Video Gamers Podcast - GOTY Nominees, Steam Surprises & the Ultimate “Maybe” – Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan and Ace are diving into the wild world of Game of the Year nominees, the Steam Machine hype cycle, and the biggest “maybe… maybe?” in all of gaming history — Half-Life 3. Are this year’s contenders truly the best video games have to offer, or is the GOTY conversation more chaotic than ever? We break down what’s rising, what’s falling, and why Valve suddenly has everyone whispering again. From unexpected nominations to hardware surprises to the eternal hope of one legendary franchise, this episode has everything fans of video games love. Get ready for bold predictions, spicy debates, and some of the most entertaining gaming talk of the year on the Video Gamers Podcast!     Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps and NorwegianGreaser   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: HypnoticPyro, PeopleWonder and Bobby S.   Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: ⁠patreon.com/videogamerspod⁠ Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/vgp Follow us on Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/⁠  Follow us on X:⁠ https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod⁠  Subscribe to us on YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1⁠    Visit us on the web:⁠https://videogamerspod.com/⁠     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, fellow gamers, and welcome to the video gamers podcast. Between Valve diving headfirst into the console wars and the game of the year nominees being made official, we have a packed episode for you. But before we get into all the new hardware hype and gaming news, some introductions are in order i am your host josh and joining me i have a feeling he's upset over a certain lack of a certain game being nominated for game of the year it's ryan uh josh uh our resident uh super editor extraordinaire i hope you have your uh bleep button ready because there may be there may be some stuff coming out with what what we got here with the nominees so that's all

want to say. We might get our first Ryan rant in this episode. We'll have to see how spicy Ryan's feeling. And joining us, he's feeling a little bittersweet because he loves most of these indies. But now that they're mainstream game of the year slop, he can't say he likes him anymore. It's ace. I cannot sit idly by and let you call 80s to mainstream Lop. You can call Peek that all you want, but you can not call Hades 2. What is this due to your psyche ace where you're

like, I love this game, but it's mainstream now. What am I supposed to do? It's somewhat fulfilling to know I was right about these games before they got popular. There it is. The before. There it is. I knew before everybody else did. I like this band before they

were cool, man. And we all knew Silk Song was mainstream before it was even released so more like way and stream oh man oh we're going to get there we're going to get there no spoilers yet ryan we're two minutes into this episode all right well listen welcome in everybody thanks for join us we have a jam packed episode for you guys uh but we have somebody to thank we're a little late on this one so apologies on this we've just been pre-recording a little bit of our episodes earlier and so this one got delayed a little bit But a huge thank you to Fran Magic for signing up for rare status to support the podcast.

Fran, you are awesome. Thank you for taking the time to head over to Patreon and support the show. Keep this podcast flowing to the radio waves, airwaves. Internet waves. The internet waves. I don't think we're on the radio. Yeah, there you go. There's no airwaves anymore, people.

but thank you, Fran, for supporting this podcast. And then for everybody else out there, you know, we like to reinforce, like good behavior. You know, we like to say, hey, you know, you help us out. We help you out. And one of the ways we do that is reading a review because, guys, the listeners have been stepping up. I don't know if it's the recent guilt trips. I don't know if it's the begging and pleading. I don't know what it is.

But everybody out there has stepped up their game. The reviews have been flowing in. And Ryan, I believe you've got one for us today. I do. I mean, I have been impressed with Josh is like playing that violin quite often lately. He says, please give us a review. It's working, Ryan. Can I get some old reviews?

Just a little bit, please. Begging, you know, begging works sometimes. We are not beneath it at all. No, I'm not in the slightest. This review comes to us from the amazing magic. 2 a.m. And it is titled The Best Gaming Podcast. And it reads as follows. I recently discovered this video gamers podcast and I have to say it's a real gym. The hosts are genuinely funny and their chemistry makes every episode enjoyable. What I appreciate most is their honesty. They aren't afraid

to share their true thoughts, whether they're raving about a new release or critiquing a classic they cover a wide variety of game genres so there's always something new and interesting to hear about i truly think these guys are great at what they do and their passion for gaming shines through every discussion if you're looking for a podcast that's entertaining insightful and covers all corners of gaming this one is definitely worth a listen oh what a fantastic review what i don't write that one i agree with everything you said No lies were told. Oh, that's awesome, man.

Well, thank you for taking the time to leave that review. And, hey, listen, for all you people out there that you're like, that was a good review. You, guilt them again. You could leave a good review, too. And then we'll, like, read it on the show and we'll gush over it some. And we'll be like, wow, this person's amazing. As we read, the best review we've ever heard, that could be you. Yes.

All you got to do is just go to Apple Podcast. You're probably, you know, half of you are on Apple Podcasts anyway. rate the show five stars write a review that's all you got to do love it now for the spotify people ace they can't write a review but what can they do they could leave us a comment on our episodes and rate our show five stars right there in the spotify app you don't got to go nowhere it's too easy clicks you click the star once and then you click it again you're done completely done us gamers love efficiency you know there's only something else ace knows about clicking the star once oh no again

Our most beloved one-star review, Ace of Shame, I love it. And just in case, for most, most English speakers, you know, we read from left to right. So five stars is like, you know, you fill them all the way up to the right. You don't tap the first star and then think that that's, you know, a good rating. He's like, I'll never live his down. A review on Apple Podcast, maybe go check your review and make sure it's still five stars. Yeah. Make sure it didn't accidentally go one of a one stars in your pocket.

You didn't accidentally make it a one star review one time that said review Fortnite and then I'll update to five. We're calling you out. We did four tonight. And you didn't change your review. So, uh, you know, deals a deal there. Yeah, we'll have to look up that name. We'll call them out in the next one.

Yeah. All right, guys. Enough shenanigans. Let's get into the news, guys. Oh my goodness. All right. Where do we want to start, guys? because this is this is a massive week start with the big one we had give me them nominations

the nominations i was going to which ones the big one i think that's the biggest came out with a ton of hardware and the game of the year came out with that and i don't i mean they're all big news to me man okay well let's start with the game of the year nominees then um they were released earlier today so this is this is hot news right here uh here is your official list of the game of the year nominees. Now, we're not getting into all the subcategories and all that stuff. We'll do that on another episode and we get into our game of the year nominees and things. But Expedition 33. No shocker. No. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. This is the one I was slightly worried about not getting a nomination and I am absolutely stoked to see it put on this list.

What do you guys think about that one? I was surprised it made it through. I'll be honest. honest, I thought maybe it'd been too long, but I'm glad to see it here. I am too, man. I agree. I think people, uh, even though it's been a little bit longer since that release and, uh, they've had some DLC stuff and it kind of, you know, things taper off and settle in, but that game, there's just so much there. Um, I was recently talking with a friend about that game and just, just explaining the things to them and what they should look out for and wait for. I'm like, man, I want to play this again, you know? So it, it, it, It is a banger.

That is absolutely should be nominated. And I'm glad it made the cut. Yeah. This was one of the games I was kind of like, man, if I feel like there's a chance for a game to get snubbed on this list that absolutely deserves to be on it, Kingdom Come Deliverance, too, was one I was one I was worried about. So I'm really glad for that. All right, Death Stranding 2 on the beach. What do you guys think about this one? I don't have much of opinion on the Death Stranding series.

I didn't play the first. that's what I think Ryan this was Kojima's baby how could you yeah well oh wait is this the game that you would have swapped your game for oh I got two games oh you got two games okay well is I have a feeling

I'm gonna let you go on until I can do my Ryan's building it up people I can see it I can see it building okay I'm with you Ace I did not play Destrating 2 on the beach I can't comment on it as a gamer because I didn't play it I actually played the original Death Stranding so that I could play Death Stranding, too. He did. And they got sidetracked with all these other amazing games that came out this year.

So people that love it really, really seem to love it. It looks incredible. I just don't know enough to say I don't think it should be here. I don't know that it should be here personally, but. I didn't hear enough buzz. I'll say that. It's not a slander against the game. Exactly.

I think the buzz just wasn't there. And I think there was another game that was more deserving. All right. Well, you know, you gotta appeal to the corporate overlords if you're gonna have a game award ceremony. So Donkey Kong Bonanza, guys, come on now. Don't be, don't be, don't be old fuddy-ddies, man, you know? Because the internet's gonna have a heyday with you, you old folk.

How is this? Up here with these other masterpieces, genuinely. Like, how? It's a Nintendo game because it's a Nintendo game ace, you know? Would you be surprised if it was Pokemon Zedda? A in the game of the year nominate? I would. Okay. I know you would, but let's be honest. There's not

going to be a game of the year nomination without including whatever Nintendo's biggest game for that year was. Now, I'm poking a little bit of fun at this because we don't love Nintendo around these parts as much as we used to. But here's the thing. Most people that I know

that have played Donkey Kong Bonanza unanimously go, this game is freaking awesome. guys like it's so good i this is a little bit of the destraining two for me where i haven't played it i don't have a switch to i find it hard to believe that this donkey conanza is in the same category as all these other incredible games but i also admit to being ignorant to this because i just haven't played it i won't play it until the nintendo switch two gets some absolutely must-play titles at that point i can come back and say hey i was wrong this game deserves

every bit of it. Yeah. I imagine seeing this is how people felt when Astrobot got nominated last year over like... Yeah, but you see Astrobot was an incredible game. Yes, but it was also a console exclusive platformer

with bright colors. Did you see Ryan trying to talk while he was muted? That was awesome. Oh, was that what it was going on? Oh, yeah, that's what that was. That was just tricking you guys for sure. Oh, is that what? Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. I was just trying to get you. Get you. But I was faking like I was saying

It was Astrobaugh is super sweet Oh okay It was super sweet I really do love Astrobat Donkey Kong Bonanza honestly is probably great Again everybody that's played It's like brother this game is incredible I just again don't have first hand knowledge with it

I don't really care What it is is it's probably good It's probably good And then it's Nintendo and then Nintendo fans and stuff Think that it's great Yeah maybe I mean if you if you are the best game on a console

does that instantly catapult you to a higher level than you should be at probably because it's like bro this is the greatest game on the Nintendo Switch 2 and it's like yeah but it's really like an 8 out of 10 people like no it's the greatest game on the switch too everybody listen Josh it's this or Kirby

Air Riders too I know and they're like we can't go with Kirby Air Riders guys that's you know we have too many racing games that are Nintendo themed at this point they're going to catch on eventually Okay, all right Sorry to all the Nintendo fans out there

We love you guys We really love you guys We just don't like Nintendo as a company So currently All right This one, I'll be honest This doesn't surprise me But I know that we are a little jaded

Silk Song being nominated for Game of the Year I think it's deserving It's deserving Because of how much work went into it But it's still not for me And I'm not going to vote for it dude these were two games and then I'm just going to say Hades 2 and if you want a contrast between these two we were as equally actually I was less hype for Hades 2 than I was for Silk Song by a mile by a large margin I said bro I don't have this Hades 2 hype I don't know what's going on why am I not more excited for this game whereas with Silk Song we were over the moon yeah and then you talk about a cruel joke where it's like no it's not about Silk Song Hades 2 is the the goat so yeah a hype does not a game make i i i'm with ryan i think it probably deserves to

be in the nomination but we're going to give ryan the floor here because i think that there are a couple other games that maybe should have been nominated that didn't get nominated and then of course ryan has been seething internally uh don't you don't let the charisma fool you this man is boiling over with rage right now this is just this is why i i very much dislike the award ceremonies in the shows because it's always it never makes sense there's always a couple on there that just don't throw in shade out at bianca biontie winning country artists or whatever like whatever she did for that garbage it's absolute garbage equally so for me for me i think it's quite egregious that

Death Stranding 2 and D.K. Bonanza is on there and split fiction in Arc Raiders is not. Split fiction is a phenomenal game. It is the reinvention of couch co-op. I know we have like it takes two which one game of the year

and we have have this it was fantastic, awesome gameplay but but more so what does a game need to do to be nominated for game of the year. Like, yeah, it's a multiplayer. Yeah, you're required to play with other people to get the full experience that you're looking for. But when you're looking for copies sold,

how about you get four million copies sold in the first two, three weeks? You know, two million, I think it was, in the first two weeks. How about 700,000 plus concurrent players between systems, and it was probably a little bit more, almost 500,000 just on Steam? I mean, What more does a game have to do one of the highest rated multiplayers of all time? Not just this year, not the last few years, all time. And then it's tied this year with Hades 2. Like we said, equally great game. It was nominated with the best score of a game this year.

And yet it doesn't get on the list. You know what it was nominated for? Best multiplayer game. That's it. That's all it got nominated for. Best multiplayer. It's absolutely egregious. I think the way they do this, this is ridiculous.

I'm not saying that it should win, but the fact that it wasn't nominated, what more do you expect? Like, what can a developer do when they create this thing that's so moving? It moved the internet. It broke the internet. And here we are without a nomination. It's ridiculous.

Yeah. Ryan really feel strongly. Yeah, you feel real strongly, but our creators getting snubbed. Ryan was referencing Ark Raiders everybody just in case Well I went over did I not mention I don't know I was You mentioned Arc Raiders in split fiction

But then you didn't say anything about split fiction Yeah I just anybody that knows Ryan was talking about Art Friction is just kind of the side one That congratulations you got nominated I'm proud Or you didn't get nominated but you should have But it was an amazing game But Ark Raiders dude Oh man

Guys this goes back to what we were talking about What the story was Shroud Yeah Like Shroud was saying multiplayer games are at an inherent disadvantage for game of the year. They do not get nominated. They do not win. And I mean, split fiction, in my opinion, was one of the most fun, like, games to play this year. It is by nature a multiplayer game. You have to have somebody to play it with. And so is that why it didn't get nominated? And the same thing with Arc Raiders, man. I know that Arc Raiders hype is there and

everybody's got FOMO and it's the game of the moment and stuff like that. But the more I play this game, the more I go, bro, everything about this game is insanely polished. Everything about Arc Raiders is fun. It's designed well. The fact that the solo community makes it welcoming to people, you know, I mean, the events that they're doing, the roadmap that they have, the different levels and all that stuff. I mean, this is an insanely high quality game. Yeah. Whether it's your type of game.

Whether it's your genre of game, people don't like extraction shooters. I get it. But when we're looking at what would qualify a game for game of the year, you look at these things and go, is it quality? Is it developed well? Is it fun? How many people are playing it, you know? And it's like, I'm kind of with Ryan on this one, man, where it's like, shouldn't it have gotten a nod? Like, other than best multiplayer game?

Like, and that's such a low category, man. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. That one's, it's tough, dude. I'm with you, if we're breaking it down, I would say Death Stranding 2 and D.K. Bonanza, and again, we didn't play them. Yeah. I get it. I get it. Don't be mad. There's a reason we didn't play it, though. There's a reason. If it was that good, we would have played it, dude. We would have.

Like, that's the thing. If they were that good, we would have been like, okay, we need to play this game. If it's up for game of the year, the best game that's come out, we would have been like, oh, we need to check this. out but we didn't because we know that they're just you know they're whatever they are but for some reason they get nominated i don't i don't know i don't understand it i'm i'm just so what i i just i can't i can't rub my brain around what does it have to do dude millions and millions of copies sold it's breaking records left and right it's it's only going to get bigger let me ask you a question ryan okay let me ask you a question yeah would you ever have nominated fortnight for game of the year oh man uh that's hard one in its inception like when it first came out and if it was

rolling gangbusters like you know it is today i think it's well deserving if it's a polished well-man game that has a high rating concurrent players off the charts like all of those like what parameters does this go on then like because you have that copy so you have the rating you're like what are we scoring off of at this point was under the multiplayer game of the year was it i know it didn't make it to that either i think it was ongoing it's ongoing yeah it made it to ongoing it didn't even make it to multiplayer this is the the crux of the matter right is that i would never have nominated fortnight for game of the year but if if it's a popularity contest then fortnight would absolutely have been game of the year no matter what i mean name a bigger

game to come out in the last you know 10 15 years as far as like, you know, worldwide player population and things like that, I don't think any of us would say that Fortnite deserves a game of your nomination. But at the same time, it's like, how do you not recognize these games that literally take over the world, man? You know, and with Arc Raiders, the amount of polish that goes into that game is second to none. That's one of the things we talked about with it. It's, it's, you don't see a lot of games like this. I think it does deserve a nomination. Like, honestly, you know, I've been a little hesitant. on this one, but the more I play

it, it doesn't feel like it's just a fad. All games fade, at least to my brain. So where it's like, oh, is this just the game of the month kind of thing? But you can't argue the quality of game that Arc Raiders is, and split fiction. Honestly, split fiction not being in that list upsets me as well.

Ridicrous. That game was incredible. People are also upset dispatch didn't get a nomination. For Game of the Year? For Game of the Year. Well, it was nominated in the best Indies for the debut Indies of the year. not even indie indie yeah oh really that's right that's right they said debut indie well we do have an episode on dispatch coming later this week so in two days from this episode we're you're gonna hear

our thoughts on dispatch we played it uh we got a lot i got a lot of thoughts on that one so all right listen we got to take a quick break and then we will come back right after a word from our sponsor today's episode is brought to you by our friends at trophy dot a i y y'all know i love me some Rocket League. I have over 1,900 hours in the game. And part of the fun is always trying to get better. Well, Trophy AI helps you do that. It gives you real-time feedback that actually adapts to your play style. It's not just generic tips. It's got a huge library of mechanic lessons and training packs with live demos from pro players so you can watch and learn instantly. Many games to help you train and master those difficult mechanics in a fun and engaging way. It's got in-game

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trophy dot a i t r o p h i dot a i to up your game all right we're back guys okay you would think that all the game of the year discussion would be enough to just fill an entire episode and while we could talk about that forever. Guys, we got more incredible gaming news. You know how we've been saying for a while that the console wars are over? You know, we're like, guys, the console wars are over, man. Everything's moving to, you know, simultaneous releases and PC gaming and no more exclusives. And then Valve came out and said, hold my beer.

The console wars are not over. actually entering I feel like I need the screen where it's like a new challenger and then it's just a picture of the of the steam machine you know oh my goodness

okay so yeah Valve out of nowhere comes out and goes guys we have a new hardware that is basically a console that is built to be to play games

on the PC platform we've always said right PC master race uh but people go well the PC is expensive and I have to build it or have to buy one and I don't know what the heck I'm doing valve goes we got you we got you gamers this is the death of the Xbox that's that's I I do I don't think you're wrong on that one ace to be honest with you because Microsoft and Xbox you know the merger and all that stuff and then it was like well Xbox is kind of everything's on PC as well yeah Yeah, like that's the final nail on the coffin, man, if this is a good priced console. I agree.

I think, is this, is the, is the steam machine, is it, like, upgradable? Can you, I know you can do mods and all that stuff for games now. Are you able to, like, upgrade their RAM or do those types of things with it? I am going to assume no. I think most of these console type things, like maybe the storage where it's, like, you know, kind of like the PlayStation you could throw in, like, 2 terabyte or something. Yeah, or something like that.

You know, we don't have final information. So before people are like, you guys don't know what you're talking about. You know, nobody knows 100%. We don't have pricing. We don't know, you know, a ton of stuff as far as that goes. What we do know is the specs for the steam machine look pretty good. This is that balance of you have to make it affordable for people. So you can't go supercomputer because then you have to charge people.

people like $2,000 for this thing and nobody's going to pay $2,000 for a console. So, you know, Steam has come out and said that the Steam machine will be able to, is better than 70% of the gaming PCs that are out there.

Wow. That sounds pretty good to me, guys. That's a big promise. I mean, you do, you do have a lot of people run in like 2070s and stuff. You had some old school graphics cards. People are still rocking with and stuff. But I do like to... It's all you need when you play Marvel Rivals, man.

Marvel Rivals is the only game you play. That's all you need. Shots fired. Oh, no, Corey. I do. To me, there's, I mean, just about the system as a whole, I think there's something there to where there's a lot of, there's a reason I still have a console. I have a PS5 because a lot of times I don't want to come sit at my desk.

I don't want to sit at the computer to play. I want to kick back on the couch and play on my 65-inch TV. And just, you know, vibe out and just hang out and just chill and play a game. And having access to my whole entire Steam library when I do that is very, very good and beneficial and very enticing for me. I just, something like this seems to really hit the marks in that console world to where it's like kind of that next step to where, you know, most people have Steam. To be able to get on and access all your stuff is, I think it's pretty big. I, for one, am very excited. Yeah, me too, dude.

Being able to sit on the couch and play all these indie games that are usually PC exclusive is going to be awesome. Now, what's that going to be like with, I mean, they have the controller comes with. Are you going to get like a wire? Because a lot of indies and stuff, they're not set up for controller, are they? Most indies that come out these days are controller. They are. Yeah. Okay.

Most of them these days are. They're learning. Master controller. I mean, you can plug a mouse and keyboard into the steam machine. The only issue there would be if you wanted to use it as like a dedicated console where you're only playing it with controller. But again, I think this is part of like why this thing works so well is it is engineered with the simplicity of a console and the performance of a console, but it gives you access to PC gaming that you would not have access to. Otherwise, it simplifies all that. And no charge for online gameplay.

Yeah, that's true. charge for online gameplay which they have said they will maintain um so you're 20 bucks a month for you know xbox live or playstation network or nintendo's whatever the nintendo thing is uh yeah you i mean that's a savings right there so just to give the actual technical breakdown on the steam machine for people um comes with a semi custom amd our dna 3 GPU uh so this is one where it's like they're not going to they're not going to equate it to like a 30 90 or something like that most of these consoles have these custom GPUs that fit and are optimized and things like that. So six core 12 threads CPU up to 4.8 gigahertz.

That's plenty for gaming. 16 gigabytes of DDR5 RAM, 8 gigabytes of DDR6 V RAM. This is the one thing people slam is that they're saying this is not enough V RAM for a modern system. And then you have two storage options, 512 gigabytes or 2 terabytes, NVME SSDs. A micro SD card slot so you can expand your storage if you need it. Nice. Just uninstall games, people. You don't need two terabytes.

Just uninstall a game when you're done playing the game and then you don't need two terabytes. Okay, unlike you. Don't install anything. Don't listen to them. Most people like can uninstall a game or not uninstall game. You can reinstall it later if you want to go back. That takes time. And then by then I'll be bored waiting for it to be reinstalled.

We all don't have super fiber internet like you in your neighborhood with your fancy one big, dude. on for being a hoarder in Ark Raiders. The other day, I was streaming in our Discord, and somebody was like, Josh, you're inventory. And I was like, don't look. Don't look at my inventory. Mine's always like, you can't do a free loadout. You don't have any space.

I'm like, dang it. I got to go back and delete it. But I'm the opposite when it comes to my hard drive, man. Look, I keep that sucker clean. If I don't play a game, I'm uninstalling it. It's two clicks. It's very easy to manage your storage. People's not that hard.

That's because when you stop playing a game, you never go back. Yeah, you'll never play it again. goes to the shadow realm. All right, enough about me, guys. Here's a good question about the steam machine. What do you think the price needs to be on this? I mean, if Valve is truly trying to compete, and I'll say this real quick,

for people that don't know a bunch of PC specs, the steam machine falls directly in line. It's better than the Xbox Series S. And people are saying it's pretty much on par with the PS5 as far as like just the actual power to play games. And so with that in mind, what do you think the price needs to be, if Valve is absolutely serious about trying to win this console war.

Ideally, it needs to be somewhere between the cost of a console and a, you know, modern PC. So I'm saying something like $6,700 is in the idea of my range. It's exactly where I am. Yeah. Like, honestly, if it has to be comparable to the price of a console, if it is going to compete with these consoles, I am going to guess that they are going to come out at $7.99. I think they are going to press it. 799,

six or seven, which means it'll be $7.99. It'll be right just below. And here's the thing. The PS5 Pro is $7.49, okay, for the PS5 Pro bundle, right? And while the PS5 Pro might be slightly better at, like, you know, computing power,

this is built on the Steam OS, which is meant to play games as well. And so it's like, I think that they are going to be able to charge that extra little bit of a premium to say, you get access to PC games and all these other things that go with it, man. I think that's the sweet spot for them where they can still be profitable and still compete with the Xbox and the PlayStation. Man, I love the idea of having my Steam library, just this portable thing I can bring with me and put it on my TV.

That's true, too, like the GameCube. Yeah, it's like the GameCube slap a handle on that bad boy and bring it like to the hotels and stuff like that. Oh, it's so cool, dude. They should put a handle on it like the GameCube. Yeah, they should. they absolutely should. That's what we were just saying, man. I'd be too worried about dropping it, though. PCs are not, they're not meant to be. They're not short-res. Resistant there. All right, we're running low on time, guys. We've got to talk about the Steam Frame. This is this is Valve's new brand-new VR headset that they said, hey, if we're going to release the hardware, you know, with the Steam Machine, let's release a way for people to play VR games with it. I have not played my Quest 2 in forever. Ryan, I know you're similar. Ace, do you have a quest to Ace? I've never played a VR, ever.

Never had one. Yeah, never had one. I can't wait to make Ace do Richie's Plank experience for his first time playing VR. I don't know what that is. We're going to get that on video. We're going to, all right, well, Ace, when you come into town for Fairfusion this year, we're going to introduce you to VR. We're doing VR, baby. Oh, yeah, this is going to be great.

We'll do it at the convention center in the booth. here's my quick thoughts on this i love vr i think it's super cool i love the technology the first time you do vr it absolutely blows your mind like truly it just absolutely blows your mind but then you kind of start to get used to it the downside to vr for me is a couple things graphically it sucks most games have to make them make themselves look like cartoons because you're not getting a lot of processing power out of a vr headset you can link it to your pc uh via air link a cable like Steam VR does so that you can play these really incredible games like Half-Life Alex and things like that. But that's a pain in the butt. Most people have to, you have to set it up

and do all that. There's some latency and things like that too. I hate the visual fidelity. You get this screen door effect and it's hard that you can only focus on what's in front of you and everything else, the field of views, crappy and all this stuff. The Steam frame solves every problem with VR imaginable, in my opinion. It's super light. It does not feel like you're wearing a five-pound brick on the front of your face and that becomes very uncomfortable very quickly. It has pancake lenses, which are really, really good, high fidelity. Each lens is 4K. It's 2160 resolution in each lens, which is incredible. That alleviates the screen door effect. You know, you have a wide field of view, which alleviates that I can see really cool, but there's just

these black areas where I can't see anymore and it doesn't feel immersive because I can tell where the boundaries are. It just, it fixes everything. I need this to be under $1,000. I think that's reasonable. Legitimately. I think it will be, but I need it to be under $1,000 so I can justify buying one of these and then trying to get back into VR. The one downside, guys, is there's just no VR. Like, if you're going to have the Steamframe VR headset and say this is the best VR headset on the market, you've got to have games that go, I have to play this game.

I need it. I need the headset so I can play this game. Give me it. But you can have the best Ferrari in the world. But if you're stuck on the highway because there's just nowhere to go, what goodness is having a Ferrari do, man? And I feel like that's where we're at with VR gaming right now. I feel like I also haven't heard a lot about VR, like, enhancing itself recently either,

where it's kind of peaked and it hasn't gone up any, like, at all. Yeah, it's been, it's honestly, that's a good point. Like, it has been pretty stagnant. um i don't i don't feel like from the vr i got to anything else i've seen and stuff i've tried prior has advanced much in the last five to eight years or anything like that um and then even so with like the hardware i'd always like anyone gets the meta quest or anything like that immediately go by an aftermarket like headset so that you can have like the skull cap on the back with the adjustment knob so that it's at least comfortable and then the additional battery yeah the additional batteries and

the long cable and all the like there's all these other things you got to do to make it work but it's in infancy of like the world i mean we've been doing normal gaming you know normal quote unquote for you know 40 50 years so like this is still relatively new we're still getting into it i think there's a lot of development that can be had i i do think that there's there's a lot there potential and then a lot to improve so i think on both both respects like i think we have a lot to look forward to but I'm interested to see because it's something that there's two things that I want to do more than anything in the world

it's deep sea fish and play VR and I can't do either really because of my motion sickness and I get it so bad but if I can get a good system and then maybe I can get that haptic suit and like one of those running table things that I can go on you know maybe we can get something going but I don't know I think it may be kind of the resolution and the pixelation too that I see that throws my brain off

so I don't know I'm excited I'm excited to see new tech in this realm, is what I'm trying to do. None of this is new, but nobody's put it all together like this and kind of like a perfect package like the steam frame is as well. Here's just a kicker, right? Half-Life Alex, easily the greatest VR game ever made, and I still stand by that. Half-Life Alex came out in March of 2020. We are five years plus past that, and Half-Life Alex is still the best VR game. ever made. Like, that's the problem to me. And that's not to say that there's not a lot of really

fun VR games out there, but they all feel gimmicky and they feel kind of dumbed down because they had to be able to play on the MetaQuest 2 and the standalones and stuff like that. So we'll see. I am excited for the Steam Frame. I would love to see a game come out for it. All right, guys, real quick, before we get out of here, we got to talk about this. We got the Steam machine, we got the Steam Frame, we got the Steam Controller. What's the one other thing we need from Steam to make all of this make perfect sense and sell a gillion of these to the world.

A new Steam game. Something from... Like a new game from Valve? Yeah, something from Valve. Like a new game that would be a console seller. Look out. Like Donkey Kong Pananza. Like how it sold the Switch 2, guys. Yeah, right. He's got the number there. They can't count that high, Ryan.

It goes to fun. That's true. Poor old Gabe. You know, Gabe can count he can count 500 million because that's what he paid for his new yacht. He's going to, guys, he's going to be able to buy another yacht because if they release Half-Life 3 with the Steam machine, this is why. Okay, so there is a ton of rumor and there were, there's actually some basis for this when they were talking about the steam machine.

They showcased one that had a bunch of stickers on the front and somebody noticed that there was a Half-Life sticker on there with a censored sticker on top of it with a sticker that said soon right over the top of those two stickers that seems a little too coincidental for our gamer conspiracy minds and boy

if you want to sell a gillian copies of your console you release it with an absolute must play exclusive game like Donkey Kong Panence I mean I mean like Half Life 3 sorry Half Life 3

because that would actually actually sell consoles to people. Valve is not stupid. Gabe Newell is not stupid. I have a feeling that we are going to be hearing about Half-Life-3 very soon, guys. We will either get Half-Life-3 or the code of it will be buried with Gabe Neal. That is how this is going to be. Well, and here's my other thing is that I think that Half-Life-3 is going to be playable in VR. That would make which will make it the you need a steam machine you need the steam frame because you want to play half life three in this the most incredible way possible and that's with having these two things to go along with it and they'll probably sell it all as like a $1,200 bundle yeah and people

will snatch it up in a heartbeat because it will be worth every last penny of that $1,200 bundle so yeah take my money take it like Ryan's tapping his credit card on the screen take it take it I'm in dude I'm 100% in and that would explain you know there's been a long time

since Half Life Alex they've learned what they needed to learn it's already a masterpiece as far as the VR games are concerned so to be able to develop something

for this and to launch it oh my gosh oh my gosh dude you'll be able to play it regular you see you can play it on your TV that's no problem whatsoever but if you want to play in a VR

guess what it was designed with VR in mind and now you can experience all of HalfLife three in virtual reality as well. Oh, my goodness, sign me up. I'll puke every day if I have to, man. I don't care. I'll get used to it eventually. Yeah. All right. Okay, listen, we've gone long on this one, everybody. Thank you for hanging out with us. We did not get a chance to talk about Call of Duty Black Op 7. That's probably for the best. Peep gamers are not happy. This thing is

flopping, at least from a reception standpoint. I'm sure it's sold a gazillion copies, but users are not happy gamers are not happy. This does not feel like the game that they wanted and they're making sure that they are heard on this. The overall metacritic score from the users is 1.8. Oh, no.

Oh, man. I was telling it. The critic score is in 83. All the gamers out there are just stupid dumb-dums because they don't know how awesome this game was. You know a gamer rated this game higher than our creators, guys. I mean, come on. as they count their money they're like yeah give it an 83 you know no like i said to you guys that

i was thinking of the other day i'm like call the duty is just the fast and furious like a video games like you just keep pumping them out they make them crazy and obnoxious really good dude no that was better what seven eight 12 like what fast and the furious you're talking about there's a million and and you have vin diesel jumping like from tower to tower with a car it's just ridiculous obnoxious stuff. That's Call of Duty now. That's what it is. I take the cars out to space, Ryan. They go to space with these cars. Because that's naturally where, you know, cars need to be.

I've only seen the first movie. Thank goodness. Yeah. It's actually I like Fast and the Furious for what it is, which is just popcorn movie. Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. All right, so sorry to our Call of Duty, but honestly, it probably wasn't going to be a good conversation about

this anyway. Sorry to all our Call of Duty brethren out there. This one doesn't seem to be doing very well at all. So, all right, that's going to do it for this episode, everybody. Thanks for hanging out with us. Remember to hit that follow button, that plus button. If you want

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and you're helping every other gamer out there have a good podcast to listen to. as well. If you haven't left us a review, shame on you at this point. And this is your last reminder for this episode to go ahead and do that. All right, that's it for this one, everybody. Until next time, happy gaming. Break the system. Arc Raiders 2025 game in the year! See ya. Peace out. Thank you.