Video Gamers Podcast - Game Award Whiffs, South of Midnight and Lean Mean Battlefield - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

The Video Gamers Podcast is back with another incredible episode of This Week in Gaming. Gaming hosts Josh and Ryan are back chatting the latest gaming news. Join us as we talk about the Game Award nominees, and our thoughts on a certain injustice, get hyped for the incredible looking video game, South of Midnight, discuss the return of a revolutionary Battlefield feature, plus more. All the video game news you need, each and every week from the Video Gamers Podcast! Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Ol’ Jake and Disratory Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q   Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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On this episode of This Week in Gaming, we're talking about the Game of the Year nominees and why the Game Awards might actually be communists. We'll be arguing over whether a DLC should be eligible for a nomination, and we're taking a trip down south as we look at a pretty incredible-looking South of Midnight. But first, some introductions are in order. I am your host, Josh, and joining me, he's secretly a bug lover and was the mastermind for Big Terminid in their bid to keep Helldivers 2 out of the Game of the Year category. It's Ryan. How dare you put me with Big Terminid? I hate Big Terminid. How dare you put me with big term. And I hate big term.

And it, what do you mean? Yeah, that's what a big term. And it would say, that is what a big term. And it would say, but I'm also,

you're going to put me in, you know, in the spotlight. I'm just kidding. I listened. It was all for the fun of the show. I would never accuse you. Ryan,

big Liberty is going to come get me. Watch out. No, I take it back. I take it back. Ryan's Ryan's one of the good guys. Yeah, I think I'll prove it soon come get me. Watch out. No, I take it back. I take it back. Ryan's one of the good guys. Yeah. I think.

I'll prove it soon. Trust me. Oh, man. Ryan, we got a lot to talk about today. Some weeks, not so great. This week, we got plenty because we're just going to start right off with it, man. The Game Award nominees were announced. So the Game of the Year nominees by the game awards the

list came out there was a lot of conversation around this um let me just read the list let's start off with that ryan i'll just read it so so for people that don't know what the actual games are it is astrobot metaphor refantasio, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Bellatro, Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree, and Black Myth Wukong. Oh, all right. Okay. I mean, it's a good list of games, Ryan. It's a solid list. But I feel like there's something missing on this list, man.

I would say there is. And I have something to say about that can i can i have a minute hey man the stage is yours ryan okay ladies and gentlemen it is truly baffling how a game like helldivers 2 could be overlooked in game of the year nominations here we are in an age where the industry is supposed to be about choice, innovation, and above all, freedom. The freedom to take risks, to break boundaries, to challenge players in ways that other genres simply can't. And yet, we see titles that offer polished experiences, sure, but ultimately feel like

they're playing it safe, staying within the confines of well-trodden formulas. Helldivers 2, on the other hand, is just simply... a game. It's a statement. A cooperative, fast-paced shooter with a brutal learning curve. It demands teamwork, and strategy, in a way that few other games dare to. The sheer audacity to offer something this dynamic, this original, and then watch it be dismissed, it is a betrayal of the very principles that should be celebrated in the gaming world. Democracy in gaming? It's time we demand it.

Liberty in recognition? It's time we demand it. Liberty in recognition, it's time we defend it. Helldivers, let's dive. Amen, brother. Right? Amen to that, I say. I have

very strong feelings on this. And obviously, if you couldn't tell by that monologue there, I can't believe they left Helldivers 2 off the list, man. How are you going to leave Helldivers 2 off the list for the Game of the Year nominees? Like, look, everybody has said, listen, I know Helldivers 2 isn't going to win, but it should be a nominee.

It was such a good, amazingly fun game. And for it to not be in the list of nominees is an atrocity, in my opinion, man. I agree wholeheartedly. Like we said, I didn't think it was going to win. I didn't expect it was going to win. I didn't expect it to win. But to not even have a nomination when you have such a big core of just gaming fans that just absolutely loved this game. And all the chaos that they went through with Sony. And to group together to fight back against Big Terminid, a.k.a. Big Sony. And get your wish and know and like remove all

that stuff to to do that to group together and then that shows how much passion people had of this game and how big it was and to not even get the nomination it just i don't know it's it's crazy yeah look it deserves its dues. That's the thing. And again, nobody is saying, hey, I think this is going to beat out a game like Astro Bot or Shadow of the Erd Tree, which we'll talk about here in a little bit. But it deserved it, man. It deserved to be in that pantheon of best games of 2024. It kind of breaks my heart that it's not.

We play video games to have fun yes and helldivers 2 is some of the most fun that we have had playing a video game in a long time yeah it's just fun it's just fun man and i get that it's not everybody's cup of tea with the gameplay loop on it but it's like i cannot think of another game that brought gamers together the way Helldivers 2 had. Yeah. I mean, everybody was saluting and posting online and everybody would chime in. And it was just a really fun, awesome time for gamers when that happened. And so it just seems weird that that game is not in the Game of the Year nominees.

Wow, man. No slander against the games that are. It just that was the glaring omission that we felt like was there. And so we wanted to bring it up at the top of the show. Very strongly, we might add. Yeah. So, Ryan, what do you think about these other nominees? Again, I'll list them off. Astrobot, Metaphor Refantasio, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Bellatro, Shadow of the Erdtree, and Black Myth Wukong.

I don't want to talk about what we feel like might be missing on that list or why it's not an accurate list because we're going to have our own Game of the Year episode where we'll cover all of our different nominees and stuff like that. So for this list and what it is, what do you think about it um i think it's a pretty solid list obviously minus uh what we had previously mentioned earlier in the episode but i think overall it's it's pretty solid i mean astrobot is just an absolutely fantastic game that's my i'll come out and say it that's my game of the year dude i'm right there with you winner in my opinion i'm right there with you like that's that's one that just the the graphics the gameplay the sound the audio you know all those things it just text checks all those boxes that makes just an amazing game and um so i think they're spot on with that one i know we've heard great things about refantasio a lot of people are just gangbusters

about it yeah um final fantasy is always you know everybody loves it i didn't play i didn't play rebirth so i did play the first remake but i'd never got a chance to play rebirth i saw a lot of people talking about it it looked really good but i'll be honest that's a game i'm like i'm pretty ignorant of at this point so it's like i don't know if it's game of the year material or not just because i don't have any first-hand experience with it yeah yeah i'm i'm the same way i didn't play i personally i'm gonna get a lot of hate i'm sure i always do but i think it's as overrated as chipotle it's it's good but it's not as great as i'm with you on the chipotle thing but not on the final fantasy i know i know but i don't like turn-based combat so that's my thing but yeah um bellatro we saw it in our discord everyone was

always like posting there, look at my high score. Look what I did. Oh, man, look at this combo. And they were posting that like crazy. Elden Ring, the fact that they're allowing DLCs in this, it's like an automatic. Don't go there yet.

Don't go there yet. All right, all right, all right. I'll hold off on that. But yeah, Elden Ring, great, obviously. And then Black Myth, we've already talked about how much we like that game. It was a pretty solid game. A lot of people were higher on it than me, but I have no qualms about it being in the Game of the Year nominees. Yeah.

Yeah, I think my list for the Game of the Year nominees will be different than this list for sure. Yeah, same. But I don't disagree with this list either i can see reasons why these games are on here exactly like i can accept it yep exactly but astrobot to me stands above well there's another one that stands above well you know what let's just go ahead and talk about it all right let's do it because for me i have been saying for a while that shadow of the earth tree was one of my favorite games of 2024 yeah i i mean that came out as a huge elden ring fan and a fan of the dark souls games in general like shadow of the earth

tree was just it was just perfection in everything that like somebody could want for that type of of expansion but it did cause some controversy because it is in the Game of the Year nominees. And people said, yo, wait a minute. That's not a standalone game. That's a DLC. And people went, yeah. And they said, well, DLCs shouldn't qualify for Game of the Year. And I think you and I might be on opposite sides on this, Ryan. I'm just going to come out and say it. I think it should. If it is a full-fledged DLC, I'll give a good comparison real quick. Remnant 2, one of my absolute favorite games. Everybody knows I'm always shilling for Remnant 2. They have DLCs,'re small it's like it's three hours of gameplay maybe you know maybe a little bit longer but it's just a

little bit more of that game if you're giving me a dlc that is 20 to 30 hours long to me that's a game yeah you know uh phantom liberty for cyberpunk famously is one of the best DLCs I've ever played. It's a full fledged standalone, like version of a game. It's just based on a, like a, like a primary game, I guess, you know, like it's based on something else and it's connected to that, but it's enough content to be its own thing at that point. So I know we can't always throw those clarifiers in when we're saying, well, we're going to nominate this and not nominate that. But Shadow of the Earth Tree is a phenomenal thing in and of itself. And yes, it's tied to Elden Ring, but it's like, I think it deserves every right to be in this list. Do you disagree? You're grinning at me. Well, it's hard because I get it. In the old days, these would have been

just like another game. But now they can offer them as a DLC, you know, and like, Hey, we developed this as well. And, and you do have a point that if it's, you know, 20 plus hours, that's, I mean, we played games that are eight to 12 hours recently. So, you know, and that's a full game. And so having that much content available to you, even if it's categorized as a dlc is quite a bit my problem with it is it's like okay hey we always talk food here because we're a big bunch of chunky monkeys but you have the best burger in the world and then they're like hey i know you like this burger but we're gonna put bacon on it and it's a new burger it is a new burger, it's a burger with bacon which is different than a burger without bacon

now it's the burger with bacon, it's the same burger but now they added bacon to it and so it's like, come on man you already have the best burger, now you just put even better stuff on it so, I don't know maybe it's a little bit of jealousy on the fact that they can just kind of put out the DLC

and then get the game of the year there's no hate but it's a little bit of jealousy on the fact that they can just kind of put out the DLC and then get the game of the year. But there's no hate, but it's kind of I'm on the fence. He says as he's sneering. There's no hate, but... Whatever, you can roll your way to the game of the year. Yeah, it's so good, man. That's my issue is that I think it belongs there. I will say in this fun little argument, like I can understand somebody's point of view to say, Hey, I think it should just be, it's, it's not fair to have a DLC come out. Elden Ring already got its dues. Um, it doesn't need it again

with shadow of the earth tree, let somebody else stand in its place, but it's like, but if it was that good, shouldn't it be in the conversation too? For sure. I feel you. Yeah. So, all right. We've got a lot more to talk about. But first, we're going to take a quick break. And then we're going to talk about some South of Midnight, which has me pretty darn excited.

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Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H- to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com. All right, Ryan, we're back. You know, over the break, you admitted that you thought I was right about the whole DLC being... Oh, is that what I said? But all right, let's talk about South of Midnight. You know, we covered this game very briefly. I don't know. I feel like it was a few months ago when it was very first announced. And we said, man, the art style on this game really stands out to me.

It's set in the deep South, which is near and dear to me because I lived in Louisiana for 10 years. So a lot of the scenery in this game actually kind of like resonates with me because I'm like oh this totally reminds me of louisiana um but this is it's kind of hard to describe because it's very very story and like character driven and it almost looks like you're watching an incredibly animated cartoon i mean one of the best animated cartoons i think i could i could say i've seen um but then it shows gameplay and the gameplay is more like kind of action oriented like it shows these big boss fights and you're springing off of things and jumping around and jumping and stuff like that and then it's like what is this game what is this yeah so what i mean you watch this trailer this first look that we got uh that showed off some of the gameplay what were your impressions of this um i thought the same thing i thought it i thought

it looked just really like unique really cool just something different about it there's there's an art style there that i know we've recently been talking about art styles uh whether we like or dislike them but it was something that it for the setting it seemed to work it had that little bit of an edge to it that i did enjoy watching it and and so then i i feel like i would enjoy playing it as well so i i like um yeah i like all different kinds of settings in different worlds and so it's almost like i know you talk about like uh you know being in the South where you grew up and stuff. It's like when they mention stuff about Arizona

because I'm born and raised native Arizonan. And it's that Leonardo DiCaprio from the movie where he's like, whoop, whoop, whoop. And he's pointing at the TV because he's like, oh, he recognized it. Oh, Wolf of Wall Street. No, it wasn't Wolf of Wall Street.

Was it Wolf of... It was Hollywood. Oh, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. There we go. And he's pointing at the TV every time, so I can imagine you looking at it like, yeah, yeah, yeah, and it gets you hyped up.

So it's just that setting just seems neat, and it resonated with me just because I thought it looked so cool. So I'm excited, man. I think it looks like something that's going to be kind of fun with a good story but also action-packed with kind of big cinematics and big bosses and and big action so yeah i'm definitely interested to see i on i'm going to be honest i don't remember looking at this prior but we go through so many dang games man we look at so many trailers brief yeah it was just a little teaser trailer.

We'll get little snippets, and then we're like, yeah, we looked at this a few months ago. And I'm like, I got no... Dude, I don't remember yesterday. Dude, every now and then I'll scroll back through our episodes and look at titles or something. And then I'm like, I don't remember talking about that game. Right? We do. We talk about a lot of different games.

I think South of Midnight looks pretty darn incredible. When we saw this kind of first look at it, they talked about this is absolutely, their focus is the story, the characters, the music, the soundtrack in this game, it seems to be absolutely exceptional. They even talk about that uh the art style i think is really really neat and gorgeous uh in that regard the thing that bugs me is it's got a stop motion animation art style as well yeah and it carries over to the gameplay part and so they even say like people will think this is like a frame rate issue but it's just the actual style of the animation and that's when i kind of went like oh man like it's like this thing's locked at like 26 frames per second or something

no matter what and i'm like oh that that that would take some getting used to but um yeah they said it's about 8 to 12 hours i think so they're not trying to overstay its welcome or anything else but this game this is one of those i think it's going to be a game as an experience type thing or like game is art you know i don't think anybody's going to write home about the actual gameplay part but any game that leaves you talking or thinking about it after you play it and fits into that category is usually worth the play time as well that's a win especially like you said it's if it's eight to ten hours go have an awesome experience for you know whatever you know the is for it and stuff. But you're going to walk away remembering it and feeling happy about that experience.

Yeah. Well, you know, an experience that I wish I could forget, Ryan, is the experience of Battlefield 2042. I'm with you and when it launched into the hearts of gamers everywhere the love letter to its fans i felt so loved obviously oh man uh listen we trash battlefield 2042 around here a lot but it's for good reason we loved the battlefield franchise we were talking about you know hey they say oops sorry we'll learn from our mistakes the next one will be better well here it is ryan we're already starting to get a little drip of teaser information for the next battlefield game it's something good right it's got to be

something amazing it's absolutely fantastic just just trust me right well hold on they i mean they've been uh they've been working on this. One of our favorite things in the world is destructible environments. We played Red Faction Guerrilla. Amazing, awesome destruction. Battlefield was always so good with the destruction. We're going to have some cool advancement, right, in destructible environments, buildings, all that type of stuff. It's going to be something big, I can imagine, right?

It's got to be truly next gen ryan like truly next gen okay lay it on me i gotta i gotta know all right ryan well not only that but it's actually a feature that they had before that they're they're bringing back and i'm sure making it better okay that missing feature that was hotly requested by every battlefield fan ever was the ability to lean. What? What? The ability?

You don't want the ability to lean? How have I lived my whole life playing these games without being don't want the ability to lean? How have I lived my whole life playing these games without being able to have the ability to lean? You are missing out because leaning will change your life, man. Let me tell you. I'm just like rubbing. You guys can't see this. You guys can't see it, but I'm rubbing my eyes right now.

This is the best they have to offer as like the teaser drip. Wait, guys, don't, don't go to call of duty. Listen, our next game, you can lean. Well, you, you used to be able to lean and then somebody took it away. That's enough leaning for people, man. Get it out of here. These young ones are leaning too much we better take this out of the game oh man i like this does not give me confidence at all no uh here's the funny part

i didn't know you could lean in battlefield games anyway i'm not gonna lie i didn't know you could either i don't think i've ever leaned in a battlefield game. So it's like, this is the thing that got taken away and they're now giving back to people and fans of the series. We didn't know you could lean in the first place, man. That's why we're, cause we're sniping or we're in freaking choppers,

like blowing stuff up. Like that's what made the game fun. You know, good combative gameplay, not these weird little things. Yeah, I honestly, it would have been better if they just didn't announce anything at all. But to come out with something like this, you've got to be tone deaf. Like, I don't understand why they thought this was a good idea to announce this.

It's the only thing I can think of is we need to start resonating with the fans and bringing back the things that they wanted, like the scoreboard, you know, or some of these other options, server, you know, server browsers, things like that. And I think they went, okay, well, what's something that they want that we can say we're going to give them? And then somehow leaning was what they landed on. That's top of the list oh my goodness hi caramba yeah well that doesn't uh yeah i i don't even know what to think about battlefield anymore man um you know who i do know what to think about though and that is blizzard oh because i have historically was a huge fan of blizzard games and then not so much but i have this problem where i keep playing them because they're fun uh and as much as i hate blizzard and the the stuff behind it i like their games are just fun

dude i'm still playing diablo 2 bro so i i got sucked back into hearthstone ryan i'm freaking playing hearthstone again i saw you and paul talking about it i'm like what are they doing i don't want to be here man you guys play battlegrounds you guys i just it's what's the what's the is it is it jerry mcguire where they're just like i can't quit you and it's like oh no that's That's a whole different movie, brother. Is that a different movie? Okay. It's like, that's what I feel like, man. I'm like, what is it with these games? Overwatch, Hearthstone. All right, man. But one of the things I do know about Blizzard is that they make a good video

game and you start talking about open world shooter with Blizzard making making it and i is i can't help but get excited man no i feel you it's it's hard because we have such an up and down relationship with blizzard because we had such high highs before some of the best ever games you know made and then they just kind of do these crazy things with what they've done lately with everything that they've created. And it makes you a little leery, like, oh man, I'm not sure about that. But man, if they can hit the mark, one thing I'll know is that they will make some epic cut scenes. You know the cut scenes and the cinematics are going to be outstanding. Well, here's the thing,

Ryan, because people are saying that they think the game is going to be in the Starcraft universe. Oh, okay. So you start telling me that I'm going to get an open world shooter with blizzards quality that has like the Zerg and the pro toss and stuff like that in it.

Like, Oh man, we need additional pylons. Yeah. Like that could be really good. Like it's one of the things like we troll Ubisoft a lot because you see these mega corporations, they like,

they make games and like, you see that the games are just so routine and bland. And it's like, dude, what, what are you doing? Blizzard makes a good video game, man. Like as much as you can rail against like their monetization and stuff like that, like they stand apart with the quality of their game. So it's one of those things where

I just kind of instantly assumed that this game is going to be pretty darn enjoyable. Even though we've seen no footage, we've seen nothing other than you know a strong rumor about it but i can't i can't help it man yeah no i'm with you man excited i know more than likely we're probably gonna freaking check it out and we're gonna play it and we're probably gonna get sucked in and hooked on it but yeah it's one of those things if they do it i just i i never you know it's like politics or anything else no matter what side you're on i just hope they do it i just i i never you know it's like politics or anything else no matter what side you're on i just hope they do it right and they do it well because at the end of the day that that's good for everybody um so i i just i want them to to make a good quality game that's not

focused just solely on money make something just like a passion project that's that's open world you get a great experience you get great graphics you get a great um fun amazing time and and you'll make the money from that everybody will just love it and it's going to be amazing so yeah i don't know it's blizzard blizzard always gets me all twisted man it's tough and that's the but that's the thing because they make fun games that you want to play or at least i want to play maybe they just resonate with me for some reason even though i hate the monetization part of it yeah but i think part of it is as much as i can hate the dude my kids spend so much money on cosmetics it's ridiculous and it's like i could care less about cosmetics like my daughter just bought some like 20 mercy skin the other day and i was like my brain just rails against that because it's like, I could care less about cosmetics. Like my daughter just bought some like $20 mercy skin the other day.

And I was like, my brain just rails against that because it's like, why? Yeah. Like why? But she is so happy about it. And it's her money. I mean, you know, it's like, spend it how you want. You earned it. But it's like, I just can't fathom that.

But for me, I don't have to spend a dime because I could care less about that stuff. And I still get a good video game to play out of it. So it's this weird toss up where it's like, I like the games. I feel a little gross about it, but also they're fun to play. So yeah. All right. We're almost out of time, Ryan. A couple articles and news stories that we're not going to really have a chance to get into

was the kind of reemergence of Half-Life 2. They gave the game away for free and a whole bunch of people picked it up. They got to play it and experience it, which I think every gamer in the world should do. Absolutely. So kudos to that. It actually broke their all-time concurrent player record because I guess they weren't keeping track of concurrent stuff before half-life 2 or something like that it was like almost 70 000 or something crazy yeah yeah it's been crazy but yeah so love that we got a glimpse of like some footage from the half-life 2 episode 3 that never made it out it really wasn't a lot it showed an ice gun uh that did look pretty cool where you could actually like spray ice in front of you and then skate along it like the Silver Surfer Frozone, I guess,

from Incredibles. So that looked kind of neat to me. Well, now you said Half-Life 3, so that's another three years. Yeah. Oh, no, then I said it. That's another three years. That's six years. Dang it.

Oh, I said it again. You know, World of Warcraft's getting player housing. I'll be honest. I didn't know that wasn't a thing i can't believe that's such a big deal but it is um and uh that is about it so that's gonna wrap up this episode of this week in gaming thanks for hanging out with us it's always fun talking video games to everybody if If you enjoyed the show, remember to follow us. Hit that subscribe button, that plus button. Make sure you add us to your podcast app.

You can follow us on socials at Video Gamers Pod. And if you feel like you want to go above and beyond to help support this show, to keep this content rolling out, if you've been enjoying it for a while, consider supporting the show. You can do that over at MultiplayerSquad.com. We give you a lot of perks if you do that, early access, ad-free episodes, Discord perks, and some other things. But also, you're helping to support the show as well. So we really do appreciate it, as does everybody else. But that's it for this episode. So until next time, happy gaming.

For liberty. For democracy. See ya!