Triple Click - Now We've Played The PS5 Too

Episode Date: November 12, 2020

Last week it was all things Xbox, and now it's time for PlayStation 5! Jason has been using the fifth PlayStation for a few weeks now, and he's impressed. The load times are fast and the controller is... slick. But is it worth getting or should you just wait??? Plus: Spider-Man Miles Morales and the wonderful Bugsnax (talkin about Bugsnax)!One More Thing:Kirk: Watch Dogs Legion Maddy: Destiny 2: Some Thoughts (on why i’m not playing it currently)Jason: Assassin's Creed ValhallaShow Notes:Triple Click Discord! https://discord.com/invite/JuSkCPZKKhSupport Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/join Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

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Starting point is 00:00:04 A next-gen console is only next-gen until it comes out, at which point it becomes current-gen. Kind of makes you think, doesn't it? Welcome to Triple Click where we bring the games to you. This week we're talking about the other now-current-gen system, the PlayStation 5. Jason's got one, and apparently it's got a cool controller. We've got a bunch of questions for him, so let's dig into it. I'm Kirk Hamilton. I'm Maddie Myers.
Starting point is 00:00:31 And I'm Jason Shrier, and we are back. It has only been 40 years since our last time. So it's like, really like... So much has happened. I mean, 40 years is a long time. Just anyway you slice it. That's a long time. A brisk 40 years, I would say.
Starting point is 00:00:46 It's a long time for a week to last. Here we are. We made it. We're back for another week. The 29th year of Triple Click. Here we are again. Here we are again. And we're so glad that you're here with us.
Starting point is 00:00:59 If you would like to support us making this show, we really appreciate everybody who does. So you can become a member of Maximum Fun. To do that, you want to go to maximum fund.org slash join. And if you become a member, not only do you get to support independent media. This is a show that we own and you support, and that's it, which is very nice. You also get access to a lot of maximum fun bonus content, including monthly beans casts from us in which we spill the beans on various things. This month is going to be some Mel Brooks movies.
Starting point is 00:01:30 It'll be interesting. I still haven't rewatched them, but I'm looking forward to doing that. So that is maximum fun.org slash join to join team. triple click and help us make this show. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Give us a hand. And another announcement, Maddie, you want to give it to us? Another cool announcement? Here we go. We have a triple click Discord now. Yeah, we do. Which is a chat room. You don't have to be a max fun member or whatever. To hang out in here, by the way, you can hang out if you're just a regular listener and you want to talk to other triple click fans. And it's pretty cool. We just launched it today. There's already a bunch
Starting point is 00:02:05 of people in there. There's a bunch of chants. It's already pretty cool. It's very true. People are shooting the shit about the show and about video games. Yes. About the weather. It's a very nice weather channel. About the weather, yes.
Starting point is 00:02:18 There's a weather channel in there as well. It's very important. And a weather bot. Yeah, you can find out the weather in your area. This is why people listen to the show and it is why they will be joining the Discord, which you can do by clicking on the invite link, which we're going to include in the show notes. Yes. And it's on our Twitter as well.
Starting point is 00:02:35 Yes, yes, yes. It's findable. It'll be fun. Cool. So let's get to it. So last week, because of various embargo things, we were only really able to talk about the next-gen Xbox. I like various embargo things when really,
Starting point is 00:02:49 there was one embargo on the PS5. That's true. Although, no, there were a bunch of software embargoes. Because there was an Assassin's Creed, there was a Bug Snacks embargoes. So it's a bunch of embargoes. But anyway, this week we can talk about everything. I've been playing the PlayStation 5 for,
Starting point is 00:03:07 about three weeks now. And I have many, many thoughts on that. I'm the only one of the three of us. So this might be you guys asking me some questions. But just to kind of sum up some high-level thoughts on the new PlayStation, I think it's an impressive machine, just like the Xbox is,
Starting point is 00:03:26 very impressed by the controller, which has a lot of bells and whistles, a lot of gimmicks that so far have seemed to me like they actually change the way it feels to play games. keep hearing that and I totally want to grill you about it because I'm so into the controllers, but we'll get into it in a second. But overall, my thought remains similar to what I said about the Xbox that nobody, like most people really do not need to make the upgrade right now. If you have a spare of $500 and you really want to play Demon Souls, then go ahead. If you want to play a lot of the other games, you can get them all on your PlayStation 4, Spider-Man, Miles Morales,
Starting point is 00:04:02 bug snacks, all the other cool stuff that's on PlayOS 5. Right now you can get on your PS4. Or you get Demon Souls on a PS3, if you want. Yes, that's... Yes, that's true. Yes, Demon Souls on PS3 is not quite the same experience. By the way, that's the one... I mean, who's to say?
Starting point is 00:04:16 Who's to say? Not me, because that's the one game I didn't get early. That's right. I have not been able to check that one out yet. So all that said, some people were... When I posted my reviews last week and I was talking about the console, earlier this week and I was talking about the consoles a little bit, no it was last week man this all blends together all time has just like like blended together
Starting point is 00:04:36 40 years i mean it's a long time to keep straight in your head five minutes ago when you posted your console the amount of time that i have spent looking at just a wall of red and blue states over the past week is just like man i'll never get those hours back nope you won't none of us anyway at least at least john king on cnn was very entertaining while we did it anyway um so i got i got some pushback from people who are like what if i only had a ps4 original never got a PS4 pro don't have a computer and I want all the performance upgrades okay then great like why not upgrade right now if you know you're going to just recognize I think the important the kind of the rationale behind me saying to hold off is that with both of these things you're not
Starting point is 00:05:17 buying something amazing right now you're buying something that will be amazing down the road as they boost up their libraries and oftentimes it's worth it to wait because you can get a discount on these things if you wait a few months or a year it's funny that people would push back on you just because I know we've given this advice a lot of times and just you're not the boss of them. I mean, if you want to buy FPS5, go for it. Like, you can take Jason's advice or not. Do you need us to give you permission to buy a PS5 because we will grant it to you? I think people do like the validation of like being told like, actually this is a good purchase. Oh, no, I know. I know. That's why they push back for sure.
Starting point is 00:05:52 Yeah. And it's a big purchase. You want your best friend Jason Trier to tell you it's okay to do it. Exactly. Exactly. Your best ease of triple click. But I do think that like, like, Like if you haven't made the upgrade at all, if you're still stuck on the PS4, you're not interested or you can't afford to get into PC gaming, but you have $500 to spend on a PS5, do it by all means. Like, go ahead. And make sure if you're kind of trying to decide which console to go with, so far from what we've seen. And we don't have all the information on like the power differences and what that will actually mean for third party games because we haven't actually been able to test a lot of games on both consoles. I just started getting a couple of codes in today that I could test on both. but I haven't even had a chance to.
Starting point is 00:06:31 And even now, like, we won't know what's going to happen a year or two years from now as games get more advanced. And, like, what if they struggle to run at 60 frames a second on the PS5, but they run great on the Xbox? We're not sure yet. We don't know yet. But if you're trying to decide right now and you have to, you want to buy a new console, you want to know which one to go with, look up which one is getting, like, which one
Starting point is 00:06:51 will have more games that you want, whether it's like the Xbox GamePass lineup, Bethesda games and Microsoft games and gears and all that jazz, which you can get on the Xbox, or or the PS5's like giant stable of first party games um got a war and Horizon 2 and all that jazz plus their third party time exclusives yeah exactly um and then like Final Fantasy 16 which would probably be my selling point if I if I hadn't gotten the consoles ready and then like uh some other random third party exclusives like from Square Anix and copcom and whatnot Resident Evil no that was an unspric Xbox too but um so yeah so so
Starting point is 00:07:30 Those are kind of my high-level thoughts. To the broader consumer out there, it's probably worth waiting. To the person who really wants to upgrade, go for it. These are great machines from what I've seen so far. Like, there's no fatal flaw. Which I think one of you predicted that there would be some fatal flaw. Was it Maddie who predicted there would be some like... I think I predicted there would be a controversy with one of the other console.
Starting point is 00:07:52 I would say I lost that bet. And I think that the controversies of 2020 have had nothing to do with console. I mean, there's still time. There still could be a controversy. That's so true. I could still win that prediction, I guess. I don't know what it would be, but yeah. Overall, both of these consoles, and I'm talking about the series X here, not the S, not the baby Xbox, adult Xbox versus PS5. Both of them are really impressive. Like, both of them do exactly what they deliver? And you just have to kind of decide, do I want to air towards Xbox Game Pass or Sony first party exclusives? That's really the main choice you're making. So, all that said, let's get into some specific. So, Kirk, you wanted to grill me about the control. Yeah. Hit me. Give me your best, your best punches. I don't have a lot of punches. Wait, I'm grilling you. Does it have buttons? Does it have a pad on top? I'm grilling you. I'm not punching you.
Starting point is 00:08:41 This is, let's not mix our metaphors. Okay, you want to put me on a grill, flip me over a couple times. Get me nice and juicy. Not, not overcooked. Just like, just a little bit. A raw Jason. Can I get your, mediumer Jason? Can I get your flame-kissed description of just what is specifically what is different about this controller. Okay, so there are two main things. And it's got a lot. It has like a microphone and a speaker like before and a bunch of other like random little things, glowy lights that look a little different than the PS4 controller does. And it feels comfortable. Two main things. Yes, it is shaped a
Starting point is 00:09:13 little differently. It's a little heavier. It's got more going on on the inside. So it's a little heavier. So two main things, right? Number one is the adaptive triggers. And the way that works is as you're pulling the triggers, they can, uh, they can change like different levels of resistance to depending on what you're doing in a game. So if I'm, like, firing a gun, it could feel a little more difficult if I, like, run out of ammo, suddenly the trigger will lock or something like that. Or, like, you're swinging in Spider-Man, and it'll, you'll have to, like, press it and then give it a little oomph at the end of a web swing or something like that.
Starting point is 00:09:49 There's a lot of, like, little things that really make a difference and feel kind of unusual. And sometimes it can get a little bit like, okay, enough with this. but most of the time I found that it's really cool and my hands feel kind of strange when I put it down it's just like a weird sensation that is interesting, it feels next gen in a way that nothing else does. Both of these consoles feel like iterative upgrades
Starting point is 00:10:11 in so many ways and the controller really is the one thing that puts it over the top as far as innovation. The other thing is called haptic feedback or some nonsense like that and basically it means advanced rumble So instead of just like rumbling or not rumbling, there are different kinds of rumbles and there are rumble sensors all throughout the controller that can like go off in different ways. So you might feel out on one hand, but not the other.
Starting point is 00:10:36 You might feel it lightly. There's a game called Astro's Playroom that ships inside of every PS5. And it's actually surprisingly fun for like a built-in game. It's actually pretty cool. Just to point out to give those devs credit. Yeah, they made the Astrobat Rescue Mission, which is one of the best VR games I've like ever played. And it does feel surprising even though at this point it shouldn't be just. because clearly very talented people make those games.
Starting point is 00:10:58 But anyways, carry on. Yeah, so this game really just like goes all out with all the controller stuff. Almost to an annoying degree because there's some motion control stuff that's just like, I don't want to be waggling right now. It's like one of those connect things that's meant to wow you with the new technology. But it's fun, but it's more fun than like your average tech demo game. The motion control is like a do with that. But the feedback is actually really cool.
Starting point is 00:11:20 So you're like, you'll feel light sensations as you're running, but then you'll like run into war. water or run on like a moving platform and it'll get heavier or like you'll run into grass and it it'll rumble a little more while you're walking through the grass. It does some cool things. I tested around with it. It does some things in like Devil May Cry 5. Like it feels pretty cool when it rumbles and you're hitting people. They do some things with it in NBA 2K, which is actually pretty cool. Like the trigger will start like getting really intense when you're like guarding someone on defense. It'll like feel a little squishier or not squishy, the opposite of it's because it.
Starting point is 00:11:55 it'll feel a little harder and like rumble and as you're playing more intense defense, it's actually really cool. I am really enjoying it. So I'm thinking of the Xbox One controller, which also had advanced rumble, and I also am thinking of, do you remember it was the Nintendo demonstration of the JoyCon where they had ice cubes falling into a cup? HD rumble. HD rumble.
Starting point is 00:12:13 So this has been something that other people have experimented with. And for me, it was always Forza with the Xbox One, where you can really feel the tires kind of kissing the road and then coming up a little bit as you're going on a turn on the right or left trigger. A few other games had it. I actually remember Tomb Raider had a thing with like the bow string. You could really feel it rumbling. Yeah, that would be where you could really use it. This is different. This is completely different than anything like that. No, no, I know. I know. I'm going somewhere with this. This is just like randomly reminiscing about controller rumble. I'm sure it's different. Like it sounds like this controller is pretty
Starting point is 00:12:44 amazing. I'm more just thinking this has been a long time coming and sort of charting this point on the long development of this kind of technology and hoping that it becomes kind of standardized just because it's always siloed on one console or the other. And as a result, you don't get the widespread adoption that would be really cool where you do get like the Spider-Man web thing, which sounds really cool. But you don't get it if you're playing, I don't know, whatever, the Avengers and you're being Black Widow, which is like a very similar kind of move. But the game doesn't take advantage of that maybe because it's cross-platform. And I don't know. So I kind of wish that more people would just take notes from one another and they would be a little more open about it.
Starting point is 00:13:23 and it could become more standardized. Well, so some third-party games that are cross-bath-form will use it, like NBA, which I mentioned, and Bugsnax uses it quite a bit, which is also cool. I'll talk about Bugsnacks in a minute. But one thing I wanted to point is that having played a lot on both the Xbox and the PlayStation 5, the Xbox feels very sterile and, like, utilitarian. It's very much like you turn this on. It's very sleek.
Starting point is 00:13:50 It's very Microsoft. It's very much like, play your games, get your Xbox Game Pass. like do what you're going to do the PlayStation feels has a little bit more of that Nintendo charm to it all between Astro's Playroom and a lot of other just like little touches the controller itself has these little tiny bumps that like if you look really close of them are actually like the PlayStation icons the X and square and circle and triangle that like when you're navigating on the dashboard you can like access these little activity cards that'll show you like how much of a mission you've beaten and it'll let you see your
Starting point is 00:14:23 progress and trophies and whatnot. And it just does some neat things that, and even including Astros Playroom in the first place, which is a game that's all about like collecting PlayStation history, it's very much, it just feels like a console that, I don't know, has more joy to it. That's not, ultimately in a long run, you want a console that just plays games really well, but it is something that I notice. Like, this feels more Nintendo than the X-Bers. There's something to that.
Starting point is 00:14:49 There's something to that. I mean, that was even a complaint with the Switch, was that it was kind of missing a a little bit of that Nintendo pizzazz when it first came out. And still kind of is pretty, you know, it's pretty standard, like kind of just an operating system. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to point out that my baby was crawling in the background of my Zoom call and then flopped.
Starting point is 00:15:08 I was trying to finish that point. And I was like, oh, God, did she just fall? No, but she didn't hurt herself. It was a cute flop. Yeah, if I trailed off at the end of that sentence, it was because I was in a little flop. Because we were all watching. Of your daughter's life.
Starting point is 00:15:21 Her little flop. Yes. So, yeah, I mean, it's something to consider. And I think that the controller itself just kind of plays into that where they're like, here's our big innovation this time around. And yeah, it remains to be seen what people will do with it. But like, if this was Xbox, then it would be more like, okay, most of what I'm playing here is third party, at least for the next, for the foreseeable future until Microsoft's stable of game studios that they purchase actually start delivering some stuff that's Xbox exclusive. But Sony, we know, has a ton of first party stuff that is all going to use. utilize the controllers various spells and whistles. So like in God of War II and Horizon 2, that you know that they're going to be using the stuff.
Starting point is 00:16:03 There's going to be a bowstring. There is going to be a bowstring. It's going to be, yeah. That really, I mean, I'm such a controller nerd that that does make me excited about when I eventually do buy a PS5. So I haven't done extensive testing, but I did plug it in to my PC
Starting point is 00:16:19 just to see what would happen. And it didn't seem to work with anything, any of the games that I try it on. No, it doesn't. I can see them adding some, but no, they will. They definitely will. They do for the dual shock four. But if they don't, then someone will make a, there's a great tool on PC called dual shock four for Windows that lets you play any game of the dual shock four. So someone will do that for the dual sense. That's what this one is called. Now we just need to put, can you do the under buttons? Do you know whether that under button attachment works on the dual sense? I do not know. It must. Or they're going to make one
Starting point is 00:16:49 that will, because I got to have my under buttons with my adapter triggers. We also, we got a quote, well, they released a PS4 controller with underbutton, so I'm sure they'll do the same. It's an attachment for the PS4. Yeah. Oh, I don't know if that works with this one. We got a couple questions about the battery life on this thing. So the Xbox controller, like I mentioned last week, has two AAA or AA batteries. The PS5 controller just plugs into the system like the PS4 controller did. I found the battery life to be pretty good.
Starting point is 00:17:15 I think it runs out a lot more quickly when it's playing like Astros Playroom or one of those games that uses everything because that trains the battery faster. but it seems so far pretty good. I mean, I've been playing for a few hours without plugging it in, and it seems to run fine. Other people have asked one of the top questions that I've gotten is, does BloodBorn run at 60 frames a second now? Literally, as soon as I got the PlayStation 5 in the mail, the first thing I did was grab my Bloodborn desk and pop it in.
Starting point is 00:17:47 Loaded it up. It seemed to load like a tiny bit faster, but not really. loaded in and it's just like looks like garbage 30 free of a second like less than 30 seconds choppy as well yeah not a single improvement on but then you wind up accidentally playing 12 hours of bloodburn anyways yeah it's the same game but hey you know it's bloodborn what's interesting is that a lot of other Sony games do get enhancements god of war is running and if you choose you can choose between like performance mode
Starting point is 00:18:14 and high fidelity mode or whatever it's called graphic mode and performance mode 60 frames a second which is amazing like I want a replay got a board just. I think that Bloodborn, it's just like a bag of cats under the surface. Well, I wonder, I wonder if, so there were rumors a while back about a remaster. I hadn't personally been able to corroborate any of that stuff or heard anything about it. And, and in fact was told, like, I mean, I hate to say that something isn't true because people I ask might just not know about it. But I asked someone that they're like, no, I've never heard of anything like that.
Starting point is 00:18:47 Someone who might know. That said, maybe they're not doing enhancements. because there will be a remaster at some point in the future. I don't know. Or maybe they don't care. Maybe from software is like, quiet. We're busy.
Starting point is 00:19:00 Just too busy on Eldon Ring. We're busy waiting for George R. Martin to write us a draft so we can actually ship Eldon ring. Sending him. That is what's happening. Please, please respond. Please stop blogging about the jets.
Starting point is 00:19:14 Yeah. So, yeah, but Goddawar runs really well. Ghost of Tsushima also runs at 60 frames a second from what I can tell. And again, this is all me eyeballing it, I should say. But you have a good eye for frames per second. For 60. You're obsessed with it.
Starting point is 00:19:28 So I trust you. But I can't tell if something is like actually 50 frames a second. Sure. Or even a lot of people were asking me because I'm playing a lot of this stuff on my monitor, which is A, 1440p and B, 144 frames, uh, hurts. So it could potentially, it could theoretically run games at 144 frames a second. Um, I really can't tell. Or least like 90 or 120.
Starting point is 00:19:50 You can't tell and no one can tell. I looked up a lot of stuff about the refresh rate of the human eye when I was reviewing that video card. And past a certain point, no one can actually tell the difference. Kirk has told me he can. I mean, not. Can you tell the difference between 90 and 120? 90 and 120? 90 and 120 maybe not.
Starting point is 00:20:09 You can train your eye. I mean, some of it is training your eye, but the higher it gets, the more difficult it is for mere mortals to tell. I think 60 and 120, I can. I think that, once you get up to 90, it just starts to feel pretty smooth. But if I've been playing a game like Overwatch or something that is like really fast and also can run really fast on my PC and I'm playing at 60 for a second and then suddenly I like unlock something on my monitor, change a setting and it lets it play at 120, it's noticeable to me that the difference.
Starting point is 00:20:39 But that's because they're kind of right next to each other. But if you just sat me down in front of a game and one was running at 90 or maybe it was running at 120, we're like, which is it? I would maybe struggle to tell you. Okay, well, that's where I'm at with the PS5, because obviously I can't compare some of the stuff to other stuff, except for like comparing it on PS4 to compare it on PS5. And then when it's like 30 versus 60, it's very clear a difference. Like the difference is very clear to me. But 60 and above, I really would have no way of knowing.
Starting point is 00:21:04 And same with the resolution. Like when I'm playing Assassin's Creed, which I've been playing the most, and I'll talk about more a little bit later on. But I've been playing that on Xbox. But regardless, I can't tell if it's running at like 1440P or 4K downscaled. Whereas I feel like I can, but you wear glasses and I don't. So, I mean, there's any number of facts here. I have no idea. Who knows? Who knows?
Starting point is 00:21:24 point is point being that like there's going to be some great stuff like I said there's already some great stuff on digital foundry if you want like the really technical stuff answer that's your place yeah digital foundry yeah this is not this is not the best place for that triple click is not really your podcast if that's what you're looking for um because there was a story that like the PS5 can't output a natural 1440p so people were wondering how it looked on my monitors all i'll say is that playing spider-man bugs snacks all these games looks great at my monitor even even if it's not natural 1440p It looks awesome. It's upscaling and it's fine.
Starting point is 00:21:57 Yeah. So let me talk about some of these games because I know you guys are curious about Spider-Man and Bugsnacks. I want to talk about Bugsnacks first. Don't sleep on Bugsnacks, you guys. I've played some Buzznacks. You played some. Okay.
Starting point is 00:22:07 So I finished this game and it is wild. It is a wild video game. So Buck Snacks is a game. I've heard it goes places. Bug Snacks, it kind of went viral when it was announced at the PS5 showcase over the summer. It is a game. It's sort of like Pokemon Snap. You're a journalist.
Starting point is 00:22:24 you're sent to this island that is full of these creatures called bug snacks that are like little insects made out of food. There's like a spider made out of French fries. There's like a little hamburger cockroach thing that's called Bunger and goes Bunger, Bunger, Bunger, Bunger. They all say their names. I would describe it as cloudy with a chance of meatballs meets Pokemon. That's probably kind of the vibe that I would describe for this game. But there's also, there's a lot of Pokemon snap in there because you're taking, well, you're not taking photos, but you're using your camera to zoom in on these, these bugs snacks and identify them. and then you have to figure out how to catch them.
Starting point is 00:22:56 So it's very much a puzzle game. It's very much like a physics, chaotic physics puzzle game where you're setting traps and using your variety of tools to figure out the best way to catch one. Like one of them might be really into ketchup. So you use your sauce shooter to shoot ketchup on the ground and then set a trap for them.
Starting point is 00:23:12 The bunger. Bunger, bunger, bunger, bunger, bunger, bonger, bonger. They all say their name. The best thing about this game is that they say, Strappy, drabby. Bunger, bunger, bung. The best thing about this game is actually the cast of characters.
Starting point is 00:23:23 because as you go, you like wind up trying to get all these, these characters, these grumps, I think they're called, I forget the exact name, to come back to their village. And they're all like incredible characters. They're all kind of like have their own, it reminds me of lost almost. They all have their own like archetypes. Everything reminds you have lost. That's true. That's true. And it's like a family friendly Pokemon version of lost.
Starting point is 00:23:47 It's exactly like lost. I mean, it's a bunch of people. Each person is like a type and they're on an island. together and they have to build a self-discovery. Yeah, I mean it's not illegitimate the comparison. And the island,
Starting point is 00:24:03 their mysteries surrounding the island and they have to figure out. And there are these numbers that keep popping up, there's a hatch. Right. I don't know. I have a smoke monster. There's a big weird statue and a polar bear. But the characters are like they really grow on you and charm you and they all have voices. Great voice acting
Starting point is 00:24:19 even from what I've played, yeah. Great voice acting. Really fantastic voice acting. And yeah, the goal is to track down this woman named Lizbert. And she is the archaeologist, who is kind of the leader of the village, and then she disappeared. And she has this great Australian accent, and you can watch, you can find this footage of her as you're trying to track down the mystery of where she went. And it's, she's adorable. It's all fantastic. I love this game. And then the ending of the game is just so bat-shit and like, wilds. Say nothing else. I won't say anything else. No, I won't say anything else. But I finished it last night and very much enjoyed it. Um, it's a perfect game to play with kids, by the way.
Starting point is 00:24:57 I wish my kid was a little bit older and maybe when she is a little bit older. I'll let her play this game because it's just perfect for a kid to watch and play and enjoy. It might get a little spooky for them at some points, but other than that, um, the, the actual catching is really fun. There's some parts that are tedious, some parts of like catching the, the bugs next that can get a little bit like, all right, do I really have to repeat this motion? Do I really have to run across the island again? That's it. It's really fun. I really enjoy it. And then I've also been playing a bunch of Spider-Man Miles Morales, which is another really cool game.
Starting point is 00:25:30 Yeah, I'm excited for this game. It's really good. It's more Spider-Man. Nothing, not a lot has changed from the 2018 Spider-Man game. So if you're expecting some drastically different combat system or swinging system, you're not going to get it here. But it looks great at 60 frames a second. The story is really cool. Miles Morales is like this lovable geek. he is so incredibly, like, dorky and awkward that it is fun to play as him.
Starting point is 00:25:57 And his story is really fun. It's just a really fun story and really good. The writing is great. The everything that you, if you like the first Spider-Man, you're going to like this. It's just more of that. It's like eight to ten hours more of that. I'm not quite done with the campaign yet because I spend a lot of time just like swinging around the city. I think that's about how long it is, though, from my several corporations who beat me.
Starting point is 00:26:21 Just, this is one case where performance can make a big difference because swinging around at 60 frames a second feels so much better than it does at 30 frames a second. Yeah, I'm still, it's a challenge when games that are really cinematic like Spider-Man, which seamlessly go between gameplay and cinematics in that kind of naughty dog way that now Sony is kind of made into a house style. When they're at 60 frames per second, there are times, for me anyways, where I think the cutscenes look weird, where the game is. looks great and I wish there were a way for them to pivot while doing those extremely slick
Starting point is 00:26:57 in-engine cutscenes but it's just I just don't know if there is for what it's worth I have not notice that at all yeah it's the frame rate different or is it the same? No it's the same the cutscenes for me I mean they just seem like part of because they're that seamless thing you talk about where it's all there's something pre-rendered or anything it's not it doesn't feel like it's taking you to a different world for the cutscenes it all just feels like it's part of the game right I'm thinking back so I'm basing this on the next-gen version of The Last of Us that came out, and that was the main one for me, and then the Uncharted games as well.
Starting point is 00:27:27 You mean the PS4 version of the PS3? Right, from their next-gen, from their current gen. Right, right. Last-Gen, next-gen. Right. Because those cutscenes looked weird. Like, I think that The Last of Us actually looks very strange at 60 frames per second. I think The Last of Us Part 2 would have been weird too.
Starting point is 00:27:42 And this is a personal thing that is not something that bothers everybody. But it is a thing for me that as I watch these very cinematic games getting up to 60 frames per second. Part of me is like, yeah, the game looks great at 60 FPS, and I'd love to do the gameplay parts at a higher frame rate. But then the cutscenes happen, and it's weird and everything looks hyper real and that kind of high frame rate hobbit in the theaters kind of a way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that always weirds me out. Like when you're watching Joel emote over his dead daughter and it looks like these weird mannequins or like puppets are being moved because it looks so real. And I'm like, I do not like this. And then you start playing as Joel and you're like,
Starting point is 00:28:16 oh, it's Joel. Oh, he's back. This is fine. Yeah. So it's, it's, that's, that's, that's, actually an interesting challenge that I guess it's not true for everybody since I know there are people who just don't care. But I wonder if that's going to be a thing. Yeah, I'd be curious if you felt the same way playing Spider-Man, Miles, or Alice? I probably will. Yeah, are you going to play the PS4 version, Kirk? Oh yeah, I mean,
Starting point is 00:28:33 that's the thing is, I guess it'll be irrelevant because I'm going to Well, that I think is just 30. I think it's just all 30. Or it's 30 out across the board. So, yeah. So then it'll be fine. You'll be fine. Exactly. So yeah, I mean, other things are like the loading times are great, just like with the Xbox. Both of these machines just have
Starting point is 00:28:49 Uber fast loading times and just like turning on the console is super fast and actually getting into the games at super fast. Miles Rellis, it's hilarious. You get to the menu screen and like your press continue and you don't even have time to like look down at your phone before you're in the game. It's like it's one of those things that will really cut down on your bath. You can't look at your phone anymore. It's terrible. You can't even look at a tweet. We'll be down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um yeah. Is there other stuff you guys are curious about as far as he's new, as far as the PS5 or the Xbox? Where'd you put it in your apartment?
Starting point is 00:29:23 It looks really big. How's that going for you? Yeah, how did you get it into your apartment for start? Yeah, well, they had to cut open the door to a lot of the PS5 then. You had to bring in piano movies. So I have my PS5 and my Xbox both next to my computer, which is actually good for a few reasons. One being that I can play my monitor right next to me, which is great.
Starting point is 00:29:44 But two, being that I can feel when one of them is running a hot or hear when one of them is getting loud. And in my experience, the Xbox can get hot, but not like noticeably. Like, oh my God, I can't. I have to turn on the air conditioning while I'm sitting here. Just like, okay, it's got some heat. The PS5 has not gotten hot at all. And both of them are super quiet. Like occasionally you'll hear, especially when you're starting them up. Yeah, for now, for now. But occasionally you'll hear when you're starting them up. You might hear some rumbling. But like, compared to the PlayStation 4, they are both just like Uber, like, something. silent as you're playing most games. So that has been impressive so far. Yeah, I look forward to
Starting point is 00:30:23 to the jet engine sounds it makes when I play Godd of War II on it in a year. God, yeah, who knows. I mean, yeah, that's the thing. With these things, you're buying potential, I do wonder, so something that has made me a little bit worried is that both of these things, Microsoft has said future games, like for the next year or two, all of our games will also be cross-gen on Xbox 1 as as well. Sony has come out and said similar things where they're like, we want a lot of our games on PS4 as well. We saw that with Spider-Man. We're seeing that with Horizon 2. Haven't seen that with Demon Souls for whatever reason, but it seems to be the case for a lot of Sony's games. And so I worry that if a lot of people are going cross-gen, especially third parties also, they're not going to be
Starting point is 00:31:04 able to take advantage of what the solid-state drives can do from like a design point of view. And before these consoles launched, I had been talking to developers who were raving about the PS5, and to a lesser extent the Xbox, but more so the BS5, particularly about what the solid state drive can bring, not just from a loading screen perspective, but from a design perspective. And they were saying, like, it's hard to explain, but like the way that things load and the way that we keep track of various points of memory in the database, like, we could allow for so much more, so many different things. And like, it'll be interesting to see what designers can do when they're not as constrained by certain things. And if they can be a little more creative with the ways
Starting point is 00:31:42 that open worlds work or the ways that interiors of open worlds work, etc., etc. But if all these games are going to be cross-gen, then it might be many years before we actually see any of that in action if we ever do. And that is kind of unfortunate. And that is, in that way, like it feels even more like just an iterative thing as opposed to a clean next generation, where it's like, okay, this is the same game on both platforms, but it's going to be 60 frames a second on the PS5 and 30 on the PS4. So that's kind of a bummer. I was looking forward to more.
Starting point is 00:32:15 I'm sure you've heard, though, there are some notable differences with Spider-Man on PS-4. Like, there are entire loading screens that are only in the PS-4 version that you've perhaps never seen where Miles gets on the subway. But I'm not talking about loading screens. I'm very specifically talking. I'm just saying that's a notable difference. Like, those loading screens don't have to be there on PS-5
Starting point is 00:32:33 because obviously they can go ahead and render the next environment without ever needing to show Miles traveling somewhere in a beautifully rendered loading screen. screen that only a PS4 person gets to see. So I can imagine in my head that other developers in the future would also be creating games that have to run on the PS4 and they just are designing different loading screens or you're just standing somewhere waiting and watching a twirling circle if you're playing on PS4. But on PS5, you have no idea that that's happening to other people. And then that that's kind of crappy if you're still on last gen. But I also feel like that's what you
Starting point is 00:33:05 would expect if you're on last gen. Yeah, but I'm not talking about loading times. I'm talking about what can actually be done with the design of the game. Like the procedural generation of the landscape that allows for things to come up in different. There's technical stuff that is way over my head, but the developers have raved about to me, and I listen to them. I listen to people who are smarter than me about these things when they talk to me. And they've said that with the solid state drive, you can do some things that you might not be able to do otherwise on our journey. You know, I have a question.
Starting point is 00:33:35 Is the solid state drive in the PS5 or the Xbox, the, Big, well, they all have a big adult Xbox. You know, no, right. Is that drive in some fundamental way different from a drive that I could buy for my PC? Because I am curious if all of these things on cross-gen games, if someone makes a game that's like next gen only or, you know, PS5, Xbox, Series X only.
Starting point is 00:33:56 And there's also a PC version. Can the PC version do the same thing? Like, can you get a hard drive that can do the same thing for a PC? I'm almost certain that if you can't, you eventually, you will be able to. And then there'll probably be something even faster on PC. But that I am also like, parody is so far has always existed and PC usually outperforms consoles. I'm assuming that that will hold, but this one thing does seem a little different to me, at least for now.
Starting point is 00:34:18 You can't right now. And the PS5's Solid State Drive has faster like streaming, loading in and out. Again, we're talking about stuff that's a little bit over our heads here. But my understanding is that the PS5 Solid State Drive allows for data streaming a lot more quickly than your average solid state drive that you can buy on the market that I have in my computer right now. Okay, so at least for now, the PS5 kind of has this unique thing. Yeah. All right. So before we go back to one more thing, before we take a break, go to one more thing.
Starting point is 00:34:50 Any other questions are you guys? Anything else you're curious about with the PS5? I know we got some listener questions. I hope I answered a bunch of them or most of them. Some of them were more technical, more on the technical end. And so we can't really answer, but hopefully someone will be able to answer for people. the one thing I will say is that I wish there was a clearer way
Starting point is 00:35:10 to know whether a PS4 game would run better on the PS5 right now there isn't an enhanced for PS5 label or anything like that so Xbox has that yeah Xbox does have that or they just out of that I believe yeah so they just add it is very nice I have to admit looking at all your icons
Starting point is 00:35:29 and just seeing like oh these are the ones that are enhanced and these are the ones that are these are the ones worth checking out Yep, especially with GamePass because you can be like, oh, I'm going to download this one because it's better. Yeah, PS5 does not have that at least right now. Maybe I'll add something.
Starting point is 00:35:43 Maybe I'll add it, yeah. Anything else you guys are curious about, or should we take a break? No. Cool, let's take a break and we'll be back with one more thing. Listen, I'm a hot shot Hollywood movie producer. You have until I finish my glass of kombucha to pitch me your idea. Go.
Starting point is 00:36:02 All right, it's called Who Shot You, a movie podcast that isn't just a bunch of straight white dudes. I'm Ify Whitey Wade, the new host of the show, and a certified BBN. BBN. Buff Black Nerd. I'm Alonzo Duraldi, an elderly gay and legit film critic who wrote a book on Christmas movies. I'm Drea Clark, a loud white lady from Minnesota. Each week, we talk about a new movie in theaters and all the important issues going on in the film industry.
Starting point is 00:36:25 It's like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner meets cruising. And if it helps seal the deal, I can flex my muscles while we record each episode. I'm sorry, this is a podcast. I'm a movie producer. How did you get in here? Ify, quick, start flexing. Bicep, lats, chess. Who shot you?
Starting point is 00:36:41 Dropping every Friday on maximum fun.org or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. And I'm Elliot Kalen. Together we're The Flop House. A podcast where we watch a bad movie and then talk about it. Movies like Space Hobos, into the outer reaches of the unknown and the things that we don't know the movie.
Starting point is 00:37:06 And also, who's that grandma? Zazzle Zippers. Breakdown 2 and backhanded compliment. Elvis is a policeman. Baby crocodile and the happy twins. Leftover potatoes? Station wagon 3. Herbie goes to hell.
Starting point is 00:37:24 New episodes available every other Saturday. Available at maximum fun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Bye. And we're back for one more thing. Jason, what's your one more thing this week? Oh man. Well, I've been talking for a while. so what's a little bit more.
Starting point is 00:37:42 What's a little bit more? I'm really testing your endurance here. So my one more thing is Assassin's Creed Valhalla, which I started playing on the Xbox Series S a couple of weeks ago, and have now somehow gotten 30 hours into because I love this game. I really love it. I've played almost that much too. So I'm probably throwing you because I've played a ton of this game as well,
Starting point is 00:38:03 and I have a lot of thoughts so I can back you up. Okay, so I should say, so this week it's my one more thing. Next week we're going to do an episode where the 3rd of us play it and that'll be we're going to do a triple play yeah you two will have beaten it by that I guess I don't think so this game is super long because just when you think like okay I'm really making some progress on the map it's like oh here's another map for you to explore I'm kind of nowhere yeah I'm kind of it's there's a lot of stuff in here yeah this game is huge and on top of like the main story stuff there's also the entire like order assassination tree
Starting point is 00:38:33 from the last game which is awesome and so much fun to do but still it's a lot to do So, all right. So where do I even start with this game? So Assassin's Creed, as most people know, started off as like an action stealth series and then became more RPG-ish with starting with 2017's Assassin's Creed Origins, which was the Egypt one, that started adding RPG stuff. Dialogue trees came in at some point with Assassin Street Odyssey. There weren't dialogue trees. Yeah, that was an Odyssey, not Orleans. With Assassin's Creed Odyssey. There was levels and equipment and gear and quests and all this other stuff started coming into these games. Assassin's Street Valhalla actually winds some of that stuff back.
Starting point is 00:39:12 So, like, there's, in the first few games of this kind of trilogy, there's a ton of gear that you find, and you're constantly getting upgrades. Some of them are color-coded with, like, epic and legendary and blah, blah, blah. It feels like a typical RPG. In this game, there's a lot less gear, and it's more like, okay, this is the gear I'm going to stick with. There's gear, you upgrade that gear, and there's, like, sets of gear that you stick with for a while, and it's less like a luteathon and more like a tailored experience. Same with
Starting point is 00:39:39 quests. There are no more side quests in Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Instead, you explore the world and you find these little dots. They're white, gold, and blue dots. The white dots are artifacts, the gold dots are treasure, and the blue dots are these little mysteries, which you find, and they're little side quests. They're very contained. They're more like encounters in like a rock star game, and the Red Dead Redemption, too. This game is actually very reminiscent of Red Day Redemption, too, in a lot of ways. So a lot of these, are just really cool and interesting and hilarious and super weird. And you just kind of find them organically, almost as if you're playing an exploration game, a Breath of the Wild type of game.
Starting point is 00:40:15 And it also adds back a lot of the sneaking stuff that people missed. There were sneaking in the last few games, but they removed the ability to instant kill a lot of abilities, a lot of enemies, especially if those enemies were higher level than you. Now you can go back to instant killing, and you can even get an ability that lets you instant kill like bosses and super high level. enemies, if you want. And it does a lot of stuff like that. It also brings back a lot of like the modern time stuff. It includes that more in a more heavy way than previous games did. So it feels very much like, okay, we hear you old school Assassin's Creed fans and we want to bring you back to this series if you didn't like the last two. But it still has a lot of the things that I personally
Starting point is 00:40:57 loved about the last couple of games. It still has a map where it's like broken into regions and you go to each region and you clear it out and you do do things for people and it has its own kind of self-contained story that's part of the larger story. It still has a lot of just like cool, interesting choices and dialogue. It still has a lot of the supernatural stuff that was introduced. Well, I guess supernatural stuff has always been there, but especially in Odyssey with like the mythology and the fate of Atlantis expansion, they are really doubling down on the supernatural stuff for this one. You will see a lot of Norse gods in this game or you will meet, you will, We'll hear a lot from Odin, the head of the Norse gods.
Starting point is 00:41:37 And yeah, I really love it. It's really well-written. It's really fun. There's this great loop to the game where you're going off and, like, exploring and finding treasure. And then you bring it back to your settlement and you can build things within your settlement. And you can go on raids with, like, your crew of your Vikings and go just maraud castles and monasteries and stuff. You don't kill civilians, fortunately. You can't kill civilians.
Starting point is 00:42:01 There is still a lot of unethical Viking rating here, but it's a Viking game. The game has not, Kirk and I were talking about this a little bit the other day, the game has not yet confronted the question of like, hey, wait a minute, this is our whole lifestyle, kind of a moral. But maybe it will at some point. The story is surprisingly compelling, I guess not surprisingly, given that the last couple games happened too, but the story has been really gripping for me. It's about your main character is named Avor, and it's about his or her.
Starting point is 00:42:29 family and relationships and kind of saga alongside their brother, Sigurd, who has his own problems, and there's a lot of interesting stuff between the two of them. And yeah, just the rhythm of exploring and finding these dots has just been super compelling to me. And yeah, I really love it. Got to find those dots. I love it. Nice. Yeah, I'll talk about it more next week. The jury's a little more out for me on some parts of it, just like the gameplay parts. It's just a little like a little too easy, a little flat at times, I guess, playing it? I don't know. But like I said, I'm still finding Magrude with it.
Starting point is 00:43:06 I've played a lot of it. Go challenge some of those zealots if you think it's too easy. Go challenge some of those high-level zeal. Yeah, but like really high-level enemies are hard in a way that I don't love. It's just like there's something to the combat, which has been true for a while, ever since they started trying to make it this like animation locked, more like Sekiro or Bloodborn or Demon Souls. like that style of combat, which they did in origins.
Starting point is 00:43:32 They started introducing this, but it's never quite felt the same as those games. Like when you play Neo2, that's like, okay, these people really know combat and have got it locked in. And Assassin's Creed still has that kind of funky rubber band feeling to it at times. Plus, there's just like AI stuff like in the fights and in the stealth in particular. So that's the big downside to this game is the glitches and the wonkiness. It feels jankier to me than pretty much. I don't think of the AI stuff as glitching for what it's worth. It's just the AI is dumb.
Starting point is 00:44:01 Like, I just think of it as overall jankiness. Like, the game just feels janky. Like, it's a combination of, okay, I'm doing this big raid and they're all of my allies fighting enemies around me and everyone's just standing around staring at each other. There's a lot of that. But it's a combination of that. And also, like, oh, my God, my character disappeared. I have to reload the game because I can't see my character anymore because I tried to fake
Starting point is 00:44:23 death and then a cutscene loaded and then I glitched out. It's like a combination of that just makes it feel janky in general, I would say. Yeah, anyways, it's just sort of not, like I really like it. I really like Darby McDavitt, the narrative director on this game. He was like on Black Flag and Revelations to Assassin's Creed games I really liked. And this has that same kind of feeling where it's going to slowly sprawl out and build into this thing that really works. It's just, you know, I don't like Avor as much as I liked Cassandra. Like, it's not even close.
Starting point is 00:44:50 Yes. And the setting is cool. But like Dark Ages England is just looks a lot like The Witcher 3. it looks like a lot of games I've played before where like ancient Greece and ancient Egypt it was like amazing everywhere I was going I was seeing amazing things so it's you know I'm I'm chewing on it but
Starting point is 00:45:05 there's other stuff in this game that looks amazing so it is there's a lot more variety I all will I'll suggest if people are going to play this let the animus choose whether you're going to be male or female Avor it doesn't seem like you should choose that option because you're like no I want to have a clear preference actually I recommend picking that
Starting point is 00:45:21 and I'll say no more for reasons for reasons but anyways we're going to talk about that more next week and I don't want to get super into it. Plus, like, I'm liking it. I'm playing like a ton of it. It goes down easy. It's fun. Yeah. Well, I just want to say, I just want to say one more thing because I know a lot of people will be listening to this wondering if they should get it, get the game this week. I am actually enjoying the combat a lot more than I enjoyed in the last few games. And the main reason for that is because they built in this, this counter parrying system, the way that a Sol's game might have, where if you parry at the right time or
Starting point is 00:45:50 bloodbore might have, where if you parry at the right time, your enemy will be staggered back and you drain their stamina meter, and if you drain their stamina meter all the way, you can get in a stun attack, which not only does a ton of damage to them, but also regain some of your health, and then, like, hitting people with your regular attacks regains your stamina, but your heavy attacks takes away stamina. It's got this cool balance that I'm actually really digging. But, yes, we can save this talk more for next week when we do our triple play on Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Nice. Maddie, what is your one more thing? Okay, so I am going to talk about Destiny 2.
Starting point is 00:46:27 Yeah. So you two might remember that I was part of a raid group a few weeks ago. We were trying to beat all the raids before Beyond Light came out. We might... I'm trying to think if I can remember that thing that happened. I mean, it was 40 years ago that we talked to. It was 40 years ago.
Starting point is 00:46:41 Usually I just go into a fugue state whenever you talk. Yeah, you guys don't listen to that part because you've never heard of Destiny 2. No, I don't know what that game is. And you don't care to learn anything about it. And I totally understand that because you've never played it. And I get it. I get it. So anyway, that all happened. But a few weeks ago, I had to review a video card for work. And then right after that, I had to review the baby Xbox for work. So it means I've spent the past few weeks playing a whole lot of different video games. And none of those video games. I like the way that you just casually say Baby X-Bepad. Like, you didn't even put emphasis. You're just like the baby Xbox. That's what it's called. I don't know. I don't even know. I dig it. That's what I call it all the time. So I played a little Destiny 2, but only for the sake of testing these things. And I haven't really been playing with my. friends these past few weeks. So in that time, I told my raid group at the beginning of it all, I'm going to have to do some hardware reviews and I'm not going to have time to rate. So if you
Starting point is 00:47:33 guys want to find an alternate for me for these next couple weeks, you can. Honestly, I didn't think they were going to do it, but they did. So here's how that went down. They found several alternates. They found several ringers who they brought in and all of them have beaten all the rates. They've beaten them all. And I have not been a part of any of. it. I'm still in the Discord. I've watched all of this happen in silence and they have done a great job. Every now and then I go in and I look at it and I'm like, well, they sure are doing it. Passing you by. Love my friends and I am not doing any of this and they're all going to buy those rings that you can buy when you've beaten the raid. You can like buy yourself a commemorative ring anyway.
Starting point is 00:48:17 And you're not going to have a ring. I'm not going to have a ring. So yeah, none of this happened. And also now all the raids are gone because Beyond Light is launched. So I've missed. Right, right. The boat has been thoroughly missed. You should just buy a ring anyways and just wear it like the saddest person. No, I'm not, I'm not mad at them at all. Of course, of course.
Starting point is 00:48:34 This is like, this is sort of a, I'm not feeling sorry for myself here. Like, it is incredibly cool that I got to review a video card and a baby Xbox and play these new games. And I, I'm not saying the past three weeks of my life have been hellish. It's not, yeah, like this is not, it's not a relatable problem perhaps. But in a way, I think it might be because I was, busy with work these past few weeks. I was busy with commitments that could not be moved. And because of that, I couldn't play Destiny 2 anymore. And the ship has sailed without me. And now I feel as though I cannot
Starting point is 00:49:04 return. And so Beyond Light launched last night. Welcome to the club. And all of my friends were in the game. And I did not even log in. They all watched the orb do its thing. And I just kind of watched on Twitter. And I was like, I remember 7,000 years ago when I played Destiny 2. That was another life that I had. And I don't even know that girl anymore, I thought to myself. So I don't know. I don't know where I'm at with Destiny 2 anymore. I might play it again. I might not.
Starting point is 00:49:32 But it's been a weird time for me. I think I love how you just keep having experiences that are so quintessentially Destiny 2. Because this is one, the fomo and also the feeling that you've been left behind. Like that you mowed and thus the foe was justified. And you have now missed out. And like the game has moved on. And that feeling of sort of, well, all your friends are playing and they're kind of talking about, oh, this thing that happened or even just, you know, complaining. That I wasn't there for. And they all have their jokes and so on. Yeah, they're complaining about some new thing that's annoying. Right. And like, you join them and maybe one of them has something on their banner that you've never seen before, like a gun. And it's this feeling of like, oh, I'm not in the main group anymore. And it's a thing with service games in general, right? That they sort of demand this level of commitment. And then they socially reinforce it. God forbid you have a work commitment of any kind. Like you have to keep playing.
Starting point is 00:50:23 like multiple days a week for weeks in order to keep up with a game like this. And I don't know, I'm kind of glad I got to have the experience for a few weeks of doing it and living it for a little while and feeling like I was part of something. But now I'm kind of like, there's a lot of other video games I'd like to play. Fall is that way with Destiny often. Yeah, welcome, welcome. I will say I downloaded it Beyond Light just to check it out and logged in for a second. I feel like we got to check it out. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:50:50 I'm going to play the campaign at least at some point. and it might be a while because I have so many other things to get through. But I will say, so I logged in and checked my character and suddenly I'm like boosted to 10.50 light. Of course. Yeah. Or power or whatever it's called. So you don't even have to think about catching up the way you have in the past, which is nice. Well, right.
Starting point is 00:51:09 But I've already missed out on the emotional catch up, which is the part that actually matters. But yeah, you're right. My light level will be fine. My point is, well, so Maddie, so in previous expansions, which you were not a part of, part of because you only got into this game very recently. Previous expansions, not only do you miss out on what your friends are doing, et cetera, et cetera, if you wanted to come in and catch up, you just logged in and you're like 100 light levels below everybody else and you're like,
Starting point is 00:51:36 what do I even do now? Here, they're just like allowing everybody to be on the same bar. So that is nice. So it's like nice to be able to do that. In previous, like, Shadowkeep and Forsaken before that, they started adding power boost quests that you could do to like boost your gear up gradually. but now they're just boosting everybody, which is really, really nice. It's just like, forget it.
Starting point is 00:51:56 You can just get to this power, no problem. Just jump right in. Kirk, what about you? What's here one more thing? I'm going to go last, and I'm going to talk a little bit more about Watchdog's Legion. Just because I've still been playing some of it. I've been bouncing between that and Valhalla. And I just have a funny story I wanted to tell.
Starting point is 00:52:12 There is an interesting comparison between these two games. I think that they really underline how you can have a Ubisoft-style open-world game and yet have completely different experiences in those two games. It's wild how different they are. Valhalla is so spread out and kind of low-key. A lot of that game is just walking across the map going toward a dot and then you see a cool dot and you're like, what's that dot? And then you move and it's really pretty.
Starting point is 00:52:40 But it's so like paced out and really kind of slow moving and just really kind of moves at that sort of a speed. where in watchdogs you're in London, everything is happening all around you. The whole world can be interacted with in like a thousand different ways from any given point because you have this phone that can like manipulate a hundred different things. You can jump into a camera. You can go over here. You can go over there.
Starting point is 00:53:01 The world just feels like bristling with stuff. There are dots everywhere. Yeah. And every dot is you potentially. You can be any dot you want. And that's the other big difference is playing this game where the difference between that and then a game where every NPC is the protagonist. practice. And, you know, you're doing this thing. Watchdogs does this unique thing of like building a team out of randoms. It's just also a very different rhythm where, I don't know, it's really different. I find it much more interesting and kind of it draws me in a lot more playing watchdogs only because it's a new experience.
Starting point is 00:53:33 Where when I'm playing Valhalla, I'm like, well, I've done this before. Like, leveling up this character, you know, getting, getting my act stronger and going and like getting some materials to like upgrade my thing and now I'm a higher level and I get a new ability. Where in watchdogs, there's, it's much more. known to me because I'm still fairly early in it and still just finding it so striking how different it is. So the story I just want to tell really quick that's funny is this is another kind of game reviewer problem story. So Ubisoft gave me a code for this game and for Valhalla. And when they give review codes, they typically give you the one that like has the season pass and everything because they don't, they're like, yeah, you should have all the DLC and stuff because you're in the press and you're going to review it. So the best experience. Right. So I have like the deluxe edition of this game, which comes with three.
Starting point is 00:54:16 three super badass people that are on your team. This is in watchdogs. And to recap, I talked about this last week. I don't, we don't have a ton of time. But like, you build your team out of NPCs in this game. So, like, you want to go recruit really good people and everyone has different skills. And sometimes you'll find someone that's like, oh, like, that person's got super great skills that I really need. And you'll go out of your way to recruit them.
Starting point is 00:54:35 And sometimes people just have, like, a car or something. They're just kind of a person. And you wouldn't recruit them unless you really wanted to. These three people are, like, legendary recruits or something. and they come with the deluxe edition if you bought it. The thing is, you can't fire them from your team. So it kind of, for me anyways, it, like, undermined a little bit of the energy at the beginning of the game. Because I was starting out, I'm like, yeah, I got my one, this random lady who's, like, kind of build up dead sec from nothing.
Starting point is 00:55:01 And then, oh, wait, there's these three, like, this badass hacker. Elite hackers. Yeah, this badass, like, assassin and, like, this warrior guy who, like, is, like, a machine gun. And they're like, we're ready to go. And then they would turn up in my cut. cut scenes and stuff. Like I'd have my scrappy little team and then like, you know, Rambo walks and he's like, yeah, we're going to get those guys. And I'm like, who are you? I didn't recruit you. No one wants you here. And obviously anyone who bought the deluxe edition would like want this.
Starting point is 00:55:28 Would want them? Hopefully. I'm weird because I like just got this code for Microsoft and happened to have this in my game. So first off, you can't dismiss them. First, I'm like, I want to just play the game pure. So what I had to do was I turned Permadeath on and I went and just got them all killed. And that works if they die. I was worried. I was like, because maybe if you pay for someone at the store, you know, there's like a microtransaction store in this game, you can like buy, buy people, teammates for your team. If they die and you lose them forever, like, maybe it's like you're not getting your money's worth or something. But no, fortunately, if they die in the line of duty, they're just gone. I'm assuming. I'm sure if you like reinstalled the game, you would have
Starting point is 00:56:05 for the game. Exactly. I think if you start a new game, they come back. So that was what I did. I just sent them each on suicide missions. I just like started shooting at the cops. And then I like ran into the street and they're like, ah, and they died. And now I have, I have a team of my own players. That's so funny. So, Kirk, so coincidentally, I just saw a tweet. I was just looking for it, but I couldn't find it from a game developer a few days ago being like, I wish that like some of this, like this pre-order DLC stuff is always the last to be added. It's always not balanced at all. It's like one of those things that is like an afterthought for game developers. So it's so funny that you're having that experience. And I'm sure so many other people have that experience
Starting point is 00:56:40 or like you load into a game, especially a Ubisoft game, and suddenly you have this super overpowered weapon or character. Right, the starter thing. Developers gave no thought of this whatsoever. It's like one of those things, marketing demands of you at the last possible minute. You're like, oh, fine, just like come up with this cool thing and throw it in the game. We're not even to bother balancing this. And it's just like such a shame.
Starting point is 00:57:01 It's one of this, it's like the optimal example of like marketing interfering with art and just like. Yeah, and I mean, usually it's like a gun or something that you can just not use. It's just funny that in this case, it's members of your team who turn up and cut scenes and stuff. And I'm like, who the fuck are you? Get out of here. You're not on my team. You're fired. Just go and get yourself killed.
Starting point is 00:57:18 Have fun. God. Amazing. That's it for me. I'm going to keep playing that game, though. I think it's really cool. Good story. Good story.
Starting point is 00:57:25 Okay, I think that is it for this week's episode. Don't forget to sign up for Max One, become a member, help support us. Don't forget to go check out the Discord. Yeah, join our Discord. Yeah, join us. And don't forget to check out Kirk's other podcast. Strong Songs. Have you ever thought about starting a sex podcast called Strong Shlongs?
Starting point is 00:57:46 I have not. I've thought about wrong songs. People have suggested that for like, Oh, that would be fun. Podcasts about bad music. No, strong shlongs has never occurred to me, Jason. I don't know why not. It's so obvious.
Starting point is 00:57:57 It does seem like I should have gotten there. It's right there. This is the content people get if they listen all the way to the end of the episode. They get the real stuff. They get great ideas. Trademark Jason Shrier. Jason Shire brain diamonds. Just really start dropping here in the last minutes.
Starting point is 00:58:13 Oh, beautiful. All right. Kirk, Maddie. See you both next week. Yep. See you both next week. Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Shrier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton.
Starting point is 00:58:26 I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network. And if you like our show, we hope you'll head over to maximum fun.org slash join and consider becoming a member. doing so helps support us and gets you access to an exclusive triple click episode each month. Find us online at triple clickpodcast.com on Twitter at triple click pod and send email to triple click at maximum fun.org. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
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