Video Gamers Podcast - Metaphor: ReFantazio, Echo Point Nova and New Halo?! - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: October 10, 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. The video game news is flowing and we’ve got some great game releases to chat about, some indie games that REALLY have our attention and more. All the video game news you need, each and every week from the Video Gamers Podcast! 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

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On this episode, we're breaking down this week's top game releases. Did someone say metaphor re-fantasio? Drooling over a game that claims to mix Titanfall, Doom, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater? What? Also, it's already out. We'll also be talking about an upcoming throwback to the 3D platformers of old. Plus, one of our most anticipated games gets delayed. But we kind of guessed it would.

But before we get into all that, some introductions are in order. I am your host, Josh. And joining me in one timeline, he's an MMA fighter. Let's look at another timeline. Oh, he's a professional golfer. Wait, in this timeline, he's an ice hockey player. Okay, okay. I think I found the right timeline. In this one, he's my co-host. It's Ryan. You're just describing my ADHD to everybody. That's basically what I did right there. Yeah.

That's pretty much true. Yep. The second the good effect of the new thing wears off, I go to another one. Yeah. Well, I had to say there were different timelines because nobody would believe that one person does all of that stuff. This is true. And yet here we are. Right. You got a little bit of gravel in your voice there what's you trying to impress the the listeners this is just uh it's my this my barry white voice just bringing it back you know a little throwback to the old days last time i was uh sick but i'm here for the people i'm ready to do it nice what it's like what's it like to have a weak immune system ryan oh man i'll tell you when uh find someone that has one listen i'm i'm sick very rare very rarely am i sick and when i am sick i'll go to work i was at work today granted i do work for myself but i was at work

you actually do physical labor so i applaud you for yeah and it was 107 it was 107 degrees today just so you know i'll let that out there as well for the people that aren't in the center of the sun, like Phoenix, Arizona. Ryan and I were just semi-bragging about how we very rarely ever get sick. And Ryan is sick right now and I am not. So I had to kind of take the jab there for your wimpy immune system, Ryan. I'll take it. So listen, we have a lot to cover in this episode. It is a good week for game releases.

We've started to really enjoy kind of putting those out there for people that may have forgotten about some of these. We're going to actually mention a couple indie games that really should be on your radar or are at least worth checking out because we do love our indie devs. And these games look pretty sick, to be honest with you. And we have a couple news stories. One of them, which is really sad. We'll get to that one a little bit later.

But Ryan, let's start with the game releases for this week. We always like to kind of talk about the releases that are happening in between our Twig episodes, which are this week in gaming episodes. So this is going to cover the game releases from October 10th through October 17th. Ryan, the big one, man, I know there's a lot of people out there that are super pumped for Metaphor Refantasio. You and I, not so much um you know listen this is from atlas the developer they are famously known for the persona series um and they yeah they just keep kicking butt oh with these games people that love these games absolutely love these games. I know that I've seen a lot of our listeners bring this one up as well. I'll be honest with you, I didn't

really know a lot about it until we started watching some of the trailers and trying to get some more information on the upcoming release on this, which comes out October 11th. So the day after this episode releases, Ryan, you've never played a persona game. No. Correct. Correct. You don't really like that genre of like the Japanese kind of anime ish RPG. Is that correct as well?

That is, that is also an accurate statement. Yeah. I, I love a good turn based RPG. I picked up persona five Royale when Paul was forced to play it. You did? By one of our good friends and listeners for a long time, Ace of Shame, who picked Paul to play it.

I put in probably 12 hours into Persona 5 because I was like, I need to see what all the hype is about. I can appreciate what the game is. It's just not my kind of game yeah you know and i don't know that i don't know why man like i don't i love anime yeah that's pretty sure you like anime because we've talked like dragon ball z and stuff before totally and that's funny because i was watching the trailers and i was looking over the game and I just said to myself man I just hate these Japanese games and I just I just hate these JPRPGs you know and whatever like this style this look and my wife it's funny because you say that because my wife goes but you love anime and I was

like I know I know I love anime I love all these uh different types of animes even the deep cuts of like old school one season animes. So to not like these, I don't know what it is other than I just don't like the style as a game that I'm playing. If I'm playing a video game itself, it's not for me. I can recognize the greatness or why people would like it. It's just not my style, not my flavor. You ever tried to will yourself to want to like a game or a series or something like that? I feel like Persona for me is that. I just don't like them. Again, I put 12 hours into Persona 5. It was fine. I get why people would love it,

but for metaphor re-fantasio, it's like almost I'm going like, brain, why aren't you more excited about this? So many people are excited. And then I just look at it and watch the trailers and I just go like, but I'm just not, man. And I feel like I'm missing out, right? I mean, with that much hype, is there a part of and I just go like, but I'm just not, man. And I feel like I'm missing out, right? I mean, with that much hype, is there a part of it where it's like, I must be missing

something? And I'm the king of FOMO. I do not want to miss out on a good time. And for this, I have no interest. And like I said, I'm sure a ton of people are going to love it. I think it looks great. The way they have it set up and the graphics and the way the screen pop-ups and everything with the characters and the animation look awesome. I just, it's not, it's just not for me, you know? Yeah. You can tell this has Atlas, the developer, their DNA all over it. I mean, very flashy, very stylized, all that. Well, that comes out October 11th on just about every platform you can imagine. Up next, man, I remember being super hyped for this game, Starship Troopers Extermination. We covered this a long time ago. We did. And we thought, man, this game looks super fun. What's better than just destroying

a ton of bugs with your friends and laughing and having a good time? It released into an early access period. I want to say it's probably been in that for at least a year or two now. And then lo and behold, a little game called Helldivers 2 comes out that is you and your buddies slaughtering hordes of bugs and completely overshadowed Starship Troopers' extermination. And I feel like there's probably a little bit of fatigue

out there for that particular destroy hordes of bugs with your friends genre right now i'm sure and and i don't correct me if i'm wrong i don't think hell divers had like an early access right no no they just came out and dude that's why i don't get this this early access thing when they're in early access for a year like what do you need early access a year for you like you can figure out your bugs or your play tests or whatever you need have an alpha or a beta you know and get whatever's figured out and then you could release it with all the hype and the uh the excitement behind it when it's been out for so long i mean satisfactory awesome

awesome game yeah that's the it's though released you know but i mean we played it forever ago you know and so it was fully functional yeah totally full of function so i don't know maybe i'm just um i'm just big against these early access things but um to me looking over the game itself looks very similar obviously you know to uh to hell divers i did think a lot of the bugs looked super spongy i don't know if you saw that as well just looked like a lot a lot of bullets were flying i did like the fact that you know you can build towers in different defense areas and you can repair them actually to to set yourself up um but other than that i mean it's just a game that somebody else

kind of swept in and installed the show ahead of time. So I wish him the best of luck, but I don't know. Yeah, this game's actually been on my wish list for a while because it looked really fun. And a lot of the early impressions were, if you have some friends to play this with, this game is an absolute blast. It's true to the source material for Starship Troopers. It's very funny. And then, like I said, Helldivers came along. I will say that in looking at this one there is a

lot of fun to be had according to people that have played it there's some performance issues and some changes that they made and i have to wonder if they just kind of went we're never going to be hell divers so this is as good as it gets let's get it out yeah honestly so it does look fun and again you know people say there is a lot of fun to be had but it definitely seems to be overshadowed ryan and anybody out there with a switch and kids or just likes a good time super mario party jamboree another one october 17th man this is what the the 78th iteration of super mario what do you even get like a real talk do you just get new maps is that like the extent and then a couple games? Because I feel like I'm playing the same games

close to the same maps that I played when I was 12 years old. I loved Mario Party. Yeah. When the first two or three came out, we picked them up every single year. Honestly, I take that. We probably picked them up through Mario Party 6 or even 7. Yeah.

Because it's that fun thing to do with the family. But I just, I joke because yes, it's new maps, it's new mini games. But other than that, it's really just kind of more of the same. Now, I will say in regards to Mario Party Jamboree, I do like that Nintendo is doing much more of the massive, like multiplayer part of this. They are supporting online play and they have like all these different like kind of games and modes now where you can play up against like 30 other people. And you're trying to get around this huge board.

And there's these events that knock people back and stuff like that. So I like that they're branching out a little bit. But in my opinion, I can't imagine this plays any different than Mario Party 4. Yeah. I mean, we're going to get a lot of hate for this. I know we are. The Mario fans and the Switch fans and everybody, they are a true, honest, beholden fan base to Nintendo. But yeah, I feel the same way i i do love it i i have fun

playing the game but every time my son asks us to play and we play a game and he's like another one and i'm like oh man that's another hour like you know it's another hour that's an hour commitment i'm like let's just play a few turns you know and then we end up playing another game but um yeah it's it's to me it's kind of like uh i know some other things we've we've mentioned uh like the madden series or things like that i was just gonna reference there's only yeah there's only so many yeah there's only so many changes you can make to something and they it works it's obviously a game system that works it's it's uh designed to to where people love it and but there's only so much you can do and they keep putting it out and people keep buying

it. So, you know, all the power to them, I guess. If people enjoy it and it's making Nintendo money, that's a win-win on both ends. I just don't know why. As the great 50 cents once said, if it makes... Hold on. If it makes dollars, it makes cents.

There you go. Boom. Right? Yeah. So, again, I know there's tons of people out there that are hyped. We're not trying to poop on Super Mario Party Jamboree at all. It's just this seems to be the Nintendo's like Madden franchise where it's just we're going to release one every year. It's going to have an incremental upgrade. And if people have fun with it, that's great. That's all we really want for people.

And a game that could not be more different than Super Mario Party Jamboree is A Quiet Place, The Road Ahead. This game, I can't help but just say this is Alien Isolation, but in the Quiet Place universe. I mean, it looks like it plays exactly the same. The premise is exactly the same. You are being hunted by something that you can't kill and you need to just run away from and hide from. And it looks like it has a ton of suspense and that psychological kind of horror of being hunted by something

and being powerless against it kind of thing. I think it looks good. It definitely piques my interest. I just don't know how this is any different than Alien Isolation if you're in the mood for that kind of genre of game. That comes out October 17th as well. Any interest? I mean, it is October. It's spooky month. This is a horror game that's releasing right in the middle of the month. I mean, any interest on that one? To me, I don't know me i don't i don't

know i don't i don't think so i know i hadn't made my kind of feelings known on a quiet place in general the last time we talked about this um some giant alien monster that can just hear you and so everybody has to be quiet just seems like a dumb premise to me uh the game itself looks awesome as far as the graphics and that suspense that you talked about that's what gets me i i am big on the jump scares i hate them so much but i love that they happen so yeah i am kind of drawn to them i know we're gonna play a game probably this month me you and maybe ace or somebody like that um play some spooky games for spooky month. But yeah, I don't know. I don't think I'll be picking this up, but it's one that maybe I'll put on the shelf and I get a hankering

for getting the junk scared out of me in the middle of July. Then maybe I'll pick it. Maybe I'll play. I think this game looks really good, to be definitely the it looks like the love and attention was put into it i mean it does look spooky from the trailers i just it's i there's an there's a lot of other like horror games that i'd put above it um but if this is definitely your thing you know this one is worth checking out because it looks like it's done really well um all right well that wraps up game releases for the week that are uh worth talking about uh if we forgot something and you are upset that we did not include it too bad tell us too bad no too bad deal with it well i mean i'm gonna say you know what come gripe at us you can join our discord server the link is in the episode description we love chatting games and you know what it's okay

to disagree about games we just said we're not interested in metaphor games. And you know what? It's okay to disagree about games. We just said we're not interested in metaphor refantasio. You know how many people slapped their heads and went like, are you kidding me? Come let us know. Tell us how horrible we are. Come tell us all about it. So again, the Discord server, the link is in the episode description. We are going to take a quick break, Ryan, and then we're going to come back with some indie games that need to be on people's radars, one of which I did not know existed a couple days ago. And now that I found out about it, we're talking about it on the show, which tells you that I think it looks pretty darn good. So we'll be back in just a second.

Behold, my name is Maximus Intertanius, and I come to you with big stars in big dramas like Gladiator 2, Dexter, Original Sin, and 1923. Stream Paramount Plus for $6.99 a month. All right, we are back. Ryan, I'm not even going to beat around the bush. Listen, we've got three indie titles that we're going to talk about. The first one is a game called Echo Point Nova. Now, if that doesn't sound like an indie title game to me, I don't know what does. Echo Point Nova is described by the developer as Titanfall meets Doom meets Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. Now, what the heck does that mean?

What more can you ask for, right? Yeah. Did you have a chance to check out the gameplay in the trailer for this? I did. And I know that we talked about it briefly before recording, just kind of going over our thoughts on it and stuff. So, I mean, I think that's a pretty accurate representation on what this looks like what it reminded me of um and this is a deep cut for any uh old counter-strike players um if you play it on old servers where you could do surfing counter-strike surfing you do the chair drop move and you would run through levels and you could still fight in battle and stuff but you were like surfing through these levels and just running through and the the movement is so fast in this game it just reminded

me of that obviously there's a lot more to it this is a little bit different but that's what i got and i instantly just had oh this is going to be fun like those are the thoughts that came to mind right away you're running you're kind of sliding along a wall you're jumping across you know these big kind of caverns you know lava ice all these crazy things beautiful world um crazy uh combating like interactions so there's a lot to be had there um especially for you know quote unquote indie game these indie games just keep getting better and better i don't know where the line is on what makes an indie game anymore because some of these are just freaking awesome uh but yeah i'm i think this looks i think this looks cool so we actually found out about this game um through a friend of

ours uh beef supreme i think he also listens to the show so you know and he's one of those people that you know he he has a hard time finding a game that sticks. And we've all been there, right? We float around through games and we say, man, I just want a game to give me that feeling again of like, can't wait to come home from work and dive into this. And he said, dude, this game is giving me that feeling. And I went, I've never heard of this. So I started watching a trailer and this game looks bananas, dude. I can't think of like, we talked about like fun factor.

Yeah. You know, then this game looks like it oozes that. I mean, you are flying around on your crazy hoverboard thing. This is the Tony Hawk's pro skater aspect at a million miles an hour. You're, you're, you know, you're ricocheting off of the sides of islands and you're grinding on cliff sides and stuff like that. So the movement in this game is top-notch. It is an open-world first-person shooter on floating islands, a la like Tears of the Kingdom almost. And the shooting is apparently pretty good.

It looks pretty good, yeah. With a variety of weapons and enemy types and stuff like that. So when people talk about Titanfall, I think that the reference there is the speed of movement in this game. And it can get very, very fast, which really interests me because it's like, oh, there's like some parkour slash high speed, good quality movement in this. It's got the like the guns and the monster variety of doom, which I mean, who doesn't love that? I mean, that's one of the top in the genre. There's actually a little bit of Minecraft destructibility too,

because you can whack away bricks and stuff like that if you need to access something, which I thought was really crazy. This game just looks like it kind of puts everything together in this really special package i would highly recommend to listeners to check out a trailer because it's going to give you a much better idea of what this game is all about it's hard to describe it really is hard to describe and i and i i'm a little hesitant sometimes when like games say oh this is a

mashup of this and this right like i mean we just talked about space marine 2 where people are like oh it's like gears of war meets hell divers but it's not really anything like that yeah it's its own thing you know right exactly and so when you start saying titanfall doom and tony hawks pro skater i'm going what but when you watch the trailer it does kind of make sense if people needed any other reason to at least give this thing a peak, it is sitting at a 99% rating on Steam right now. And I know people are probably going like, well, yeah, but that's out of like 60 reviews and they're all good friends that develop. That's out of 1500 reviews.

Say it again. How many? 99% rating out of 1500 reviews. Say it again. How many? 99% rating out of 1500 reviews. This game seems to have captured some kind of magic, which is why we want to put it in front of you. They're not like, we don't get paid to do this. You know what I mean? Like they're not a sponsor. This is just us as gamers wanting to put games in front of people that might be well worth checking out and especially from indie devs because we love indie devs as well. So Echo Point Nova is the name of the game. Check it out. If you pick it up and play it, let us know because sadly, I don't think we're going to have time to

play this anytime soon. But man, is it going to stay on my wish list until I get a chance to do that? So if you've played it or you pick it up and play it, come let us know about it. Ryan, the next game on this list is a little game called Kill Night, a hardcore bullet hell twin stick shooter. Ooh. No. I like that description. I do, I do as well.

That kind of instantly gets me amped, man. I played this demo in the Steam Next Fest in their Twin Stick Shooter Fest or whatever it was, because I kept going like, man, this game sounds familiar to me, but I've not played it. But then I went, why does it sound familiar to me? Then my old man brain went, you did play this. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that's right. I will say that I was not super impressed by the demo, because it seemed very just

minimalistic almost. And I died within the first like 45 seconds of every run. But apparently the demo... User error. Yeah. I mean, it very well could be. But my nephew actually picked this game up. He's a gamer. And he was like, dude, this game's a ton of fun it's super fast paced it's super hardcore like it is challenging but i know that there's a lot of people out there especially with a twin stick shooter you want that chaos yeah and that like efficiency of motion and you know a a massive arsenal and stuff like that um kill night sitting at a 94 on steam right now i think it had something like 400 reviews so not

nearly as many as echo point nova but might be worth checking out to people that are hungry for just a super fast-paced twin stick action hardcore shooter i thought it looked really cool this is another one i don't know that i'll have the time to dive into but i mean who doesn't love a good twin stick shooter man i'm telling you like and i and i got introduced into this whole kind of genre if you will you know and then we played um endless dungeon and then i've played a ton lately of uh deep rock survivor or survival whatever one it is and i'm like this this is like legit such a fun game. It's one of those where you just hop in, play a match or two, and play as long as you survive, you know,

and then go about your day and do whatever else. But something about the strategy, once you really get into it of, okay, I can kite this group until I get them to this area and use these monsters to blow up these monsters, and then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so I'm sure this has the same type of stuff to where you can, once you really get into it, it's not just surviving. You're using the monsters against themselves.

You're using your weapons. So there's a lot that goes into it. It does become a really fun strategic kind of action that you do that I've learned to really thoroughly enjoy. And so this is why we we love to cover all these types of games because maybe you haven't tried something in this type of genre and and you get into it and you're like okay cool i do enjoy this and that's what happened to me so if you're unsure you're you're kind of wavering check some of these things out see if

you like it you know if you don't no harm no foul uh if you do then you find a new kind of whole complete open world that you can kind of kind of explore yeah there's something about a twin stick shooter that is just oddly satisfying it is man it is yeah the i remember the most recent one was the ascent that i got super hyped for it wound up being a really good game in my opinion as well um they're they're just kind of mindless fun in a way yeah but like you said if you really get into them you can kind of start peeling back the layers of like the how do you survive these levels and what do you need to do to do that stacking your builds and yeah yeah exactly so the name of that game again was kill night um so check that one out and then as we've been doing this episode, a completely different game,

no shooting involved in this one that we know of. One of our listeners, Jiggle Puff, actually pointed this out to us. And this is why we love being gamers, right? This is why we do this show is people putting games on your radar. And Jiggle Puff posted this on our Discord server and said, I played the demo for this. This is a game that's worth checking out. And it's a game called Tito. So Tito, T-E-E-T-O. The game is not out yet, but there is a demo out for it. And we get a lot of game suggestions. And a lot of times my brain just kind of looks at one. I go, yeah, cool. I'll check that out. And then I always forget to check it out kind of thing but this one i checked out dude this looks like a an awesome throwback to the to

the classic 3d platformer yeah a la spyro jack and dexter mario 64 um a little bit of crash bandicoot in there because with the one of the scenes that you see is you running towards the screen like running away from all the stuff chasing you and anytime i see all that like my nostalgia brain just kicks in and then i go like oh oh wouldn't that be fun i mean astrobot just did it right yeah they did it very well yeah they did it really well so i don't know if this is coming off the heels of Astro Bot, but I mean, I think this game looks really good. Like, what did you think about it?

I think it does. And I'm actually, I'm watching, you know, just re-watching it right now just because. And it does, it gives you that Crash Bandicoot, like jumping back and forth. And then the flames, and there's a bunch of different areas too. You use electricity to to power on this vacuum.

Or you're blowing on this ice as a flame thing to melt the ice cube. And there's a lot of different factors to it. A lot of different cool things that you experience within the environment. It does look like just a throwback kind of nostalgic, fun game like that. So, I don't know i i definitely am excited i'm sure maybe i'll hide this from my son so he doesn't see it because i'm sure he'll be like dad let's get that we need to get that yeah but uh it's definitely one that people should probably check out i will actually i'm gonna try the demo on this just because these kind of games they

never look like that crazy to me when I'm watching like a trailer, but when you jump into them and you start playing them, there's just something about it that clicks with me, man. And this game looks like it has that for sure. It was chaos. That scene that we talk about, you're running from this giant shadowy thing that's eating up the level behind you. There's stuff falling down and then it creates these shockwave explosions that you have to jump over. It also looks like it's two-player co-op, which I think looks like it's a ton of fun

because what's better than, you know, the chaos of a single-player game is playing it with your buddy and then yelling at them when they get hit by the big explosion and stuff. Oh, come on. Yeah. So again, that game has no release date,

but it does have a playable demo and that game is called Tito. it does have a playable demo and that game is called tito so go check that one out as well ryan as we tend to do we like to talk a lot no we do so we do have two news stories that i want to cover the the first one the alters no don't say it a game that came out of nowhere. No. That we played the demo on. I choose a different path. Different path. I know, man.

I don't want to say it, but I got to say it. All right, go ahead. We got to walk this path. But we got so hyped for the alters after we got to play the demo on this. Yes, we did. All three of us, me, you, and Paul all instantly fell in love with this game and went, oh my goodness, this is way better than it has any right to be, is getting delayed to 2025. What kind of figured that since, I mean, it's mid-October

and we still didn't get a release date yet. But the developer came out and they just said, listen, we need a little bit more time to put into this game to make it what we want. We had a very tight timeline on development on this one. This is the exact same developer that just released Frostpunk 2 two weeks ago. And so they've been busy, obviously, but they generally tend to make very high quality games as well. So you know what? As much as I hate to see another delay

for a big title, take your time on this one because I know that you and I are both super hyped for this. So as much as I would have liked to have seen this come out in November, December, I'm fine with the delay as much as it kind of sucks. Yeah, I mean, if you're looking at a couple months or a few months to really hone things down and make a good quality game, you get a couple strikes on that.

You get a couple chances on that like you get a couple chances on a couple developments that that hey we got to pull this back we want to make sure it's honed and well polished for you the gamers if it's every release then we have an issue so yeah let them have it make us an awesome game because we love the demo we loved what we played i'm fine waiting a few months for something that's gonna you know knock my socks off um just man just i wish these guys would be more accurate on their timelines i don't know i'm not a developer so i don't know i just i'm so sick of hearing delays i feel like every 60 70 of games are getting delayed every time now yeah we used to be really against them but i've just gotten to the point where i'm like i'd much rather have a delay in the game come out in good condition

than to be crashing in a jittery mess of a game that just aggravates me well don't over promise then don't don't tell me that's true you know like four months is a long time like that's a lot of time especially with however big the team is that's a lot of man hours that's a lot of people working on a game if you really genuinely need that much time you over promised or something happened again completely i'm just a working self-employed dad with kids you know that loves video games so i don't know everything about it but it just seems to me like we're getting a lot of over promising and um these games just aren't even coming out close to when they're supposed to be yeah i will say this i'm fine with

them delaying the game if they come out and they say this game's releasing in mid-february i'm gonna lose it because we have so many games i sent you that screenshot today. I know. That's why I just went, oh, my goodness. If you say February, I'm going to be like, oh, man. Just any other month. Any other month will be fine. But I just checked, too, and they pulled the demo down off of Steam. So maybe they're just trying to build the hype back up. Because the demo was on Steam for a long time. And it's not available anymore.

So if you didn't play that demo, you missed out. But trust us, this game looks and plays phenomenal for what we got to do. Let's just have it released February 13th. In between, Kingdom Come Deliverance on February 11th, Assassin's Creed Shadows February 14th, and Avowed February 18th. You know, that's a good time, right?

Oh my gosh. I need to request like two weeks off of work right around then. I know. I was looking at game releases and I was like, what the heck? Yeah. Why? Just spread them out a little bit man i know right all right and then our last news story this one i i like i get excited for i'm buying into the hype i'm excited okay i but then it's like show me yeah well we saw did you watch it i did i. I watched it. We saw. I'm excited. I don't know about you, but I'm excited.

I am excited, but I'm trying to contain it a little bit. So we are huge fans of Halo around here. I mean, you and I grew up playing the Halo games with friends and buddies and those nights of just Halo multiplayer until the wee hours of the morning. Halo has a very special place in our hearts, as it does for a lot of gamers as well. Halo Infinite is a fantastic game. I think it kind of just didn't get the traction

that they were hoping for. I know it took a long time for them to get Forge out. We, as a group of gamers and through our Discord server have played the big team battles with a bunch of people. They are a ton of fun, man. I've got nothing against Halo Infinite, to be honest with you. I just don't know why it didn't do more in the gaming world. And that could just be shooter fatigue because of games like Apex Legends and Call of Duty Warzone. And it's overshadowed by the Battle Royale stuff that was all free to play. But for whatever reason, I would say that I think Halo Infinite didn't perform as well as the studio was hoping. But we got news this week, and this came with a lot of fanfare and a lot of articles

and stuff as well, that 343 Studios, famously the developer of a lot of the Halo games has been rebranded and kind of risen from the ashes, so to speak, and become Halo Studios. And when I hear something called Halo Studios, I get kind of excited because then I just go, well, this means you guys are just going to make Halo games, right? I love it. And then it's like, I want more Halo games. Do you want more Halo games, Ryan? I want more Halo games. Yeah. Does everybody else want more Halo?

I want more Halo games. I want more Halo. I want more Halo. Oh, I like Halo. I'll take a new game. So, I mean, this is kind of a neat step to just say, hey, listen, we are Halo Studios. That's all we're going to do. We're just going to make Halo games.

We're not going to get distracted by anything else other than that. They also came out and said, hey, you know how there's this new technology for developing games called Unreal Engine 5? Oh, really? That makes games look beautiful. It's apparently actually pretty easy to develop in. Yeah, what if we just use that what because because then we can we don't have to have our own stupid engine that i think they called slipstream or something like that that they were saying they've been it's the same engine they've had for like 15 years you know 15 years later oh my goodness man so listen halo unreal engine 5 100 committed to

only halo they did also confirm that they have multiple games in development right now they're going to be using the unreal 5 engine they're already touting how like they're pushing that engine to like to new heights so to speak and they're discovering things you can do with this and they're they're using that to kind of craft this halo experience and ryan you kind of mentioned it this came with a trailer that they released that they showed off like three environments and what did you what'd you think about that i thought and and i read something that rang true exactly with what my brain went to immediately, is that this looked exactly like my 12-year-old brain went to when I was a kid. I'm like, this is what these maps look like.

Obviously, they didn't. This is Unreal Engine 5. It is funny, right? Yeah. But I'm like, this is exactly what it looked like. This is awesome. So we all know what Halo is what halo offers uh i would say that it did fall behind because it just stayed true to what it was i guess if you can say it halo was just always

halo it didn't change much because it didn't need to it was always just it was what it was and it was fantastic and it didn't need that alteration. With new graphics, Unreal Engine, maybe they'll do a couple tweaks to make it different, but I'd still be totally okay playing just a fun, awesome, upgraded Halo game that I can enjoy with all my friends and family or sitting on couch co-op or anything like that.

Halo is just one of those ultimate games of longevity where it just stands the test of time. No matter what, you hear that beeping of your shield. And I know you just heard it in your head, right? I just, oh, my brain's so happy right now. Yeah, and I'm going to try to throw it in here too. Yeah, when it charges back up, you hear those noises. You hear the game when you think of it.

So that shows what impact it has on you. And I think that this is such a strong game. I'm so excited that they're doing this. I'm excited they have stuff in development. I'm super eager and have anticipation, great anticipation on what they're going to bring. So yeah, I'm jack eager and have anticipation, great anticipation on what they're going to bring. So yeah, I'm jacked up, man. This one I'm really excited for. I am too. I want to see what they do with it. I love all things Halo, you know what I mean? And

so new Halo stuff coming up instantly starts geeking me out. I don't know why, but you started mentioning that and it was just like, dude, give me a Battlefield game, but Halo. Like a huge map where it's like, you know, it's the premise of like a good Battlefield game, but it's all just Halo stuff and air and vehicles and all that. And oh, man. Even on Infinite, there was one of those maps. We had, I don't know what happened, but it just out of circumstance,

a bunch of people on our Discord all got on and we all just started playing halo infinite and we all just kept hopping on. It was like one crazy weekend weekend where we were all playing for like throughout the day, everyone was jumping into big groups and we were playing this one map that had big team battle. Yeah. Yeah.

It was. Yeah. With tons of vehicles, there was jumps across the middle and all these, like there was ghosts and then the, um, the Banshees and then the war hogs and everything you could think of snipers so all of those things everybody was just having such a blast it was it's just one of those games that anyone no matter what

your play style is you can run and gun you can snipe you can drive vehicles it's just so much fun and it means so much to so many people even if you're a newer gamer and you didn't grow up with it, you know Halo. It's just one of those games. Right. Yeah, I kind of want to go play Halo. I know, right? That's what I was thinking after I watched it. We'll glance over this one real quick.

They also confirmed that Halo Infinite is getting a third-person mode. Now, I know you and I as old-school Halo people went, what? Third-person mode? What do we need that for? But let's be honest. This is what a new generation of people are used to. Anybody that's played Fortnite is used to that over the shoulder third person mode. So I think this is a smart move,

in my opinion. I think it feels weird for people like me and you that have played Halo since the first one came out, and it's always been a first person thing. But if you think about it, there's a lot of people now that grew up playing Fortnite, you know what I mean? And they're used to that same view. And so I think that actually does make a lot of sense from that perspective to just give some familiarity with people that aren't used to that first person perspective as much either. So yeah, for sure. All right. Well, like we do, we have gone long on this episode, so we are going to wrap it up there. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a second right now to look down at your podcast app, find that follow button, find that plus button that is going to say, Hey, I want more episodes from these guys. And then that way you will get notified

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Oh, did you, anyone who hasn't listened? Shame on you. First of all, our last episode, we did our, our pre dive for star Wars outlaws.

We are giving away a copy of the game. You have to be a member in the discord. Come in and join. All you gotta do is just join up on the discord. Absolutely free links in the description um on this episode come in just say hi say what's going on to everybody everybody will talk to you about their favorite games what are your favorite games it's an awesome community but again join up you you have a chance to win a free copy of star wars outlaws which we are

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uh, and chat there also that about does it it. Until next time, everybody, happy gaming. See ya.