Video Gamers Podcast - [DEEP DIVE] Star Wars Galactic Racer – Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan, and Ace are putting the pedal to the metal as they race into the Star Wars universe with Star Wars: Galactic Racer! Does this high-speed adventure deliver the adrenaline rush Star Wars fans have been craving, or does it crash and burn? We're breaking down the racing mechanics, intense competition, and everything that makes this one of the most exciting racing video games in recent memory. From heated debates to our official ratings, we're putting this gaming experience to the test! Can it stand alongside the best racing video games, or is the gaming hype running on fumes? Find out on the Video Gamers Podcast!     Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps, Bobby S, NorwegianGreaser, Dettmarp, DingusKhaaan and NightWizard63   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: Milkman, Drewsky, Jigglepuf and BadGam3rDad   Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: ⁠patreon.com/videogamerspod⁠ Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/h2cHKAvSmu Follow us on Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/⁠  Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@videogamerspod Follow us on X:⁠ https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod⁠  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod     Visit us on the web:⁠https://videogamerspod.com/⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At Capital One, we don't just use technology. We architect it. Our teams have true end-to-end product ownership, shipping distributed systems that handle high concurrency at scale. No single-server bottlenecks, engineered beyond legacy downtime, and operating right here in downtown Toronto. That's Technology at Capital One. Search Technology at Capital One, Canada.

Oh, fellow racers, and welcome to the VideoG gamers' Pondon. It's time to fire up the afterburners, engage the autopilot, and make sure you hit that perfect start, because today we're covering the recent release of Galactic Racer. We've been hyped for this game, but does it live up to our lofty expectations? Well, we're about to find out, but first, some introductions are in order. I am your host Josh, and joining me, he's the malice Vazazazaz. I can't even say his freaking name. He's the malice Vazos of the group, a thuggish and mean racer who wants nothing more than to punish people on the track. It's Ryan.

I don't even know how to respond to that. You can't even say who I am properly. You're the burly, you're the Trandoshan guy. The lizard-looking dude with like the ridges on his face. No, I know. But like I'm just like, I also want to say, um, The physical appearance, like things that the people do in the Star Wars universe, crazy.

Absolutely crazy. Like, who would put, like, bars on their mustache so that it hangs down and then, like, you have the bar? Like, I just, that would be so comfortable. I mean, think about all the different cultures you have when you have, like, 500 different alien races. You know, they do some weird stuff. I guess.

Look at humans. Dude, we ride roller coasters and fling ourselves off of mountains for fun. Think about what aliens would think of us. They roll up. They're like, stupidest people. What are these humans doing? What the heck? Get back on the ship.

Get back on the ship. Fly away. Get on here. And joining us, he's definitely the bitty blas of the group because I have a feeling he's going to be throwing out a lot of gibberish and stupid phrases on this episode. It's a scripting. No, there it is. Way news.

Oh, man. Okay. Well, yeah, Biddy Blas and some of his sayings are definitely going to make an appearance here on this episode in a little bit. Guys, it's time to talk about Galactic Racer. This was one of our most anticipated games of the year. It came out. We got to play it. We streamed it for the first night.

So anybody that caught the stream kind of got to see. We go straight into multiplayer. I mean, we did like. Like, I did one race of like testing out what this game was. And then the three of us were like, let's, let's do it. And so if you want to watch that stream, you can. But that was our first foray into Galactic Racer was live in front of everybody. We had an absolute blast playing it and kind of just discovering the game.

But we have all put in a decent bit of time on this now. And it is time to talk about what this game is, you know, how it landed with us, what works, what doesn't work. if it's worth the money and get our ratings on this as well. But before we get to that, guys, we got some people to thank. And we got a few people to thank. And, you know, for anybody that's new, anytime somebody signs up to support the podcast, we are listener supported. One of the ways that we say thank you for your support is to thank people on the show.

So we want to give a huge shout out to Griffin Brum for signing up for rare status. So Griffin, thank you so much for. supporting the podcast. And then guys, we have not one, not two, but three new epic members to thank. So we are going to start off with the King of Lur. That sounds like a Star Wars name right there. Ben Bunker, who has been a member of their community for a long time, and Giovanni Misano for signing up for epic status.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. Your support means the world to us. We could not do this podcast without the support of the listeners. So thank you to all of you and everybody else out there that supports the show. And then before we get to our thoughts on Galactic Racer, Ryan, you got a review for us, I believe.

I do. I do. I have another amazing, amazing review. We love our reviews. We read all the reviews. We look at every single one. Every time one comes through. it brightens our day

and we love it so especially when we can kind of hit it in the morning and kind of start our day with an awesome review so if you have not left one please do it really means a lot it helps us out and we appreciate it this one is a five star review coming from Markymark

836 titled the best gaming pod out there and it reads as follows been listening for a little while now and it is always great to hear the guys break down the latest gaming news while also talking about past gaming experiences from their different intros to gaming

to the games they consider the best and worse and the variety in episodes like Jeopardy and building a team for some crazy scenario. As a 29-year-old gamer, I have to give a shout out to Ace. Excuse me. for getting me more interested into indies. Generally having similar gaming interests, thank God you finally played Red Dead Redemption 2.

And holding it down with these elderly hosts coming at you. Yeah, I'm not a fan of that one. That gravelly intro, Josh does, really sets up my morning commute slash comment. run. Ryan always seems to commit to the bit with a character voice or outfit and I much more prefer camping as well. Not a fan of that part. Always love the banter between you all and the perspective for why something is good or bad in your opinion. Happy gaming. Oh, that's great. I'm a little indifferent about this. You got double tapped on that. I'm a little indifferent. This was the compliment sandwich thing we were just talking about. It was like, hey, this is really good.

by the way you guys are old and then by the way you're really good but Ryan you're not good at hunting but it's a couple of a sandwich well thank you marky mark eight thank you for the review uh you know reviews are super important to us they're important to gamers that are looking for a podcast so one of the reasons we read these on the show is to say thank you and to encourage people to leave a review so if you have not done that yet you can do that over on apple podcast if you listen on spotify you can rate us five stars It really does help us and it helps other gamers find us, which is something we all want. All right, guys, let's get into Galactic Racer. I want to just come out of the gate on this.

We're going to be making a lot of racing terms here. This is, you know, I was so excited about this game. It was literally at the top of my hype meter. And I'm just going to start off by saying this game is freaking fantastic. in my opinion. I've had so many people ask me, like, is it everything you wanted? People at work,

because they've heard me hyping it up. People in our Discord community, you know, have seen the chatter. There's a lot of people playing this game right now. And I can't hold it in. I think this game is great. It is exactly, I mean,

exactly what I was hoping for in a game called Galactic Racer that obviously takes its influence from the old Nintendo 64 Pod Racer, which I played a ton of with my budget, buddies. I'm going to date myself here, but when I was in high school, I was playing that with them. We would stay up till the wee hours of the morning doing things that we probably shouldn't be doing playing Galactic rate or playing pod racer and seeing who could, you know,

get the fastest time and things like that. And then lo and behold, this game releases and what do I see? I see our community posting their time on the leaderboard for different races and everybody trying to beat that time. And it was such a throwback moment to me. of like trying to beat your buddies in Podracer. Yeah. Like this is this is, it's like literally everything I loved about that and everything I wanted in this game. It does not mean that it's a perfect game.

So I'm going to, you know, let's just, you know, temper expectations a little bit. We'll get into that. But people have been asking and I go, dude, this game is great. It is one of the best racing games I have seen in a while. If you are into that. Now some people are not into that.

I think we might have one on this show. We might know someone like that. Do we know anybody on this show that was like, I don't think I want to play a day anymore. I wasn't impressed. Someone who used to be on the show. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, because we want people that like fun games around here.

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know that this was fun. All right, Ace. Well, I said my piece. Give your opinion on this game. I will say, all right, we streamed Galactic Grace. it drop and I actually did have a great time doing that. We did that for like three, three or four hours.

It was wild, yeah. Yeah, like we had a great time and that was awesome doing the, you know, the, we did the tours, we did the regular races, we did the pod racing. Oh, that was a great time. Then, like, on this weekend, I was just trying to play it by myself, just like trying to just do the A versus AIs and things like that. I couldn't get into it. I was so bored.

I was so bored instantly. How could you be bored going a thousand miles an hour, eight? This is what baffles me. I'm sorry. I don't want to push left every now and then. What were you ending on your races? Like, were you winning everything? First and second.

And I was on like the ace. Did you go all the way? Did you go to the hardest difficulty? The one unlocked. Yeah, because it only had, it only unlocks up to ace at first. Yeah. I think it could beat the game to unlock the rest.

It starts, it starts you off easy. And then it gets real. Like I, I'm going to say right now, I would bet money that you cannot be Kester Bull. I don't the in the final race, dude. I want to like, if somebody's kid has ever named Kester. Bull. I don't want it away.

Even if the kids like six years old, I'm going to punch this little Kester bull in the face. That's what I'm going to do. Yeah, it's like, it's like Kuno from from Disco Elysium. It's like, dude, I hate that character so much. I'm also right. So, Ace, I mean, I'm not a huge Star Wars guy either. We'll just say that now. Not a huge Star Wars guy these days. You just keep getting worse on this episode, age.

I like everything. I forgot. I've always been more of a Lord of the Rings guy and more into that kind of stuff. That's not. You can know you can have both. You can't like both. I don't have to like both. Just saying you could be both. Like,

if I'm going to, I want to invest my time in a property is that don't get worse with every installment. All right. Okay. Now that is fair. But hey, I actually saw an article that said what Disney tried to do with like Marvel and Star Wars movies that failed horrifically.

They're actually kind of doing with Star Wars games because they're kind of working with like Zero Company and Galactic Racer. Maybe not to AIS who, you know, We all know It doesn't look fine. Zero company I might have liked. I like tactics games. Yeah.

But you didn't like your company. You know what? We pick on you, but this is an absolutely fair assessment. There are people that have different game tastes. We know people. I mean, we have people in our community.

We have a community of almost 1,500 gamers right now. If you're not in it, you're missing out. But we get opinions. We have some long time community members. I don't want to call anybody out, Bobby, that don't like this game either.

And, you know, tried it and basically. You know, they got caught up in the hype, which a lot of people did. And then Bobby played it. I'm not going to call anybody up by name Bobby. And then said, like, dude, this isn't for me. Like, I don't normally play racing games. I get that people are excited.

It seems like a cool game, but I'm just not having fun. And I think, you know, as gamers, that is absolutely a fair take. So what is it, AIS? As somebody that feels that way, like, where is the like, I just not having a good time with this? I want to hear this. I don't know, man. I just don't enjoy it unless I'm playing it with other people. Everybody sit back and listen.

Not built for more than four people at a time. Or three people actually. It's three people at time at the current recording. It'll eventually be six. It should be 12, but it's not. It should, yeah. But he's like, that's where my hype from this was coming from was being able to play it with other people. And then, you know, we streamed it.

I had a great time when we were streaming it. I thought it was going to have a great time playing the campaign and doing the rogue like stuff. It just didn't hit for me, which is it repetitive? It is. It's very, it just gets repetitive. And, like, because I was trying to do one of the scenarios, the whole scenario is just the same map with different number of laps. And I'm just like, what's fun about this?

You've put acid on both side of the track. So every time I miss a drift by, like, point, 0.1 centimeters, like, shoot up. Acid levels. I hate the acid levels. They are. Corroted explosion. Buh, and you just blow up. I also feel like it's really hard to recover in this game when you crash.

Like really. That is true. So don't crash. That's fair. Mr. I get first place every time. This was shocked us because, Ryan,

we were there. Ace, like all of a sudden starts just walking in. And then we're like, Ace, you came in first. Way too hard. Way too hard.

One of us expected this. And all of a sudden, ACE is just blowing past everybody, like placing first and second. So this is not a good scrub kind of moment. This is, it is at its core. This is an arcade game.

This is a racing game, which some people find very repetitive. You know, as much as I'd love to pick on Ace, I don't like Sim Racers at all. I find them to be insanely boring. And I get that some people love them. Now, I do love me an arcade racer. So I get it, Ace.

You know, it's one of those things where not every game is for everybody. I think that the people that were not interested in this want to hear kind of some reinforcement there to say, hey, you know, if you found it repetitive, if you found it to where it's just not fun, you know, there's a valid, that's a valid opinion. Yeah, it's like, which I don't like, but it's a valid opinion. I can still recognize the quality of the game, which I'll get into later when we're talking about it.

Like, I see the good things of this game. I'm not just looking at it and saying like, it's bad. I don't think it's a bad game. I think it's a game that's not for me. All right. Ryan, I gave my opinion, Ace gave his opinion. You know, you've been playing this. You put in the time on this.

What is your opinion on this game? Well, first of all, I want to say that, you know, know, I would, I'll say that just because Ace didn't like it, like, doesn't mean that ACE has any idea what he's talking about. Oh, yeah. That's fair. No, I'm kidding. Uh, it was, I, for me, let's, let's just preface it with this.

I am a little tired today because I was up until after 2 a.m. playing galactic racer uh i was i was playing with greggisoris our uh good old homie and teafels until probably about midnight and then i hopped on after that and i wanted to beat the main campaign stuff and go as far as i could like get trying to cap like first on everyone or doing certain things and like getting the perfect build and and that's what i love so much about this game and we're going to get into the all of this but i i could could not stop playing. And I had to be up at 6 a.m.

for work today, which I did. You know, pat on the back, Ryan. Good job. Good job, Brian. You went to work and you did your stuff. But I have not stayed up like late, late to play a game or I guess early, early in a very, very long time. And that's what this game did for me. That'll tell you how much I love it.

It's amazing. It's everything I wanted it to be too. major issues that I will talk about and that we will speak on. But other than that, it's, I freaking love this game, dude. Yeah. All right. Well, listen, we're going to talk, we're going to break down a little bit about the game. You get some different vehicles.

There are some different modes. There's a campaign mode. There's multiplayer mode. There's, this is an arcade game. There's not, this isn't super deep. So it's not going to really take a whole lot to get into. But we're going to talk about that right after this break. At Capital One, we don't just use technology.

We architect it. Our teams have true end-to-end product ownership, shipping distributed systems that handle high concurrency at scale. No single-server bottlenecks, engineered beyond legacy downtime, and operating right here in downtown Toronto. That's Technology at Capital One. Search Technology at Capital One, Canada. All right, we're back.

one thing that we didn't talk about is uh is stupid bitty blocks going viral on this thing out of the way now best part of the game best part of the game for people that stayed through the commercial break this is what we're going to do we're going to ace you sent me a video i have met this character you get to talk to people in this kind of like pre-race zone on each planet where you're not in your racer and you can kind of walk around and listen in on conversations and stuff it's that's a neat little touch. It's, it doesn't do a whole lot other than just you're not on a track the whole time. But you talk to Biddy Blas, who has taken over the internet. Ace, you sent me this stupid video because I was like, why is this guy taking over the internet? And then I listened to this

thing and I was like, okay, I kind of get it. I hate it. It's in my brain now. I can't get rid of it. It's a brain word. And because it's in my brain, we're going to put it in your brain, everybody, because here you go. This is what Ace sent me. Whata you know Bon Parachuba, be donkey Bidi blaze to nai amo

Chonechute Nai Amo Wanghi Ritibo Raraman Like what is this Nonsense Man Like what

And listen It's Like It's the dumbest Dengar Dumbus Dumbus And like

If you listen to it Like two times It's like It lives in your brain forever. It's just stuck now. It's forever. I was literally walking around work today. And it would just pop into my head. I was like,

this is, Josh, this is why, this is why Ace, I respect to you as a man and as a game reviewer. And I think you have a lot of really good, interesting takes. This is why your take on Galactic Racer is completely irrelevant. Because that's your favorite part.

Because I like Biddy Blas. Yeah, that's your favorite part. And then it makes everything else you say. That's not my accent. No, and void game. But it's my favorite thing I got out of this game. All right.

Well, let's get into the heart of the game here. You're in the Galactic League. You're racing. This is, it's an arcade racer. I mean, plain and simple. You have a choice of three different vehicles. The game gives you these Star Wars vehicles. You have your land speeder, which is classic from Star Wars.

That's Obi-1's land speeder from episode four. You have a speeder bike, all of the scout trooper bikes that you see in Return of the Jedi, flying through Endor. And then you have this thing called a skim speeder. Now, I'll be honest, I'm a pretty decent Star Wars fan, and I don't know that skim speeders

actually exist in Star Wars canon or not. But the skim speeder is kind of a cross between the two, in a sense. Like, it's almost like a speeder bike if you put, like, wings and a front end on it. And each vehicle controls differently. So you do have some variety in how you actually like to approach the game.

Ace, don't you tell people about the landspeeder? Like, what is the, you know, what is the benefits and the kind of detriments of the landspeeter? How does it handle? And why would somebody want to play that? I mean, I feel like the landspeeter is your basic vehicle. It's got the drift.

It's got a shield usually pre-equipped, at least most of the time. Whenever I had it, it had a shield all the time, which you kind of want a shield in this game. Like, if you don't have a shield in this game, you're in for a bad time. Especially when you're playing elimination. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. No, yeah.

The land speeder is your basic car vehicle, basically, and then you just go on from there to be slightly more complicated because I prefer the speeder bike. The speeder bike was way more fun. It felt faster. You could do the drift, and when you ended on the drift, it would actually take off with a boost,

which was way more satisfying than just hitting a drift. What they call it kinetic burst? Yeah, kinetic burst, which it's just the freaking boost from Mario Kart. I was just going to say that's what it is, It's that little side boost, the drift boost, then you can boost off. So whenever I had the option to use anything, I would use the speeder bike. Yeah, skim speeder. That's all you too.

I didn't touch that thing. Oh, you didn't touch the skim speeder? Well, I'll talk about the skim speeder, too. The turning with it confused me. Oh, I love it. Yeah. Do you like the skims? Well, you tell the people, Ryan, tell people what the skim speeder is and why it's fantastic.

So every, every vehicle has, I mean, I guess from the main three, aside from the pod racers. You have like an abilities and in ways it drives and everything. And then with the skim speeder as all the vehicles, you have a drift or or some way to navigate the turns a little bit more. The cool thing with the skim speeder is you have this like side drift turn thing where you can actually just like kick to the side and you go sideways. Yeah. And you just go completely, you know, you know, not inverted like Tom Cruise, but like you go, you go. You know, you. go sideways and you can go around these corners so tight if you if you line it up properly to where you can really get ahead in that race or whatever you know what if whatever you're

doing in that in that moment so I love the skim speeder I felt a connection to that one more than the other vehicles like I like the other ones I like the bike I like I like the the regular kind of racer car but the skim speeder is the one that really nobody really made me yeah Whatever those other things were, it doesn't matter. Who cares about the landspeeder? Whatever. Landspeeter is my least favorite. Yeah, I don't care about it.

Far and away. Because with the bike, too, because there's a lot, and, again, we may or may not get into it. Like, there's parts of the map where you need to go through these, like, feeding channels that are, like, these tunnels. And so you need something small, like a lands, like a, not a landspeeder, but like the bike. So some things make sense, but far and away, for me, the, the, the, the, the, you know, being able to do all that. Like, it was, it was so cool, man. It made it, it made it feel unique.

Like, the racing felt cool. Yeah, that's the thing I like the most is that each vehicle truly does feel different. You can be good at any of them. You can excel with certain ones, you know, but it really does help you kind of lean into your style of racing. I like the skim speeder because I like to take a corner at a thousand miles an hour. The land speeder's tanky. If you like being like a bruiser and crashing people out,

the land speeder is honestly the way to go. And if you like just really quick bursts of acceleration, but maybe not the best top speed in the game, you know, that's where the speeder bike comes in. So it's like they kind of, the vehicles really cater to how you want to play the game. And then we have the rogue like elements.

And, you know, it would be really easy to kind of go super deep on this. But we don't want to spoil some of this stuff for people. And sometimes just that kind of evolution of like going through a race and kind of getting a build going. that's very possible in this game but the roguelike elements are one of those things that people go like how does that fit in a racing game

like how do you have roguelike elements in a racing game and it just works man like we said before this this is how you brought the old pod racer game into 26 and made it feel current and modern and that's these roguelike elements and in this case what happens is

as you play through the campaign or even the multiplayer tours, which I think is a phenomenal touch in the multiplayer. Every time you complete a race, you earn a little bit of credits and you get to pick an upgrade. And you can upgrade the stats on your vehicle and or sometimes it's both. Sometimes it's one because you don't have enough money. You can install a part and these parts do a wide variety of things. I mean, between letting you engage your ramjet more often or you redline, which is where you're about to explode your ramjet, which is your nitrous boost, if you want to call it that.

to like ion mines, concussion mines that you can drop and hopefully somebody runs over to weird things where it's like if you get a perfect landing, you refill your afterburner instantly and things like that. And there's, I mean, dozens and dozens and dozens of these things so that every race, every time you click start on the campaign or you join a new multiplayer tour, you don't know what you're going to end up with. And to me, that's where this game avoids some of the rest. repetition, Ace, this is where I, you know, I, like, I disagree with you a little bit because

every race felt different to me because I wound up with a different build and a different style for that race. And to me, that's like the, okay, well, that made this race fun, you know, and then, or the campaign fun, because you're going to fail the campaign people. Kester Bull is a turd and you're going to fail. And then you have to start over again kind of thing. So the Rogue-like elements to me really made this game kind of stand out as a modern racing game, in my opinion. It's kind of interesting. That's how we've modernized games these days. We bring them back and then we just throw roguike elements in them.

I'm here for that, though, dude. They've always got something new going on. It's just funny. It's that easy. It's masterful. It's that easy to bring a game back. It really is. Like, yeah, it's like every time, just the subtle changes of having extra boost. Or when you land, you get a five second charge and you goes faster.

Like when you do a perfect landing. So every time you land, then all of a sudden, boom, you hit, you hit the gas and you're zooming along or, you know, all these other. There's just always something different every run. And you can do these other builds. Part of the reason why I was up until 2.30 in the morning, you know, yesterday, or I guess today, trying to play this game because there's always a different build. there's always something that changes with every run,

and you try to get that perfect build, much like you do and a lot of the other roguelikes that we played, which is so cool. Yeah. I had a build where it was, I put everything I could possibly put into Ramjet, you know, and just when I want to go as fast as humanly possible.

Ramjet autopilot. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was just blisteringly fast, but I had nothing else. I could take a corner for nothing. You know what I mean? Like,

but it was just, it was such a fun build that race because I was like, once I could hit that ramjet, I could just lay on that thing forever until I went around to turn too fast and crashed into a wall. And then that was that. You know, other maps, it's like I could turn on a dime,

but on any straightaway, people were just blowing past me because I had no top speed or boostability or anything like that. So I like that they did these roguelike elements. I like that you can kind of work towards these builds. I like that you can play like, Yeah, no, there's not one way to build it. Yeah.

I do like that you kind of have to prep everything too. So like it's better sometimes to upgrade what you already have instead of putting something new on. Because at the beginning of every race, you have to put in like helldivers codes to basically prep all your equipment. And if you don't do it, you just don't have that. You don't have that for that race. Yeah. I love this because we saw Ryan fail this repeatedly. Oh, Ryan.

Oh, no. I learned afterwards. I was like, oh, this is what they were doing. They just got the auto, you know, autopilot. Ryan also can't see in the snow, apparently. Auto, yeah, I can't. Or, or when it's like desert and like kind of sparkly in the end, I'm like, oh, that's the way to go.

And I just crash into the wall. 90% of the maps. Which they do. Yeah, they do really good job of, like, deceiving you on, like, paths and spots you're going to go to. And, like, we'll learn the maps just like anybody would. But, yeah, they do a good job at deception on those as well. Ryan, you mentioned maps.

This is one of those things that's really hard to convey through a podcast. You know, you kind of just have to experience them. I personally love the maps in this game. Now, like every single person out there, I wish there were more maps. Like, this is one of those things that I'm pretty sure is one of the common complaints of the game, is that I wish there were more planets. I wish there were more maps. But I genuinely think they did a masterful job with the maps in this game from being on

jaku, which is the desert planet, to feeling like, you know, I love those races to the forest planet, to the crate, which is the salt, like the red salt fields that you see. That's the coolest one. You like that one?

Yeah, I think that's the best one just like look wise and how it works. I do think it's a little repetitive to do tattooing and Jaku because they are both sand planets and they both look exactly the same. Yeah, yeah.

I actually, I think Jaku is my favorite. to be honest. There's something that's racing over the Star Destroyers and through. They do cool stuff. So here's one of the other things is the maps all have these really neat features to them. And one of the things with Jaku is sometimes the sun is really, really bright. Like you're racing and like high moon.

Well, you're burning, but it also blinds you when you come out of a, when you come out of like a tunnel. I didn't know that. You're just blinded by the light. You can't see nothing sometimes. And when you're doing 900 miles an hour, like that's a terrifying feeling. So the maps capture these different things and create when you're going through these crystal tunnels and they're very tight, they're terrifying there.

I mean, I really, really enjoy the maps in this game. They feel very Star Wars. They feel very unique, in my opinion. They are unique. And the maps, like, affect the way you play the game on that race. Like, they affect not only just from what you're doing, but like, like you said, not only like the sun is the sun bright, but also it's hot on Jaku, man.

And so it's going to, you're going to cook. Your engines are going to cook. It's hard to keep cold, you know, and so your stuff's going to overheat. And then a crate, like, your stuff freezes up. So you've got to go through the thermal tunnels that kind of warm up everything and, and thaw you out, if you will. So everything has like a purpose and a reason behind it, which is really cool. So there's, there's features, but there's also reasons to.

it within the race so that they all have a they all affect it at some point like it's some in some way and then they do have the reverse mirror like the reverse map so you can play a map one way and then they turn you around and you go the other direction which does help it feel fresh and kind of add to the number of tracks that you have as well um everybody in the world is like i wish there were more maps like that's a that's a thing that i think everybody wants i don't think the game is suffering from a lack of maps i think people just want more of that variety there because the maps are honestly so good. All right, real quick, you do get to, you know, it's called Galactic Racer, but everybody's

like, where's the Pod Racers? You do get to use Pod Racers in this game. They basically, they kind of do that through flashbacks through the campaign mode, which I won't spoil for people other than just saying that you get to do some flashbacks and relive some really, really cool moments for people that are Star Wars nerds. And then it is a multiplayer option that you can just do pod races online. because they're so fast and they are kind of bulky, it's only eight players versus 12 players.

If you ever want to feel like your eyes are getting just ripped out of your head because you're going so fast through some terrain, the pod races are where it's at. I like the pod races. The sense of speed that it conveys is unlike any other racing game, I think I've ever played. In all honesty, like it's insane how fast the pod racers feel.

And I love every second of it. You have to get ram jets. You know those games, when you're driving as fast as you can in a car, and then it starts to get the streamlines, and you're going, and you're like, oh, I'm cruising now. Times that by 10, that's what it's like pod racing. It's so incredibly fast. And like I said before, the maps are so deceptive with, like, the junk and weird ways they have it set up and stuff.

Like, it's meant to deceive you to just run headlong into that wall. You know, it's set up to do that, which is so cool. But, oh, man, yeah, the pod racing is insane. Kudos to the developers on this because that sense of speed that they put into this game is honestly unlike any other racing game that I've seen. Like, I've played like some other arcade racers. And it's like you said, Ryan, it's like those, it's blistering. And it's, you have to just kind of experience it to feel that adrenaline. But the way that they did it and the way that it.

And the way that it looks in this game is second to none. And it's like they captured that feeling of just going so incredibly fast that your eyes can barely keep up with where you're going. All right, boys, that's Galactic Bracer. I mean, in a nutshell, if you don't know by now what this game is, then you kind of, you should know at this point whether you're interested if this sounds interesting to you or not. That's it. I mean, it's an arcade game. There's no deep story to get into. There's no, you know, RPG elements or anything like that.

We've talked about the rogue like elements. We've talked about the different vehicles. We've talked about, you know, the different race types and things like that. So we kind of spoiled things up front, but it's time to officially talk about our ratings on this game. And like we promised in our ratings episode, if you miss that one, basically we are going to rate games moving forward from a critic standpoint to how we feel like this game actually stands up as a video game. and then we're going to rate games from our personal standpoint on a kind of five-point scale from Masterpiece, Standout, Enjoyable, Disappointing, and basically just sucks. I think underwhelming was the term we used for, yeah, just before sucks.

So I'll just start us off on this one. I freaking love this game, dude. You know, it's not without its faults. It needs more, it needs more maps. It needs 12 player private lobby options. There are a few things holding it back, in my opinion. I am getting hard freezes where the game just locks up and freezes on me mid-race. They are trying to address that, but there's nothing more frustrating than really just rocking through a race and then it locks up.

And then it's like, okay, well, now I have to restart the game. It's not without its flaws. Critically, I'm going to give this game an 8 out of 10. I really, really enjoy it. I think as a video game, there is a lot to like. here there are some issues with it that need to be addressed. The fact that they released a racing game without private lobbies baffles me. In all honesty, it absolutely baffles me. And I am taking a little bit away because of that. You can only play with two other friends.

You can join multiplayer with a squad of three. You're still competing against each other. But that is just a crime against gamersdom to do that to people with a game that should be enjoyed with like 12 people. So critically, I'm giving it an 8 out of 10 as a video game. I am rating this as a standout game, my personal opinion, because I've not had this much fun with a game in a while, and it satisfied everything that I wanted it to be in this arcade racer, Star Wars universe, follow up to Podracer from the Nintendo 64.

So for me, it is an absolute standout game in my personal opinion. So 8.0 critically, standout game personally for me. Ace. All right, ground controls. Let's do a compliment sandwich here. Ground control to Major Tom, baby. Let's bring this back down to Earth. All right.

It is a racing game. And that is in its whole, all it is. It is an arcade racer with rokelykelykeh elements with a Star Wars skin. If you like that, great. It's got a good amount of maps. Not enough for me to say there's a good variety unlike you. I know you're satisfied with them. but like I'd have liked to see a lot more of what the Star Wars universe has to offer,

like Dothomere, something with lava, darkness. Something that would have stood out instead of doing two desert planets and two forest planets and then like an acid factory, which I hate. I hate with a passion. Yes, me too. I like, just an awful man. Ace are corroded. Ra!

It is, I mean, the characters are okay. There is no standout character here like Calcastis or anything like that where you're going to enjoy the character passed the simplicity of this being a racer game, they're racers. That's all they are. So for me, this ranks critically at about a 7.5. And that's including the fact that it is

lacking that 12 player multiplayer on release, which, huh? It's also lacking split screen co-op, like couch co-op. Yeah, that's, that would stuff for me. No, no, no, this dropped on consoles. This, Mario has split screen. That's fair.

On its Mario cart, the new one. Like, it has come. up. There's no excuse. You're stealing my beef. You're stealing my beef. I'm sorry, bud. But yeah,

you know, I was going to rate it seven, but, you know, it gets a half point for Biddy Blas. So. Oh, my gosh. We'll take what we can get. We'll take what we get. Critically for me, it's the devs of all any of these games.

Critically for me, a 7.5, but personally, I found it to be very underwhelming. It is an underwhelming release for me. That's fair. No, it's not. No, it is. It's completely fair.

It's completely fair. We have low expectations when it comes to ace, Ryan. So it's like, you know, I mean, you know, if we didn't have to drop a critic rating, do you know how low my rating would be? I'm actually kind of surprised. I knew you were going to rate this underwhelming. It's just not really your kind of game either, I think. Like, honestly, I like racing games when I'm playing with other people. I just do not like racing against AI and solely AI.

I get that. that's fun. I will say like in all honesty, the campaign mode is fine, but where it's at for me is the multiplayer tours where you get the upgrades like the rogue like upgrades and you're playing against real people. To me, that's infinitely more fun than the campaign part. The campaign is just kind of this game. I do see. Yeah, exactly. There is something here that can be expanded upon and like really be something. It just, it needs some time. Yeah. All right, Ryan. I'm glad you finished with that ace because I was going to roast you. But I'm, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I appreciate that at the end there. I think this does have a lot for the Star Wars universe. Like, there is more that we can get out of it. There's more that is to be desired and what we want out of a Star Wars game because there's just, I mean, there's just a wealth. And, you know, gigabytes and gigabytes of just information that we could like pull from

to make the most amazing worlds and amazing maps and amazing races and lore and stories and everything you could ever imagine so there's all that stuff there um a little bit lacking for you i get it no big deal for me this thing was everything i ever wanted it to be i played this and i and i don't know if this is like with with you josh too um just just having played uh the pod racing game you know the early star wars episode one Pod racer, like having played that and then getting to play this and seeing the progression and then seeing what it's become and having that rogue-like element and like all of the cool things that you want in a video game that this has, like, it's just everything.

So it's everything. And it's Star Wars at the end of the day. It's Star Wars. And I think they did such an amazing job at building these worlds to where, even when you're just like doing the campaign and you're running through, you feel like you're a part of that world. You feel like you can look around and you see what's going on and you are in the Star Wars universe, which is so cool and it's so hard to do to really dive into and really envelop, you know,

yourself into that world. I think they did an amazing job with it. I absolutely love this game as everything that I wanted minus two. things. First, I'm going to give my score. I loved it. So I'm going to give it an 8-5. I think it was, it was amazing. It was everything I wanted. And then for the, what is it? The personal score. Yeah, your personal score. The personal is a standout. And the reason both of these aren't masterpiece in like 9 plus is because you can not have an arcade racer especially coming from the Star Wars universe with the old pod racing people

who has money to play video games old men in their 30s and 40s like and those are all the people that love Star Wars dude those are all you know what we played we played the old Star Wars and you could play sit you could play couch co-op for one you know that was that was the one thing you do and then and then secondly with the advances in modern technology who would have thunk we could all play together like we could all play together what 12 of us no well no surely 10 of us no no and my name's not surely well okay six well that's coming up soon no three three you know Which was fun. I had a blast.

But can you imagine? And we talked about it in our Discord. We talked about it with people. How much fun it would have been if there was 12 of us and then probably 30 in our Discord, all chatting and all talking in the voice channel. And we can all just cycle through races and we can all track our scores. And there's just, there was so much that I don't understand why it wasn't addressed prior to launch. To me, it seems.

insane. Like I don't understand gross oversight. Should have just delayed this. A game, hundreds of millions of dollars that you've put into this and you don't like, hey, maybe somebody's going to want to play with their buddies more than like two other friends. Like that just seems crazy to me.

Either it was some astronomical crazy thing that they couldn't develop or it's not. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, that's the thing is I don't know. And we're going to get some dumb patch that comes out like in six months and then they're like, oh man, I wonder why the game didn't sell that.

well. There you go. That's why. That's why. There's no galactic racer too. Yeah, there you go. You got patching in after that. But other than that, I think the game, I think the game gave me everything that I wanted. It was amazing. It was beautiful. The graphics were awesome.

It made you feel like you were part of the world. There was just enough to keep you going in a lot of the different areas. The rogue-like elements, the campaign, online, upgrading the vehicles. Like, there was so much to this game that I absolutely love.

I cannot tell you the last time I've stayed up to play a game until two in the morning. And it was probably destiny. So like it's been a long time, dude. It's a lot of fun. Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. And I loved it. It's, it's top notch for me.

It was, it was an awesome game. All right. I don't know that we have officially announced this because I think a few people might have missed our live stream that we did. But, uh, it's time to. go to the leaderboard, guys.

Oh, yeah. And I don't know if we taught, I don't think we have. So the leaderboard is back everybody. We did a live stream where we went, we recreated the leaderboard, we sat down and ranked every game that we have done deep dives on. The leaderboard is back.

If you missed out on this, if you don't know what the leaderboard is, it is basically every time we deep dive a game. We are going to rank that game against every other game that we have done a deep dive on. Now, this is just sheer stupidity because we are about to put galactic racer up against the likes of you know uh disco elysium mixtape phasmophobia pow world um you know it we literally just put it

it doesn't matter we're not sorting this by genre we're sorting it by game alone and the leaderboard is back uh and so it is time to figure out where we are going to put galactic racer on our leaderboard I have a suggestion. You will be able. Oh, no, Ace, you're cutting out. Oh, no, Ace. Oh, no. Oh, he will vote.

Too bad, bud. Yeah. And I will tease this. You're going to be able to see the leaderboard very soon. Oh. Very soon is all I'm going to say there. Okay, I want to hear Ace's suggestion on this because maybe he, you know, let's see what Ace thinks.

My current suggestion is position 47, which would put it above Diablo for Doom the Dark Ages and Star Wars Jedi Survivor. I freaking, Ace is actually. pretty good at this because I'll be honest I'm in the I thought Ace was going to fight for like the 50s and I was thinking like the 30s

because I would rather play this to Diablo 4 or Doom the Dark Ages or Jedi Survivor. Okay Ryan where were you thinking you're shaking your head at this I'm like low to mid 30s is where I'm at mid 30s okay so let me give people I'm gonna since since I can't see it

yet I'm going to give people an idea at 31 we have Disco Elys At 33, we have split fiction. At 36, we have Resident Evil Requiem. And at 39, we have Cuphead. So that's the caliber of game you're looking at in the 30s. In the 40s, we have at 47, like Ace mentioned, Diablo 4, lethal company at 43, phasmophobia at 41. I definitely lean closer to Ryan's side on this.

Ryan, if we're looking at the 30s, here's kind of how we do this. would you rather play Galactic Racer or would you rather play split fiction? Like which one do you think is a better game? 100%. Now is the recency bias. There's definitely recency biased. You shush.

You shush over there. There's definitely recency bias. Just because you hate racing. Just shush. I'm sorry. The game with a complete story and thousands of mini games. No, I would absolutely play this. I, being fair, because I'm trying to throw my

recency bias to the side. I do think that we're in the right range because split fiction was a really, really good game. And I think that I think of that game very fondly. At some point, Galactic Racer is going to fade. Like, it's an arcade game. You can only play it so much before you're like, okay, I've done

a thousand races and it's just I'm ready for something different on this. So I think, here's a good question. Ace, you can't answer this one. Abysus or Galactic Racer? Ryan, would you rather play Abyssus or would you rather play Galactic Racer. Galactic Racer.

Okay. So Ryan's actually moving up. Okay. Even over uncharted for me. Deep Rock Galactic or Galactic Racer? Is it getting harder for you now? For Ace? No, for me, no, Galactic Racer. He's only talking to you. He won't talk to me. Yeah, Galactic Racer, dude. He's ignoring me.

Goodness. Ryan, you really. I love, I love this game. Risk of Rain 2 or Galactic Racer. All right, buddy. moving way too high here. Risk of rain. Risk of rain. I would rather play Galactic Racer solo than Risk of Rain too

solo solo. But that's fair. Risk of rain too with you guys, I would prefer that over. It's a better game. Okay. I think it's a better game. I think we're going to have to fight or compromise on this, to be honest.

I wouldn't put it up that high. I wouldn't, I wouldn't put it up that. I don't think I would put this in like the 20s, to be honest with you. Like satisfactory at 22, I wouldn't put it above that. Deep Rock Galactic, I think, is just a better video game with more longevity. I think it's cooler than Tears of the Kingdom

for me personally. I'm not disagreeing with you. Because Abyss is a way better rogue like. But I think Ace is, Ace gets a say in this as well. I say, Abyssusiness is a way better roguelike. So Ace, you would put it at 47. Ryan would put it at like the 20s. And I think the compromise then is putting it somewhere in the 30s. I would say 33 is like a really sweet spot.

And move split fiction down one. split fiction down one. That's personally where I think a really good spot is because the second you get private lobbies with 12 like group races. But we don't have that right now. And then you have to, I know, I know we don't have it right now.

Spit fiction has couch co-op. I'm saying, okay, but I'm saying, well, that doesn't matter for me. This is still a better game. You can have couch co-op on like turds and like it's fine.

Like you can, you can do that. But like for me, it's a better game already. But once you have that, it, more. I'm going to break the tie. I'm going to say I can't put this over split fiction. I think split fiction is a masterpiece of a multiplayer game that everybody could really enjoy. Like I would not, I would not say the same for Galactic

Racer. I think if you love it, you're really going to love Galactic Racer, but I think split fiction is the higher rated game in this case. And I think Ace is probably going to agree on that. But Ace, do you have any serious qualms about putting it at 34 just under Split Fiction? I can live with it I'll let you I'll let you live with that I hate that it's above persona 5 I'll tell you that

I know you do and Resident Evil Requiem was way better of a game that came out this year I mean it's this is the point of the leaderboard man Reckley on is a way better game No way

Yes It's 10 hours of You are your recency biased You're 10 hours of me All right We're not done Let's let's ask this Assassin's Creed

Black Flag Resinked We all really enjoyed. Yes. Is it a better game than Galactic Racer? I would pick Black Flag at a heartbeat. Yeah. I know Ace would. Black Flag had better character,

story, and just overall was a better feeling world to live in. It does feel weird to have this over Resident Evil Requiem in all honesty. Josh, you're backped on. That's like a game of the year. I'll let you put it above Assassin's Creed Black Flag, but Liza P is a better game too. But that's just I personally. I think Liza P is a better game. I kind of, I think I'm with Ace.

I think that's the right spot. Hold on. What is happening right now? I've fought from our position and now I'm winning. Oh, no, Ace has got to use it. Oh, no. Okay, here's like, in all honesty, I'm trying to take the recency bias out of this. I really am.

And let's be honest, it's not a perfect game. They should have developed this a little bit more. No, what game have we not rated with recency bias? Every game we rate is after we just played it. This whole leaderboard came out after recentcy bias. That's fair. That's fair. I would vote.

we put it between Lies of P and Assassin's Creed. I'm fine with that. I can live with that. Ace is given a lot because he had a way lower. I had it. In all honesty, I think that's probably a good spot. It's still a top 40 game at this point.

I'll accept it if it's above Lise of P. It is not going to above Liza P. You jerk. Yeah, above Liza P. I was at like 30. I'm going all the way down to 30. I think I'm okay with that. That's a compromise.

It's not going above Requiem. Okay. No, no. That's fine. I fought for that. That's fine. All right. Well, there it is, people. Star Wars Galactic racer slotted at number 37 on the leaderboard currently sandwich right between Resident Evil Requiem and Lies of P. A little bit of disagreement and some negotiation there, but this is how the leaderboard works. All right, worth the money. Cost, what would you guys pay for Galactic Race?

If you are, if you, if you, if what we said gets you excited and you're like, I think this sounds good, I think it's every bit worth the $60. Like I am 20 hours in So just to give a like a time comparison I'm 20 hours in a galactic Racer and I could easily see Putting another 20 hours in before I'm like Tired tired of it. So if I'm Getting 30 to 40 hours of

Fun out of this plus the multiplayer component With Friends, it's it's an easy well worth the 60 bucks to me Do I wish it had been $40? Like yes. But if we're talking about Is it worth the price? If you think that this type of game sounds fun to you, then I

think it's well worth the 60 bucks in my opinion. All right. That's fair. I would say for me, as someone it didn't land for, I would have rather paid $3540 for it. I think that's more a proper price range for a game like this. I think if you're on the fence, that's a perfect to say. If you see it on sale for this and you think you want to try it, go for it. No harm. Yeah. There's so much there. You're going to get, you're going to, I mean, I think, I mean, to really truly do the campaign, you know, with all the times you're going to crash out and have to restart and stuff, you're going to be 30 plus hours, not to mention any online or multiplayer play.

So there's a lot of time there. Yeah, I think the game is worth the 60. I think it's a good price. It's fair. Yep. All right. Well, there you go, people. That is Star Wars Galactic Racer.

Guys, you know, we talk about hype. This game is super hyped. Now that it's out and it's a ton of fun. I'm just going to say I can't wait for Phantom Blade Zero Oh yeah The Hyde Blaine Zero

The Hight meter is back A new A new game is at the top of the height meter Phantom Blades Zero coming out On the 29th of this one Yay I'm so excited Only

18 days from now Yeah buddy Yeah All right listen One more time Thank you to everybody That signed up To support the show

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