Video Gamers Podcast - Controversial Gaming Hot Takes - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

Gaming hosts Paul, Michael and Josh are stirring up chaos with this incredible episode. We chat our hottest takes for gaming. Some good, some bad, but all guaranteed to get some people fired up. We spill the beans on some deep inner gaming thoughts and what some of our hottest takes are when it comes to video games. Sure to be spicy, you don’t want to miss this one! Check out the eBlitz App and find fellow awesome gamers to play and group with: Apple Link - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/eblitz/id1562995363  Google Play Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gg.eblitz.eblitzapp  Thanks to our LEGENDARY supporters: Dr. Catatonic, Blackstar (DQ), Glapsuidir, Phelps, Michele B, Redletter, Nevo, Waynerman, TFolls, AceofShame, Jake, RangerMiller, and Ad   Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/multiplayerpodcast Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/multiplayerpod/ Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/MultiplayerPod Subscribe to us on YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q Visit us on the web: multiplayerpodcast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's so many things I want to do and see, like redoing the basement without having to do it all myself, or doing absolutely nothing, with a spectacular waterfall view, of course. So, I'm starting here, investing with RBC. When it comes to reaching your goals, personalized advice and performance matter. And now, you can get $300 when you invest with RBC.

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. I got a hot take. Everyone loves toxic teammates. False. We hate it. But there's a solution to help you avoid them and only matchmake with gamers like you.

Our sponsor, Eblitz, is the perfect social LFG app for gamers of all levels. Eblitz helps you meet and match with like-minded, non-toxic gamers to play your favorite games within seconds. Simply start swiping to match with other gamers who share similar interests as you, be it games, platform of choice, country, etc., and message them. You can grow your network to become a list of gamers to answer the call whenever you need them, giving you the best gaming experience, which is a non-toxic one. Download eBlitz for free today off the App Store and Google Play Store. Links are in the description below. Now, on to the show! It's Bonus Round Monday! Welcome everybody, and thank you for listening. We are the Multiplayer Gaming Podcast, a group of three dads who love to talk about video games.

Today's gonna be a scorcher because we've brought some hot takes to share. Please make sure to follow our show rate us five stars and leave a written review if your podcast app allows plus we are almost entirely funded by our listeners so if you like our show and would like to help support it please check out our patreon page supporters get some amazing perks like access to our bonus squad cast episodes and we release those two times every month i am your host paul and i don't think this is a hot take but i've got some of the best co-workers in the podcasting biz first up we generally do like the same games although i do know him to have some of the hottest takes in regards to candy it's mr bottle caps i mean it's josh oh

dude bottle caps are delicious score bars delicious let's be honest there's you know i'm just not i'm not with the the mainstream candy guy i like yeah i like the you know i i stick up for uh for small candy yeah uh bottle caps still in your top three all time favorite candies. I don't know that that's all time. I'm just saying like, I like, did I say all time favorites? I don't recall that. I don't.

Yeah. I, I plead ignorance on that one. Oh, bottle caps. I mean, let's be honest. Reese's cups,

Kit Kat bars and, uh, Twix. There you go. I'm with you there. Those are, those are some mainstream candies all right and then joining us you know i don't know maybe his hot take is that modern games suck

because i went back and looked at his top 10 games of all time and four out of his top five are 16 years old or older it's michael oh man my my average game that i like is in high school that's terrible all right well i'll just stick with the candy like josh i guess whoppers are really good twizzlers and reese's peanut butter cups are amazing so there we go i guess that uh retro gamer here signing off the of the intro are you actually being serious with the whoppers and twizzlers yeah they're great they're great Whoppers and Twizzlers? Yeah, they're great. They're great. Whoppers are pretty good. Paul, you can't ever comment on my candy takes ever again.

What? Twizzlers are amazing. Who doesn't like Twizzlers? Me. They're okay. It's like eating flavored wax. Oh my goodness. If you like flavored wax to chew on.

It's fine. We're going to do a candy ranking and elite dangers is gonna rank right there with twizzlers i was gonna say this actually won't be a all candy podcast we are going to be giving hot takes regarding games but before we jump into that josh i think you've got a couple of reviews for us i do indeed these are not takes. These are the honest truth from listeners around the globe. Nice. But we love reviews for the podcast. If you're listening right now and you haven't left us a review, please take the time to do it. It is huge for the podcast. We absolutely love it. It makes

my day. And so here we go, because I know we're going to have a fun episode. So this first one comes in from Bluey Foxy. It's titled Most Amazing Podcast. And it says, it is just amazing. If I were you, I would listen to it. Man. Short and sweet. There's something to be said for that short and sweet review sometimes. So Bluey Foxy, thank you for that.

Bluey Foxy, that should have been titled Hashtag Truth. Oh, I like it. This next one is not short, but it's an awesome review. Comes in from Westside Pancake, and it's titled, A Threesome That We Can All Enjoy. Oh, boy. I got a little worried when I saw that title, but don't worry, boys. He's talking about the hosts.

I don't know if that's any better. Oh, man. All all right and it says been listening for well over a year now and i have to say the decision to once again become a three-man pod is greater than any pancakes versus waffle shenanigans while josh and paul's back and forth banter and buffoonery is beyond enjoyable i love michael's fresh takes unbridled confidence and general disregard for josh and paul's arguments revolving around Mass Effect being better than Dragon Age, being better than Mass Effect, something about World of Warcraft and more Dragon Age and Mass Effect. My own gaming views and tendencies align mostly with Josh because he's smart and understands that video games are meant to be fun, unlike Elite Dangerous. And lastly, Paul is the commander'sard of this podcast that wants and needs

it to stay on target. Splendid work, gentlemen. I'll take it. Anyone comparing me to Commander Shepard, I'm good. That's a great review. Also, Westside Pancake, active in our Discord server, great member of the community. We appreciate you a lot. Active and awesome, and that's

an alliteration for those of you keeping grammar score. Oh, very nice. Well, an alliteration for those of you keeping grammar score. Oh, very nice. Well, thank you so much to both of you leaving those reviews to everyone else out there. If you haven't already left one, we would love for you to do that and we will read it on the show. So hop on into Apple podcasts. If you don't have an iPhone, I'm sure you know someone who does borrow theirs, find us, leave a review and we will read it on the show i just pictured someone running around the mall swiping iphones out of people's hands and just like yes hold on that's about 30 seconds hey hey you know what do it do it ask for permission first we don't

encourage stealing but you know borrow their phone hey man you mind if i leave a review i don't care if they steal a phone just don't tell them that we said to do it. Right. Yeah. There's a disclaimer there somewhere. Let's run it by the lawyers. Yes, our legal department over here. Right.

All right. So let's talk a little bit about what we're going to do today. We have all prepared and have brought with us some of our hottest takes, and we're going to share them with each other. I have a feeling there might be a little bit of debate. If it's a hot take, it's unlikely that all three of us have the same opinion. And we have prepared, I believe, all gaming related, maybe podcast related, all of mine are related to games. And basically, we just want to know where do we go against the crowd consensus, right?

Now, I don't know if this is the best idea to go out of our way to share our hot takes to gain new listeners of the show. We're probably going to make a lot of people mad, but we're going to stay true to ourselves. We're going to do it anyway. How does that sound? Dude, this is going to be fun, man. I love being contrary sometimes. I get to be the grumpy old man, and this episode is just perfect

for that. So understand these are hot takes. You're going to hear some of these and go, what? You guys are stupid, man. But that's the point. Yeah. My goal is not to make other people mad. My goal is to make you too mad. Oh,

Michael's coming for us? Maybe a little bit. Probably not. Watch all my hot takes are just like. Oh, Michael's coming for us. Maybe a little bit. Probably not. Watch all my hot takes. Just like, no, that's generally true. Like, if I know anything about Michael, his hot takes are going to be like, I think this. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, guys.

If I upset anybody, I'm really sorry. RPGs are fun. That's not a hot take. Well, I do have one that's specifically designed for you michael i might have messaged josh and said it's not my goal to make michael cry but it's possible he might cry on this show oh challenge accepted can i cry i'm gonna try cry natural tears hold on let me grab a glass of red wine or something it helps yes so we're gonna share hot takes none of it's personal we know each other's favorite games we know some of the games that each other don't like

and so if we bring a hot take against one another it's just all in good fun and uh we're gonna try to end the show still being friends so that's that's 50 50 chance this might be the last episode we really hope not you're all gonna have to hold your breath until thursday see if we come out with a twig episode all right uh who wants to go first i'll let one of you guys go who wants it michael bring the heat okay he said he said he wanted to come in hot i do want to i do want to come in hot because we've already mentioned commander shepherd oh boy my hot take is in the same vein of that i am trying so hard to play paul's favorite game mass effect 2 but mass effect 1 is so colossally boring that i can't get there oh yeah uh this is a take some people have i am having a hard time getting through it all i'm

doing is running back and forth talking to people occasionally shooting people and driving the rover way too much way too far and i just i'm like i i know it gets good because i heard it gets good but i'm like 10 hours into it and that's that's all i've done and i'm just like how much more of this can i take before i just throw on mass effect 2 but i've heard that you've got to get through mass effect 1, and like in the Ultimate or Definitive Edition, you carry some characters with you or whatever, your save progress goes, so I have to play this game, but I can't get through it. So, you know, I will say, despite the fact that Mass Effect 1 is my favorite game, the very first time I went through it, I fizzled out after about six hours, and I quit, and I didn't return to it for

like a year but ever since then i've gone through the game i don't even know i stopped counting somewhere around 10 or 11 i've beaten it in its entirety beginning to end probably 13 14 15 times um i will say once you learn the world and all of the characters, and then as you replay it, you pick up so much more of the detail. I don't think it's boring at all, but there is a lot of running around the Citadel in the beginning. Is that what kind of killed it for you? Yeah, the Citadel. And now I'm on this planet where I'm supposed to chase after this lady. I don't care who she is anymore at this point.

Oh, excuse me. Does it help if I say it's Deanna Troi from Star Trek The Next Generation? I'm sold again. Is it Benesia? Yeah, I think so. Whatever her name is. Yeah, but I'm just walking around doing little side things. They're like, hey, you've got to get to the garage where the rover is parked, but you

can't go there until you talk to 94 people and just run back and forth the whole and then i get in the rover and i drive it for like i don't know 25 minutes and kill like four things oh you really suck at driving that rover that's that's like uh that's like five minutes maybe in my mind it was long i know what you're talking about i actually liked the rover part of mass effect one and i was sad when they took that away i like i was sad when they took it away because i liked exploring the planet and trying to find like the little points of interest in the minerals and stuff like that i i don't know maybe maybe i didn't mean that to be a hot take but hot i actually like that hot take big that's a sub hot take we're starting

out great so far well when michael started mass effect one like two months ago and clearly has not been playing it very much i knew you must not have been liking it i will say if you don't like it just jump straight into two you don't have to play one if you play one it will import your saves and your decisions and i think it's a better experience but if you're not digging one i think it's totally fine if you jump into two yeah because i i did i played for about two hours i think it was on saturday or sunday um and i just i was just like i just don't want to i don't want to do this so but i'll get through it i'll get deanna troy will help me through it well i can respect shots fired uh right off the bat at me i'm gonna just let those bullets bounce right off my armor i'm definitely not

gonna cry later uh josh you want to bring up your first time you met your kinetic barrier didn't yeah that's more accurate my omni tool you know armor up shots bounced right off um so i'm up hot take time you're up josh let's hear it oh. I got so many good ones, man. All right. I'll start off a little mild. I gotta get the slow burn going before I really jump in and people tune out. My hot take is I miss games that end. So no live service gaming for Josh. I, yes. And here's the thing. I don't want that feeling of endlessness when I play video games. Stop making games live service.

Just let me play one and let me beat it. That's okay. It doesn't need to go on forever. This is why games like The Witcher, God of War, Dragon Age, Mass Effect are all in the upper echelon of video games. You know why? They're not live service games. It is a finely crafted video game experience. And you know what? As much as I absolutely love those games, when I get to the end, I'm sad. I go, man, I wish I could keep playing. But you know what? That's a good thing because it ends

when it's supposed to end and it leaves me wanting more that I can't have. And that's the beauty of it is that I've experienced this finely crafted, finite experience that doesn't just drag on endlessly to where I'm just left with apathy at that point. Stop making video games to where they're live service and they don't have a beginning and an end. I actually don't enjoy that trend. And I think you're doing the video game industry a disservice when you can't craft games like God of War, Mass Effect, Dragon. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. But some of my absolutely favorite games in life are the ones that just have an ending so two things there thing number one when you first said you miss games to end i thought you were gonna fire shots at elden ring um or did i just do that because it's so long

uh thing number two i think i think paul i think we just heard josh say he likes a story like a good story because he wants i like a good story i don't need all the fast twitch and stuff but i you know that's the thing is i miss video games where developers just said here's a beginning here's an end we're good with that enjoy it i feel you be done with it go buy something else after that guys there is definitely something to be said ending and leaving the user wanting just a little bit more like my wife and I have been going through Seinfeld for the first time in a few years, and we just watched the episode where George knows

that his first joke always lands, and the whole room erupts, and after that he keeps making bad jokes. And he just starts doing the first joke, and he just stands up and walks straight out of the room, and then everybody just wants more George. And we do need more of that in gaming. I'm 100% with you, Josh. The whole live service gaming is kind of bonkers.

And games rely so much on selling DLC. There are games that release that already have DLC that you have to pay for. And next thing you know, you've got to buy six $20 DLCs to finish the story. And I think that's criminal. Mass Effect famously has some fantastic DLC and they're all really good side missions like Lair of the Shadow Broker. That's the way to do it. If you want to do DLC and live more in that world, I am for it. But it absolutely should not be the main storylines. You almost get the sense that it's like they're just writing the story on the fly and they don't know how it's going to end.

And we're just going to figure it out. We'll keep doing more DLC. And eventually we're just going to make more money. And in the end, you pay more. You're less satisfied. The games go on too long. I'm with you, Josh. Sell me a finished product and I'll play it and I'll end it and i'll move on to the next thing yeah i think we touched on that briefly on our most annoying gaming trends when people or

companies sell dlc before the game even comes out they're selling the dlc packs and you're like well did you not finish the game you already have like four dlc packs planned it's just yeah it's it's ludicrous i'm with you i love a good story um doesn't matter how long it is to me sometimes like witcher was really long hellblade senua's sacrifice was really short i loved them both i appreciated the story in both but they both had a definitive beginning and end and you appreciate it in the witcher's case the dlc was just add-on missions a side story which i found enlightening because it was like i got a little bit more but i already finished the main story and just got a little more and there's nothing wrong with a long game if the story necessitates it.

Sure. Mass Effect is a trilogy that tells one story. It's really a 300-hour game if you do all the side missions and run it all. But because it's such a vast story and there's new reveals, it makes sense. But, you know, there's something to be said for just letting the game end. There's nothing wrong with that at all. Josh, did you hear that? Paul just said Mass Effect is like a 300-hour game, or at least it feels like it to me.

I'm sorry. I was trying to breathe. It was good right after Michael's take there on that. All right, Paul, what's your hot? Let's hear how spicy Paul's going to start off here. All right. Short and sweet, guys. Cyberpunk 2077, while terribly flawed, is still a better game than The Witcher 3.

Oh, no. Oh, no. I will not stand up for this, Paul. It's better. You take that back. It is a better game. You take that back.. You take that back. It is a better game. You take that back. That is not...

What? It is a better game. Better how... Go through what's better about it. How much time you got, Michael? No, no, no. Don't go down that road. All right.

Here's the thing. Here's the thing. You guys know I love The Witcher 3. It's in my top 10 of all time. I went back to double check because I was like, I want to make sure I'm not just trying to invent hot takes. I want these things to be real. And sure enough, in my top 10, I had Cyberpunk at number six and Witcher 3 at number seven. So I'm not saying it's vastly better, but I am sticking to my guns. Cyberpunk has a far better story than Witcher 3. and despite the bugs the combat gives you so many more options for

how to play compared to the witcher 3 i just think it's better all right so you want me to defend this a little bit no i don't want you to because you're crazy my brain has already just written you off paul man i gotta play this game all right wait you never played oh you never played cyber play i got like two hours so good i'm gonna tell you something michael it's a great game but it's nowhere near as good as the witcher totally totally disagree all right so the witcher 3 the overall story is pretty pedestrian it is traditional all right gerald is out there trying to find his girlfriend and then he's commissioned by the emperor to track down Ciri because she has special blood. The most memorable parts of The Witcher 3 are the things

that happen along the way. It's not the actual main storyline. We all think about stuff like the Bloody Baron and some of the choices that you make there. I think we would all agree the worst parts of The Witcher are when you have to play as Ciri. The game definitely does lull. There are major lulls to Witcher 3. It is not always operating at a 10 out of 10. The first five to six hours of The Witcher are kind of boring. Josh, you yourself always say you got to wait till you get to the Bloody Baron, and then things start to kick up. I do not find Cyberpunk to ever lull. Beginning to end, I think it is completely thrilling, and I think that the story is much more modern, and much more nuanced, and ultimately just much more inventive because in cyberpunk you're dealing with the main character v which by the way can be male or female in the witcher you're just stuck playing gerald who by the way as much as i love

witcher 3 not a very good voice acting job gerald's voice acting is not very interesting it's because he's been mutated sure you try getting mutated and have a soothing voice paul it's a great game i I love The Witcher 3. I'm not trashing it. I'm just singing cyberpunk's praises. V's voice acting, I think, is phenomenal. V's mind is getting overridden by a rock star terrorist. Tell me that's not more interesting than trying to find your adoptive daughter who has special

blood. As V, you start to take on Johnny Silverhand's tendencies. You start behaving like him, and you have to make all these choices. Like, am I going to fight to stay alive, but that's going to kill Johnny's consciousness forever? Or am I ultimately going to decide that I'm actually going to let Johnny take over my body, and I will be the one who is deleted from this brain? I just think it's such a novel idea of what cyberpunk does. I just think it works better, even though technically it runs far worse than The Witcher 3. All right, I'm not debating that. But what I think is that the benefits of cyberpunk outweigh the cons of the bugs.

This is an ad from BetterHelp 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 better help offers therapy a hundred percent online and sign up only takes a few minutes visit betterhelp.com today to get 10 off your first month that's better help help.com i've never been more disappointed in paul than i am right now

and it's definitely saying something that Josh did not finish Cyberpunk. I made it real close to the end. I think I honestly, I think I was like an hour away from actually completing the game. I'd actually replay it at this point. I've gotten my new monitor since then. The game's probably a lot less buggy. I actually do need to go and replay cyberpunk but i can pretty much assure you that it will not beat witcher 3 in my mind i'm gonna hit you guys with

something else all right combat all right cyberpunk you have so many options for how to fight you have guns swords you've got the mantis claws gorilla arms cattle prods you hack enemies you can go stealth what do you have in the witcher three you've got two swords uh no you've got your different signs you've got your different oils your bombs incredibly underwhelming signs uh you've got skill you actually have to dodge and time things. Dude, I'll tell you this. In Cyberpunk, see this, I heavily disagree with you, and we can't turn this into the Cyberpunk versus Witcher episode.

But in Cyberpunk, all I did was get the big gorilla arm things and just absolutely wreck everybody I came across. There was no difficulty at all in that regard. I'd just run up and punch people, and they'd explode. In Witcher, you can't do that. You actually have to dodge roll. You have to time. I disagree with you completely. I think the combat in Witcher, while it is a little janky, I will not disagree that the movement and combat can be a little janky in The Witcher 3. I still find it much more fulfilling. I think the signs in Witcher 3 are basically an add-on that do not give a whole

lot of benefit. You also have throwables in Cyberpunk. I'm not saying that the combat is vastly better. I'm telling you it gives you more options for how to play. In The Witcher, you just switch between a silver sword and a regular sword. It's just a little pedestrian. That's all I'm saying. Cyberpunk has all of its technical issues because it reached for the sky. Not even the sky, it reached for space. It reached for out of this galaxy and it really struggled from a technical perspective

because of that. But I want to give it the respect it deserves for being as ambitious as it was, even though it was a little bit of a mess at times. I think if you are not using the signs in the Witcher, you're playing on too low of a difficulty and not playing the game right. Oh, I don't know. I left that thing on Igni pretty much the whole time,

and you hardly ever need it. Paul's not a very good Witcher is what I'm hearing. Yeah, toss a coin to some other witcher. Oh, I was a fantastic school. Were you in Paul? Uh, all right,

Michael, please bring us back to reality here. Michael, come in with a hot take that actually makes some sense. Is that what hot take is supposed to do? No, no, I don't think so.

No, but you did insult one of my favorite games of all time, too. I might insult one of your favorite games of all time, too. Oh, bring it. Skyrim was remarkably disappointing. Remarkably. The reason why is that it was a follow up to one of the best games of all time called Oblivion. It didn't have the same character system where the character the NPCs recognize you as you walk around and you have

this triumphant feeling like you're saving the world you're just a dude and no one really cares about you and also the ending i don't even know if it had an ending i talked to a dragon for a little bit i fought it a little bit it was an easy fight and i was like the game's over i think the only good thing about that game that i liked compared to a lot of other open world rpgs is the fact that the world had some stuff in it there was some lively stuff going on and i and for me coming from a person who likes a lot of open world like fantasy arthurian rpgs i still look back after having beaten the game only like three years ago i played it for years and didn't beat it and i look back and i'm like was i too hard on it i'm like no i really wasn't i wasn't fulfilled by the ending i wasn't really fulfilled

by a lot of the a lot of the stuff going on in that game so maybe that's not a very hot take i was just really disappointed by it i know it's very heralded by many so it's kind of a hot take i guess i'm willing i'm willing to come in with a hotter take i think the elder scrolls as a series is vastly overrated i i really enjoyed oblivion but on the whole i do not put it anywhere near the dragon age games to me it's like if you're gonna play fantasy play the real series which is dragon age uh that that's to say i can appreciate the elder scrolls they're good games i do not herald them in the same way everyone else seems to. Josh, I know you like Skyrim quite a bit, but I don't even know if you would really

disagree with Michael either. I like Skyrim better. Honestly, I like all of the Elder Scrolls games, except for Elder Scrolls Online, which I find to be absolutely abysmal. I think it's dumbed down and overly simple and no challenge whatsoever, which makes me sad. But I thought Oblivion was great. I think Skyrim is great. I do not think that Skyrim is drastically worse. I think it does some things better. I got really tired of going around and just closing Oblivion gates all the time. Whereas in Skyrim, I never got tired of fighting a dragon, because that's cool, man! Having a dragon

fly over you and then circle around and stuff was just awesome. Plus, who doesn't want to be dragon-born, man? Well, weren't the quest markers, didn't a lot of people not like that? Because in the previous games, you had to kind of read and pay attention and figure out what to do and where to go.

That was in the early, early games. Yeah, you're thinking like Morrowind type. I know Morrowind didn't. I don't think Oblivion did either, but I could be wrong about that. I think it did, but I might be wrong on that. It's been a long time since I've played. But I mean, if you said, Josh, do you want to play Oblivion or Skyrim? I'm going to pick Skyrim.

You know, like I said, just dragons. Dragons are cool, man. Let me ask you this, Paul, since this is Michael's hot take. Would you rather people call you dragonborn or a hero the hero of kvatch look he's the hero of kvatch or dragonborn i don't know the dragons are great right like you watch game of thrones what are you rooting for the dragons you play dragon age what do you want to fight you want to fight the dragons i do love dragons uh but i also get what michael is saying i do i i i did like oblivion more than skyrim i don't know that skyrim was a disappointment uh but you know they are what they are they're good games they are very good games i i don't think they are superb games.

Don't get me wrong. I'll still play Skyrim, but as a follow-up to Oblivion, I thought it just kind of fell flat in so many ways. The only good parts about it, I thought, were better in Oblivion. Except for the graphics, obviously. But that's a time thing. We can't argue that. Yeah, yeah.

Undisputably, Skyrim is newer. It's going to run better and look better. All right. Well, you know, we're about halfway through this episode. Let's take a short break and hear from one of our sponsors. Today's episode is brought to you by our friends at Eblitz. Okay. You all know how much we talk about trying to remove toxicity from gaming and how we want gamers to be able to come together to share their love of playing video games well eblitz takes that to another level their app helps you find fellow gamers that love the games you play want to find non-toxic friendly

people to play minecraft with how about a killer squad on apex that's friendly and supports each other want to get your rocket League skills on my level? Find a friend on eBlitz you can practice with anytime. No more hoping you get lucky and match with a decent teammate. Take your fate into your own hands and check out the eBlitz app. The eBlitz app makes signups simple. Just enter your email address, your favorite games, and things you like, and it will do the rest.

Once registered, simply start swiping to match with other gamers who share similar interests as you, be it games, platform of choice, country, and more. Never play alone again and create new gaming friends in seconds. Download today for free and it's completely free to use off the App Store or Google Play Store. There's also a link in the episode description all right guys we are back from our break and we are up to josh right josh you get to go next i'm feeling spicy now boys bring it let's hear it got me fired up paul i i just i have to ask i think you and i may have a similar hot take, and I just don't know if you want me to save it for you or if you want me to just jump in here.

Oh. Would you like me to save it for you? No, I think I know what it might be. How about you read yours, and then I will just read the sentence that I wrote down if I know what this is. Okay. All right. My hot take, and I don't honestly, this might be a cool take,

but Elite Dangerous may be one of the worst video games I have ever played in my life. I actually don't have a hot take about Elite Dangerous. This is not a jab at Michael, although I did know that this would get a reaction from him, which it did. But we play a lot of games for this show. And I talked about Elite Dangerous long before we ever covered it. And I said, hey, I know some people hate that game. Some people love that

game. And I thought, maybe I'm one of those people that love it. But having suffered through what Elite Dangerous is, I am squarely in the, I think this might be the most unfun video game I've ever played in my entire life. There's zero fun to be had in it. Everything is overly complicated for zero reason whatsoever. If this is NASA trying to teach me space flight in some hidden simulator, fine. That I can understand. But if this is a video game that's supposed to be fun it's quite possibly the worst one ever made i do think it's very funny that michael cannot get into mass effect one but has no problem running data back and forth for hours on end. I don't run the data. Don't run the data.

It is literally a never-ending stream of fetch quests, like shuttling cargo from one location to another with nothing else in between. It is the definition of work. And when I play video games, I don't want to work. I want to have fun. And the absolute lack of fun in Elite Dangerous was absolutely astounding to me that there's people that enjoy just the chore of shuttling green beans from one space station to another space station or spending 45 minutes trying to track down a little black box so that they can grab it and then tote it back to the space station. I just don't get it.

There's people out there like Michael that are going to be like, dude, I hate you right now. You are correct when you say you don't get it. It's just the whole thing about it is I think you only did the work part of the game. I think you missed 90% of the game. The fantastic story between the Thargoids and the humans, all the things that happen with the political factions

in there, all the fighting, the space fighting is incredible. I've never seen a more realistic dogfighting game in space. The physics that are involved, the exploration when you go explore and you found a new planet that no one's ever found, you put your name on it. There's so much more out there than landing on planets with your rover going around

and discovering new... Let me ask you something, Michael. Let me ask you something. If I told you, Michael, I'm going to kick you between the legs five times in a row, as hard as I can, but in an hour, you're going to have fun.

Would you let me do that? Well, the problem is, no, I would not. Yeah, exactly. There you go. Although I would say that in this case, kicking between the legs, I think is a little bit harsh.

I don't think so. I did offer him multiple times to show you the ropes to play this game with you. I might prefer getting kicked in the family jewels than having to play Elite Dangerous. I think Elite Dangerous is a lot more fun with friends. You guys wanted to play it by yourselves and get the newbie experience. And I think that's just a slight of the game.

You got to come in with friends and just know what to do. Have fun. It works so much better as a clan. That's exactly the point. I like having fun. Well, I hate you. I'm obviously... I mean, you guys already know I'm closer to Josh's side. You're not even closer to Josh.

You're like sitting on the loveseat with him right now, and I'm on the other end of the couch on my own. I don't even get a reclining sofa, dang it. Josh had Elite Dangerous dead last on our leaderboard. I wasn't quite that low. I would have put it a couple spots above, but I was pretty close to it. I just think it's funny that you can't get into Mass Effect, the area you were talking about where you need to get the pass. There's so many funny ways to get that pass.

You can betray people, take on quests, and then betray them. I won't go into all the details or the spoilers, but I find those types of things so much more fun than just flying around in space. And Michael, you were always like, but I'll give you money to buy a better ship. And I'm just always like, yeah, that's not gonna make it any better for me.

That's not what I'm looking for. The opening ship is garbage. I will admit that. Sorry, Michael. That wasn't at you specifically. it's generally just my true feelings for that terrible video stabs my soul but i'll go with it i'll go with it i haven't packed up in my twist off bottle cap of red wine yet so all right paul all right coming in hot you coming in spicy you coming in mild buddy uh i think this is relatively spicy.

All right, here's what I wrote down, guys. Home VR is a fun novelty, but it will never be mainstream. Is this where I'm going to cry? I don't see VR ever going mainstream. I think there's a small niche that love it. I don't know that it's ever going to be in more homes than it is today i think this might be the peak of vr gaming oh i really hope not i really hope i love it so much and i the thing is though is it is work like you do have to like i i what was i playing today i was

playing some titanic simulator where you're in this rover going down and it was really cool but after like two hours i'm like i don't want this thing on my head anymore right now and i and that was disappointing to me because i love i love vr and i played elite dangerous almost exclusively in vr for 800 and some odd hours like i loved it but it's it's after a while you're like i kind of just don't want this thing on my head and i think that's the way i think it's getting stale like i think i don't want to agree with you because i don't want to be true but i also think you are quite frankly probably right that this is the peak and we're not going to see a lot more innovation we're not going to see a lot more happening i i that makes me sad but i'm not i don't disagree with that take either

the thing the thing for me and i don't know that it's able to be overcome, is that I think VR needs to take a huge technological leap forward for people to enjoy it more. Every time I put on my Oculus Quest, I enjoy the game I play, but I feel like I'm playing some cartoony, very dumbed down experience of a game because it just doesn't have the ability to look really good, to sound really good. I think the technology is incredible, but until they can get to where VR is high definition, wide field of view, 120 frames per second,

I don't know that it's ever going to fully catch on. But the problem is to get to that point, people need to fully adopt it to make these companies able to get to that point. So I think you're stuck in that catch-22. I don't disagree with you, man. It's either going to fizzle out or a company like Facebook is going to invest $10 billion to just force its way there anyway. And honestly, I hope they do because I don't want to see it die. But you might be right. And I think to Josh's point, which I'll support, even though I kind of hate him right now.

Well, kind of is a weak word. Let your anger flow, Michael. There are only probably a half a dozen games that really look really good, but they only look really, really good if you spend $1,000 and get the best VR. And then you still have not that full field of view. You're still limited to almost like you're wearing goggles of some kind. And then take case in point. Skyrim VR.

Loved it as far as a vr experience like i know i just pooped all over skyrim a few minutes ago but as far as a vr experience it was fun um you know i had to mod it a little bit to make arrows have weight and stuff but the fact that you don't have like weight on a sword and a shield it feels kind of wonky and weird to me and fallout was unplayable like the guns didn't like it's you're like waving them around they're just flopping around like but to make that work you can buy a haptic feedback vest and gloves which like change the weight and stuff the problem is they're like five thousand dollars so to make it realistic enough to where you're truly feeling like you're immersed and not just wearing something on your

head that's goggles you have to put out more money than any of us have or any average gamers except for that guy that dropped a hundred thousand dollars and he only likes mobile gaming is like diablo immortal i do like experiences i don't remember the exact name but there's the star wars one that you can do in vegas yeah where you wear the full suit and they have a whole building devoted to it so you're actually running around and doing things i think that kind of stuff is fantastic and really immersive. But to me, VR at home is like going to the movies to watch a 3D movie. Like 3D movies have been around since, I don't know, like the 30s, I think.

And I hate having to wear 3D glasses at the movie theater. I don't want to do it. And I remember getting into debates with our good friend Andy when I said, home 3D TVs are not going to take off because no one wants to wear the glasses. No one wants to charge the glasses and have to wear them. And I always said, once they create a 3D TV where you can sit anywhere and it's just a curved screen that's taking care of it, maybe it'll have a chance and i feel the same way about vr as long as as i have to put on a goofy headset and when i take it off

i look like a complete moron with a giant red strap across my forehead so sweaty and it gets really sweaty and the the they only last like two hours at best if you're playing a graphically intensive game i'm gonna go as far as to say i don't know that vr is really gonna take off until you get into really futuristic stuff where it's sending brain signals directly into my brain where i am actually seeing tasting and feeling things i think that's when it's really gonna take off and it'll be huge i i i think people are always gonna have a struggle putting on physical equipment and i i just i don't know i like that paul literally just plugged himself into the matrix right there like when you could start making me think that

it's reality right then i'm on board there's there's i remember as a kid i was probably way too young to see the movie but my dad showed me a movie called, I think it was called Brainstorm, and it had Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood. And it's where they create these helmets, and it's just The Matrix, literally. And they can record people's experiences, and then you can just replay them, and you actually are feeling and living as that person and then of course immediately people get sucked too much into it and now they're just living in virtual worlds and i think that'll be like a real problem once we get to that point but that's when i think you're finally going to see vr really take off i want to plug into the matrix 100 i would too and i would like christopher walking to be there with me as well that would be sure be like pow your world is reality wow um that's all i can do is pals and wows with him um that's perfect yeah so sub sub uh hot take to that the funniest thing about vr is

the best vr game is not a game at all it's google earth vr because you can just like fly around like superman and stand on top buildings and it's incredible so and it's free which is ironic that it's like well it's just case in point like it yeah yeah well we probably have enough time for all of us to do one more hot take each so michael we are back to you you got your final one for us gonna do what am i gonna do you have to whittle them down i've got two more i was hoping to get to both but or just go quick if you go quick i'll go okay this one will go real quick then um quick time events are the most poorly executed thing in gaming oh i agree 100 period they have no place outside of story-based games. If they're ever an action-based game, it's absolutely lazy,

lazy developing. Why, Lara Croft, after you fought everything and did all these things and jumped, am I using the left bumper to dodge a rock that's coming at me? Or to grab that ledge. I can go quick with that one, and then we can

come back around real quick. I'll do another quick one, because I've got a quick one, too. Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing suck. I knew that one was coming. That is a hot take. Both very popular games. Their work veiled as progression without any actual progression. You just get decorations and maybe the chance to catch a new bug or something

for all of the work that you put in. I think they're absolutely terrible video games. Do you think Elite Dangerous is better? I hate both of them. No. I will say it's easier for me to swallow that pill for Animal Crossing. Stardew Valley has a lot to do with combat in the mines, traveling to the other island, growing different rarity crops and you get to be a winemaker in your basement and make a ton of money work uh the the fighting

in the mines was the best part of stardew valley to me sure like the going down more and more levels it was like the only enjoyable part of that game and even then that was pretty basic combat well yeah you know me stardew valley is one of my all-time favorites animal crossing i can get why people would find it very boring all right here's a quick one paul all right if you're forcing me to do a another quick one i'm gonna say all the sonic games are really bad, except for the music. Wait, what? I don't disagree, Paul! I don't think Sonic games are fun. I think out of all the platformers, Sonic's just kind of nonsensical.

It just moves fast, and you just jump over stuff, or you jump on stuff. You can't even come close to comparing it to the Mario games. I'm sorry, Sonic, i've never totally gotten i was super excited about i found like sonic on playstation store for like two dollars i forget what it was and i was so excited i'm like yeah i play sonic again i played for like three minutes and was like this is not what i remember as a kid and i don't want to play this anymore i was a sega guy i didn't have a nintendo i had a sega and so you think I would love Sonic. I get that people like him, but I'm with you, Paul, in that I think he's one of the most

overrated video game characters. And the games are very repetitive and not all that great. Yeah. And Sonic Frontiers that's coming out looks atrocious to me. It does not look good. It's one of the rare examples where i would say the movies are actually better than the games yeah and the games are revered um but i just think they don't have a lot of complexity there's not a whole lot to do in in the sonic games so yep i know a lot of people

love them though yeah you might catch some flack for that one yeah they're very popular i mean it carried a whole console basically by itself. All right, Michael. I know I'm getting flack for this one. And we'll go somewhat quick on this one as well, because I don't want to have to defend it for too long, because I don't want people to hate me too much. JRPGs are terrible compared to Western RPGs. They typically have horrible writing.

They're confusing. They're often way too long. And they're and that's final fantasy 7 included i'm fine talking about this a couple minutes i think the biggest problem with jrpgs is that they are so over inflated with how long you have to play them because of the random encounters that's's exactly right. It really inflates these games where there's really like 13 hours of content, but you have to play it 100 hours. They feel extraordinarily bloated. The grind is built into them. And I think people nowadays don't necessarily enjoy having to grind levels just to progress.

Like it's artificial gating almost to where it's like you can't progress in this game until you spend three hours doing random things so that you can then progress yeah and i i just i feel like that kind of hits on the way too long and then they feel outdated it feels like it feels like the the recipe's been the same for 20 years on those and they haven't really progressed past that whereas i feel like and again i've probably played a lot more western rpgs i feel like there's a lot more variety there's a lot more different like it's like well yeah cookie is a cookie yeah but white chocolate macadamia and like an oatmeal cookie are so different i guess they're really similar kind of but

you get what i'm saying there i was say, don't you slander my oatmeal raisin cookie. All cookies are good. I think. I do not like raisins and cookies, though. I'm with you on this. Give me an action RPG or a CRPG any day. I used to love JRPGs, but I found as I get older that they all

feel the same to me. They all feel very bloated. I don't want to have to go through 18 menus in combat just to activate some random thing that they decided they wanted to put into the game. They didn't feel that way back in the day because you didn't have access to as many games as we do now. And when we were all kids with friends who had a PlayStation 1, or maybe you guys had a PlayStation 1, playing Final Fantasy guys had a PlayStation 1, playing Final Fantasy VII was a lot of fun because it was a pretty groundbreaking game, and the cutscenes were incredible, and I loved the story, and I loved the characters. And when you didn't have a lot of games to play, you had to play that one game for a couple months,

or maybe until your next birthday or the next christmas and so they didn't feel bloated at the time but the model does definitely feel kind of goofy playing it today i don't think that they've aged terribly well but they're still cranking them out so there's clearly an audience but i think all of us are at a place where we would just rather play an open world rpg or something else that's different, but I'm with you. I think final fantasy seven is a great game. I find that it has not aged terribly well. All right,

boys, this might, this might, we might lose a few listeners here. Oh man. This is perhaps, this is perhaps my spiciest take. Our listeners suck.

No, man. Is that your hot take? How dare you not leave us a review? Nintendo is simultaneously one of my least favorite developers, and yet they do a lot of things right. Yeah, I get what you mean. They're the McDonald's of video games. They're masters of advertising like McDonald's. And yet there's just not a lot under the surface. Well, and like, you know, some positives, right?

Like I did say, I like some of the things they do. Their games always work. They're hardly ever buggy, right? Like when they release a game, hey, this game is polished. It works. You know exactly what you're going to get. They run well on whatever console that they released on and the games are memorable and streamlined. But at the same time, it's kind of like a McDonald's burger where it's like, dude, this burger sucks, man. Like I know what I'm getting, but compared to every other burger out there, this is like bottom of the barrel as far as the burger out there this is like bottom of the

barrel as far as the burgers go and then like some of the negatives why i say they're one of my least favorite developers is they take forever to make a game they fall into the incremental improvement that they charge 60 for i'm looking at you mario kart smash brothers and all of these other series that nintendo does and then they charge 60 for a game that's only marginally better and they never go on discount yeah and that was that was literally my next point is they absolutely never go on discount uh and honestly a lot of their characters are boring mario while iconic and i'm not trying to take away from mario is a boring video game character he's a normal dude.

He's just a plumber. It's just, he's like, if any other developer tried to make Mario as like their lead character, people would laugh them off the planet at this point. But Nintendo's a master at advertising. Um, and so,

you know, I think their consoles honestly are super overpriced. They're underpowered. Uh, I'm, I'm not saying I don't enjoy Zelda and Mario games because I do. But when I think of like, hey, what's a hot take? I don't like Nintendo for a developer. I think that they just... I don't like them, man. Yeah. I think when you hit it on the head when you made the McDonald's comparison, I guess even the colors, because you kind of see red and yellow all over Nintendo and stuff. But

when I think of it it's like sometimes i crave mcdonald's sometimes i crave a nintendo game but then after i do it i don't i don't feel so great i feel like i could have done something else maybe maybe another choice would have been much better and i've been more satisfied maybe i wouldn't feel like this weird pit in my stomach anymore i don't feel so good i have felt awfully lukewarm on nintendo ever since the wii came out and the wii was what the second most successful selling console of all time i think i think so and i always felt like the wii was really overrated i thought it was novel it was kind of fun to play every now and again for a few minutes. But when your technology is so far behind everyone else, your games are automatically going to suffer a little bit.

And for me, I was trying to think, when's the last time I got really excited about anything in the Nintendo world? And there's one thing I can think of in the last five years. Bowser's Fury. Bowser's Fury is so good. and it's because they tried something completely new. It was like, what would an open world Mario game actually look like? And we're going to throw in heavy metal music, we're going to make Bowser more like Godzilla than like Bowser, and we're going to rain down storm clouds and lightning, and you're going to rain down storm clouds and lightning and you're going to have to battle this Godzilla-type Bowser. And that was a lot of fun. So they can, every once in a while, still have lightning in a bottle

and I hope they lean into that more. But Mario Galaxy was great. And after that, what did Mario Odyssey really bring to the table that wasn't already there before? The hat? the hat's not that great right what have they done lately not much and i think what they've done lately has really upset me and i know i know we're short on time so i'll try to keep this quick but i have three children in my house i have three switches if i want to buy a game and they're

going to play it together because nintendo has like this proprietary thing with their games and they never go on sale, I got to buy three $60 games. I wish that the Steam Deck came out a couple of years ago because you can get them for about the same price now, the Wii and the base model Steam Deck. And I could buy games on Steam all day long. My kids could play together as opposed to buying three copies of something like minecraft where they've got to play like you know 60 bucks each and it's just frustrating because that proprietary thing where nintendo knows that their games are only offered on their system and for the most part right that's pretty much it yeah and if my kids want to play it but again it's that marketing piece i want to play mario i want to play peach yeah yeah and i mean

ultimately they're still made for kids right like kirby games are never going to give any of us a challenge but if you're five years old eight years old you love playing as kirby so it's like i get it we're just not really the market but maybe we've just outgrown nintendo maybe that's what it kind of comes down to it might be all right bring us home buddy my last one i'm sorry michael this is where i thought josh was going oh man i thought i was gonna cry twice already what do you got what do you have left in the tank i'm i'm really sorry about this one michael all right here's what i wrote down the original mist while good in 1993 was a novel technological achievement as one of the first CD-ROM games,

it's actually kind of just a boring slideshow. Oh, Michael has left the podcast. Michael is gone. He's throwing things around his room. Oh, man. Michael, I am really sorry. The remakes of Myst, I think, have added a lot more to it i'm not saying it's still in that place i know you can play it in vr i am talking about trying to play the original

93 today it's really just a boring slideshow uh you know i'm not sure if that's a hot take because you're a hundred percent right and i hate to say it like no that's why i like that's why i really like what they did in 2020 where they put it in the unreal engine and you can actually walk around it's the same puzzles but they've optimized them a little bit um and and this is a case of again it's just it technology changes like that was revolutionary at the time early everyone bought a cd-rom in order to play mist yeah it was the best-selling game in the world until the sims came out 11 years later and so yeah well what you're saying is absolutely

sacrilegious uh and it's it's not true it's also very true and nobody heard me say that here's a picture and i say right and it's like here's a picture you know like i get that it was revolutionary at the time and with the audio and everything. But man, when you look at it today, it's like, why did this sell 6 million copies? It's not that great. And honestly, don't ever go back and play the original again. If you've played it before and you play the 2020 version, you remember, you think you're playing the original and then you go and you Google screenshots of what the original looked like, and you're like, what?

You remembered it completely wrong, right? Yeah. It's very funny. Yeah, but yeah, you're right. And I don't like what you said, but it doesn't hurt as much as the Elite Dangerous comment. I was going to say, poor Michael. Two of the hot takes today have been complete jabs at like two of his

favorite games of all times. I think there was a third one, too, that we put in there. I forget which one it was, but there was a third one that hurt. Oh, the VR one. Oh, VR. Way of the Hunt. Call of the Wild is a terrible video game. You never played it. No, I know. I'm just kidding. It's a great video game. I just wanted to see what else I could tack on

to be on my trail. You take your face and you bury it in your beard just cover your face with your beard and shut it oh man all right well i i think we lost all our listeners guys there's nobody left i don't think we should release this episode i really don't like i think i think this if you're listening to this it's called the lost episode and it's because we probably canceled the show we said whatever it will we'll just run a rewind right like hey remember when we covered elden ring guys let's run i stand by all my takes fellas i got no i got no shame or remorse yeah uh so everyone out there go pick up cyberpunk 2077 don't play our classic g's uh don't yeah refund refund

oh man but play elite dangerous it's really good uh if you hate yourself sure so yes thank you to everyone out there for listening thank you to all our patreon supporters thank you to eblitz uh we really appreciate all the support from the community if you would like to help support the show go check out our patreon at multiplayer squad.com also follow us on socials everywhere at multiplayer pod and i think we're done guys so we will come back together on thursday hopefully all of our wounds have healed and we'll talk about this week in gaming. I got a, I got a hot take for you. Cheers all. Oh, see everybody.

See you next time.