Video Gamers Podcast - [Deep Dive] Star Wars Outlaws - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: October 21, 2024

Gaming Hosts Ryan and Josh are back and we’re heading to a galaxy far far away as we deep dive Star Wars Outlaws. This video game has been all over the place with critics and gamers alike, and we’re here to set the record straight. Is it good? Is it bad? What works, what doesn’t and more. We’re going to answer it all in this gaming packed episode. This is one video game review episode you don’t want to miss! Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Ol’ Jake and Disratory Thanks to Legendary Supporter: UnhingedFury Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q   Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Samsung Galaxy. Ever captured a great night video only for it to be ruined by that one noisy talker? With Audio Erase on the new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, you can reduce or remove unwanted noise and relive your favorite moments without the distractions. And that's not all. New Galaxy AI features like NowBrief will give you personalized insights based on your day schedule so that you're prepared no matter what. Buy the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra now at Samsung.com. Hello fellow gamers and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast.

Today, we're going to solve one of the great mysteries of 2024. No, not why Ryan is always late to things. It's whether or not Star Wars Outlaws is a good video game or not. We've been playing it for the last two weeks, and it's time to see what this game is all about. But first, some introductions are in order. I am the Dark Lord of the Sith. I mean, your host, Josh. And joining me, he's best friends with Jar Jar Binks and claims he's the leader of the Jawas.

And he kind of looks like one. It's Ryan. Oh, gosh. Listen, it's not my fault I'm late to things i'm a scruffy headed nerf herder all right all right that's fair that's a good answer but i will say that's very very on topic because this morning i went to the gun range i was two or three minutes late i was late to help paul today with some stuff he had going on and then i may have been a couple minutes late to recording so oh yeah you know i wonder why that

i wonder why that made its way into time time is a man-made construct brother it's all relative you know what if that's the worst thing about you is that you're late every now and then i can live with that ryan so uh ryan here we are we two weeks ago we did what we call a pre-dive where we announced the game that we're going to be playing. Yes. And we have been playing it for the last couple of weeks. I want to start off by saying that this episode is a huge thank you to our Mythic supporter, Disratory, because he basically said, I know you guys were planning on playing Star Wars

Outlaws. And then we ran out of time and he said, I'm going to make you guys play it as my pick. You have no choice. Yeah. And we said, okay, well, you know what? We don't have a choice. And so you and I both dove right into Star Wars Outlaws. We have not shared anything with each other about this game. I have no idea what you think about Star Wars Outlaws. You have no idea what I think about Star Wars Outlaws. And I freaking love that because we're going to find out live with the listeners on what we think about this game. You know, I mentioned it at the intro. This game is, I will say it's been very heavily talked about with the, you know, the critic reviews and people saying, oh, this game sucks. You know, it's just Ubisoft and it's bad. And then other people saying, did you even play it? Because I played it and it's freaking great. Yeah. Very up and down. Very much. Right. And so we're going to solve that today. At least

I think, unless we have different opinions on this, and then we're just going to complicate things even more. Oh, I love it. I hope so. Yeah. But before we get into the meat and potatoes of this episode, we do have a little bit of housekeeping that we need to take care of. First of all, is a huge thank you and shout out to a new supporter of the podcast who signed up with rare status whose name is obtain reality yeah thank you obtain reality for supporting the show thank you heck yeah also joined our discord server and has been chatting it up with people super active love it also the discord server been hopping blew up with people. Super active. Love it. Also, the Discord server been hopping. Blew up.

We're cruising. Is that because we're giving a game away at the end of this episode, Ryan? No, no. It's just because they love us, but maybe a little bit because we're giving a game away. We are giving away a copy of Star Wars Outlaws

at the end of this episode for anybody that is in our Discord server. We're going to pick somebody randomly to give a game away to and you're getting a copy at that point so we we talked about this on our pre-dive episode and here we are and we are men of our words so at the end of this episode somebody is getting a copy of star wars outlaws as well and then ryan one other piece of housekeeping um is you know we'd love we'd love it when people leave us reviews that was the best you read you read every single review that comes in don't you i read all the reviews and then i even go and i look on spotify comments it's just it's one of those things that it's kind of that fulfillment where you're like all right people do like us

people do listen to us you know this is cool that i i love seeing that somebody's kind of that fulfillment where you're like, all right, people do like us. People do listen to us. You know, this is cool. I love seeing that somebody's like, I listen to you guys on my way to work. You make my commute better. You know, that sort of stuff. For sure. Honestly, it's one of the reasons we do this

is just to say, hey, we want this gaming community. We want to chat video games. And to know that there's people out there, like the people that are listening to this right now that actually enjoy this is crazy to us, but we love it. And honestly, one of the things you can do is leave a review for us. There's a good chance that we'll read it on the show like this one that we're going to read right now that comes in from Hampton Gamer.

It's titled Best Pod, and it says, I was checking out gaming podcasts and listening to a couple minutes of four different podcasts, but when I listened to this one, I got hooked, and I'm saving up to buy the subscriptions for your show. Nice. Now, number one, thank you for the review. Number two, dude, saving up so you can help support the show? What a champion, man. I two, dude, saving up so you can help support the show. What a champion. I know, right? That is incredible, man. So thank you Hampton Gamer for leaving that review for us. If you haven't taken the time to leave us a review, please take a second to do that. Ryan,

you mentioned it. If you listen on Spotify, you can rate us five stars. And on Spotify, my goal is the path to 1,000. We're at 960 right now for these reviews. I want to get to 1,000. So if you listen to us, you haven't left a review, it just takes literally a few seconds. You hop in there, scroll down a little bit, and you can just hit that five stars.

It would really mean a lot to us. But I want to get to 1,000 at an unhealthy level. So please help my health. It's for my health people. It's a pretty major milestone to be like, Hey, you know, we're an independent podcast. We have always said we are just gamers. We're not experts. We don't have a huge gaming website that is backing us or saying, Hey, let's make a podcast. We're not celebrities that are like, Oh, well we instantly have 2 million people that are going to listen to this. Yeah. We have built this up over the years by just being true, genuine gamers that love video games. And we don't pretend to be experts. You know, we talk about games like you do with your friends. That's what the show is all about.

We'd love that you're here with us. Ryan, let's get into it, man. Let's do it. All right. All right. Let's talk about some Star Wars Outlaws on this. Okay. I know we touched on some of this in our pre-dive episode, but I know that there's people that are listening to this that maybe didn't listen to that episode.

So what I want to do is I want to talk a little bit about some of the issues that Star Wars Outlaws faced. And this kind of plays into why Dissertory picked this game for us to play. Yes. So to kind of set the stage for people, Ryan, why don't you tell us a little bit about some of the kind of ups and downs and why this game's been kind of controversial with people? You know what I mean?

As far as like there's people that say this game sucks. There's people that say, no, dude, this game's awesome. Have you played it? Like that's literally what Dissertory has said is, have you played it? Well, we said no. And so now we you played it? Well, we said no. And so now we played it. So Ryan, run us through some of the kind of ups and downs about this and why this game's been a little bit controversial.

I think there's been a lot of, obviously Ubisoft has their issues as it is and how things go with what they're doing and the trend on how they release these games. So we already have that there. That's a big elephant in the room that everybody sees. Another few issues is just what is the depth of this game? What are we looking at for a Star Wars entity in itself?

Because if you know any fan base or any sort of group of people that are very protective of what they love it's star wars fans so they know the lore they know what's going on they know if you're being true to the to the the game true the genre true to the the essence of what star wars is in that in that realm in that universe so um that was the big thing is is is this really kind of true to that and is it does it ring home and bring home what makes star wars star wars so a lot of controversy between that if you know how are these characters playing out is this really what it should be is this what would happen in this universe you know what uh what is characters playing out? Is this really what it should be? Is this what would happen in this universe?

You know, what is the combat like? What are the cinematics going to do? You know, there was just so much depth or lack thereof that people were almost just polar opposites of that blew me away. And I know you were talking about it too, to where you didn't know what to make of this game. You couldn't throw heads or tails because you don't know what these big larger reviewers that that cover this game are they on the you know quote unquote payroll is are they just saying it's

great just because or are they saying it's bad just because they like to trash games so we were really excited to dive into this to really see what uh kind of this all boiled down to is this a good game is it bad is it just okay so i'm super excited to dive in yeah i will say too that when you you kind of brought up the issue about is this star wars is it true to star wars yeah and i think part of the concern there especially with ubisoft, is that did they just buy a license for this and try to capitalize on the Star Wars fans and the Star Wars name and say, hey, we made a Star Wars game, everybody buy it, right? And then it's like, right, you know? And so I think there definitely was that, is this just a money grab to pay for this license and try to capitalize on

this? Or did you actually make a game that is representative of the Star Wars universe? Exactly. Yeah. You know, leading up to this game, we saw up and down trailers, trailers that impressed us, trailers that really put us off. The critic reviews for this game were not very good. Then we started to kind of see gamers come forward and say, dude, I don't know what everybody's talking about. I think this game is way better than people are giving it credit for. I know when we announced that we were covering this game in our Discord server, that a lot of people said, oh man, I'm so glad you guys are covering this. I don't know what to think about this game. Yeah. Which is cool to see when you

see people, one, that obviously listen, then they're coming in to say, we want to know because there has been all of this up and down. We're not sure what to say, we want to know because there has been all of this up and down. We're not sure what to think. We want to know what somebody, you know, we trust kind of says about this game. So yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's definitely, like we said, it's been crazy. Yeah. And so we're going to break it all down. We're going to talk about it. One thing we always like to do on these is kind of break down the different aspects of the game. Our job is not to tell you what to think about a video game. You know, our job is to tell you about a game and then you figure out whether you think that game sounds like it's up your alley or not. Now we will say, I like this game. I didn't like this game, but that doesn't matter.

You know, I mean, if this game sounds like it's for you, then give it a try. You know, I mean, that's what we do as gamers. If it sounds like, you know what, I don't if this game sounds like it's for you, then give it a try. You know, I mean, that's what we do as gamers. If it sounds like, you know what, I don't think this game's for me, then maybe we saved you a little bit of money at the same time. But that's our goal is to just kind of talk about the game itself. What makes it good? What works? What doesn't?

And then you decide whether this sounds like it might be for you. Okay, Ryan, in our pre-dive, the other thing that we did is we did say, hey, we have some hopes for this game and we have some concerns for this game before we even played the first minute of it. So what was, just recap that. Like, what was your hope for Star Wars Outlaws? Ah, man, for me, I just, I wanted that, especially having kind of a semi-open world

where you can traverse through and explore, I wanted to have just that, you just dive into it where you become part of the Star Wars universe. You become a scoundrel to where you're running through this town or this village and there's depth to it. There's ambiance.'s um so much to be distracted by but also entertained by so i was just hoping that that's what we were going to get and and that's what uh they would bring to us in in a graphically beautiful setting and uh something that would draw you in that that's just kind of what was my kind of main points that I wanted to hit. Yeah, I'm with you. I think my hope was that this was not an Ubisoft game.

You know what I mean? Like, I didn't want the towers to climb up. I didn't want that old, tired Ubisoft formula just with a Star Wars skin on it. Yeah. No, that makes sense, for sure. Yeah. I mean, I think that's what I kind of wanted. I wanted it to feel like Star Wars so that it wasn't just a money grab. It wasn't just a, Hey, let's pay for the license and then just turn out something that Star Wars and hope that that sells enough copies to make our money back kind of thing. Um, and then, you know, we did also say a concern or what we thought could bring the game down. I know for me, I had mentioned that shallow gameplay or shallow mechanics would kind of be a bummer. I know that going into this game,

I knew there was stealth. I knew there was combat. I knew there were some vehicles. We saw trailers with space combat. You have your little weird creature Knicks thing that I didn't know how that was going to play into the game. And I remember saying like, there's all these components, but if they're all very shallow, then is it going to feel shallow at that point? You know what I mean? And so for me, that was it. And then you said that you had a concern,

which was what? I was, I was just hoping that there was, like I said, there's depth to this and there's depth to the environment. Uh, I know when you're going between towns or realms or whatever it is i wanted there to be things to do uh things to explore i love to

explore i love to adventure i do it in the real world and i love to do it in video games so as long as they have that to where you always find something around the next corner that that's what really takes a game to the next level for me, instead of just kind of having those barren wastelands where it's just like, okay, you got to go from here to here. We'll just throw some trees and some bushes, you know, and then go across. Yeah. What good is an open world if there's nothing to do in it? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's just a large space that now I have to spend time driving across.

Exactly. Exactly. So, all right. Well, let's, let's get into some of the gameplay stuff. I, we do want to take a minute to say we are intentionally leaving out the story on this game. So we are not going to spoil this game. I know that that is different than a lot of deep dives that we do because a lot of times we dive into everything and we say, Hey, we're just going to talk about the story. We're going to talk about the end of the game. We're going to talk about the twists and the turns and all that stuff. But this game is still fairly new. And we have seen that there are a lot of gamers that have not picked this game up

because they want more information about it. They want to hear from more gamers. They want to hear from their friends that maybe, Hey, you pick it up because I'm not sure if this game is good or not. And we don't want to spoil the story because the story in this game is one of the major aspects of it. And so we are going to intentionally steer clear of that. And so for people that are like, wait a minute, you guys aren't talking about all the story points and the plot spoilers and all that. No, we're not. We're going to leave that up to you. If this game sounds like it's fun to you, if we say, Hey, maybe you should pick up this game. It's better than people are saying, we don't want to spoil that experience for you at the same time.

So we are going to steer clear of those. Now I will say we will talk and touch on the story itself, but more so from a very non-spoilery aspect and just kind of how it enhances the game itself at that point. So feel free to just listen to the whole episode. We're not going to spoil things for you. And we are intentionally doing that. So I don't want, you know,

we don't want people being like, you guys didn't talk about the, the twist or the story or something like that. And it's like, no, you, you got to experience it yourself. You got to experience it yourself. You know, you got to have that what moment on your own. Exactly. So, okay, Ryan, I kind of like this trend that we've been doing,

where we kind of really talk about the thing that stands out about a game the most, right? So I really like this because it's always fun to say what grabbed you what aspect of this game stood out the best in your mind we did this with astrobot we said dude the audio and astrobots phenomenal there's nothing else like it space marine 2 we said dude these graphics are incredible you know and so for star wars outlaws know for me, and I'm very curious if this is the same for you. And if it's not, that's fine. And we'll touch on that. But the thing that stood out to me the most is, and this is going to sound a little bit weird, but we'll dive into it a little bit, is the setting.

Just the setting of this game. It's a Star Wars game. I can say personally, to answer this question, I do not think that this was a license this game, throw out a Star Wars game and call it done and hope that it works. I personally feel like the setting of Star Wars Outlaws is its best component on this game. Now, do you feel that way? Do you think it's something else? I mean, I know you're a Star Wars fan too, so I'm curious what your thoughts are on that. So there's a lot of things about this game that I'm super excited to talk about, but that is the one I know I mentioned prior, like, I want depth. I want a deep, dark, gritty world to explore and to adventure through.

And this delivered it tenfold. I think that there was so much. There's these little, like, food shops. And you see, you know, them whipping up food. And it's some alien creature. And there's people sitting there. You can go there and get, you know, get your food served up. and even that turns into a minigame eating your food with nicks turns into a minigame walking through you just see debris you see uh canisters you see benches you see people

going into these bars and side taverns and there was so much to the town i don't want to say that it was overwhelming but it was there was a lot there was a lot to behold a. I don't want to say that it was overwhelming, but there was a lot. There was a lot to behold, a lot to see, a lot to explore. And I think the setting and the world that they created was so much what I was looking for. It was spot on. It's crazy to me how much this game felt like Star Wars. Dude, it did. Dude. And here's the thing. Listen, I know there's people that love the Jedi and the Sith and the Death Star and the Star Destroyer. I love all that stuff, man. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? But what I

love about Star Wars were the alien races on Jabba's pleasure barge, you know, or at the cantina or the different kinds of bounty hunters and all those different races and characters and the different droids and robots and the, the, just the interior of like an Imperial base, you know, and things like that. Like sometimes it's not the grandeur of Star Wars that you love. It's like the everyday life. It's Luke standing on Tatooine watching two sunsets. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And being like just that moment of like,

this dude lives on freaking Tatooine and he's just watching the sun go down. Like that's Star Wars, man. Yeah, for sure. And so I know that there were people that were like, well, this game's stupid because there's no lightsabers and there's no Jedi and there's no Sith and there's none of this and that. And it's like, yeah, but dude, this may be one of the best representations of the Star

Wars universe that I have seen in a video game. Oh, yeah. I think with the current tech and the time you can tell they went into developing this, they did such a good job on that. Like you mentioned in the Imperial bases and stuff, you see, other than Fallen Order and Survivor, two awesome games as well, the details that go into these bases and you see the little robots running around. And then even back in just regular villages, you're walking by and you got Imperial stormtroopers or whatever. Let me see your papers.

And they're giving somebody a hard time. And then somebody else, you walk by, they're like, hey, I got a job for you. And there's just so much. And I keep using this word depth. But there really is. There's truly that detail and that depth to the environment that makes you feel like you're a part of it and that's what i always look for in these types of games these action rpgs or these exploratory games is i want to feel like i'm there without having to have like a vr headset and that's what this did

yeah it's it's really hard to quantify how well they nailed the feeling of just everyday life star wars in this game you mentioned walking around the towns you know there's broken down speeder bikes there's guys like working on parts you know i mean there's little shops there's people standing around having conversations and you can listen in to their conversations you know they're talking about the empire or you know their cousin just joined the empire and they hope he's doing good. And those dirty rebellion people that are causing problems and stuff like that. You've got aliens that are running around. You've got Jawa that are trying to sell droid parts.

And I mean, this is the Star Wars universe that is like, it's like the heart and soul of it, in my opinion. Yeah, absolutely. Jedi, Sith, all that stuff. it's like the heart and soul of it in my opinion yeah you know absolutely jedi sith all that stuff that's cool but like i wanted to live in star wars and that's what we got to do in this game and i have to say they absolutely freaking nailed it in my opinion um it's just it is top notch and to me it is the thing that really stood out the most as far as like what did this game nail what did it do right and i out the most as far as like, what did this game nail? What did it do right? And I think the setting, as oddly as that sounds, is like the absolute premier thing there. Agreed. So, all right. Well, listen, we're going to get into a little bit more and then we'll talk about the story a little bit, but we got to take a quick break and then we'll be right back

with more Star Wars Outlaws. it in others. BetterHelp offers therapy 100% online and sign up only takes a few minutes. Visit betterhelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com. All right, Ryan, we're going to move on real quick. But the other thing that I want to point out when we talk about the setting of the game is this game takes place in between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. So this is the empire at the height. I'm in the absolute pinnacle of its power and its reach and its oppressiveness. We see it in this game. You touched on the imperial bases, and I don't want to beat the setting to death because we got a lot to cover. But one of the things that I loved

about this game was when you're in a city, you feel like you're in that city and the cities are unique. Their struggles are unique because they're on different planets. They're on different weather patterns and things like that. They have different struggles. You have factions that we'll get into a little bit later

and the huts are warring with the Crimson Dawn and the Pike Syndicate and stuff like that that's going down and it's affecting the people in the city. But when you get to the imperials and you do a lot of imperial like shenanigans you know shenanigans yeah it feels like an like you're in an imperial base it's sterile it's bright it's just militaristic like i mean i am just like dude i'm freaking crawling around an imperial base right now man that's that's such a good word sterile because that's it almost is like a hospital

esque setting with these just kind of plain hallways they all have the gray with the white you know oval kind of lighting throughout and then i don't know about you but when i was playing and i was in those areas you almost feel trapped it's like i'm not gonna get out of this i am i'm there's so much to get through here i'm i'm not gonna ever survive this obviously it's a game and i can restart and do the mission again but you just feel this kind of weight on you to where you just feel trapped how am i gonna escape this how am i gonna get past all these guys um and i just thought they did that so well. Yeah, they really did. I can't speak enough about, if you are a Star Wars fan, this game might be the most realistic Star Wars game that I think

I've ever played in that regard. And I played a lot of Star Wars games too. I mean, I know you have too. And it's fun to swing a lightsaber and all that. But this was really impressive with how they captured just living in the Star Wars universe. And that makes it more real, too, to not have, obviously, like you said, everybody loves to swing a lightsaber and use the Force. Not having those powers, not having those abilities. I can't triple, quadruple jump up to the top of this ledge. I got to find a way to crawl through a vault or climb up a tree or do these other things to get through and get through this environment.

So it just made it that more realistic. Yeah, I was just literally about to ask you, did you like that this was a more real-life look at the universe? Or from a game standpoint is it better to just give me the force man let me let me throw my lightsaber at somebody and have these duels and you know like like jedi survivor for instance or you know fallen order like you know they're different games and i'm not trying to say like hey Hey, tell me which one's better, but having a more real life aspect where you don't have superpowers, you don't have the force, you don't see a single lightsaber, you know, in this, like, do you like that? Or did you feel like it could have been

better if maybe they had thrown a little bit of that in there? This, this one's a little hard for me. I, I, I mean, I love just the OP nature of a Jedi just running through and wrecking guys. But then at the end of the day, you just don't feel that sense of panic. You know, in a lot of situations to where you know you're a Jedi, you know you can do this or that to get out of a situation or defeat the enemies. So I've always loved heist games, bounty hunter games. Anything of that ilk has always been something that kind of hit that spot for me. So one of my favorite old school Star Wars games was Star Wars Bounty Hunter.

And I love just cruising through. And you're not a Jedi. You're not one with all these powers. And you have to go through with a blaster and a jet pack, so I love the essence of just the realness, and it is, you're just a regular person trying to survive, trying to make your way through this world, so I would obviously, I think I would prefer to have the Jedi powers in a game, but that's not to take away from what they did in this game. So they're pretty close. I'm always going to probably go with just the,

just having fun like a Jedi and destroying. I love destruction and blowing stuff up. So that's what I'm going to go with. But, but I, like, again, I don't want to take away from what this was and,

and how it made you feel trying to get through and trying to, you know, survive. Yeah. I'm with you on that. I mean, from a game standpoint, give me lightsabers, give me Star Destroyers and that kind of stuff because it's a spectacle and it's awe-inspiring and all that. But in defense of Star Wars Outlaws, this is not what this game is about. It's not intended to be that, and it works very well for what they intended. You know what I mean? So for anybody that's like,

well, I don't want to play because it's not Jedi and lightsabers, it's okay. This game is intentionally not that, and it still works without it because it's telling a story of somebody that doesn't have those powers. And like you said, is just trying to make their way in this world. Yeah. You know what I mean? Apart from everything that's going on around them and saying, Hey, forget all that stuff.

I me, this is my life, you know, and I'm trying to just figure out how to survive with it. So don't, it's not a distraction. I didn't feel like the game was missing something in that regard, you know,

like sure. Yes. I want to swing lightsabers and I want to throw them around and it's funny because it's like oh only four stormtroopers force push where in this game you're like oh no there's four stormtroopers like oh you know like i better crouch behind these crates you know that kind of thing so um all right so ryan we we said we're not going to spoil the story and so we're going to make this part a little short because there's really not much we can cover without getting into spoilers on it. But we do have to talk about the story kind of as a whole. So Ryan, I kind of want you to just give us a top level breakdown of what is this game? Like, what's the story? Give me the kind of, you know,

mile down view of, you know, you're playing this person, KVS, you know, she's a thief? She's a bounty hunter? Like, what the heck is she? Like, give me just the quick rundown of the story on this game and kind of what the point of the game itself is. Yeah, sure. So basically, you're KVS, you got your little companion, Ny nicks and you're just a scoundrel you're trying to ultimately you're trying to get you know get rich put a crew together and and pull off some heists and get kind of out from under the thumb of all your oppressors you're you're just again like i said earlier you're trying to survive you're trying to make your way through and it's just one issue after another one hiccup after another uh kind of like real life something always goes wrong so there's always the next step and next hurdle to get through so as you progress

through the game you're just kind of figuring out ways to get through there, upgrade yourself, your crew, you know, everything you have and kind of get under, like I said, or out from under the thumb of your oppressors. Yeah. Yeah, I will say I wasn't really 100% sure going into this game, like what the plot of the game was,

what the story was. I did know that you're KVAS, that you're kind of like, I think you said it perfectly, you're a scoundrel. You're not a bounty hunter. You're not somebody with like superpowers. You're just good at crime. Yeah, you're good at thievery, good at sneaking around. You're good at stealing stuff.

You're good at kind of sweet talking people and you're good at getting in and out of places. Like, honestly, like that's kind of what your your shtick is and she's very good at it you know and so that is kind of the premise and like you said you know you this game focuses on her story um i will say that you know as you you know try to make a name for yourself you come across the different factions in the game, which we'll talk about a little bit later, because that's a up kind of making a name for yourself, putting together a crew, getting a job,

you know, that's a big, important job that you have to pull off. And this game is about whether you can pull that off or not and what the ramifications of that are. Yeah. Did you feel like the story added anything to the game? Did it distract you? Was it just enough to kind of make you understand why you

were doing what you were doing? Like what are your overall thoughts on the story itself? Um, I think it was fair. I think it was, it was kind of enough to hold up the gameplay and the game itself. Um, it didn't blow me away. It wasn't anything that was next level or or anything that uh you have to play this because of the story type situation but um i did think that it was good it kept you invested and then the setting in the gameplay kind of held up the rest so i i thought i thought the storyline itself was very fair there's lots of issues where you're still oh man is she gonna get out of this or oh this is gonna how am i gonna do this how am i gonna do that what are these people gonna think of me now when i run this situation or that situation so yeah there was a lot to it like

you said with the different syndicates and everything there's a lot that uh kind of goes into the mold but yeah i think i think the story overall was was very fair it was a kind of fair representation of kind of what the game could be i'm i'm with you on that i think the story overall was very fair. It was a kind of fair representation of kind of what the game could be. I'm with you on that. I think the story kind of gave me enough to say, why am I doing what I'm doing? I will say it's probably not great in my opinion. You know, it is adequate and that's probably enough, you know, in this case. Like there's some pretty big kind of like plot holes,

like, oh, why does this person trust me so much all of a sudden that they're going to give me this top secret mission to run? And they just met me, you know what I mean? Or something like that. So there's a little bit of like suspension of disbelief that needs to happen. So as long as you don't go around like picking the story apart, I think it's fine, but this is not really much to write home about in my opinion either it's not like it's you know one of these top games where it's like i'm always going to remember the story you know and the outcome and the choices that i had to make and stuff like that um so you know there's a reason we kind of separated the setting of the game and the story

of the game yeah yeah because it's like the setting's really good and the story's kind of like okay well i mean like think of think about hell divers too they're like hey bugs and robots are attacking these worlds go kill them we're like all right let's go yeah charge charge that that's the story for liberty you know so that's all you get and an amazing game so it you know good story is not a game make or whatever so it was it was definitely like you said i think i think it was very fair i think it kept you on on pace and on topic on what you were doing you knew where you were supposed to go but it was definitely not anything to home write home about yeah i agree completely all right ryan let's get into the meat and potatoes of any

game and that's the gameplay yep all right All right. And so I think this is where we're going to spend a little bit of time here because this game actually has a lot of different elements to it. And while we don't want to like, you know, beat this into the ground and turn this into a two hour episode, I do think we need to touch on a few of those because this game is, it tries to do a lot in a lot of different things, which is kind of classic Ubisoft type game. But at the same time, I think it accomplishes some things and maybe whiffs a little bit in some other areas. And I want to be able to talk about some of that stuff. And I also think that this is probably where if people had issues with the game, I think this is probably where they're going to say, hey, I had issues, you know, as far as that goes. So let's just start with one of the major gameplay elements, and that's stealth.

Okay. In this game, you are a thief. You are a scoundrel. You are sneaking into places. You are trying to rob people. You're trying to get things that people don't want you to have or steal things from people because somebody else wants it. We mentioned that you do a lot of work for these different crime syndicates. And the first word in crime syndicate is crime. So you're doing a lot of crimes out there. A lot of crimes, a lot of thievery. Yeah. So there's a lot of that going on and associated with that is stealth. And I do remember when this game came out that a lot of people kind of and associated with that is stealth. And I do remember when this game came

out that a lot of people kind of complained about the stealth and they said, dude, there's too much stealth in this game. It's not very stealthy ish. Like it's, this is not like splinter cell, you know, kind of thing. Um, and a lot of people felt like the stealth just didn't work and the game had too much of it and it wasn't very in depth or any of that stuff. So it is a large portion of the game. I mean, I will say that, that I was sneaking around an awful lot. And I have always said, I don't want to play a full stealth game. That's not really up my alley, but I do like being stealthy occasionally because I think it adds like another depth to gameplay in a way that you can kind of approach something. And I like that kind of freedom of choice. So sure. Yeah. What did you think about the stealth in this game? I mean, there's a lot of it, right? In your opinion. Yeah. You know,

and so did you like the stealth aspect? Did you feel like there was too much of it? What, you know, what worked for you? What maybe didn't work for you in that regard, but kind of, what do you think about that part of it so to me this this is exactly where um distratory you know who's the reason we're playing this game uh made a statement saying this was uncharted 4 and uh and star wars and and that's what really kind of hit our sensors up to the roof and when i played this that's where it really brought home to me it was it was that element of enough stealth where you get to have fun crawling through the high grass you get those yellow markers where somebody may see you but they're not you're not alerted yet

red you know means they're alerted obviously but you have that that stealth to where you can go to an area you can go blast it to kingdom come if you want but if it's so it's that thing where it's so satisfying to be able to distract him over here take out that guy go around take out the next one boom set off the explosion take off that one because the explosion hit him and you can hit this other one so i i think it was just that right amount for me personally that i i loved it because it was it it had so many of those traits that like uncharted or like the new uh reboot on tomb raider a lot of these games have to where you can go in stealth you can go in uh full guns blazing but the stealth aspect of it was so satisfying, if you will. I did genuinely enjoy it, because you do have a combo.

You can use nicks to help you out, your little side character companion while you do the stealth attacks or takedowns and things like that. So I thought the stealth aspect hit home for me. I genuinely, truly enjoyed it. I mean, I renownly, I love Metal Gear Solid. I love stealth games. I love having that ability to just cruise through, take out a whole army of 15, 20 guys guarding a base, and none of them know anything about it.

So I think this one really hit for me, but I don't know, what did what it do for you so stealth's funny for me because too much of it and i start to get bored and i'm like dude just let me run let me shoot somebody you know like i do i really need to crawl around so much in this game and it's weird because i do enjoy stealth moments in a game for sure because i like that suspense i like that it. I like that. It's almost like a puzzle, right? Where it's like, if I can make my way through this room, there's seven guards in this room. How do I make my way from point A to point B? And that's a puzzle in my

mind. And I will say that it worked really well in this game. Like that, I think is the puzzles in this game where it's like, how do I make it through this room? You've touched on it. You can just blast your way through if you want. You know what I mean? Like, and honestly, I did that in a couple of places where, you know,

the mission did not give the qualifier. So we should say that some missions you cannot get caught. Like it's, it's of utmost importance and somebody can't know that you're doing what you're doing. And so if you get caught, it's game over at that point. Right. Whereas other missions, it's kind of like you might be better off if you just stealth.

But if you want to just blast your way through this, I don't care. Yeah. As long as I get what I need out of this, then you do how you want to do it. And so I did like that aspect. I did find myself, oddly enough, enough enjoying like 90 of the stealth in this game yeah i will say if i have to bring up a minor complaint it's that the ai in this game is kind of dumb you know there's two dudes standing right next to each other i sneak up behind one and i punch him in the back and knock him out and that's like the dude that's standing two feet away is like, Whoa,

what's going on? What's that over there? And I'm kind of like, okay, like anybody would have seen this, but again, it's just kind of part of the puzzle. Like I'm okay.

Just kind of taking a step back and saying, my job is to get through this. And this is just a puzzle. And so this was one piece of that puzzle, you know? Yeah. And so I actually really did enjoy the stealth gameplay in this game i will say if i never have to crawl through another like cramped little service tunnel

again oh my gosh there's so many tunnels dude there's so many of those and it's like it's kind of like why man i want to know why okay hold on why is the empire just putting those everywhere oh dude the empire loves them some tunnels empire loves them some vents like that is just full access to anyone you just go up and use get right in tunnel in the death star leads straight to the energy court yeah sure not a big deal yeah tunnel around this thing so people can crawl through it and sneak their way around why not aesthetics baby we need it we just like to look dude so many tunnels in this game so there were a few times where i was like dude really like another tunnel like i don't know what this is adding to the gameplay at this point um but i did actually find the stealth to be kind of fun there were one or two times where if you

failed like i did fail a stealth i got caught and it puts you kind of far back yeah and then i was like oh dang man like that's kind of harsh I got to make my way through these three rooms all over again kind of thing. That's actually something they corrected in a patch where people were complaining about the stealth and they listened and they said, okay, well, we'll make more checkpoints for the stealth option in this game. But for me, the stealth was a benefit to the game itself. You just kind of have to take it with a grain of salt sometimes too. Like this is not Tom Clancy splinter cell. You were not needing to be a top secret espionage agent. You're just a scoundrel trying to make your way through and,

and you know, the heist something from the empire or somebody else. So, um, but Ryan, even in the best of times, sometimes still fails. And when still fails, what's the next best thing, buddy?

We go blasting, baby. We go blasting, baby. And so there is a good bit of combat in this game as well. Um, sometimes the mission is just, Hey, go wreck some people, man. You know, these people need a lesson taught to them and I need you to go do it. And you just go, okay, cool cool so there is combat in this game um you do get different kinds of weapons you get different kind of like grenade or well you get grenades i won't say different kinds of grenades you get different types of blasters or modes for your blaster i guess is the best way to put it um

there you can melee in this game so if you want to just straight up punch somebody in the face you can do that too um so let's talk about the combat a little bit how did you feel about combat as a whole I thought it was pretty good and I will say speaking of melee uh she K must have a good right hook You can knock out some stormtroopers with one or two punches with their helmets on. And I'm like, dang, man. She's been training or something. I don't know what she's on. But, yeah, I thought the combat was just right.

We talk about the stealth. I know going through the world, as you go in between you get these different command posts that you can find that i am sure you're aware of where you see imperial you know stormtroopers and stuff there's one at the top of the tower a few around sometimes i would sneak around and see if i could get through them all without letting them know and then other ones like we said i'd go in blast and and the one thing that i liked is when you picked up you normally you just got your little hand blaster it's like han solo got a little pistol you can upgrade it you can change um the the shot method on uh bursts or or more powerful shots you can charge up shots

stuff like that but when you get these other rifles that you can pick up they have some power to them which i really really liked i thought it was cool to to see the difference between just like hey this is a pistol you're going to take a little more shots between the actual rifles you can pick up the what is the a130 or whatever a3000 or a yeah something something like that yeah there was all kinds yeah that you could pick up. And when you get one of those, I'm like, okay. I'd run back, get around behind the corner. I'm like, I'm taking all these fools out right now.

And you just start shooting away. So I thought the combat was very enjoyable. If you got discovered, you weren't really like, oh, man, now I have to fight. You know, I'd go punch a few dudes in the face, get out my gun, start shooting. And then one thing that I loved was you can overcharge your blaster. So if you shoot too much, burns out,

it's got to recharge and cool off. But it turned into a mini game to where I played on controller. I'm sure you played on keyboard. It has like this little kind of meter on the side of your active reload an active reload to where all right i hit rb within this kind of spot boom i'm back in business i can start shooting again otherwise you know kind of like a gun jam your gun jams up you

got to wait an extra few seconds so i thought it was just fun i wasn't worried about jamming up or going over too far because i'd hit that reload and then keep blasting away so i really did enjoy the combat throughout the game i enjoyed seeing how many guys i could take on sometimes i would just go and and just kind of try to destroy an area to see what i could do especially with like we talked about and we're going to get into uh the different syndicates and the different areas you'll get some that there's a lot of guys and you're like oh crap i gotta and and you're not invincible you're not a bullet sponge so your health goes down pretty quick taking blaster rounds so um there was just a lot to the combat a lot of ways to get through and fight the enemies and i enjoyed pretty much all of it yeah i will say i think combat is probably the worst part of this game

in my opinion you know i i it's weird because i can see it i can see it fun having a blaster rifle yeah you know what i mean like i still want to pew pew people and i'm like oh it's it's like it's got the star wars sound you can put your gun to stun so you can even do like the you know like they stun princess leia in the movie you know where it's like gun to stun. So you can even do like the, you know, like they stunned princess Leia in the movie, you know, where it's like setting to stun. Right. And it's like,

yeah. So it's like, I liked that there were those options to it. Um, I liked that you could get like a grenade that you fight different kinds of enemies where some of them might have shields or some are tankier than others, you know,

and you kind of had to deal with that. You are not a Jedi. So you do die quickly if you do get into a fight. Yeah. I just think overall to me, the combat was probably the, I will say the least developed aspect of the game. It wasn't unenjoyable by any means. Like anytime a fight broke out, I definitely didn't hate it. Like you said, but I just found it to be very simple. You know, dude i was just gonna say i know i know you and i know me and i know that this is like because to me i i love a challenge i love uh

things that that are very hard and i have to you know kind of try to try to beat it but i i just enjoy like the process a lot more than like you want that challenge you want to battle these guys and it to be a big hard how am i going to get through them all this is going to be crazy and this isn't that type of game it's not no so i totally get that from your aspect for me i i loved it i like the combat i think it hit but i can totally see why for you or like elden ring players or people that really love that type of battle combat kind of setting scenario why it wouldn't be as great not to say that it wasn't still enjoyable but it wouldn't be one of the markers that kind of hit

for you it's it's weird because i never minded the combat but i never got excited about the combat either yeah you know what i mean and so it wasn't like oh the combat in this game sucks it's such a drag like it's really bringing this game down. But at the same time, I would not say that for me, the combat enhanced the game in any way, um, in that regard. So listen, we need to cover a few more things. We've got to talk about Nixon. We've got to talk about some of the faction stuff in this game. Um, so we're going to take a very quick break and then we'll be right back to talk about some of that. All right, Ryan, let's talk about the, the, one of the main parts of this game. And that is the fact that you are a scoundrel.

You are trying to make a name for yourself. And as somebody that commits crime and is good at it, you need to work for the people that want you to commit crimes, and that's the different crime syndicates in this game. There's a few of them. You can definitely work for the Hutts. You can work for those sneaky, stealthy Crimson Dawns. You can work for the thuggish Pike Syndicate. And maybe there's another one, but again, we're not going to get into any spoilers, but there may be another syndicate out there that you can work for at some point as well. But this is a large part of this game. This is where if they really tried to kind of home in on this and say, hey, if you want to work for the Hutts, guess what? You're probably going to wind up ticking off the Crimson Dawn because all these crime syndicates are trying to kind of carve out their own territory, their own space, and all these other crime syndicates

are encroaching on that. And so they kind of war with each other, but they have to kind of do it subtly, right? You can't just declare war on the huts. That's not a good idea. And so they will use you to be their agent, do things, steal from that other syndicate, don't get caught, sabotage this guy, go blackmail this guy and steal this data pad that maybe has some incriminating evidence on him. And this is a big portion of the game. In the cities in this game, there are different syndicate areas where if you are not in good standing with them it's off limits you can't come in here yeah that's basically what they say is hey you're not allowed in here and then all of a sudden you get in good standing and they're like okay you can pass and i'm like well i just walk around now you know and you get special vendors that the syndicates might have so

there are definitely advantages to working your way up the, one of the syndicates or, you know, being careful about ticking off one of the syndicates. So how did you feel about this part of the game? Like, did it, did you enjoy it? Was it just a, I know they really tried to make this something, but it didn't really work for me. Like, you know, what were were what are your thoughts on that i i liked it dude i i personally i love when you have factions syndicates gangs like whatever relations you have um i i do thoroughly enjoy that in a video game i i love what missions are they going to offer me? Oh, well, what are they going to offer me? Who wants, who wants my love, baby? Come on. Who's going to give me the most, you know, what, what, where's my perks? What do I get from this? You know, who's going to get, uh, my,

you know, abilities. So I love the option to try to gain the reputation with, with different, uh, types of crews and whatnot. So to me, this was something that was super neat. It was something that played out well within the game. It gave you perks or drawbacks depending on what you did. So there was always a consequence, be it good or bad, that I think adds just another layer. You don't want to have too much to a game to where nobody can understand it.

There's just too much to get to. There's too much to go through. But I think this was one of those things where it just added more, again, I say depth to it. That's another. You can work on your syndicate reputations. You can work on your stuff so that you can upgrade more to go play that next mission to go make it easier so to me i love these types of things within video games and i think they did a good job on this one as well yeah i will say i couldn't really seem to get into the like the syndicate thing right like honestly and maybe that's just

me because like if i'm playing a game that has morality i have a real hard time just being a jerk you know i feel guilty i'm like oh i know they're not people but it's just not my personality you know to just go around kicking everybody in the face and stuff like that and i know this is a big part of the game and there is something insanely cool about working for Jabba the Hutt and meeting Jabba the Hutt in this game and then having to do a mission for Jabba the Hutt. You know, exactly.

And so it's like, but then it's like there's the Crimson Dawn and it's like, oh, I kind of want to play this game like from a stealth aspect, you know? And the Crimson Dawn are stealthy, right? They're like your spies and you're kind of behind the shadows dawn are stealthy right they're like your your spies and you're kind of behind the shadows type people and so i was like oh maybe i want to play with the crimson dawn and i definitely started down that path but i think what put me off was like at one

point i got caught walking around in an area that i shouldn't have been in and they caught me and they kicked me out but it was like trespassing and big red letters across the thing. And then I was like, oh, oops. Okay. But then my freaking standing with that faction went down. And I was like, dude, come on, man. I didn't even know I wasn't supposed to be in there, you know? And so it's like, I took this hit to this faction and then I got mad about it, you know? And I was the heck man like this is stupid you know and then it's like well java has a job for you like the huts need your assistance and i'm like cool i'll go work for java yes yeah you know screw you crimson dawn like giving me a bad reputation because i accidentally trespassed in your area and then it's like so i do a job for java and then it's like oh dude i do a job for Jabba. And then it's like, oh, dude, I'm favorable with the Hutts now.

And I'm like, oh, heck yeah. I get to go talk to this special vendor and all that. And then I do this other mission where it's like, oh, well, you have to make a choice. Are you going to betray this faction? Are you going to help this faction out? And then I was like, oh, I guess I'm going to help them because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. So I helped them. And then guess what? It's like, you're standing like the right thing to do at the time. So I helped them. And then guess what?

It's like, you're standing with the Hutts is now in the crapper. And then I'm like, no, I was favorable with them. And it's like, you don't mess with Java, man. So like, sometimes I didn't even know like that. I was like messing up one faction versus the other. So for me, no, I get that. Yeah. I get that.

For me as my personality and very particular to me, I just kind. Yeah, I get that. For me, as my personality, and very particular to me, I just kind of wrote the faction system off at that point, if that makes sense. Because it was kind of like, I don't want to betray this person. This is the mission I'm on. I have the chance to betray them, or I can give them the data that they need. And it's like, oh, well, I'm going to give you the data you need. But by doing that, I completely obliterate this other faction standing that I was working on and then it all just got jumbled up to me and i just kind

of went ah forget it all man you know um i know there's people that love that in the game and they're like dude i want to spend all my time trying to max out each faction in the game which i know you can do so that's kind of your thing you can do. So if that's kind of your thing, you can definitely work for that. I just kind of got lost on that and I just kind of stopped caring about it. And I know that's probably a crime to some people, but it just didn't really do it for me. Yeah. No, I mean, that's fair. With Skyrim, I went through and I did all the missions for, what is it? The Dark Brotherhood. Then I went through the Thieves Guild., I went through and I did all the missions for the Dark Brotherhood. Then I went through the Thieves Guild. Then I went through all the Wizarding missions.

I did everything because I love almost getting in with the group. And then you're part of it. You do all the missions for them. And then, well, see you. You go off to the next one. So I don't mind it as much. And then also, I tend to be, I'm kind of a yes man in person in the real world. And so I do kind of like to be an a-hole in video games. And I like to just, oh yeah, you don't like me?

Too bad. Boom. And smack them around. So I enjoy it. I get why people would not like it. I can see why doing this mission for this faction and then it messes up this other one and you're like oh come on man now you can't go over there and you get lost and accidentally walk into it and then it goes down even more so i totally see how

that can kind of turn somebody off to that part of it yeah and i get that it's a minor thing you know what i mean like me getting trespassed is probably not important in the grand scheme of things but it was more just the, like, I felt like I was messing things up unintentionally sometimes. Yeah. And when I have a reputation that's associated with that, it was easier for me to just be like,

screw all this, man. Forget it. I'm my own person. Man, I don't need you guys. You know, it turns out you might actually need them.

So do you know who I am so do you know who i am do you know who i am all right ryan we're we're running out of time here we have to talk about nix um nix is your uh your your cute little creature companion in this game he's kind of your cheat code uh in a way for this game nix is a a merqual i'd never seen one of these before in star wars but that's what he is he is your constant companion in this game he is the guy that you can send to go steal things to go push buttons and all that stuff did you like Nix did he add to the game for you give me a quick rundown on what you think about Nix I had a very uh weird, I guess you would say, with Nyx to where I would totally forget that I even had a Nyx a lot of the time.

And then sometimes I would remember because I'd see the little icon. So for the people listening, when you play the game, there'll be like this kind of light blue icon with like a head. And then that's like a Ny's ability yeah that you could do something so you can either flip the switch or go through their grade or or um get this item or even steal you could steal from the stormtroopers which one was one thing that i thought was not super useful but i thought it was neat a little kind of a neat fold in there um as well but there's just i don't know i i i thought it was cool when you used it but it was also something that i didn't really find myself being drawn to except for when i'm running around and it was one of those times i forgot i had nix and i'm looking i'm like

how do i get through here i keep running around there's an energy shield barrier i got a blaster in the center of the room. I got to get up to this. I was like, I know I have to get up there. How the heck do I do it? I'm trying to jump from here to there, crawl around, move wall. Like, I'm going all over the place. And then I happen to just go behind a spot to stop for a second because the blaster's shooting at me.

And then I see the little icon behind the energy barrier.'m like oh dang it i forgot so you can send nicks in there to open the wall for you and then you can get through to get where you need to go so at those points i kind of got annoyed like okay i mean i should have remembered but also this is kind of annoying to have to use this character but it that that should be an asset but i don't really think about it and that's that's probably more a me thing, used to playing Uncharted or other things where you don't have that. But yeah, it was cool.

I wouldn't say that I would like it better without Nyx, but also there was times where it was a little frustrating because I couldn't figure it out. And again, that's probably more of a me thing, but I'm indifferent on Nyx. Sorry, Nyx. How dare you? Sorry, I don't want it out. And again, that's probably more of a me thing. But I'm indifferent on Nyx. Sorry, Nyx. How dare you? Sorry, I don't want to hurt your feelings, Nyx.

How dare you, Ryan? I'm kind of with you in a sense that like, I kind of alluded to it. To me, Nyx was a cheat code. Nyx was a way to simplify the game. To me, where it's like, oh, it's hard to make your way through this area. There's too many Imperials around.

Just send Nyx to distract one of them. Boom. The guy's distracted. Sneak up, punch him in the back, move on. Or blow up those barrels over on the other side. Yeah. And so it was kind of like Nyx almost just trivialized the game in a lot of ways. And so I was kind of like, well, I don't have to use Nyx for this.

And so I found that I wasn't. I will say where Nyicks really came into play was in some of like you mentioned they're not really puzzles but they're like puzzle lights where it's like you're climbing on this thing you have to send nicks over to like push a button so that this this turbo lift will lower or or actually raise up so that you can then jump on the top of the turbo lift then send nicks to go push the button so the lift lowers and then that way you can kind of progress through the level that part of Nick's I thought was kind of clever because it's almost like I'm playing with a friend that is helping me solve these puzzles. But for the most

part for me, Nick's was just a cheat code, you know, Oh, you're having too hard of a time sneaking through this area. Use Nick's more. Oh, okay. Well now they're distracted or he blows up a barrel and kills one of them. And then, you know you know maybe that alerts them but they don't know who they're looking for you know and stuff like that so i will say one of my favorite parts of the entire game was when you eat at one of the food shops and you get the food for nicks and you have to do the little it's like a little it's like a little mini game you're like on a date with nicks and it's the cutest thing ever man and you're just bonding and then after that i was like i freaking love you nicks you're the coolest guy ever you know and then that he tries to he tries to get that ice block early and then and then it's like you know you gotta wait it's stuck to it

but that does make you bond that does make you bond with them it really does so they did a good part there so nicks is there if you need them you need them in a few parts of the game but i found that it just was almost like a cheat code i'm just going to use that term again no that's that's fair i will say too like when you talked about like the two guys uh two troopers standing there and you can just kind of hit the other one i would do it just for my own personal satisfaction where i would send nx to the far one to distract the far one or attack the far one and then I could take the closer one and knock him out and then get the second one and I'm like yeah you know just that satisfaction of like I got them both type thing but um yeah like like we said it's just it was uh it was cute it was there but he's there for

cute factor and I know you can use them but this game would probably not be much different if Nick's wasn't there. And you just had to do this stuff yourself kind of thing too. For sure. So, all right, Ryan, you know, graphics in this game, they're fine. I, you know, I think they did a good job of capturing the star Wars universe. So we'll go back to the setting part and say the setting was awesome. I felt like there were a time or two where I was like, Kate looks really muddy compared to the setting part and say the setting was awesome um i felt like there were a time or

two where i was like k looks really muddy compared to the rest of it and i remember actually googling like how do i make the graphics better but you know they're not cutting edge graphics but they're fine in my opinion any any different thought there no i thought it was good i did think they did a really good job um i know one of my big concerns was the open world aspect of it. I think when you drive through those areas with grass flowing. I loved driving my speeder bike around. Yeah, driving the speeder bike through. I loved just riding my speeder bike around.

I would just circle around. Once you upgrade and use the boost and you're just ramping, I'm like, I'm going to hit that 85-meter gap thing and try to upgrade my speeder even more to get the jump. And so I just, I thought the open world environment, I do think they did a good job, not just making it bland and plain.

Um, the, the, the kind of flowing grass with the wind, the buildings, I think they did a good job with that. Not too much crazy, uh,

graphically as far as how the, uh, amazing look of everything. But I do think there was depth to it. Depth in the city, depth in the world. But yeah, it was nothing to write home about, but I think they did a good job. Yeah, they're fine. I'm a graphics snob. These graphics were fine for what the game needed to be.

I wasn't blown away, but I also wasn't distracted by them or going like, come on, these could have been better. All right, Ryan, um, audio, it sounds like star Wars. They did a good job with the blaster sounds and stuff like that. The voice acting was good. There's a good bit of that in the game. I thought it was fine. Nothing to write home about either in that regard, not distracting, didn't take away anything in my opinion either. So, yeah. Okay. Um, you know, we've kind of covered the game, you know, we've covered different aspects of the game. I, you know,'ve kind of covered the game you know we've covered different aspects of the game you know this is the part where i just you know what did you think ryan

did you like star wars did was it were you impressed were you disappointed like what do you think man i i thought it was a really good game i think that this one hit um those markers for me i love action rpgs i love the star wars universe meld them together like districtory said uncharted with star wars and i think this was pretty dang close to that i i feel like there could have been some things that they did different i feel like they could have done a little bit more in some aspects, but I think overall, I think they did a really good job. And I think this is good for Ubisoft to show, okay, we know we suck.

Maybe they don't know we suck. They suck, but they should know they suck. And I think this is a step in the right direction to where maybe they can kind of really take more of these kind of games on. Like we said, these fans, they're super fans of Star Wars. And they're going to hold you to it. You better do a dang good job if you're going to make a game from a world, a universe that is this beloved. And I think they did their due diligence i think

they did a good job and i think that it held true to what they wanted it to be and so i i'm pretty stoked i'm glad we got to play it i'm glad uh districtory you know forced us and i'm doing quotes for anyone that can't see me which is everybody. But I'm glad we were forced to play this game. And I think it's a really solid, solid game and a really solid Star Wars game. I really didn't know what to expect going into this game. And I will say that I was one of those gamers that was kind of put off by the negative reviews and the people saying, oh, this game, there's no heart to it. KVAS is not a fun protagonist and there's no lightsabers and all that stuff and blah, blah, blah.

When I got to playing it, you know, I even was kind of being skeptical to myself and saying like, oh, this combat's not really that in depth. And oh, the stealth isn't really that in depth. And oh, Nyx is cute, but I don't really need to use Nyx a whole lot and all that. And so I i you know i was definitely trying to do the like what am i critical of but there's something about a recipe when you have all these ingredients and by themselves those ingredients aren't that great you know what i mean but when you put all these ingredients together something better

happens you know and it's like you know you i like i like sugar i don't like flour but when you put sugar and flour together i get cookies all of a sudden you know and so it's it's one of those things where it's like i in this game i got cookies dude like yeah none of it really was all like inspiring to me. And it's funny because I know Dissertory was really gushing over this game and saying, oh my goodness, dude, this might be one of the best games I've played all year. And I kind of went, yeah, I don't know if I see that, dude. But then I was like, but this game's pretty good, man.

This is pretty fun, man. I'm having fun and i gotta say to be fair i while we were playing this game i am playing overwatch with my daughter which i love those times playing that with her i'm playing throne and liberty which i wanted to play you know with some buddies and check that game out and i was still dabbling in god of war ragnarok a little bit as well as like that's my me game you you know? And so I'm playing Star Wars Outlaws in the midst of all these other games. And every time I was like, I need to play Star Wars Outlaws. I didn't mind it one bit. You know what I mean? I never found myself like dreading playing this game or any of that stuff. And while I'm playing it, I'm realizing like, dude, I'm having fun, fun man i'm sneaking into these imperial bases i'm getting

out alive i'm like you know i'm betraying this guy and i'm working for that faction and i'm upgrading we didn't even talk about the fact that there's upgrades for almost every system in this game you can upgrade your spaceship you can upgrade your speeder you can upgrade your blaster you can upgrade your gear so it had those like like kind of RPG light elements that I really liked that really helped string me along. And so in my mind, this game is way better than what people gave it credit for. And that is like my official, like, you know, people want to know, I'm not going to call this a game of the year because I don't think that it is necessarily. But when we talked about, and we said this from the very beginning, addressing this kind of controversy

over the critic reviews and the gamer reviews and people that have played it and people that haven't, where is this game actually at? This game is way better than I think it gets credit for, in my opinion. Agreed. You know?

And so I'm a little baffled by the critic response. And I'm, you know me, dude. I'm usually very critical i have no problem saying i think this part of this game sucks or this game sucks as a whole and stuff like that and while i can see that this game definitely has weak spots to it it just works dude and maybe maybe that's because we're star wars nerds maybe but who isn't like how many people do you talk to that say it oh i hate star wars i don't like star wars at all like everybody has some sort of affinity most of the time for

star wars and and even if you like it just a little i don't see how you can't love just being in this world you know being a part of it being being uh uh one with with this just kind of dark gritty little part of this town and then you go up to the open beautiful plains and you're seeing wind farmers doing this stuff and there's just so much to to behold in this game that i think that they did so well on i i don't see how all the controversy happened, but I don't know. Maybe that's, again, like you said, that they were just Star Wars nerds. Maybe. I don't know. I mean, I'm critical of games. I don't mind saying that, but this game, I found very little to be critical of in that regard. Is it Game of the Year? In my opinion,

it's not. I don't think it'll even get nominated for Game of the Year. Is it an absolutely enjoyable, well-rounded fun video game? That's probably worth the money for me. The answer is resoundingly. Yes, dude. Yes. You know,

I mean, I, I find it hard to believe that somebody could play this game and go, this game sucks. Like I can't, I can't fathom that to be honest with you. I agree a hundred percent. Yeah.

There's, I don't see any way where someone could put, put the time in, put, you know, five, 10, 15 hours, whatever you want. I think it's 25, 30 to beat it, maybe 40, but depending on how much you want to do, obviously. Yeah. But I don't see how you could put that time in, explore the world, and not just love what you see and love what you're doing in the game. Yeah.

For sure. Yeah. It's a thoroughly enjoyable video game that I think is worth your time and money to dive into. You know, I don't think I'm going to be talking about Star Wars Outlaws two years from now by any means, but is there worse ways to spend $60 on a video game? Like,

absolutely. Yeah, there are. I do think this game is worth the price. How, what would you, I guess, I think we can all agree

fallen order was better than survivor yes i agree 100 okay so so how would you compare it to fallen order oh man it's it's not as good as fallen order in my opinion like i would agree fallen order was way better than it had any right to be oh but i I will say that this game is a very good, enjoyable Star Wars game. I don't think it's like the other side. You know what? I'll say this. I think it's better than Jedi Survivor. Okay. I can, I can honestly, I think I would agree. I mean, if that helps quantify it for people now, I will say that we were not the biggest fans of Jedi Survivor. If we take a step back and we say, is this a good video game? Jedi Survivor is a very good video game. Was it a little disappointing and a little bit kind of janky at release and stuff like that and came

with a lot of issues? Yes, it was that detracted from that. But I will say that from a Star Wars game standpoint, I think Star Wars Outlaws holds its own against Jedi Survivor. Yeah, no, I would agree. I think the same thing. I think they did just such a good job with this game. All right, Ryan, we're going to go to the leaderboard here in just a second. But you know what? We promised a free game to somebody, Ryan. We did.

And we are going to give away a free game. Now, before we started recording, we randomized our members in, our members in our discord server and Ryan, we randomly picked a winner. And why don't you announce who the winner is? And the winner is super Mario 94. Congratulations. Super Mario 94. Yeah.

Uh, now here's the catch. You got to let us know that you won because we said you have to listen to this episode and then we'll give the game away. So Super Mario 94, I know you're on our Discord server. You've been chatting away. We love having you there, but you got to say, hey, Josh, Ryan, I can't believe I won or whatever, but you got to let us know that you heard that you won and then we will work out getting your game copy to you on your platform of choice on that one. All right,

Ryan, man, we do. We've got gaming for the people, man. We are gaming for the people. Yeah. And hopefully after this episode,

he's more excited to play this game now too. All right, Ryan, we've gone. He's going to have a copy. Yeah, he better. Ryan,

let's go to the leaderboard. I know where I have this game rated. I'm just going to throw it out there. I think this game is quite good. I don't think it's in the range of being absolutely spectacular, memorable for years to come kind of thing, but it's a very worthwhile video game in my opinion. I'm going to put this at an 8.3, um, which is going to put it right in the same, uh, category as grand theft auto online and call of duty war zone for me, which is high praise, dude. I mean, that's no slouch of a game. Again, I would recommend this game to people. I, you know, it's not without its flaws and stuff like that but i think this game is better

than a lot of people gave it credit for and for me it's an 8.3 and that's that's just above you got jedi survivor at uh 8.0 so yeah yeah there you go i said i think it's better than that game so that follows i had i'm not gonna lie i had to look it up i'm glad that i didn't contradict myself there i was like oh man i said it's a lot better i better go look up what i gave it so i don't even know where i had survivor rated so i'm glad that uh that was on point i got you but i'm thinking ahead um so i'm gonna do also i i really did genuinely enjoy this game it was i'm an action rpg guy i love worlds that i can explore i love having the option to go around and do all kinds of different things that i want to do i don't want to be just stuck on this one linear path

i like to have the option to go on a side path and and explore and see what i can kind of trouble i can get into i guess as a scoundrel for sure um i'm going to go a little higher. I'm going to give this thing an 8.8. I think that for me, for me personally, it's all those markers that I want to hit. The only one that held it back is it wasn't bad, but I didn't feel just drawn into the story. Yeah.

Like some other games, you know, if, if it was a story that really hit, that made me just sucked in. just drawn into the story like some other games. If it was a story that really hit, that made me just sucked in, and I loved the characters, and I felt a really emotional connection to them, it would have been higher. But I think

overall, with the gameplay, the world, the setting, everything that we have, I think 8.8 is an awesome score. I would highly recommend this to anyone. If you even love Star Wars a little bit, get this game for sure. Just to explore the world, you will love it.

I guarantee it. Dude, I will say if you are a fan of Star Wars, there were so many moments where I was just like, okay, that's really cool. You go to Tatooine and you have to go visit Jabba's Palace. And guess what? It's freaking Jabba's Palace, dude. It's Jabba's Palace. I mean, you go up to the door, the little eye thing pops out. You have to talk to it and everything. I mean, there were just so many of those cool

moments as a Star Wars fan to go like, okay, they did it in that regard. So 8.8 on your leaderboard puts this dead equal with Subnautica which is one of my favorite games and halo infinite which is a very good game as well so yeah high praise from from you there as well all right ryan man we went long so i'm just gonna go ahead and call this the end of this episode we hope you enjoyed this we hope that this kind of answers the question for those of you that were on the fence or wanted to know more about Star Wars Outlaws. A huge heartfelt thank you to Disratory. Dude, we love having you as part of the community. You're awesome to talk to.

You're an awesome member of the community. Thank you for your support of this podcast as well. It really does mean a lot to us. And honestly, everybody else out there, because you've been supporting the show for quite a while now. And it's not lost on us that you go out of your way to do that. If you enjoyed this episode, remember to leave us a five-star review. Remember to follow the podcast as well on your podcast app. It's usually either a follow button or a plus button or something like that. If you want to go the extra mile like Dissertory, you can support the podcast over at MultiplayerSquad.com.

You get cool perks like early access, ad-free episodes, Discord perks, and things like that as well. So that's it. Ryan, I'm really excited about this next game that we're playing. We are covering a spooky game for Halloween. Spooky season is here. Dude, we played one night of this game, and I am comfortable saying that this might be the most bananas game I have ever played in my life, dude.

Insane. We are going to cover the Outlast Trials, which I've had my eye on for a while now. Yes. And so that is the game that we're going to cover for our spooky season, you know, scary game. That's going to be a doozy, dude. You do not want to miss that episode. Cause like I said, this might be the most crazy game I've ever seen. Wait, we have to play more. Oh, we got to

play more buddy. All right. So we'll be back in two weeks with that episode for the LS trials. Thanks for joining us until next time. Happy gaming. So we'll be back in two weeks with that episode for the LS Trials. Thanks for joining us. Until next time, happy gaming. See ya!