Video Gamers Podcast - MGS3 Remake, Little Nightmares 3 and is Battlefield Back? - Video Games Podcast

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

Video games hosts Paul, Ryan and Josh bringing you the week's hottest video game news like no other gaming podcast can. It’s been a busy week in the video game world. Alan Wake 2 released, we got a preview of the new Metal Gear Solid 3 Remake. 18 mins of Little Nightmares 3 gameplay and according to some, BF2042 is back (we’re skeptical) and we get more news on Skull and Bones… yeah you probably already know at this point.  Thanks to our LEGENDARY Supporters: Redletter, Gaius214, Nate and Kiitaclyzm Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com//videogamerspod Follow us on Twitter: 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

Hello, fellow gamers! Welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. We are three lifelong gamer dads, and on Thursdays like today, we break down recent gaming news over the last seven days. I am your host, Paul, and joining me, you can find him running from a baby with fat fingers, shooting beetles with a bow and arrow, and climbing so many ladders. It's Josh. Dude, little fat baby creatures freak me out, is what I've learned in my video game career. Like big little babies. That's the freakish thing. Yeah. Resident Evil Village, and now Little Nightmares 3. There you go.

And joining Josh and me, he is stealthing across the jungle, crawling through mud and water, eating neon colored frogs, which shouldn't be dangerous at all. It's Ryan. Ugh. Poison. Tastes like poison. Tastes like poison. I'm'm back baby ryan's back ryan it we front loaded a few episodes before your vacation josh and i had to record a little bit while you were gone

it feels like you've been gone for ages but it's very nice to have you back thank you very much i haven't sat in front of a computer in a week, and it feels weird, but I'm glad to be here and glad to be back. Oh, very nice. And then, Josh, before we start with news, do you mind giving a little bit of an update about Patreon? Oh, I don't mind one bit, because this is how people can keep the magic alive. If you love the show, if you've been listening to the show, if you want to just

help the show exist, you can head over to Patreon or our actual special link, which is MultiplayerSquad.com. You can sign up. You can say, hey, guys, here's a tip. I just wanted to throw something at you and then cancel the pledge. There is no obligation whatsoever. But anytime somebody does sign up, we also like to give them a shout out on the show. And we recently had two members that signed up. We've got Joff, who signed up at Epic status, actually got to play some games with Joff recently. So super cool guy.

And then we also have Yosh, who signed up with Rare status. So kudos to those guys and everybody else that supports the show. If you enjoy this and you want to do the same, head on over to MultiplayerSquad.com. Huge thank you to Joaf and Yosh. Sorry for the slightly delayed thank you. This is

Ryan's fault, so any complaints can go to Ryan because we just have not recorded many episodes lately. You Jo have to be kidding me right now. Come on. Oh, goodness. All right, guys, let's get going with some news here. Being that we are just past Halloween, it only feels right if we talk about at least one creepy game. Let's talk a little bit about Little Nightmares 3. So this week we got a two-player co-op gameplay walkthrough, which features pre-alpha footage.

It is an 18-minute long video. And to provide a little bit of context, Josh and I did play Little Nightmares 2. We did a deep dive on it. And out of our 103 deep dives, Josh has it ranked number 77. I have it ranked number 86. Um, I would say, wow. Why are you going to be so hard on the game, Paul? Yeah. You know, both of us somewhat hard on

the game. I just wanted to share a little bit of context. I would not say that you and I are little nightmares fanatics, right? Josh, like We thought it was perfectly fine. I think they look cool, but you and I are not fanboys. I'm not. There are aspects of the games that I really like. The art style to me is what really stands out for the Little Nightmares games. The gameplay can

be neat. It just really starts to drag after a little while for me. They don't incorporate enough new elements. So it's like, I feel like it's a 15 hour game that should be like a six hour game. Yeah. And inevitably it's just a lot of walking and climbing on stuff kind of over

and over. But now that we got this trailer here for little nightmares, three got a little bit of a new look, Ryan, I know that you are new to the series and have not yet played. What are your guys' thoughts now after seeing some of this pre-alpha footage? I definitely get the walking and the climbing thing that you guys were saying. Yes. Watching that footage,

I did love the atmosphere. It just felt like, you know when you walk into a dark room and you kind of, it's a little bit of light and you see the dust kind of float, particles floating in the air. And you just have that weird kind of look to it. That's what it felt like to me. I thought it was neat. I thought it was kind of clever how the look is. I don't know how you guys have played. I haven't.

How the gameplay kind of uh plays throughout that but from what i saw i thought it was pretty cool don't know if it's going to be one that i'm going to be you know g know why this video is 18 minutes long this video should be two to three minutes at the very most guys i would say every like 34 seconds there is a giant ladder to climb which takes about 12 seconds to get up there are so many ladders in this trailer i thought it was a little bit of a snooze fest. I think the footage wouldn't have felt that way if it was shorter, but my goodness, I don't know why they decided to put out such a long video for this. I think they were trying to show off most of this level is what it

was. Cause it's like the necropolis level. They call it, I think if i think if if my memory serves but yeah you know here's a weird thing that just dawned on me for me little nightmares any of them now the third one really does it's a visual improvement which is saying a lot but this is one of the few games in existence that i think is just as much fun to watch as it is to play. And I'll let you decide whether that is a compliment or an insult. Maybe a little bit of both. Yeah. I mean, you know, I think my other big thing here is what I saw looked neat. I don't know that I really saw anything new.

Like if you, because I didn't play Little Nightmares 1. And if you told me, Paul, this is footage from Little Nightmares 1, I'd be like, oh, okay, cool. I think it's a minor graphical improvement. You can tell it's not finished. There's still a lot of aesthetic stuff that's missing. I think it's neat that this one will have co-op because the last two didn't. I don't think that's enough to draw me back into the series.

I was curious to hear about you, Josh. Does that change things at all? No, I mean, I pick on the series, but I do appreciate what Little Nightmares is. I got to give them kudos for the art style. It's a gorgeous game. And we talked about it when they first had the reveal trailer for it.

They're doing some neat things with perspective, like you mentioned at the top of the show with the big fat baby hand reaching in and trying to grab you. I mean, they've done that in the past with like the butcher guy chasing you on some of the levels and things like that but it seems like they're kind of moving more into that massive perspective coming out towards where you are like there's just neater things in the background while your characters are in the foreground and i like that so you know there are things i like that they're doing.

I can look at it and say, I appreciate what this is. The gameplay is not riveting enough for me to say I would pick this game up. I understand why people like it. I think they do a good job. They're highly polished. They're very beautiful games. They're just not my kind of game. Yeah, I totally get that.

All right. So moving on to our next story here metal gear solid all right ryan i know these games now guys you're part of the group i'm part of the you're in the cool kids club now thank you man come on in come on in we it's a nice club we bugs we eat all kind of stuff just to survive don't worry wait i don't want steaks is fine bugs no oh yeah you can eat a lot of things in snake eater which is a very uh very good name for the game so yeah metal gear solid ryan this is your favorite gaming series of all time we recently did a deep dive on the phantom pain j Josh finally has joined the Metal Gear Solid Club. And we know that Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater is being remade in Unreal Engine 5. We got our first look at the in-game, I'm sorry, the in-engine game on YouTube. And honestly, it highlighted a lot of the wildlife,

which I thought was funny. You would almost think that this is some kind of zoo game if you just watch the trailer because it's so many animals but i was kind of curious to hear your guys thoughts the youtube comments i noticed were actually quite positive in nature but then i started reading like on euro gamer they had an article where they said that the twitter and reddit crowds were much more mixed so i was curious to hear what you guys thought about this. Twitter and Reddit? No way. I don't buy it. Being opinionated?

No. I can't believe it. Anonymously? What? Josh, being that you're new to the group, I want to extend the olive branch to you to let you give your opinion first on this because I'm super excited to see what you have to say. I think this game looks great. I don't know anything.

Now, this is the three, right? I don't know who Snake Eater is. All I know is that five was a prequel, so there's some guys that are probably going to be that were in five but are now older. All I know is it's getting to where you can tell Unreal Engine 5 games right off the bat because the graphical fidelity and the lighting are incredible. I was instantly just

kind of invested in what I saw with the graphics in this game, knowing nothing about the game itself. I mean, I liked what I saw. They had the Snake Eater. Is that his name? Snake eater? Is that just like an adjective for somebody? His name is Bob, but he eats snakes. His name is definitely snake eater. You won't embarrass yourself if you talk to people and use that as his name. Hey, snake eater, get over here. I feel like Paul is misleading me here, but I'm going with it. So anyway, yes, Snake Eater was walking through the water, and the water was super realistic. And then there was like a lizard alligator thing that opened its mouth and hissed at him.

And it looks beautiful. I have no idea about the story, but with what I saw, I'm willing to make this my second Metal Gear Solid game. Oh, yeah. Now we're talking baby i'm excited now is three your favorite or was it two ryan i can't remember which one two's two's my favorite two um obviously one was the first i played but but two was the one that was prime of my youth like love of my life that was that was the one but uh three was just absolutely amazing probably the best of those um but just not you know in that kind of experience for me but i i'm so excited for this um like paul said you know there's a lot of kind of reviews on there

a little bit of mixed stuff i i thought the way that they did it, you can tell, like you said, in the Unreal Engine, you can see the difference. And from the memories of playing the game to what I see now, it just makes me even more excited. Because I could go back and I could play through Snake Eater, you know, and just have an absolute blast. But if I can play back through it in Unreal Engine and it looked like that, it's next level. So I am beyond excited. I'm super stoked. And I really, really hope that you play it as well, Josh. Now, do you have any, I mean, as a fan of the series, Paul saying that there's been mixed reactions, did you see anything that you didn't like about this trailer like what are people complaining about dude dude people i mean there's some people complain about anything but people people the people that complain just sometimes like to complain um i i some of the stuff looked a

little weird um kind of the the i don't know snake's face to me kind of looked weird paul's shaking his head right now a little bit yeah because you just looked different you see the old lower resolution yeah from 2004 and it's a completely different engine right and i don't like your face it makes me want to do things to it. So when you remake it today, you're filling in all these details that previously your imagination did. It's almost like reading a book and then watching a movie.

And so watching this trailer, I think for some people, there's just some like cognitive dissonance where they're like, hashtag not my snake is kind of like their reaction. I sent you guys a link that IG ign put out that has just side by side graphics from the original ps2 which are 19 years old and the new next gen unreal engine 5

there were comments of people saying that the original graphics look better to which i say you are certifiably insane if you say anything like that. That is bananas. Yeah, no, it's crazy. But it also is like people get stuck in their head what certain things look like and they just want to remember it that way. But yeah, I'm beyond excited.

So this is a big one for me. I do have one other question. Why are they calling it metal gear solid delta is that like just to indicate the remake of three or is that what three was called back then help a noob out here man i i believe they just said they're using delta because the game has changed they're remaking it so it's more of like a mathematical or like physics where delta always just means difference like the change between two numbers um yeah i mean middle gear solid three is a fantastic game i loved one and two i preferred one and two over three but i still love the fact

that three takes you out into the jungles they add some more survival elements um all that stuff is a blast i will absolutely play this. I do wonder if the Unreal Engine 5 stuff is hitting a little bit of that uncanny valley stuff with some of the creatures. I will say it was very cool to see Snake come out of a swamp and be dripping in mud. Because when you watch the old footage, Snake is perfectly clean going into the swamp and he's perfectly clean coming out of it you know so it's really cool to be able to see this where you see like these whole you know splotches and splashes of mud as he's running out of the swamp i thought it was pretty cool

snake you're gonna snake eat man that that he will all right well let's go ahead and take a short break and we'll be right back all right boys continuing on with the show here all right battlefield 2042 all right it's it's taken its licks on this show i would not call it our official punching bag josh i think we would award that to elite dangerous but i think a short silver silver medal would be battlefield we all three of us have trashed this game to no end some people are saying that it is now on a bit of a redemption arc it is exactly two years after release this came out in october of 2021 and the this october the game has seen a huge explosion in the number of players i took a look on steam charts it was averaging about 7 000 concurrent users the last month and all of a

sudden here this month it has jumped to hit its all-time peak of 107 000 players guys i can't imagine one single reason for why this game is all of a sudden popular never not that they had a free weekend or anything like that um i you know we have trashed battlefield 2042 we i you know i had it ranked dead last on my leaderboard um i is it it might even still be dead last i don't know it's it's elite dangerous okay well i mean that's fitting as well but you know it's just you know i was so hyped for this game the thing that bugs me the most is when they were advertising this they were advertising battlefield 2042 as the throwback to what gamers wanted. They were showing off all these amazing moments from the battlefield series

and all this stuff. And I got a love letter. Yeah. I mean, and so, you know, it's like, don't tell me you're giving me a love letter and then you break up with me

at the end of the letter. Like that's just doesn't fly. And now I'm scarred, man. I'm not going to lie. Like I would love to have a battlefield game that the three of us or any other number of people could play together. I just don't buy it, man. Like maybe we need to hop back in. Maybe we should give it a shot. We've already bought it and paid for it. You know,

it's just an install away to hop in and say, okay, let's see if there's something here. You know, I know that they moved away from the specialist system, so that's a good thing. I mean, I just, call me skeptical, call me scarred in a little bit of just afraid to want to like it again and be like, wait, is it back? And then log in and be like, no, it's not back back and then i'm just mad all over again josh is a woman scorned right now i mean i do i was mad i mean i was mad you're telling me i i was so some of my greatest memories was playing like uh 42 or vietnam with paul like and just just the music and just playing, and everything was fun, and it was just overall just enjoyable.

And then when you pay the money that they charge for these games now, and you get on and you just can't even play, it's just beyond frustrating. So I also have a lot of ill will towards that, and it's going to take a lot to get me back on. But I guess if it's just an install away. This is the part I hate.

There is a very dark corner of my mind that is going, you know, you could try it. You could give it a shot. I mean, 100,000 people can't be wrong, right? Like there's got to be something there. Join us. Yeah. Join us, Josh.

Shut up. No, get out of my head. Yeah. You know, I was kind of thinking the same thing. I was going to ask you guys, like in all seriousness, should we try playing it again? There are people in our discord. Oh, wait, I'm in.

Nevermind. Was that hypothetical? I'm not. I don't want to. discord. Oh wait, I'm in. Nevermind. Was that hypothetical? I'm not, I don't want to. Okay. If you guys do, I would try it. People have popped into our discord every now and again that say you guys are too hard on it. They've made a lot of changes. It has gotten a lot better. I have seen that like three times over the last two months. It's hard for me to believe it. Josh, you're looking looking a little skeptical i can see it in your eyes i'm so conflicted man i want i want to so here's the thing that did kind of make me laugh the article that i sent you guys was from tech for gamers which quite honestly read a little bit like paid advertising to me i don't know if you guys felt the same way that's why yeah they were like this

game's on a redemption arc like cyberpunk. And I was like, hold on. Pump the brakes. Yeah. I looked on steam. Do you know what recent reviews are? User score for cyberpunk. Oh,

recent are amazing. Recent for cyberpunk. 90% user score. All right. Oh, wow. Now battlefield overall is 42%. So with them being on this whole redemption arc,

you would expect that to be a pretty big improvement on recent reviews, right? You'd think so. It's a small bump. It's gone from 42 up to 57. Moving on up, baby. Oh, boy. So still, even with this huge boost lately, only 57% of the reviews are positive. So you're still getting an awful lot of people that aren't enjoying it.

I think it's a little too early to say that Battlefield 2042 has been redeemed, but it does seem like they're at least on the right track. Is there a world where they fix it? I mean, you know, they are trying. They abandoned. What was it? Five? Was it five or one that they just said, yeah, we're not we're not doing anything else with

this game. We're moving on to the next thing. And then so they just and I know they came out and they said, oh, well, we're going to fix it. We're sorry, guys. You know, please buy the next EA game. And, you know, and it's like, I just don't know. I mean, I don't know what it would take for them to fix this game for me to play it and go,

okay, I'm going to start shouting this to the world how great this is now. I just don't want any more love letters. That's all I know. You can keep your love letter. Just give me a good game. Not from VA and Dice. Yeah. Yeah.

Do you guys think that the quality of the games has gone down that much? Or do you think as time passes that this format of game just doesn't work anymore? Because I'm kind of stuck a little in between. I can kind of argue both. Part of me is like, you know what? Battle Royales took over. I think people like higher stakes games as opposed to where you're going to die a hundred times in a battlefield match and it doesn't even really matter all that much.

I don't know. I don't know if the problem is so much this installment. Personally, I hated battlefield one and I hated 2042. Part of me wonders if it's more me and maybe there's a lot of gamers in the same boat. It's them, Paul.

It's not you. Okay. I, so you think they could come out with a smashing success battlefield and we would all be 100 back on board dude played i played battle bit which is exactly what people were clamoring for and that game is massively successful the only reason that i am not still playing battle bit is i hate the graphics it is made like roblox engine and I get the graphics aren't everything. And let me tell you, the fact that they can have such a good game with Roblox graphics is a testament to what

people want. That game is, it's fun. It's, I mean, it's Battlefield. It's what everybody wanted from Battlefield. I don't know why EA can't just give people what they want. If you came out with Battlefield 2 with Unreal Engine 5 or whatever graphics, I don't even care. I would be so into that game. It would be ridiculous. So I mean, I get that people change, but I think it's just that they have not given us what we've wanted for so long now that I think we're getting a little jaded and we're getting a little scarred and kind of calloused to the series. Maybe it's too late,

but I don't think it's that we've moved on from what we enjoy. I think it's just that we haven't had what we enjoy in so long. Might be right. Who knows? Dang, philosophizing over here. Yeah.

Look at this guy. All right. And then moving on from one of our favorite games, Battlefield 2042, to one of our other favorites. Our last story this week comes by way of Ubisoft. Guys, we're talking about... Favorite developer. All right.

We talk about Ubisoft way too much, man. They do such a good job of flooding the gaming news websites that you have to talk about Ubisoft. Guys, Skull & Bones, which... I don't even need to say anything else. That is a punchline at this point. The game has been in development since 2013. It was delayed for the 391st time, or plus or minus five or six like we've had so many delays

this time they're saying it's pushed back to the first half of their fiscal year which runs in 2023 into 2024 at this point i don't know if we're getting skull and bones or star citizen first i was just about to make that comparison were Were you? I was literally going to ask you guys, which started development first, Star Citizen or Skull and Bones? Let me get my time machine. Star Citizen's never coming out. I'll go back and see.

Yeah. I'm pretty sure Star Citizen at this point, like, I don't know. You could tell me it'll come out in 2030 and I'd be like, yeah, all right. Legitimately, which one started development first? I am not sure. I'm guessing Star Citizen.

Okay, so you think Star Citizen's been in development for more than a decade? Have you looked it up? I did, yeah. You think Star Citizen's been in development for more than a decade? I think so, yeah. I think their Kickstarter went gangbusters about 10 years ago. I'm going to say the same. Star Citizen development started in 2011.

Oh my gosh. Okay, so here's the thing. Now, we did not cover this, but Star Citizen just had an amazing, just tons of information. StarCon, they called it. They were showing off all the systems. Dude, you can watch that,

and it is like a futuristic tech demo. We had a big conversation on our Discord server about this, but Star Citizen, I can watch that and it is like a futuristic tech demo we've had we had a big conversation on our discord server about this but like star citizen i can look at and go well i see what they've been working on for the last you know 12 years now like wow this is impressive skull and bones it's only been two years shorter and it's like you look at that and you go this sucks man how could they be so different it's it's you you pull up next to some trees and you see some dust fly in the air and then the trees disappear and you have lumber yeah like i don't know how this game can be in development for so long i have a serious question

for you guys they say that this delay is for more polish and more balance this is kind of what we've heard from ubisoft the last several delays. Do you legitimately think that they think they have the game set and they're just polishing it? Or do you think they have been scrambling, trying to change the core gameplay? No, they have it set, dude.

They're not, this game was so broken that again, we talked about this in the past too. All they're going to do is add on another system. They're not changing core gameplay. They're not doing all that. They're just going to say, listen, people didn't like this. So now we have to give them crafting and they didn't like this. So now we have to give them, you know, material gathering and things like that, but they cannot fundamentally change the gameplay at this point. So they're just going to keep piling garbage onto this plate to hope that, you know,

you'll order it because you'd see it on the menu and you go, I just want this. It's a massive platter of food, you know, regardless that it's all just garbage food. Yeah, exactly. One of the things they also mentioned,

it was a one sentence that they put in there, but they said that it was for polish but also to raise awareness for the game's release so that to me sounds like that's a pr line yeah exactly what that is the most ridiculous line ever i make a good game produce the stuff that should be produced and then the pr will be there you don't need to do updates and do, oh, we're changing this. Oh, but it's for PR. Like, that's ridiculous. Why are you going to get me riled up, man?

I legit did wonder, like, what if they just said the game was canceled, rebranded under a new name, release it two years down the road, and maybe people would get excited about it. Do you know a single person who has any interest in Skull & Bones? No. I don't know a single person.

I don't either. I don't see it on... I mean, I keep up with all the gaming news, the gaming subreddits, gaming Twitter, all this stuff. I've never seen a single person go, I can't wait for Skull & Bones. Most anticipated game, Skull & Bones, baby. Yeah, you know, it's like, yeah. Boom, scrap it, game canceled,

let it little die down for a year or two, and then just come back, Pirate Bay, or something like that, and then boom. Sell it to a different developer, man. Like, you're going to lose your shirt, but at this point, maybe you save your reputation? You know, like, just off- sell it to somebody else let them like you said sit on it for a year and then some unknown developer releases this pirate game

and there you go dude they are so far in the hole they would have to sell this for so much money they have to sell so many copies can you imagine like development fees over a decade on this game and all the delays? I can't even imagine. They did also say that in Ubisoft had this like weird thing go on the last few weeks where they keep talking about how they're releasing a major game within the next few months, but they won't. They won't say what it is. Everyone's kind of like it's Star Wars.

We all know it's Star Wars Outlaws. Like what other major game do you have in the works? So they also said that this mystery game is also being delayed. So, you know, I don't know. Ubisoft, we don't have a whole lot of trust in them. And between the delays with X Defiant, delays with Star Wars Outlaws, delays with seemingly everything they put out. They just need to stop putting release dates on things. Just don't release news every week on every game you have in the works. Just work on it silently. Tell us about it when you're nearly done, and then let's

worry about the news at that point. Yep. Yeah, I think they've dug themselves a hole on just how they interact with the gaming community at this point. And I think Star Wars Outlaws looks really good, to be honest. And if they're delaying it to make it even better, then I have to say, hey, good on you for learning a lesson. I have a sneaking suspicion that Ubisoft has had a couple of bad fiscal years. So if they push everything to 2024 and these games even do moderately well, then Ubisoft can then go, look, we're back, everybody. We made a ton of money this year. And it's like, yeah, but you didn't make any money last year. No, no, no, no, no. 2024 has been one of our best years in the last five years. Just details. Don't look behind the curtain over there.

Well, they've got nine Assassin's Creed games lined up or something for the next 12 months. I don't know how many there actually are. It's probably like four, but it feels like 100. So Ubisoft, I don't think the problem is... I mean, there are problems with the games, but the problem is also expectations. Keep these things under wraps. Don't give us all the info all the time. I think it's backfiring. Also, Ubisoftisoft if you want to shoot us some game keys and change your

minds feel free we're ready and waiting in that case we prove us wrong oh boy all right well that wraps everything up in regards to this week in gaming we do want to ask all our listeners to go check out multiplayer squadSquad.com, like Josh talked about earlier, where you can sign up on Patreon and get some great perks like bonus episodes. Also, come toss us a follow on socials everywhere at Video Gamers Pod. Josh is busy as a bee over there posting tons of stuff every day. And we hope that you'll check out all of our episodes moving forward.

We've got them on Mondays, Thursdays, Saturdays, most Fridays, as long as I don't forget to give Josh in episode to upload. So generally we have got those four coming out every week. Make sure to follow the pods. So none of those pass by you.

And we want to say thank you so much to everyone for listening until next time. Happy gaming. See ya. All right. See ya! Alright, see ya, everybody.