormous monster, some huger, more elaborate boss fight, some backdrop of an entire city on fire and a huge army of locusts and grubs marching into battle.

It's just amazing. And it's just like pure quick twitch, adrenaline inducing, pulse pounding. not a second, you know, to take a breath before they're coming at you again and you're just laying down some sort of suppressing fire or, you know, grabbing cover or Leroy Jenkins in like Steve. It's just, it's the best. And great weapon feel, you know, per usual in the series. Just, oh, yeah. Feels so good to shoot. And lots of classics and staples from the franchise, your Lancers and Nashers and long shots, et cetera. I think my most valuable weapon combo here was the breech shot and the Ripper.

And the breech shot, it's been around before. But it's kind of like in between the Lancer and the long shot where it's more controlled fire and good over a distance, but not zoomed in in the scope quite so much. And then the Ripper does what it says more or less. It's just full on, you know, heavy caliber. assault rifle and then you know some kind of more off the beaten path like the incinerator where you're just hurling acid or the torque bow you know explosive arrows basically just good variety there and you know you never really run out of ammo I mean you do but then you come across an ammo cache

in the next 30 seconds because this is a game about shooting not about watching how many rounds you have left really yeah absolutely yeah it is never like You're never out of ammo for that long, for sure. Yeah. Another impressive thing about the co-op, which you picked up on Steve, because you had jumped into this solo, I think, before we played together, is that it seemed like they recorded dialogue for all possible permutations of characters. So regardless of whom you want to play as, the dialogue is the same.

Like, they just had all the actors seemingly record all or most of the lines. And so whatever you're, yeah, it's. pretty impressive. It was really impressive because of the fact that not only does that happen in the world, but also in cutscenes, because there's a moment in like the earlier parts of the game where I, like, I played

solo and I played as Marcus Phoenix, our main character, and there's a moment where like an enemy like pins him up, like sneaks up on him pins him up against a wall, and then he's saved by another one of his teammates. And that's when you learn about like the types of enemies that can like just kind of grab you and then you

need somebody else to help you. Uh, But Ben, you were playing as somebody else and you ran into that section before anybody else and that character did that and not only was there not a cutscene but we had to just watch that happen to you and help you instead. And I think that was brilliant.

I think that's a great, like, there are so many things that games don't think about when it comes to online experiences. And to know that a campaign, at least a story-driven one, as short as it may be, I think this has been like reported to and like as far as you guys might have been

like around 15 hours or so. Yeah. It's incredible to know that like they're putting a multiplayer forward approach to these things. And I think that's wonderful. Yes. I'm accustomed to maybe eight to 10 hours ish for a Gears game. And it's just nonstop balls to the wall action.

This one though does seem to be more in the 15-ish hour range. We're at nine right now. And we just start. We started Act 4 of 5. Yeah, your classic five act structure. So we thought that we were going to beat this thing in a couple of sittings and then we realized there was more. And aside from the time pressure of podcasting, I'm thrilled that there's more because I don't want this to end yet. This is not overstaying its welcome one bit.

And it takes place mostly in and around this central city of Colona, which you guys kept comping to Raccoon City. but you know it looks a lot like Rocky City yeah and also it's like all of a sudden out of nowhere there's a calamity and you know that's right yeah but you also do go outside the city a little bit and I guess it was was it X3 Matt where we were kind of wondering around the forest at least in the start so yeah there's a little bit of variety in the scenery but it is very much just street to street building to building and that's the other thing so yeah and and this is sort of a synthesis or a hybrid of previous Gears games where you had the early ones, which were very linear and a prescribed path. And then you had Gears 5, which added an open world

aspect, which was somewhat divisive, but I liked it. I liked Gears 5. I liked the action. I liked the story, which was written by Butmash Guest Tom Bissell. And it seems like they've ported over some aspects of that because, you know, in Gears 5, some of those open world elements felt a little empty and unpopulated and that they just kind of wanted to do gears but open world. It mostly worked. But here, I think there are, it's not full open world, but you have some pretty expansive zones when you're in the city and you're just roving around and you're constantly coming across side quests and objectives that you can trigger or ignore.

We always did them. And they were usually fun. You know, they're just like, oh, there's a gear over here who is holding. out and you have to support them or there's some civilians who are trapped and you have to go up onto a roof and help free them or something. And so you're just wondering around the city like an impressively large setting. And it actually feels like you're sort of in a war zone. And the environmental design in real time is amazing. Yeah. Crazy. And there are some sequences where you're just, you know, clearing buildings and you're in the hallways and it is more linear.

but those sequences where you are just wandering around and you have some freedom, pretty, pretty darn special, I would say. And, you know, from a story perspective, like, I guess it's good to catch up with Marcus and Tom again, you know, did you miss Marcus? But there are some new squad mates and they have their own stories. And, you know, I was a little less into that aspect of the story than just the basic premise and setup for the story, which is just they have no idea what's happening. because we know more than they do than the cog does here because they have no idea what's happening. It's just, you know, the locust came out of the ground and we have the context and they don't. And they're just responding to all that in real time as this war is breaking out and they feel completely overwhelmed. And so that sense of urgency of like, who are these people?

What is happening here? Are we about to be wiped out? Can we make a last stand? Can we hold this line? That was really cool, I think. So, you know, other than that, there's a lot of just kind of. bro-y, you know, fist-pounding and cursing. Some pretty effective swearing, I would say.

But, you know, more or less it could have still been 2006. I guess the grunts and yells, Ben. Lots of grunts and yells, as you would expect from the dears game. Steve was the king of yelling in this game. You want to talk about your yelling? It was honestly so fun. I will have you demonstrate one in a moment. But Marcus and Dom, this is younger Marcus and Dom.

And I guess they're a little more limber because they really get dead. down there on the ground. When they're taking cover, just like a log on the ground, they can splay themselves out and somehow duck behind it. Yeah, it's so amazing because the environmental design is not only just waist high cover, but it's also like shin high cover. And to see your big guy just like completely get down like he's laying on the ground like huddled underneath this like little piece of plywood is really cool.

And to see the destruction that comes right underneath your head. is so awesome. I was really impressed at the amount of things that I would just instinctively run to to take cover on. And you get down, you get low, as they say, on the dance floor. Yeah. And you alluded to this, Matt, but I thought the enemy smarts were pretty good, where sometimes they would flank you. They're very quick on the smoke grenades.

So they would often throw a smoke grenade. and then they would just emerge saying sapien from the smoke cloud, and that was kind of unnerving. And sometimes you can flank them too, because the level design does allow for some flexibility. And there was one encounter where we were totally pinned down by this flying ball sack character, which is... That's how they described it in the game.

That is, yeah, that's not me editorializing. Just like a Rorschach test that Ben is failing. They call it a ball sack in the game. Yes, they do. That's the obvious reasons. And we were like, where do we go? And it's wave after wave. And then we kind of did this end around and took them by surprise and we could fall back.

And there was some real flexibility in how to handle that encounter. And so the combat just, man, it feels like it's just developing in real time. If you love Gears games and you are into Gears lore, there's plenty of like Easter eggs and callbacks or call forwards. You know, if you want to know the origin story of the Lancer and figure out who and when and how they first grafted, chainsaw onto a gun. Well, we got that or figuring out how to close a hole for the first time with a need. You know, like that stuff, I guess will tickle people who've been playing gears for

decades. But, you know, I just, the gameplay is great. It's as great as ever, if not greater. Even little things like it's so much about the cover mechanic, but you could actually shoot through tiny little gaps in cover. And so sometimes when I was waiting for. you know how in a shooter often you're just sort of waiting for the jack in the box enemy AI. It's like, okay, as soon as they stand, I've got my reticle there and I'll just, I'll pop them.

But here, sometimes when they were fully behind cover, which, you know, usually that's kind of seamless. Here, like, there would be a little tiny gap in between rivets or something and you could actually just shoot them through that, which was kind of cool. So, yeah, just a great game. So if we had to rank these three, I think we're. We're recommending them all. This is all MASH, no pass this week. But if we had to make the agonizing decision of what ordered to put these three games in,

what are your hierarchies here with Galactic Racer, Gears, and Ace Combat? I would have to personally go, I would go Gears, Racer, Ace Combat. I think I would do Ace Combat, Gears, Racer. I think I would go Gears. Ace Combat Racer. So we all have different trios. Yeah. We all have Racer last, I guess.

But that's really, don't take that as us being down on that game because that game is great. It's just, you know, all of these games are fantastic. And we are super spoiled here. And we haven't even played the multiplayer of Ace Combat or Geers. Yeah. Good point. Right. I mean, yeah, which is why we're, I mean, we're not really reserving judgment. our judgment is go get these games, they're all good.

But that's without even playing much multiplayer because of when we were playing these. And East Combat is, I would say, a more single player-centric series. And this campaign is so substantial that, you know, multiplayer is a bonus from my perspective. Gears obviously is more multiplayer dependent, historically speaking. And it sounds like not every feature is ready right out of the box. but I assume that it will deliver the usual good gears multiplayer action if you're if you're into that, you know, PVE, PVP, etc. But just the campaign co-op or solo is is absolutely worth the investment here. So boy, I mean, we're lucky, you know.

We just have an excess of great games. I guess if you are solely a switch to owner, then you're out of luck this week and you can't take us up on these recommendations. but everyone else just, you know, take your pick. You can't go wrong with any of them. And look, I mean, the industry itself may be all sorts of screwed up. And we bemoan that often. And, you know, there was just a story from Eurogamer about how people at the coalition are worried that Xbox will shut them down now that they've shipped this game, which is something, a pattern we've seen repeat. Sure have.

There just is this dichotomy of like. They're crushing it. Yeah. Yeah. Made a good one. Which is probably part for the course that they will get shut down. Honestly, given this industry's a lot of time. Yeah, I guess someone did ultimately, fortunately.

But yeah, I mean, that's what we're dealing with where the games have never been better or more plentiful. And yet so much about the conditions in which they're made and the length and the budget and all the rest of it. The sustainability of that is sort of screwed up, at least in the West. But today, at least, we are accentuating the positive and the positive. is that, boy, three new great games to add to the pile. And many more to come, of course. And many more that will be covered on upcoming episodes of But Match. The good games are not stopping.

Not at all, not even slowing. We've got a new Final Fantasy game, Resonance coming later this month. We've got a new Castlevania, speaking of franchises that have been gone too long. And Welldweller, which is out now, not hyped at all. And another excellent Metroidvania seemingly to add to the pile. Maybe we'll cover that too. I got a tiny game we're interested. No one's heard about it.

It's one of my favorite of the year. Draco and the seven scales. It's like, Links Awakening in a pirate setting. It's out on Steam right now. It's if you like Links Awakening on Game Boy, this is like, it feels like an all-timer Game Boy color game came out of nowhere.

Draco and the Seven Scales, check it out. Yeah. Yeah. It stinks that anything has to. to get lost in the shuffle here. So much is so. So is. So is coming out soon.

I mean, we've got, uh, you know, just like not a only call of duty and, and war dogs and all the rest of it, Phantom Blade Zero is coming later this month. Then obviously the Ocarina remake and a little game called Grand Theft Auto 6. So we will be there on top of all of it. Not enough playing time, not enough podcasting time. Too many games, but that at least is a good problem to have. So thanks to both of you. for joining me both online.

Well, I guess we're always online, more or less. We'll be offline when you're in New York City at KovicCon, Steve. We'll meet in MeatSpace for a while. But thank you to both of you for playing and podcasting. Thanks to Devin Ronaldo for producing this podcast to Arjuna Ramgapal for his senior podcast management. We want to hear from all of you. Please do write in. Tell us what you're playing and enjoying at ringaversegaming at gmail.com.

And Steve, could you take us? out with your rendition of the endlessly entertaining bayonet charge sound that your character emitted every time we played gears. I think that would be a good way to charge into Friday. Right. This is exactly how I run to the kitchen to make dinner. Here we go. There we go. That was scarily accurate.