Video Gamers Podcast - Chained Together, Amazing Alkahest and Best of Steam Summer Sale - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: July 4, 2024

The Video Gamers Podcast is back with another incredible episode of This Week in Gaming. Gaming hosts Josh, Paul and Ryan are chatting the latest gaming news. This week we talk about one of the most impressive trailers we’ve ever seen for a game called Alkahest, but question it’s authenticity. Paul and Josh played (and beat) Chained Together and we chat the best video game values and games you can’t miss from the Steam Summer Sale. Thanks to our LEGENDARY Supporters: Disratory and Ole Jake Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q   Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Offer ends March 3rd, 2025. Terms and conditions apply. invest with RBC. Offer ends March 3rd, 2025. Terms and conditions apply. Invest with RBC today. Hello, fellow gamers! We are three lifelong gamer dads that make up the Video Gamers Podcast. We are so excited to have you here with us today as we cover This Week in Gaming. I am your host, Paul, and joining me, he's chained to me, constantly repeating, one, two, three, jump. One, two, three, jump. Oh, who didn't jump on time? It's Josh.

Actually, Paul, just to fix that issue, we're going to go on 20. Okay. Okay. One, two, three. Oh, my goodness. All right. And then joining Josh and me for once, because he never joined us for Chained Together, it's Ryan. Yeah, I was definitely left out of the mix on this little excursion.

For the record, you did say you were going to join us one of the days and then decided to go take on extra work. So I'm going to put that one on you, buddy. That is fair. You had time and then you went and did more work instead of joining us. Gotta pay the bills, baby. Knowing Ryan, even though he never opened the game he'll never refund that four dollars no i did i opened it and i did the little practice run i got it pretty far and then i was like i wonder what happens when you jump and i just jumped off the side nice oh my god it's like uh waving his arms in the air all right

we're already here let's just start with ch. All right. This is a very cheap game that you can pick up for $4.99 on Steam. It released a little bit over a week ago on June 19th, but it's got a 90% rating on Steam. It ended up being a total blast, I think, for me and Josh and longtime listener of the show Ace of Shame. Josh, for anyone who doesn't know, why don't you just give us a little bit of like a rundown? How does the game play and what do you think? So this game is basically if people have seen Only Up, which was kind of all over Twitch for a little while, a lot of the famous Twitch streamers were playing it. You're basically just jumping from ledge to ledge, one floating block to the next, onto a little beam. And your whole

goal in that game was to just keep moving up and up and up until you fell off and then fell back down and then climb your way back up kind of thing. Chain together is the exact same premise, except you are chained to your friends. And that chain will yoink you back if your friends do not jump with you. So what Paul alluded to in the beginning on the intro was if you don't jump together and I jump first, and then the chain tightens up, I get yoinked back and then I fall, and then your buddy's got to pull you up. But yeah, the basic premise of this game is just climb and jump your way up this obstacle course while attached to your buddies. So it makes it quite interesting when you have to time certain jumps or you have to work together on certain areas so that you don't all fall off or get pulled off by your friends like you guys did to me all the time. Josh was kind of our elected leader. And so I remember early on, I told you if you jump when you say jump, but then there's like the half second

latency to us, that was creating a little bit of issue. But we ended up running through this game actually pretty quickly. We beat it in three play sessions and ended up being four hours pretty much on the dot. I will say I loved the progression of the game because in the beginning, you're really just running on balance beams and jumping from one block to another. But then kind of before you know it, we were running in actual mazes trying to figure it out. And then there's parts where you like drive a car and all kinds of booby traps that you know you're like climbing chain link fences but then stuff will pop out and hit you so it's a lot of like coordinating and comms very important in chain together

but we did also fool around a little bit with one of the settings because you can have an open chain or a closed chain, which drastically changed the game. Because if it went like Josh to ace in the middle and then me in the back, your chain is open and it's a lot easier to make those jumps. If it goes in a circle, it's a lot less slack in the chain. Everyone has to be a lot closer. Brian, I'd ask you your thoughts,

but unfortunately you didn't get to play with us do you feel like you missed out a bit yeah i did because i love those dumb games like that and that's the first thing i thought i was like oh this looks like those games you know all the twitch streamers were playing but um yeah i just didn't didn't line up and then i was i was pushing you guys let's play this play you're like oh um about that we actually beat it so yeah and it's not a game that you play again you know once unless you're speed runner yeah they do have like you can try to speed run it and there's a leader board for who can climb the fastest and stuff like that i will say this is i don't play too

many of these style of games um i've always thought like hey that looks neat but is it just like a twitch flavor of the week kind of thing too? I mean, I will say this. There's not much to the game, but I really did have a lot of fun playing it with you guys for $4.99. I mean, we got four and a half hours, I think is what it took for us to actually play the game and beat it. Dude, that's a no-brainer in my opinion. If you have one or two other buddies to play with, at that point, it just makes sense because it is fun. The running joke, at least for me, was you're super high up in the air. You have to make these jumps or you have to time things the right way so you don't get knocked off by this big swinging ball or something.

My hands were so sweaty, dude, from the of like trying to time this and not fall that it was like i had to tell you guys like hang on a second guys i'm gonna wipe my hands off man like don't don't make this jump yet because it's just you're on like you're on the edge of your seat the whole time man like you're just so anxious you're grabbing that controller like it's nobody's business like it definitely will get your heart rate up that's oh for sure i because i missed out on that whole factor of the game because i was just played solo for a little bit and i'm just running up like a spider monkey i'm like this this is cake man i don't know what they're talking about but yeah i'm gonna probably my uh my little brother jake

messaged me about it i was like oh yeah we're gonna play and then we never did but i'm sure i'm gonna hop on with him just kind of check it out you got to play with two minimum or it's just not going to play the same at all yeah i think josh we would both definitely recommend it right absolutely for that price absolutely that's the that's the kicker i mean if this was a 30 game i might have some reservations or something like that but a five dollar game that you're going to get four and a half hours of enjoyment out of it is a fun unique experience it's a very nice little diversionary type game for, you know, a couple afternoons kind of thing. I mean, I think that's what we did, right?

We played it over three days, a couple hours each day. Yeah, it was a lot of fun, man. Like we had a good time and there are some pretty challenging parts. And what's goofy to me is like the parts that weren't supposed to be challenging. Like we were struggling with like crazy. And then other parts. Throwing boxes. Yeah, the stupid boxes.

We couldn't jump on them together. And then other parts where you're like, oh, this part's going to be super difficult. We just blew through it. And we were like, huh, well, okay. But yeah, it's a strong recommend for me. Like I said, get a couple of buddies, five bucks each, have a really good time on a weekend or something like that. It really was a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be. Yeah. Who needs a steam summer sale? This is just a base price of five bucks.

All right. And then before we move on, we would love for you to consider supporting our podcast on Patreon. Podcasting is not nearly as lucrative as I think a lot of people assume. The three of us, we all have full-time jobs. We even have side hustles to make all the bills. You can sign up starting at five bucks a month, all kinds of perks, shout out on the show, bonus episodes, go sneak a peek at MultiplayerSquad.com. All right, Ryan, luckily we can bring you into the mix on this next topic. All right. Deadlock. We have talked about this game before. There's been a lot of leaks. This is Valve's first person hero shooter slash MOBA, which is in closed testing. It is 6v6. It has a little bit of a sci-fi fantasy theme. It's got

PVP and PVE elements. We got to play it. We did a couple of matches together. Anytime Valve makes a game, we have to cover it. We have to pay attention, even though we're not crazy about MOBAs. I don't think any of the three of us actually like MOBAs in particular. Ryan, how about you go first since you got left out of chain together?

What, what, how about you tell the people a little bit about how like these lanes work and the gameplay and what what you think of it? Yeah, I wish I got left out of this one. That's what I'll tell you. You did not like this game, Ryan. This game legitimately put me in a bad mood.

Afterwards, I said, I'm in a bad mood now. I'm sorry for my family, but thanks a lot, Valve. No, so you start out, like you said, 6v6. You got these little robots that come with you as kind of like your backup. And you got these different lanes that are different colors. And you hop on your lane. It's kind of like a ski lift. And you go across to these areas where you engage with the opponents.

And you try to push back and take out their defense stations to get to their back. What did they call them? The base? The what? get to their back. What did they call them? The... The base. The what? Just to their main base. Are you talking about the Guardian at their base? Guardians, yeah. I kept wanting to say Praetorians, but that's Destiny.

Destiny PTSD in my brain. But yeah, you just got to get back and then take that over and that's how you complete. Which these matches ended up being what? Like 25, 30 minutes or so? They were pretty they're pretty long longer than i thought they were gonna be to be honest yeah but um yeah there's there's a lot of different features in in it as well so you can select your different characters that all have different like specialty abilities you can select from four and then you can upgrade those but another factor in it is uh there's like a store so you

can buy almost it reminded me of like a risk of rain 2 with or like some sort of um game like that where you have these different upgrades to your weapons or your speed or your magazines or different things like that so uh that was also one of my beasts with it was you know though that meme where it's the all the algebra all over the screen and the person. That's what it felt like to me. I'm like, this is just way too much. And I don't know if it was just me. It changes each match.

Right. So it's not always the same things you can upgrade. Well, it gives you recommended based on your hero. Gotcha. You can click the basic tabs and see the same. But you are right that the default screen will change based on who you are. Yeah, and it's happening so fast. I'm trying to get back to help you guys at a point,

but then I'm looking because I need to upgrade so I can stay up with everybody else who's upgrading. It was just, to me, it was just too much. It probably didn't help that we just got absolutely curb stomped. In one of the matches in particular, we got curb stomped. Yeah, one of the matches. We we got curves yeah one of them we did like half the damage of of the other team but yeah i don't know you guys probably have more

more to say on it i just was not not a big fan so far yeah for me it's it's funny because this mixes something i love which is a hero shooter to something i don't love, which is a MOBA. I've never liked MOBAs. I don't like the, the, the kind of just the gameplay of them, to be honest. I mean, I've tried League of Legends. I've tried Dota 2. They just don't click with me at all. I hate the four lane thing. I hate the slowly working up behind your little grunts or your bots or whatever the people call them, you know, to try to take down this one guardian or tower or whatever it is. And then now you get to move forward a little bit. Oh, well, here comes some enemy guys and you got to fight them and maybe you win the battle, blah, blah, blah. I just don't like MOBAs. So this one was interesting because I really liked the hero shooter elements and I

liked the skills that the heroes had. Each hero had four like actual, you know know abilities on cooldowns you could unlock uh via the store some other like uh abilities that you could actually use you know in combat and stuff like that you could cleanse any debuffs or you could get a speed boost or something like that um i like the hero variety i think there's something like 16 of them or i don't remember 19 19 of them yeah so i mean there's a good bit there uh you know you have backliners and you have you know damage dealers and healers and support guys and all that stuff which i'll really like as well um i don't i don't know my feelings on this one to be honest i i like the heroes i like the abilities and i like fighting the enemy team, I don't like the MOBA aspects. That's the problem. I don't like MOBAs. I've never liked MOBAs. And at heart, this is just a MOBA, but in third-person

view. And I thought maybe that the hero shooter third-person view would work for me. And it does kind of, but it's still just a MOBA at heart. And so as much as I hate to say it, I don't think I like it, man. But I think we would all agree the game runs well. If you're into hero shooters and MOBAs, you are going to love this game. Oh, absolutely. It's just not made for us. The heroes themselves, I think, are incredible. Yeah. I have not even played all

of them i've only tinkered around with about half and i thought they were so much fun like you've got this dude with like blue skin and devil horns he's got a shotgun and everything's about getting up in the face of your enemies but then you've got these other guys that rely on electricity and more range and you shoot these lightning balls like all the different heroes i thought played incredibly fun and if it was in more of like in a in an arena shooter or something like overwatch i think we'd be all about it the moba aspect is a little rough i like having a little bit of pve with the pvp that part i'm not against one of my biggest gripes though is the respawn timer especially late in the match you are stuck for 45 seconds which doesn't sound all that long it

feels like an eternity when you're watching and if you're in a team that's like streaming one in at a time and people aren't retreating you're gonna going to be in for a real rough time. I feel like this is one of those games you have to play with a big group of friends or it's not going to be fun. Yeah. And part of the issue is this was our first time playing. We have no clue what we're doing. None of us are big fans of MOBAs. So we don't understand the ins and outs of, you know, oh, you only need one person on this lane because they're a mid or a jungle or I don't know, whatever these MOBA terms are, you know?

And it's like, we're, we're pretty bad because like I said, we don't know the characters, we don't know the upgrade paths or any of that stuff. So, I mean, we were getting stomped,

which is not fun. It's just the, I don't know. There's glimpses of greatness, but at its heart, to me, at least it is just ultimately a MOBABA and that's not my style of game. If you like MOBAs and you like third-person shooters, this might be the greatest thing that you ever touch in your life as far as that goes,

because it does seem really well done. It kind of makes me a little sad because I was really excited for this. And then I kind of left going like, I don't know if I like this guy. There is a little bit of an element where you have to learn what all the different characters do, because if I see a certain enemy, I don't know, like, should I keep distance? Do I need to get in their face? Am I screwing myself over by getting close

because now they get to siphon my health into theirs while they heal? That stuff's rough. It reminded me like when Overwatch first came out and you'd get D.Va doing the ult and everyone would just stand around and stare at her mech and then it would blow up your entire team because no one knew to take cover.

Or like I remember the first time I saw Reaper spin in a circle yelling, die, die, die. And I was like, cool. And then I'm dead. So there is an element of learning the maps, learning all the abilities. So for us, we only played for one pretty long stretch, but it was only one play session. I didn't get the sense that we're going to love this game, unfortunately.

Yeah. I'm not done with it. I'm not writing it off. Me neither. My initial impression wasn't as good as I hoped it was going to be. I think this might be one of those ones where the more you play it and the more you learn it, you start to appreciate it a lot more. And like you said, Paul, then some of the strategy comes in where like, oh, they have this character. Don't get in his face. He'll wreck you, you know, or something like that. So I definitely think the strategic element will improve, but initially, you know, it wasn't quite there for me. Now, this game is kind of officially not even announced yet. Like we're, we're not supposed to be talking

about it, but then again, they didn't make a sign in NDA or anything either. So I have a feeling they don't really care as far as that goes. But a lot to like about it. But some things that I think are putting me off is kind of my final takeaway for now. And we can't, I mean, unless we didn't figure it out, like you can't change your character in a match either. Yeah, mid-match I don't think you can. Yeah, you're set. Because I had selected, you know, whatever setting we did we picked a few and i wanted to

play the same guy i started to get comfortable with i'm like okay i'll do that again and then i'm all of a sudden some other guy that's uh got another character on his back running around i had no clue how to play this guy and that's when i was just like i'm stuck here for 20 30 minutes waiting 60 seconds for a respawn, and I hate this character. I'm like, I don't want to play this game. I am in a bad mood. I should have did what Josh did and said I had to go eat and went and played Rocket League.

I did just quit out, man, at the end. We were not going to win that match, and I was hungry. Josh was like, I'm going to go eat, guys. See you. I had pizza waiting on me, and I was like, I'm just leaving, guys. That match legit ended like 30 seconds after it i kind of yeah yeah it didn't it didn't take long all right let's go ahead and take a short break this is an ad from better help online therapy we always hear about the red flags to avoid in relationships but it's just as

important to focus on the green flags if you're not quite sure what they look like therapy can help you identify those qualities so you can embody the green flag energy and find it in others. BetterHelp offers therapy 100% online and sign up only takes a few minutes. Visit betterhelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P.com. All right, we're back. josh last week we got to hear from you on shadow of the earth tree um not only do we hear a bit we couldn't get you to stop talking about shadow of the earth tree let's let's just try this one last time i know i know you still got to get a little bit of it out josh i know you finished the dlc you have told us many times that it's either the best or like tied for the best expansion you've ever

played give us some of just your final thoughts yeah i i won't go into a 30 minute montage uh you guys uh well played on that release the josh cut yeah yeah we had we did have a few people that were like i want to hear everything he said it was like no hey hit me up shoot me a message if you want the j Cut $99.95. I will say it's a phenomenal DLC. I don't know if it's the best I've ever played because there's some... I mean, Phantom Liberty, Blood and Wine for Witcher 3,

but this ranks up there as one of the best I've ever played. I understand the complaints about it being hard. Yes, it's hard. Stick with it. It gets easier the more you get the scatter tree fragments, but I But if you take Elden Ring and you take Shadow of the Erdtree and you combine them into one gaming experience, it is one of the best game experiences I've ever had. I was actually going to reach out to you, Paul, and tell you I want Elden Ring in my top 10 games

of all time list that we have on our website. Some of that might be a little bit of recency bias, but you guys know I love Dark Souls games. There's just no other game like Elden Ring, dude. There's not. I mean, it's an experience that I think everybody should at least try because there's no other game out there like it. It is unique in a way that is hard to describe to people. It's beautiful in a way that is hard to describe to people. It's beautiful in a way that is hard to describe to people, which is weird to say that about a Dark Souls game, but it's just gorgeous, dude, in a lot of ways. I don't want to go on a 30-minute montage, but if you've ever been on the fence about maybe I should try Elden Ring, I wonder if I would like it, I would strongly

encourage you to at least give it a try. We have a shout out to Ace Theist in our Discord server who says, I don't like Dark Souls games. They picked up Elden Ring and said, I can't resist playing this anymore. Even though this is not my kind of game, I picked it up. And I love that they're reporting in and saying like, okay, I'm level 16. I'm really digging this game, guys. I came up against Margit the Fel, which is the first main boss that you come across. And it's like, dude, he's going to kick your butt for a long time. You know, but, but somebody that

knew that they wouldn't like it is still saying, dude, this game's really something impressive. So I'll end it there. Cause Paul's starting to get the grin. I have a feeling there's going to be some music on this again, but yes, I was debating whether or not to pretend i fell asleep let's put snores in the in the track there you go all right so next up josh i'm actually going to toss this right back to you so you shared with us the official reveal trailer for an upcoming first-person medieval fantasy action RPG called Alkahest. For those out there listening, that's spelled A-L-K-A-H-E-S-T. And the devs cite Dishonored and Kingdom Come Deliverance as influences. We have not talked a single second about this game. Josh, why did you want to talk about this i don't know about

you guys when i saw this trailer it absolutely blew me away i mean my mind and i think i put i put in our doc this looks crazy next gen was the kind of like descriptor for it guys i like we're in the future man like am i crazy to think that like this game looks bananas to me man what what you're crazy to think of is that the game will actually play like that i zero percent zero i will stake my entire reputation this is all cinematic i don't think the gameplay is going to be anything like it. Really? Why would they make cinematics that look like gameplay though? Because it looks like gameplay. No, they make cinematics that's like a movie and then the gameplay is nothing like it. This was all gameplay elements. You bring up a good point, right? We don't know. And that's why

I kind of put this in there. It's funny because I saw the video and then I actually saw where IGN had done a little thing and they said, this game is going to be crazy if it actually looks or if it plays like it looks. To me, more so than anything, and you guys might be right, it might be completely dumbed down by the time they release this thing, but this gives us a glimpse into the future right yes you guys remember when cut scenes ryan you mentioned the metal gear solid or uh two i think where you were like dude these are the best graphics i've ever seen in my life yeah do you remember when cut scenes looked like that and then we went dude imagine one day when gameplay looks

like that well we've had gameplay looking like that for 15 years now, man, you know? And then we talk about like space Marine two, where the gameplay in space Marine two looks like a trailer that we would have seen five years ago where we're like, dude, one day gameplay is going to look like that guys, you know? And now here it is.

And we've got gameplay that looks like a freaking cinematic trailer. So it's like, you know, we, we have unreal engine 5. We have all this processing power. Devs are starting to figure out how to use Unreal Engine 5. I'm not planting my flag on Alka Hess by any means, but it is an example of where gaming could be going in the next four to five years, you know? And I mean, if you look at the trailer, I'll post it on our

Discord server. I'll probably even post it on our discord server i'll probably even post it to socials to be honest because it's just something to behold man and i think you guys are skeptical because you're like there's no way that's gameplay but what if it is well that's why i'm skeptical because i absolutely love the trailer everything about it there there's something to be said when these there's those little kind of tweaks in it that just make it over the top. Like when he drinks the potion and then he throws the potion at the enemy's head and then he slices his head off or whatever and attacks him. Or when he puts the shield up and arrows are coming at him and you see the shield breaking apart from the arrows coming through. There were so many cool little features in the trailer that just blew me away.

And I thought the same thing. Man, if a game actually played like this, I don't know what I would do. It just blew me away. And I thought the same thing. Man, if a game actually played like this, I don't know what I would do. It'd blow me away. But that's the problem is you just can't trust these anymore. They make these trailers so cool and cinematic, but to get the gameplay to match

is just, it's one in a million. That's the thing. None of it is true gameplay. All the camera movements are very smooth it's shot like a movie all the can't you can tell it's not someone on a controller or with a mouse it's just too smooth and rounded this reminded me so much of the day before where we all watched that trailer and josh you and i jumped on that incredibly fast. I mean, that was obviously a lot more egregious than this, where we're like, guys, the game's not going to be like this.

This is all just made-up, programmed stuff that they're narrating over. But similarly, I think back to the old cyberpunk videos we got, I don't know, like six years ago, where there was wall running, and you saw all this cool stuff, and none of it was in the actual game. I can't help but think that'll be the case here. What I jotted down was, I don't think it's going to be 60% as cool as it looks. Like, I don't think you're going to be mixing these potions on the fly. That was awesome. You're going to pull up a menu.

You're going to click create potion, and then it's going to be in your inventory. He's not going to mix it. He's not going to throw the empty bottle at an enemy. You know what it's going to have? It's going to have where you pick up a barrel and you throw it and it explodes. Or you can kick a guy off a ledge and if he lands in fire, he'll light on fire. And I think that's about as dynamic as it'll be. But I'm hoping I'm just being pessimistic. Yeah. I mean, again, it is one of those things where it's hard to believe, right? It's like when that, what was that game, Bodycam, right? Oh, yeah.

That looked real life. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, that came out and it did not get good reviews, let's be honest. Everybody said, dude, the graphics are incredible, but the gameplay is really not that great. Like, that's the kicker, right? I think we're skeptical for a reason, but at some point in the next few years, we're going to get to this point in gaming. And I, that's what really interested me about this is it's like, you can see the glimpse of if this is gameplay or if gameplay gets to this point, it's going to be pretty mind blowing, man. Totally agree. It's kind of like when sports games started getting so good that someone would walk in the room and be like, Oh, who's winning? Like, Oh tonight it's like oh no this is you know nba 2k or it's madden you know and it starts to get indistinguishable yeah i mean i think we're going to

see stuff like this i don't know that this will be the exact game right lords of the fallen it also kind of reminded me a little bit where those videos looked really good and then the game comes out and it's you know it's got okay reviews. All right. And then finally, last thing that we wanted to cover here today, Steam's Summer Sale. It does run through July 11th. We still got a few more days after this releases. We wanted to give a couple of recommendations to our listeners out there. This is the time when you can grab those games dirt cheap, grab three or four of them, let them sit in your library until you have time to play. I actually did not look at the steam sale until today because I did not want to be tempted

to buy anything. Um, I made a little bit of a list. I don't know about you guys. I tried to keep mine to single digit dollar games. There's a lot that are on sale 50% off, but it's still like 30, 35 bucks. I tried to go with like the really dirt cheap stuff. I don't know what you guys have. Ryan, how about you go first? What are some of your recommendations? So I looked through a lot and it was hard when you see, you know, 90% off and I tried to do the same thing, things that were like under 10 bucks,

you know, it's hard not to, to just instantly buy it but one that i got that is uh a beloved game for you guys and i i have it and uh famously or not famously was not a fan uh due to the old kind of way it played out but disco elysium is yeah dude 90 off it's four it's four dollars that's like a must play game dude i'm like let me let me get it on my computer so i can just kind of sit here and chill and play it that way um so it's not kind of in the living room with everything going on i can just kind of zone in on it uh so i'm definitely going to pick up that one and make a run at that so i can rate it for our leaderboard and then also uh don't starve together is 66 off it's only five, which is a great little survival game.

I had it on the Switch. I used to play it a lot, and then my daughter's been really into it, so I figured I would get that, and we could hop on together and play some of that, but there's a lot of really good games. If you have steam, I'd suggest getting on and checking them out.

What do you got, Josh? I mean, I have a lot. I have a big list, because I was looking through these and i was like oh man i gotta stop somewhere um i'll start off with um battlefield 2042 is only 599 um take your five dollars to crumple it up throw it in the garbage light it on fire um stay away from that game good uh no it uh like um celeste is a dollar 99 paul you picked this game for me impromptu on a squad cast i think yeah absolutely phenomenal game i'm a graphic snob at times the pixelation and the

pixel art kind of threw me off but dude celeste is one of the best platformers i think i've ever played like legitimately it is hard it is fun it's super well done for two dollars man i can't imagine passing that by shadow of war uh is a phenomenal game under three bucks i mean dude it's two dollars and 49 cents and it holds up very very well it is an insanely fun video game cannot recommend yes the nemesis yes i mean this thing pioneered i i mean it's crazy tech dude like just play this game you will enjoy it i don't know anybody that's played shadow of war and went like it's okay like everybody's like dude this game's fantastic um exploration combat really really neat lord of the rings setting and it does it

right too which is good um which are three for 399 is an absolute no-brainer if you have not played the witcher 3 it is one of the best video games ever made like plain and simple ever made it still holds up to this day the graphics are gorgeous even though this game's what 10 years old at this point maybe even older i think it's nine years old yeah i think it came out 2015. So it's still current. It still feels modern. It's amazing. And then last two for me, Hogwarts Legacy 2399 on sale right now is one of my favorite games from last year. You do not have to be a Harry Potter fan to enjoy that game. I cannot recommend that game enough. It's really well done. It's fun for everybody. Some people

go, oh, I'm not into combat. The combat's simple. It can be hard if you want it to be. It can be simple if you want it to be. And then last but not least, one of our favorite games that we have played, Risk of Rain 2 for $8.24. I don't know why that's a random number but risk of rain 2 is an absolute guaranteed great great time with friends you can play it solo it's a phenomenal game but for eight bucks that is one of those like must play must pick up games in my opinion if you needed any more of a reason to pick up the witcher 3 it is the only game that all three of us have in our top 10 of all time yeah that tells you so that's everything you need to know about it yeah yeah it really is that good uh i had a lot of the ones that you both mentioned i'll also throw in borderlands 2 is three dollars even it's the

best borderlands game if you're only going to play one of them pick up the second one you don't need to play the first either i that's a question people go is oh it's borderlands 2 you do not need to play the first borderlands just dive a question people go is, oh, it's Borderlands 2. You do not need to play the first Borderlands. Just dive right into Borderlands 2. It's the best one. 100%. Batman Arkham Knight is $1.99. I was just going to say that.

Such a freaking steal, man. And I do think Celeste is the better platformer. But if you love platformers and maybe you want one that does look a little bit nicer, Rayman Legends is $4.49. Rayman is fantastic, dude. Even if for people that don't like platformers, Rayman just has something to it that appeals to almost everybody. Absolutely.

And Rayman Origins is also on sale, but if you're only going to get one, go with Legends. And the music levels are just so fun. Running through hearing the song Black Betty and you're jumping on the beat and they incorporate the music. It's an absolute blast. Civ 6, I have my issues with, but it's $2.99. If you haven't played a four times game, like sieve, go pick up sieve six. It's a ton of fun. I'm surprised you guys didn't bring it up,

but star Wars Jedi fall in order three 99. I almost brought it up. That's a phenomenal game. So many great games here. Just yeah. Grab a couple, hang on to them. You won't regret it.

All right. Well, that wraps up everything here for this week in gaming. Thank you for joining us. Come let us know on socials at video gamers pod or in our free discord if there's any great deals that we missed that you want to let our other listeners know about please also consider signing up on patreon as we talked about before that's over at multiplayer squad.com we hope that you'll come back and check out our next episode on monday and until then, happy gaming. See ya. All right.

See ya, everybody.