Video Gamers Podcast - Outriders on the Storm (Outriders) - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: April 19, 2021

Gaming Altereds Josh and Paul are back with a special guest host - Andy Holloway from the acclaimed Fantasy Footballers Podcast! Join us as we dive deep into all things Outriders, share our thoughts from our gameplay escapades, breakdown everything you could want to know about Outriders, play make love, marry or murder and then see where it falls on our gaming Leaderboard. Shenanigans: Check, Famous People: Check, Guest Host: Check, Awesome Episode: Check! Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon Follow us on Twitter Follow us on Instagram Subscribe on YouTube Visit us on the web Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, Josh here. I just wanted to take a second and let you know about this amazing new product called MultiplayerSquad.com. It's the greatest new addition to gaming. Well, I mean practically life. It's sure to fill you with glee, help you make new friends, and expose you to all sorts of awesome memes. It's got the best community of gamers around, and more than that, it's the best way to help support the show and let us keep providing awesome content. What? I gotta read this disclaimer for legal reasons. Warning. MultiplayerSquad.com can cause feelings of joy, happiness, companionship, ownage, and all around sense of being awesome.

If you notice yourself acting more like Josh, please discontinue use immediately and seek professional help. Hey, who put that in there? Paul! Hello everyone, and welcome to the Multiplayer Gaming Podcast. We are so excited to have you guys with us today for some family-friendly discussions in the world of gaming. Come hit us up on social media at MultiplayerPod, and if you'd like to help support the show and want to help us be able to keep releasing two episodes every week, head on over to MultiplayerSquad.com where you can support the show starting at $5 a month, which will give you access to our Discord server where you can come interact with other fans of the show who love gaming as much as you do. Today is a deep dive episode, and we'll be covering one of the biggest releases of 2021 so far, Outriders. Stay tuned to hear about the magnificent combat, our thoughts on

how the release went, whether or not we think the game has any legs moving forward, and then as always we will read a couple community reviews, play Make Love, Marry, or Murder, and finish things up by deciding where Outriders ranks on our leaderboard. But first, you guys need to know the cast of characters as we head out on this expedition. I am your host, Paul, the Devastator, casting black holes and leaping around like a madman for close quarter combat. Guys, I like to see the whites in the eyes of my enemies when I gun them down.

And then with me today, my two co-hosts. First up, the trickster. He's busy hunting his prey by teleporting behind his enemies and slicing them for huge damage before always being the first one in the party to die. It's Josh. Also, let's not forget that i'm also the guy that runs forward too far triggers the next wave and gets us all killed because there's now 60 mobs after us yeah teleporting too far ahead is definitely a real problem i i am a little sad that you missed the uh the very obvious uh when you said you were the devastator i was just thinking like devastatingly handsome right yeah i i really missed out there but i'll i'll take it at this point yes devastatingly handsome and then guys we have a historical moment here we have for the first time ever a guest host he's the pyromancer who turns everyone around him into ash summoning massive volcanoes under the feet of his enemies.

You guys might know him as the host of the incredibly successful podcast, The Fantasy Footballers. But if not, then you might remember him as the man who once took a pan to the back of the head from Todd. It's Andy Holloway. Welcome, Andy. Thank you for having me on. And that is my claim to fame in the gaming world, taking a pan to the back of the head. I will forever remember that terrible, terrible act

that ran me away from that game. No, it's exciting to be on and chat up some Outriders. We have lots of gaming history together. All of it includes Josh running into the battle too soon so it doesn't matter what game it is josh doesn't even he's not even ashamed uh he he's like remember i also do this other thing that's annoying i'm really not apologetic at this point like i just i like the fact that as you know friends, that you guys just know what to expect at this point. And honestly, Paul knows it's your job to res me when I go down.

And if you are busy, then Andy knows. I just like when I die now, it's like, Paul, you got him? Oh, no, you need me to get him. Okay, I got you, Josh. And then somebody comes running over. That's right. That's right. I learned a long time

ago as DPS or as a tank, you just follow Josh. Because Josh is going to go where he goes. It just comes with the territory and you just follow Josh's lead. It doesn't matter what, even if he's the healer. If he's Baptiste in Overwatch, he's going for DPS.

You just gotta follow him. No, come on. I do heal occasionally. On occasion. All right, so some people might be wondering, you know, where is this mashup coming from? We've got a very successful podcast host coming on the lesser-known multiplayer podcast. You know, how do we all know each other?

So what's our connection, guys? Well, poor Andy. He inherited me through marriage. I am married to Josh's sister. So I did inherit Josh, and I take the bad with the bad on that one, and we're in good shape. But I grew up with Paul. Paul and I have known each other since grade school and spent... I would say gaming is probably

one of the linchpins of our friendship from day one. I mean, you were one of the only friends I knew that even had a computer with games on it. I didn't have one. Oh, yeah. And I mean, you want to go way back. I remember playing Chuck Yeager's flight simulator on your computer with a decked out joystick and then playing Descent and games like that. So I even think you had the faster internet before everybody that I knew. you know, back in dial-up days when you'd connect on Command & Conquer 1 or Descent, and you'd just do it late at night so that you hope, you know, grandma didn't call through the phone line and disconnect you. So, yeah, Paul and I have known each other and been friends forever.

Yeah, absolutely. It was lots of playing basketball, lots of video games. It was a lot of Super Nintendo. No doubt. Lots of NBA hang time back in the day. Andy was actually the best man at my wedding. And he repaid me by having his brother as his best man at his wedding. That's when our relationship fell apart. Yeah. But you know, not only that, Andy, we have shared probably too many jobs together.

That's true. I don't know if you realize how many jobs we've worked. I have a little list. Oh, boy. We both worked at Harkins Movie Theater. Yeah. Where I literally dated a girl named Jenny McCarthy, which will never stop being funny. That was funny.

We both worked at Best Buy. Oh, yeah. With a man who looked exactly like Kevin Costner. That's correct. We both worked for a small business selling PDA cases and keyboards. That's right. We were sports coaches for an after-school program. Dang.

Oh, my goodness. And we've worked together on several clickbait websites making money through ad revenue. That's the least attractive way to describe them, but completely accurate. Yeah, you're right. Completely accurate. We have worked on quite a few things together over the years, but that just shows how old we are.

Exactly. And now we can add podcasting to the list now at this point. No, this is a ton of fun. And I think I've dipped in and out of gaming a little bit more. You guys have been more the steady stream of games, but, um, you know, I, I can think back to probably the heyday of our gaming,

which was the world of Warcraft days where it was like a, Oh yeah. Just a world of like, I remember first booting that game up and having your friends on it and just be being blown away as to what am I seeing? Like, how is this possible? And I know Josh,

you played everquest before that but like your first mmo experience oh it's it's mind-blowing now i andy i don't know if you remember but the very first gaming uh moments that we had together were on lotro i do remember and i did not really know you very well at the time. I mean, you know, I knew you, you know, I was at the wedding. That's Lord of the Rings online, by the way. And yeah. And then I just remember you guys were like, hey, let's play Lottro together. And I was like, this is great.

Like, I'm playing games with my sister, my brother-in-law. Lottro was a ton of fun. I know where this is headed. We were cruising through the game, getting strong. was a ton of fun. I know where this is headed. We were cruising through the game, getting strong, and then all of a sudden, one day, the Shire burned to the ground,

Sauron won, and you guys abandoned me. I think my wife and I disappeared. I think that's what happened. We've never lived it down. You have. you've been my rocket league buddy for that's true now so it's all is forgiven now yeah it's funny because i still uh you know you get older and you have kids and you your gaming habits change a little bit but

i definitely am into the rocket league style games where you can dip in and out overwatch is that too where you can come on and if you don't have the kind of World of Warcraft four hours, you can still get competitive. You can play with friends. I am not a one-player game type of guy. I try to get into those. Red Dead Redemption 2 usurps that desire. I can do that game and get into it but i just so much more enjoy connecting with at least one person i feel like i'm not wasting my time at the level i would be on a one-player game so um yeah yeah gaming has been a big part of all of our relationships yeah you gotta love that social aspect of it So while we're still here in the introduction section, there is one story that I do want to share about Andy.

Oh, no. Josh, I don't think has ever heard this story. Oh! Now, in the last Bonus Round episode, someone wrote in some comments saying that they were sending love from Chicago. And I mentioned that one time I went to Chicago. What I did not say is that I went with a group of friends, and Andy was one of them. And there is a very special memory I have from Chicago of going to see Lord of the Rings Return of the King. And we were staying at a friend's house. We took a bus in downtown Chicago to go to the movie theater. Wintertime.

We see the seven-hour Lord of the Rings Return of the King. friend's house we took a bus in downtown chicago to go to the movie theater winter time we see we see these seven hour you know lord of the rings return the king i think it ended somewhere around 1 a.m and andy do you want to tell the people a little bit about what happened on our ride home yeah that i i have a bad memory but i remember every bit of this entire story so yeah uh we were and this is this is we never been to Chicago. We're young kids. Chicago is a busy, bustling place. We didn't have a car. You're taking the bus everywhere.

First, you walk two miles. You take the bus. You hope you end up in the right spot. I've never ridden public transportation before. And it's two in the morning. It's I think it was December. I mean, it was October, November. Yeah, it was December. So it's two in the morning. I think it was December. I mean, it was October, November. Yeah, it was December.

So it's freezing outside. And I want to say that I didn't see all of Return of the King. And that's the absolute truth. Because about halfway through, I was in the theater restrooms because a stomach flu began to spread through all of us in Chicago. And we had to find our way back to our friend and his house. But with the stomach flu in the middle of the night at one in the morning on public transit. And I'll forever remember getting about, I don't know, maybe a quarter of the way, a halfway back, when I tell Paul on the bus, I say, Paul, and going on a bus with an upset stomach, not the best ride of your

life. And I remember telling Paul, I go, I have to jump off this bus. I'm going to throw up. And Paul, I'm like, you have to come with me. And so in the middle of nowhere, at a random stop in the middle of Chicago at two in the morning, we leap off the bus. I make a part of Chicago's sidewalk very unhappy. And then we're standing and waiting for another bus for what seems like hours, hoping we don't get dragged off into an alleyway. And yes, I remember that vividly. And that was not the best time, but it makes for a great story. It does. I have never heard this story.

Yeah. Yeah. So here we are, lost in downtown Chicagoago middle of the night and we ended up walking a good part of the trip we did end up making our way back but i also remember what we ate that day for dinner and everyone ate fettuccine alfredo which is probably not the best meal if everyone's gonna end up with a stomach bug i'm a stomach bug. I'm a little nauseous. Yeah. Yeah, a little nauseous. And our friend's girlfriend threw up in the shower.

And I remember hearing about that after the fact. I don't know why it didn't make it to the toilet. But, you know, so that everyone got extremely sick on this trip to Chicago. And yeah, it was great. That's one of my very special memories is leaping off the bus with him. I think he had one foot still in the air and just started vomiting all over the sidewalk it was unbelievable it was great it was terrible i i'll remember too like one of our old gaming memories um to throw in there when you said a lot of super nintendo i want to say a lot of n64 too where you where we played so much mar Mario party and there were so many Mario party

levels that involved rotating the joystick that Paul actually bore holes into his hands to the point where he was bleeding. And he still wanted to play and he had to cover it with like bandages and then you'd keep playing. I would pull out my dad's work gloves and I'd put it on my hand and that way I could, I could spin the analog control stick. This is why you're so good at the mini games in these co-op games we've been playing. That's right.

Nothing's going to slow me down. Oh my goodness. All right. So that tells everyone a little bit about how we know each other. One last piece of housekeeping. We do want to welcome a new patreon supporter that just recently joined so a shout out to discord user dilf dave so welcome buddy good to have you with us hey dilf dave is a uh is a pretty uh pretty good rocket league player man

we hopped in and played a couple rounds yesterday and uh and good time, man. I'm still sad that I don't like Rocket League. I'm continually left out, but that's my fault. Another of our Discord and podcast supporters by the name of Dylan joined us and then promptly showed us what champion-level gameplay looks like for us scrub diamond players. That's not our level, Josh? wasn't our our level oh okay no no it was not not close well i think it's time guys let's get into it outriders from developer people can fly here's the description of outriders on steam

outriders brutal and bloody combat combines frenetic gunplay, violent powers, and deep RPG systems to create a true genre hybrid. So that's not too specific, guys. How would you describe Outriders to someone who's never heard of the game? Yeah, that's a good question. The game that jumps out to me as a partial comp was The Division in Division 2 in terms of some of the movement. And then Mass Effect is layered in there in some capacity. What other games come to mind for you? This question should be followed up like, if you haven't heard of Outriders, have you heard of games like Diablo? Have you heard of games like Anthem, The Division, Mass Effect? This is the perfect mashup of all of those games just smashed together to have some weird offspring baby Outriders game. Yeah, and you can even throw into that mix borderlands you could throw in destiny 2 it's got elements from all of those games kind of

mashed together uh i would probably say looter shooter is kind of the first phrase that comes to mind for outriders a lot of it is based on running around shooting stuff in first well it's actually not first person, in third person, and then doing lots of tinkering with gear and inventory. And we're definitely going to jump into all that here in just a little bit. Now, I would ask Andy to explain a little bit about Outriders' storyline, except I think Andy has watched maybe 7% of the storyline. Oh, that's being generous.

Andy hates cutscenes. Andy hates cutscenes. Andy hates cutscenes more than anyone I've ever seen. It became kind of a thing in this game, especially. I want to get to the shooting. What can I say? What's really funny is this is not just Outriders specific, because Andy and I played a lot of Division 2 together. Paul, you played the Division 2 together. Paul,

you played the Division with us as well, but Andy and I kind of stuck it out a lot longer than you did. And it was funny because in any cutscene in the Division, Andy was instantly like, skip. But then I wanted to see what was going on. And then it just kind of became this thing where it was like, I was watching, he was like, hey, let's skip this. But we haven't played a game like that in a while. What's funny is I legitimately, if you had told me that there weren't cutscenes in Division, I would have been like, yeah, that's right. I didn't even remember there were cutscenes. Not at all. Every single time a cutscene started, it would say one out of three people has voted to skip this cut scene and we knew it was andy every cut scene every single time it never it never grew unfunny it just made me laugh

every single time because it was like as it was still loading it would already have vote one out of three to skip so tell me tell me something though did was my skipping of these cut scenes, was it prescient? Was it smart? Or was the story redeemable and I'm less of a man for not having followed the story? The story's passable. I mean, I don't think you're missing a lot, to be honest. I do like that every now and then, like, Paul or myself would also click the skip button so that two out of the three check marks were lit up just to get you excited. Like, maybe you're going to get to skip this cutscene and then the other person wouldn't skip it.

Well, one of the things with Outriders that's really funny is that if you're not the one hosting every session, inevitably you go through the story out of order. Because if I'm playing on my own, maybe I get through a few missions, but then if I join Andy and he's further ahead, the game warns me, hey, you're going to skip ahead. Are you okay? You're going to see spoilers. And so all of us experienced this game a little bit out of order. All of us saw the same cut scenes multiple times. And that's just kind of one of the innate problems of playing a co-op game like this. It's the same with games like Diablo 3. It's kind of hard to remember what happens when the game's a little bit of a mishmash in my head. I don't even know that I could really tell you what happens when, and I would argue it doesn't really matter. There was a part,

I remember when we all had our individual games. We were playing a lot together. But then I think you skipped ahead or I skipped ahead a couple of story levels. But when you rejoin as a solo player, it kind of left you there. So you had already... There was a boss fight that you hadn't done. And you're like, wait, you guys fought this guy?

And you already passed it in your story because it skipped it ahead. I 100% thought that there was still a certain villain out in this game that was going to be the final boss. And you guys started talking about that fight. And you're like, yeah, remember with that boss fight when you do X, Y, and Z? I did not know if you guys were being serious or not, because I did not know that that ever took place. That one chapter got skipped over in my story. I thought you were joking with us or something, because we knew that you were ahead a little bit. And then we started talking about this guy, and you were like, wait, what?

And then we were like, Paul, yeah, the whole boss fight thing. And you were like, no. And we're like, this is not a side mission. How did you get to where you are without fighting this guy? But yes, we did eventually figure it out. Yeah, we did. All right. So when you guys first jumped into Outriders, whether it was the demo or the regular game, what were your guys' initial thoughts? What did you think about the combat, the way the game played, the way it felt? What were your initial impressions? Dude, I just remember picking... I knew I was going to pick the trickster because the name fit, you know, I didn't know anything

else about the class. I just remember jumping in. Yeah. Trying out this trickster. The first skill you get is this like time blade where you like slice it, you know, in front of you. And I was like, okay, well, let me try this. I sliced this thing and all of the guys in front of me, like turn into skeletons and then crumble into ash. And I was just like, Oh, this is the greatest skill I've ever seen. And then, you know,

a couple of levels later, I unlock this like time warp bubble where you just goes like, and then there's this big blue bubble on the screen. How does it go again? Everybody, it goes, that's a pretty good, you got to admit. That's not bad. And then there's this big blue bubble on the screen. How does it go again? It goes... That's pretty good, you gotta admit.

That's not bad. But it slows everything that's inside the bubble, including bullets, so that in very slow motion, you see these bullets slowly flying through. And that's when it just clicked for me that, dude, this game has some of the coolest skills I think I've ever seen in a video game. Yeah, I would say the first impression was the... It wasn't just the skills. It was just the actual art and the graphics of the game. When we first jumped into the demo, and I'm just running around and we're seeing creatures run through this valley or whatever, I remember being on there with Josh going like, look at this game look how good it looks and and you know you can't live

on just you know skill animations and art but it it sure made a great first impression on the visual side of where it's like i want to explore these worlds i want to see what creatures are out there and um maybe more than a cut scene, it drew me into the world itself. Andy still has no idea what an Outrider even is. Doesn't even matter. Yeah, I think for me, it took a little bit of an adjustment because I'm used to playing cover-based mechanic games, whether it's The Division or Mass Effect or whatever. You tend to play back a little bit more and you try to be a little more protective. And to me, it was a real mind shift adjustment to understand that this game is very fast-paced.

They have it designed, and I saw this and I heard it in all the trailers, you heal by damaging other people and getting kills. And it really was interesting to jump in and just see how frenetic the gameplay really is. You are continually running and sprinting between huge groups of enemies. You're gunning them down quickly. And I didn't play like that in the demo. In the demo, I was sitting back trying to snipe things and play it slow. And that's not how you're supposed to play Outriders. This game is definitely action first and foremost. All right.

Now, the game did release on April Fool's Day, which was somewhat timely given how this game released. What do you guys remember about release day, April 1st? Number one, it got pushed back from, I don't know, what was it supposed to be initially? March or February? I think it was supposed to be like February 2nd or something like that. I remember being really bummed that they pushed it back. I just remember not being able to play at all. And how did that differ from April 1st, Josh? Yes, exactly.

So, I mean, yeah, it's a launch day on an online game. I knew there were going to be server problems. It just got to be where it wasn't just April 1st. It became April 2nd and then April 3rd and then April 4th. I mean, we did get some game time in there, but this was not a smooth launch at all. I agree. It was so frustrating too, because a lot of people took time out of their schedules. And that's the worst PR hit that you

can take is when people are literally sitting around waiting to play your game and they don't get to have that experience and then tell others about it. You guys are the experts. Is it possible to complete a game and release it is that without these hiccups without these issues i mean it seems like uh like josh you just conceded in your in your words they're like well i know on launch day it's not gonna be up yeah you know it's like i mean it's sadly i don't know that it is man we've had some pretty disastrous launches lately. I mean, Cyberpunk, that launch was not great. You know, it's... Way to undersell it.

I'm trying to be nice here, man. Come on. You know, here's part of the problem is that they shot themselves in the foot. And this is a terrible, terrible pattern that we're seeing where they're making games that have single player components where they are online only all the time. And why for the life of me, a game developer would want to have to provide the infrastructure, I guess. I don't even know if that's the right term. To have servers so that people can be playing a single player game. I don't know the technology behind that or the reasoning why,

other than trying to gather data on things. But I don't understand the point of that. So it's like, yes, this is an online multiplayer co-op shooter. So you should have servers for that. But people that want to play single player should not have to be online. So you've just demolished your servers by having every single person that wants to play this game be online at the same time. Well, you got someone famous in your corner, Josh,

because I saw a lot of video from Snoop Dogg on release day, and he was not happy that he was not able to log in and even play single player. I saw that video, and man, Snoop Dogg on release day and he was not happy that he was not able to log in and even play single I saw that video and man Snoop Dogg was waiting for Outriders dude he was so mad Snoop Dogg Snoop Dogg is pretty funny when he should look up the video it is uh not safe for kids to be around because you know Snoop Dogg he uh he he definitely cusses a little bit but let's just say that he tried to play Outriders and he was going to stream it on twitch and it didn't go well wow oh he had his webcam on oh yeah his screen and he just keeps getting the authentication error trying to log in and finally he just kind of like starts throwing stuff and he's just like

cursing at people can fly it was pretty fantastic it's funny because when you think about the effect that those moments have on a game and its success it's massive like what would what would the team at outriders pay to have snoop dogg go play their game in front of like the marketing dollars of value that they cost beyond the PR hit just for players is so massive. Like if you have a game that makes this good of a visual impression and it goes off without a hitch on day one, I don't know, like you might, it might take over. Like that's how you could take over for a while as a game. And it's, it is disappointing that they can't quite put it together. And, you know, then they set deadlines and missed deadlines and it is disappointing that they can't quite put it together. And then they set deadlines

and miss deadlines and it just becomes this whole kind of... You're almost disappointed before you get to be disappointed. You could be disappointed with the gameplay. Yeah, it's really sad. There's a whole movement to not pre-order games because you see releases like this. Oh, yeah. I just kind of miss the good old days where you just were patient and the game would come out when it's done. And I think everyone would be fine with that. You know, push it back. I know it sucks, but I think in the long run,

we'd all be happier if we actually had games that worked well. All right. So in the introduction, I shared a little bit about the classes that we play. And I thought it would be fun if we maybe just broke those down a little bit and talked about the difference between them and kind of how they're designed to function. So I can go first. I picked the Devastator class. And I really regret it. But I picked the Devastator because... That makes me sad, Paul!

I know. But the problem with the Devastator is that it's fine for the story, and it's fine halfway through the endgame content, and then all the other classes just take off with DPS and leaves the Devastator behind. But I had heard that the Devastator was very tanky, and I figured, well, in a class makeup, you're going to need a tank. So I picked it, and the Devastator is designed for very close combat. You get healed when you kill enemies in close proximity, and the Devastator has lots of earth-based skills. So he can cast earthquakes or bring a pillar out of the ground and impale an enemy. You know, it's all earth-based type magic, and you get a huge bonus to armor, but that trade-off is that you have the lowest DPS. There's even a lot of Devastators reporting that as soon as they join an expedition party, they immediately get kicked out of the group. Because when you're at the max

CT 15 tier, their damage is just so bad compared to everyone else. So that's the Devastator. Josh, what about you? What's it like to play the tricks that makes me sad paul you're you're i don't know you've been keeping up with me in damage so either kudos or they're not as bad but um i mean i think the devastator is super cool they i mean they have some incredible abilities every time you ground slam and the earth just kind of shatters upwards is really, really neat. The impaling people with the spike is super cool, if not graphic. And then just hearing you stomping around completely encased in rock armor is pretty cool, too. But yeah, so the trickster is...

I love the trickster. Honestly, I don't know what other class I would play that I would be interested in. But the Trickster is a very hit-and-run type character. They manipulate time. So all of their abilities are time knives and whirling time things and time bubbles and that kind of stuff.

But the class kind of plays almost like a rogue, if you can imagine that. A lot of their skills involve teleporting behind somebody, unloading just an entire clip into their back. You get damage bonuses for shooting people from behind them. And then you can recall yourself through time to teleport back, which is really cool. There's another skill where you can spin around like a whirlwind and life tap everybody around you. You can mark people so that they take double damage. There's a lot of really neat aspects to it, but they're not very tanky uh and so i would like to just posit this right now that it's not my fault that i die all the time because the trickster is not a very you know tanky class and that's

not my problem so to be clear you take the non-tanky class but you go up and you just grab everybody you have to the game says it says you have to play aggressively. Attack, attack, attack. And the trickster, like the Devastator, only heals when you kill somebody in close range. So I'm only doing what the game told me I should do. Paul said it earlier. I think that's kind of the... The classes are different, obviously. Different skills, different strengths, different weaknesses. But I'm not sure that any of them can sit back.

Because of the healing mechanic and because of the fact that just the way the levels are structured, you have enemies on all sides. Like when I play single player on there, I have to be super procedural and careful and snipe and walk cover to cover, but it's still very challenging. And so my class pyromancer, I mean, it's in the name, I burn things. Yeah. It's a medium range type of class where I'm not good. If they get up on me, I have a couple, you know, there are a few skills and abilities that kind of AOE crowd control guys that get close to you so I can roll away and then use flaming abilities like, you know, there's a thermal bomb, which is pretty cool where once an enemy is killed, he explodes and kills more enemies around him. And there's big

walls of fire and there's a lot of, you know, effect to burning enemies and then getting advantages to burning enemies. But I don't want them up on my face. You can die pretty quick if they're up on your face and you got to find cover. I think Division was a lot like this too. I mean, if you're not in cover or you're not actively healing, you're going to die pretty much right away. And snipers are pretty brutal in this game. And that balance, I think we've all found where it's like, okay, I'd like to sit back and snipe. I'd like to have a sniper build. But then the return on investment for doing that isn't there because you sit back and you try to pick apart a few snipers and you got a bunch of guys in your face. So frenetic is definitely a good word to describe it. But in a good way i think like at least for me it's like it's very fun with your friends

having so many enemies attack you and you are just going wild and the more you shoot the more you heal so um paul and i go which is weird because i mean people see this game and they see cover right like they think oh there's all these walls. You've seen screenshots where it's like, oh, I know I'm about to get in a big fight because there's cover everywhere. But like, I mean, all jokes aside, I mean, I don't take cover in this game. Like, and I know, you know, like, yes, I die a lot, but I don't like you guys don't take cover either. That's kind of the thing. This is not a game like Division, where you sit in cover and then pop out and shoot a few guys and then go back into cover. Cover in this game is only for two or three seconds at a time at most before you are charging

back into the fight to do something else. Because it's like you said, you don't heal if you're not killing people from close range usually. And so if you're sitting in cover, you're just getting plinked to death. Like, yes, you're not dying instantly, but you're just slowly dying because you have zero way of healing yourself at that point either. Yeah, definitely. You have to keep moving. You have to get those kills up close while also balancing a little bit of medium to long range combat. And it definitely is very intense. Like I know I told Josh, you know, we'll talk a little bit about expeditions in a minute here, but you do some of those expedition runs and the timer tells you that it lasted six minutes and you're like sweaty and like you would have sworn you were just fighting for 35 straight

minutes. Like it's so intense, even when the gameplay is relatively short, because you're running around at that breakneck speed the whole time. I think the technical term is butt-clinch moments. Yes, yes. Your butt clenches up for the entire expedition, and then when it's over with, you're like, I just fought over 1,500 guys, and that was super fun.

It's a weird dynamic. I don't feel like the... And maybe you guys have a different thought. But I don't feel like the cover, like the actual mechanic, functions as smoothly as it does in other games either. So it almost feels like it's there, but it wasn't as smooth as Division or Mass Effect. And it's not essential to every moment, you know, since you have to rush into these fights. So it almost feels more peripheral than I thought it was when the game started. You really just take cover to wait out a cooldown before jumping back in.

At least for me, that's what cover does. But there's also a lot of doorways and things that look like you should be able to take cover, and you can't. So the cover is not an afterthought in the game, but it's definitely not essential. So if you're the kind of person who says, I hate Gears of War and Mass Effect because I don't like cover-based combat, I don't think that should stop you from playing this game. You are in cover minimally when you play it. The fourth class that we didn't mention as of yet is the Technomancer. should stop you from playing this game you are in cover minimally when you play it uh the fourth class that we didn't mention as of yet is the technomancer we have a buddy jared that we'll probably mention later in in regards to the bugs with the game but he played technomancer and that's

kind of built around plopping down a turret that might do toxic or ice damage and that's about all i know about the technomancer I haven't played them very much. I played quite a bit of it in the demo. I mean, as much as you could at that point, but it was, I thought it was a really fun class. I went into it thinking it was a purely, again, a sniper distance class with a protective turret. And I ended up with a shotgun and freezing people and then shooting them up close close too so i think all the classes have you know this at least 50 element of being in the face of enemies and just spinning around in circles firing but uh it seemed pretty fun yeah it seems like especially for single player

it seemed like it's probably a little bit easier because you get to plop down that turret probably makes a little bit easier for solo get to plop down that turret. Probably makes it a little bit easier for solo players. All right, so I thought we could spend a few minutes talking about the inventory, loot, mod systems, because so much of this game is tinkering with all of your gear. So you can play the storyline missions, or once you beat it, you get to go out on these expeditions. And all along, you are collecting loot. You are able to dismantle loot, which will teach you various mods. You can use all of these things to customize your weapons, your helmets, your upper and lower armor, your boots, your gloves. And all of these things let you customize around certain bonuses to skills

or bonuses to combat, and it really lets you play an awful lot with how you want to play your class you can even respec your class skills you get uh up to i don't remember how many points maybe it is 30 because there's 30 levels that you get to build in your class and you can reset that and redo it at any point. So this game is infinitely customizable at any point. What did you guys think about that kind of system? Do you want to go first, Josh? Yeah. Honestly, I love the loot system in this game. I think you can play through the story, like the campaign, without really focusing on loot a whole lot. Like it's great if you get a legendary drop, you know, getting your first purple, you know, epic drop is great

because it has two mod slots on it. So there is that nice, like just kind of progression and playing through the campaign. But I feel like the loot doesn't really open up until you get past the campaign into the expeditions part. And that's where you can really,

really start like building out the different ways that you want to play. So for instance, for me, I had found a build that was very gun-oriented, skills that augmented the bullets with time effects and stuff like that, did extra damage. And then I got a little tired of that. So I wanted to move into just playing around with my build, right? Like that's part of the fun of a game like this. So I completely 180'd my character, free refund on the skill tree,

put points in a completely different tree, tried out various skill combinations, found a build that worked really, really well that I was super happy with. And then it's like, okay, well, I like this a lot. So let me start trying to tweak how I make this even better. And that's through increasing, you know, components of gear and different stats on gear and things like that. You know, there's things like anomaly power, which, you know, in a simple form would be like

magic power, you know, like that would would affect skills that are like magic type based, I guess. And then you have like firepower, which is how strong your guns are and stuff like that. Just tons of options, tons of customization. I love the ability to just tinker with stuff and say, hey, can I make these two skills work together with these mods, which I'll let one of you guys talk about the mods because I think those are super cool too

and what really make you feel almost like a superhero in this game. Yeah, I think what I like about it is, there's so many different games with crafting and the loot mechanics and customization mechanics, but I feel like there's massive variety, but it's all very impactful. And it's still simple enough to functionally use it all the time. So you can have massive choice, but it's simple enough to try to strategize without taking two hours to do it. And one thing I don't think we mentioned was that it's a shooter, but there are three really

powerful anomaly skills that every class can have active at one time, but you have a total of, I think, eight or nine skills that you can swap into there. So if you're somebody that wants to... If I want to shoot more or have a firepower focus on my pyromancer, I'm doing a lot more weapon-oriented modding. I'm doing customization based on guns and firepower. Or if I want to be somebody that's casting more fire spells, so to speak, which, you know, skills, then I can completely customize my build to play that way. So even though there's four classes, you know, there's really, you know, a group of 12 types of, you know, focuses, and then you can intermix them. So, you know, I was impressed with it. And I continue to be just even in the in-game content where I can, I just feel like it's very meaningful that you can put three or four mods on that

super, I mean, they significantly change the way an ability functions. I can think of this volcano eruption that the pyromancer does. And you throw two or three mods on your weapon and your gear, and all of a sudden, the volcano is like three times the radius and three times the power. And it physically changes it in the game. So it's pretty... I thought it was pretty fun. Yeah, there's a lot of synergy that you can get with the mods.

So maybe you have on one of your items of gear that your shots will inflict bleed. And then maybe you have another mod where your shots will do additional damage to targets who have bleed. And now you bring in one of your skills that, you know, does something that also impacts bleed, and it spreads bleed to targets around them. And so as you start to build these things, your character gets far more powerful, and it's just much more enjoyable when you finally key in on one of those strategies that actually works really well. We haven't talked about it, but there's probably ways to complement one another class- too, with, uh, some of those abilities,

you know? Oh, a hundred percent. We haven't even like, that's the thing is like, we were, we're maybe midway through the end game on this. And it's like,

we're still figuring out like our character builds, but I definitely think there's a point where it's like, we could easily synergize amongst the three of us to try to pull off these amazing combos, right? Like it's one of those like we kind of see it a little bit like Paul has an ability that pulls everybody together in a big clump. And then I can time slice everybody. all slow and turning into skeletons, you can volcano under that group doing massive damage and turning them all into ash so that they can't move afterwards, you know, and then just cycling through that. I mean, I think there's almost that like raid type synergy in this game that I don't even

think people have really tapped into yet. Like right now, because the game's only been out like what, 10 days or something like that, you know, and it's like, I think people are still trying to figure out their builds and what works best there. And people have an idea. Like I said, I've gone through two very different builds and I haven't even played around with anything else yet. Like there might be, you know, three or four very viable builds that are out there that people just haven't discovered yet. So I really, I love that interaction aspect. I love that you can try to get mods. So basically what mods are, is mods are like perks that you add to weapons or armor that do crazy things. Like Paul, you have this

lightning bolt mod that I see just going off all the time. I feel like you're like Thor or Zeus, just calling lightning down on people. And that's not even a skill. That's just a mod that any class can get and put on their weapon so that when you're shooting people, you're shooting them with bullets. But then lightning is flying down from the sky and hitting them for tons of damage too. So there's just all kinds of things that you can add to your gear that is – it almost seems infinite. I know it's not, but right now where the game is at, it's like, I feel like there's so much undiscovered stuff right now that it's honestly super exciting. Like it's fun to just dig in and try to figure things out. Yeah, you're definitely right. All right. So we would be remiss if we didn't talk

about some of the bugs in Outriders. What bugs? Not just the bad release, but the bugs. Yeah. What's your guys' favorite bug that you've encountered? Favorite bug? Oh my goodness. Yeah, favorite bug. My favorite is loading in with no heads up display every single time I load the game and I have to return to lobby and reload and pray to the Outrider gods that I will have a HUD. And sometimes you don't. Sometimes you got to the outrider gods that i will have a hud and sometimes you don't sometimes you gotta log out and back in three four or five times to get your heads up display do you want my top 10 list of bugs top 10 bugs top 10 bugs okay let's see uh my guy will randomly not be able to fire in the middle of combat uh i have that one too my guy

will uh when you play with teammates, you can self-res once and then your teammates have to res you. My guy will just randomly not be able to res himself and I'll get a thing on screen that says effect resisted. He resisted his own res. I don't know how that happens.

My skills don't work. Loading in without a HUD. Crash to desktop. The current one is joining an expedition when we all join in, and everybody gets kicked out of the party right away, so we all have to rejoin once we're in the expedition. The list goes on. I've got one more for you that's extremely fun.

Once we've all died after a really hard fight and we reload at the beginning to try again maybe one of us loads in and the other two people their name plates are above their head but their physical bodies aren't there yet and we just sit around and wait for them to pop in so that they get the you know the xp that they're supposed to have we have lost hours by this point that's true waiting for the last person to load in where they're connected to the internet we're talking on discord and it just takes four minutes you sometimes you can see me using my skills like that's the thing like you can see me like whirlwinding but my guy's not there and then

you're like yeah you're still not here josh and I'm like, I can see my skills on the screen. And you're like, yep, not there yet. Which, I mean, there are a lot of bugs. They fixed some of them in their first patch so far. Like, specifically, the UI bugs are remedied for the most part, not perfectly. But does it speak to the quality of the game outside of the bugs that we're still playing? I mean, what was the game that Amazon released that I'm forgetting the name of? Crucible. See, Crucible was the combination of awful mixed with bugs.

And when you do that, you just know to trash bin that thing. But this game, we have sat around and waited for down servers. We have persisted through, okay, reconnect to my game, reconnect to my game. Let's try joining on Andy this time instead of Joshua. Let's see if that works. And then, you know, I think the expression I used the other day was like, man, this game cannot get out of its own way sometimes. But when it's working, I feel like we've had a lot of fun.

So my other last favorite bug that we have not mentioned is that countless players have disconnected during an expedition and log back in to find their character in their undies, inventory completely wiped. This has happened to our buddy Jared not once, but twice. He has lost all of his gear. Wow. This is like combining the worst part of Rust, where you log in and you've been raided and you've lost everything and all your progress. It's taking that mechanic and throwing it into Outriders. Oh, no. It's absolutely infuriating.

I can't believe I had heard wind that this was happening to people. But you know, there's always that one random person where something doesn't work, and they want to scream and blah, blah, blah. And then it started kind of catching on on Reddit a little bit. And I remember we were all playing, and Jared was playing. And I remember because Jared made it to expeditions before we did. And so I said, Hey, Jared, have you heard about that bug where people are losing all of like all of their inventory? And he was like, Oh no, I haven't. And I'm like, yeah, I hear it's happening in expeditions. And so just be careful. And he was like, Oh, it'll be all right. I think it was the very next day where Jared was like, guys, it happened. And we were like, what? And he was like, I lost all my stuff.

And let's be clear. This is a looter shooter game. You play for the loot. And when we say your inventory is wiped, we mean it's completely gone. Like you got nothing, man. And they have not figured out how to restore gear to people yet. People are still losing their gear. They had a patch where they said, hey, we think we've got this problem fixed. And then I don't know if it's worse since the patch. More and more people are losing their gear. This is a catastrophic level bug in a game that is about acquiring gear so that you can play your character and have builds and stuff like that. So when we weigh all of this on both sides of the scale, is Outriders currently a game you would recommend to others?

Do the pros outweigh the cons? Oh, heck yes! Heck yeah. That's the hard part, though. If any one of us lose all our inventory, you're not going to want to play anymore. That's going to really ruin the experience, and there's always that 0.1% chance when you log in

that it's all going to be stripped and stolen from you. Hey, no risk it, no biscuit, Paul. It makes every time we hop in just that much more exciting, man. Oh, it's a feature, not a bug? Yeah, exactly. It's a roll of the dice. Increased adrenaline and stress rate. Dude, I get sweaty every time, man. Every time it says you've disconnected from the party leader, my heart skips a beat because I'm like, is this it, man? Is this the time? Oh, we'll even say things like, well, did you alt F4 already, Paul? Did you log in? Do you already have your gear? And you'll test to see if the water is clear. If we've already done it,

then maybe you're good to go. It's just so bananas i mean i know we can kind of laugh and joke about it but man what a bad game breaking bug i mean there is just so much bad pr because if you're gonna have a bug this is like the worst possible one you can that's it take your ball and go home like you're done with the game like if that happened to me i'm like all right you know that's it was fun while it lasted that's a game breaking bug like you like, all right, that's it. It was fun while it lasted. That's a game-breaking bug, like you said. Yeah. All right. Well, you guys have heard a lot of our thoughts about Outriders. Josh, what does the community have to say? Oh, boy. They have a lot to say, because it has not been the smoothest of launches, and yet this game is incredible

in a lot of ways. So I was actually really curious to see how people were rating this game, because it's like, are you rating it on how fun it is and how incredible the skills and the combat are? Or are you rating this on the fact that you lost all of your inventory and you hate this game forever now? So I'm going to read a few, uh, a few reviews here. So first one, this is not recommended. And, uh, it says, if you're looking for a refund, remember not to leave your game on the loading screen, waiting for authentication to get into the game. Wise words. I mean, the first four days were waiting for authentication,

waiting for the servers to come back online. And it was just bad. All right. So a second, we touched on this one. This one's real quick. Second, not recommended. Is this an April Fool's joke? Internet connection required to play single player content. Don't do that, man. Don't, developers, just stop it. It seems like there's more of that than less now. I think that that's how they're building a lot of these games. There was such backlash to the DRM model like 10 years ago, and it's like everyone just doubled down on it, it seems.

There's got to be a monetary reason for it. I just don't know what it is. By having people online all the time, It's not like EA where they're putting ads in their games or something like that. I don't know. So, all right. This one is recommended. You like shoot? You like loot? You like endlessly grinding for no real reason? Legendary with low drop chance? K killing the boss one more time border diablo division destiny yeah border diablo division destiny that's yep that's i can see frankenstein's monster of all those yeah um all right and then uh another recommended here this could this is another kind of mashup so for destiny players who got bored of the game for Anthem refugees,

for people wanting more borderlands for warframe players who got banned for suspicious activity. And for the four people still playing the division for some reason, come and play Outriders. Yeah. It's like that predator meme where you see all the hands in the middle and it's just all those groups coming together and outright. It really is it really is i do like that anthem's included in it though because if anthem you know can hang around in our memory for just one more day that would be that'd be good for

me i loved i loved where that was going so good for such a short period of time man yeah best five-hour game ever made yeah yeah really honestly um so, and then what we like to do is we like to guess what the overall score, like the user score is. So, Andy, for like Steam reviews, it's, you know, to 100%. So, what do you think the overall user score is for Outriders? Oh, the bugs, man. The bugs are just so prevalent. And people, it's like checking restaurant reviews. Not a lot of people are going on there to say how amazing it is, but they are going to go on and say the pro... I'm going to give it... I don't know if this is good or bad because I don't review them as much as you guys do but i'm gonna guess like 65 that's gonna be my guess i literally have written down 65 wow it's almost like you guys have been friends your whole lives or something i know right

i so i will bump it up one percent i'll go 66 i think if you i think if you polled the majority of players most of them would say, the game is fine. I'm enjoying it. I'm liking it. It's great. But then the problems of this game are going to bring out so many extra negative reviews you wouldn't normally hear. So yeah, I'm going to say 66. All right. My guess, which I did write down before I looked, was apparently I'm higher on this game. Apparently the more you die, the more you like it or something.

I said 86%. Like I knew that there was going to be a lot of backlash, but it's also still a very, very well done game. And I was like, it's not going to be in the nineties. People are going to be griping about the servers and stuff. So I said 86%.

Well, where's the, that the actual percentage is 60. Four percent. Oh, are you serious? I am 64 dead serious. I cannot believe when Andy was like 65%.

I was like, Oh my goodness. But that also makes me very, very happy because as the winner, Andy now has to introduce our next segment. Oh, my goodness. So, Andy. All right.

I can do it. Now, I don't remember exactly how you do it, so I'm going to make it up as I go along. Oh, okay. Perfectly fine. It just has to be in a sexy voice. It doesn't matter what you say. You got to do sexy voice. Welcome, everybody, to Make Love, Marry, and Murder.

That was not sexy at all. I'll take it. I don't know how I felt about that. It was kind of like a dulcet tones, but then I was like, I don't, yeah. I'll have to listen to it again to give final judgment. I'm so glad I won. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

What's funny is I had a 50-50 chance of going either one above or one below. I was so glad when you went higher. I was like, oh man, this is going to be great. All right, so Josh, are you going to make love, marry, or murder Outriders? Man, this one's a little tough. Like, I want to say I think this game is a Mary, because I can see it being a phenomenal game for a long time. But I don't know at what point the loot grind is going to come to, like, that crashing halt. You know what I mean?

So it's like, I am absolutely loving this game right now. I want to say marry, but it's like, I don't know that I'm going to be loot grinding this two months from now. You know what I mean? And so I'm going to give it a very strong make love.

Strong make love. With the potential to marry it later on. If it quits being crazy and it settles down a little bit and quits going out with its friends all night on the weekends then it's merry material at that point but for now definitely make love

what about you Andy? I want it to be merry very badly I want a game that the way that the in-game works with expeditions and the variety and the fact that like even the loot vendors rotate gear so often like i hope that it it is that game that we still want to dive back into and progress through these expeditions months from now and then you get some dlc and and we're all

in it so that's that's my hope so i'm gonna i'm gonna go with the hopeful mary oh nice a little more of the optimistic look at it yeah yeah i totally understand what both of you guys are saying like the gameplay ceiling i don't know that there's any game higher than outriders and i really mean that when outriders is going well and you're having fun there is nothing better but at the same time looter shooters always hit a point where it just becomes a ridiculous grind for moderate increase and eventually that i'll definitely lose interest in that like this is not going to have the same legs as over or Rocket League or even a game like Rust that have all of these PvP elements. So the game is great. I highly recommend it. I think you can easily play on your first character

60, 70, 80 hours. And if you want to make alts, you can multiply all that times four and so in that sense i i would probably say it's a mary but because it's pve content only eventually you will run out of things to do and it'll just become a boring grind but i'll still give it a mary all right all right so two two marys and a strong make love yeah i believe was josh and you you know, there's one thing we didn't really talk about. We kind of glanced over Expeditions, not to jump back a little bit. But for me, Expeditions are everything that is super fun about this game. And it has taken this mediocre storyline and it has turned it into this just five to 15 minutes of insane chaos fighting with your friends, which is incredible. So I've actually started liking the game more as we've gotten to

the end game than I did just playing through the campaign. And so I'm at that peak excitement level, you know what I mean? As far as I really want to play some more of this because it's, the game is taking off right now for me. At least in that regard, you can jump in for 15 minutes or 20 minutes and do one or two expeditions a night and maybe not get so burnt out on that, but just to experience that gameplay. And if they expand them and there's more variety,

it's pretty hard to get long-lasting gameplay from Looter Shooter Grinds, but maybe there's some hope here. Yeah, I sure hope so. Yeah, I really do hope that they develop DLC for the game. I don't think there's been any announced yet, but hopefully it'll be coming. They need the regular game to be a little bit smoother.

I think I'd work on that first. yeah yeah it's like cyberpunk like putting on hold the multiplayer plans you know because they got to fix the game yes all right well let's go to the leaderboard and see where this game stacks up all right so if you're joining us here for the first time we have a master All right. So if you're joining us here for the first time, we have a master leaderboard where we rank every game that we have had a deep dive episode on. We currently have a total of 39 games on our leaderboard. You guys are doing it. If you want to.

Yeah, we're cranking them out. And if you want to see those, you can go to our website at multiplayerpodcast.com it's right there on the main page and even though these games are in vastly different genres they play completely differently we still you know argue and agree and try to figure out as a consensus group where do we want to rank this game so right now we have in the very top of our leaderboard we've've got games like Overwatch, Apex Legends, Rocket League, Rust, Valheim. All the way at the bottom, we have the likes of Valorant, Civilization VI, The Forest, Halo Reach, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, and so forth. I am looking at our... Sorry, let me jump in since this is the one time I get to join you. I'm looking at this list.

One, impressive how many games you've deep-dived here. Two, impressive how much you hate PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds compared to the very early days when we were enjoying ourselves playing that game together. Dude, we have talked about how great that game was and how terrible that game is now. You know? Yeah.

And then I didn't realize... It really tanked. I didn't realize Apex Legends was this high on the list. That is incredible. Number two on your leaderboard. Yeah, it's still super high up there. Still the best Battle Royale for my money. I know some others might say COD Warzone, but of course, we've got that super high at number

six. Yeah. So, you know, Andy, I know you have not played all 39 games on our list, and that's fine. I do think that when it comes to Outriders, we're probably all talking top 10. Am I correct in assuming that? I'm in the top 10 for sure. All right. And a lot of those games, I know Andy has played a fair amount. So, like, what are you guys thinking here as you kind of look at the top 10 for sure. All right. And a lot of those games I know Andy has played a fair amount. So what are you guys thinking here as you kind of look at our top 10? Do you have any games that you would maybe put it above or below that are in that range for Outriders? I mean, I'm going to say with the caveat that they get the bugs worked out.

Assuming that this is a well-running game, which I would hope that they would have that happening in the next few weeks, right? Like, this game released, I mean, you know, 12 days ago. 13 days ago. Yeah. So it's still, I mean, it's in its first two weeks of launch. Yes, there's bugs. There's some serious bugs, and they need to fix that.

But assuming that this game runs properly, and we can just break it down down into is this a fun game to play with your friends for me i think it's like right there at number like six seven range so around warzone hearthstone yeah around there i was thinking just slightly lower you guys know how much i love hearthstone and gta online i was thinking right below those which would still put in the top 10 but it would put it like right around number nine so above above rainbow six siege definitely above rainbow six siege yeah although i could be talked into putting out riders higher but i think it's definitely somewhere in that range what do you think andy well what's your gut feeling on this yeah i haven't played all these the the question that came to my mind right

away is you have Destiny 2 at 10, and I was curious if you guys were going to put it above Destiny. Yes. Both of you did. I like it more than Destiny 2. But then, you know, it's hard because on the scale of games like Warzone and Hearthstone are just so different. Yeah, totally different.

Welcome to the leaderboard, buddy. Yeah, so I'm just thinking of, like, do I like this game more than I like Call of Duty Warzone? I think probably they're at the same level. So I mean, I'm probably between six and 10 based on what I see here having not played all these games. All right. To put it in basketball terms, I feel like Outriders is like Larry Bird. Like the ceiling is super high, but it's going to be a feel like Outriders is like Larry Bird. Like the ceiling is super high, but it's going to be a short career. And it's like, would you rather have that?

Or would you rather have like the Carl Malone, which to me is more like Warzone. Like it's good. It's consistent. It's never going to be a top two or three game for me. But you can always hop in for years on end. And it's kind of hard to like weigh those against one another. They're completely different. And I think that's part of the fun. Yeah. It's funny because I look at your top 10 and I see repeatability winning out. Overwatch, Apex, Rocket League, Warzone, Hearthstone. Those are games that are almost infinite in nature and their fact that you can hop in there and you can have a competitive match against somebody.

It's PvP too. So for a co-op game like this to break into the top 10, I feel like it speaks highly for what we've experienced in 12 days for Outriders. I think you're absolutely right. So let's maybe break it down first to Warzone. Would you put Outriders above or below Warzone? Ah, man. It feels good to win a Warzone match would you put Outriders above or below Warzone? Ah, man. It feels good to win a Warzone match, doesn't it? I'm trying to avoid the recency bias here, you know, because we're all guilty of that, and it's like

three months from now, we're going to come back to the leaderboard, and we're going to drop Outriders down like 10 spots. Go below. Go below Warzone. Yeah, because Warzone's like infinite, man. It's like Thanos. It's just going to be around. And it has very high highs. The highs in Warzone. Yeah, because Warzone's infinite, man. It's like Thanos. It's just going to be around. And it has very high highs.

The highs in Warzone are very high. Right. So I would say put it below Warzone. That just begs the question of, is it right under it, or is it just above Destiny 2? No, it's definitely above Rainbow Six, Siege, and Destiny 2, I think for sure. You guys know my love for GTA Online. I have been on record saying, for me, that's definitely above Rainbow Six Siege and Destiny 2, I think for sure. You guys know my love for GTA Online. I have been on record saying for me, that's my number one overall. Josh and Todd, since Todd was here with us for that episode, they kind of pushed that a little bit lower.

I would be fine putting it in at 7, 8, or 9. I kind of feel like it's up to you guys. I'm fine with any of those. If you asked me whether I would like to play GTA Online or Outriders, I'm going to pick Outriders every time. Yeah, I know that. It might be 8. 8 might be your spot.

I know you guys love Hearthstone. 8 feels like a place you might be happier with Outriders in a month or two from now. I agree. I would vote. I'm with Andy. Let's put it in. Put it in at 8? Yeah.

It's in the top 10. It's not crazy high so that we're like, Oh, it's our first two weeks without writers. Like, yay. But that's still, I mean, very high praise for it. It makes your leaderboard 40 games. We're officially 40. That's a big milestone. 40. I feel like we should have baked a cake or something for this, man. It's the age Josh wishes he was. Yeah, where's my cake, man? I know, right?

Where's my cake? So popping this in at eight means that we will have it below Rust, Valheim, Warzone, and Hearthstone, but it'll be above GTA Online, Rainbow Six Siege, Destiny 2, and Black Ops Cold War. So we will lock it in. Very nice. How did you bribe Paul to get Rocket League to number three? Andy, just for the record, since you are my Rocket League buddy, I have tried very hard

multiple times to get Rocket League at number two on the leaderboard. So you're still looking over my dead body. Paul's loathing and hate for that game. You have to pry Apex out of my hands. For those out there that would like to put Paul on blast, he once played Rocket League with us. He picked the largest van and he'd play a lot of goalie with it, the square van. And I thought it went quite well. I thought we were a pretty good trio. I've talked about it before. My learning curve of talent was steadily going up like this. And you guys were just on this trajectory that was just so much better than me that I got just left in the dust. I said on our Rocket League episode, I think it's our second or third episode, I rated it a Mary. I get it. I love it. It's a great game. I can't play with you guys. Oh, wow. Maybe I'll hop on and play with my younger kids who are at my talent level.

I just can't. I can't stay with you guys. You're too good. Well, it's rare to find a game that I could be better at Paul than. So I got to hold on to Rocket League. Oh, dude, Rocket League, I am just so bad. I am the number one whiff. And it's just not like a slow whiff. It's like I'm out of boost. I'm on the wrong side of the field. Just can't get back in the action. It's awful. Oh, man.

Now I'm remembering you reacting to giving up a goal or missing a ball. And it was like, oh, man. Brutal. Let's be honest. You guys really don't want to play with me. I don't know. You're kind of making me want to play with you again now. You think you want to play with me. You really don't want to play with me. I don't know. You're kind of making me want to play with you again. You think you want to play with me. You really don't. You would be so mad if I started hopping

into the Rocket League. We would lose every game. Oh my gosh. Wow. Yeah. That's funny though. I like that it's at three. Such good respect. Yeah. I think that's fair. All right. So obviously this episode went a little bit longer than normal, but just so much to talk about without writers. And we were so excited to have Andy on board. So, you know, special thanks to Andy. If you don't already listen to the fantasy footballers or the spitballers podcasts, you can check either of those out with him. And Andy really was integral in helping us launch the show. It definitely would not exist the way it does today without all of the practical advice that Andy gave us. So Andy, special thank you to you. Yes, definitely. Yeah, absolutely. And then come check us out on social media at MultiplayerPod. And also, if you want to help

support the show, we mentioned the link earlier, but you can find us at MultiplayerSquad.com or using the link in the podcast description. Let me jump in for just a second. And I appreciate you guys having me on. It's been a lot of fun to reminisce and talk Outriders. But just knowing the podcasting world and what you guys have done with this podcast, I just want to commend you on putting together an awesome show. It's really great to come on. And then I would just say, being in the world of Patreon and having people support our show, how important that is. And for those of you out there, since they'll never say it, the amount of time and hours and effort that they put into putting the show together, it's a lot more than just pressing record. So Patreon is a really cool way to

support the show. So you guys should go check out their Patreon. And that's my unabashed promotion of your guys' community because it's great. And you guys actually invest a lot of time into the people that support there. So I think that's pretty awesome. And now that you hit the... It's a good way to celebrate 40 on the leaderboard. Go support these guys. I agree with Andy 100%. Well said. I agree with Andy 100%. I agree with Andy too. I find nothing wrong in anything that he just said.

You are wise beyond your years, Andy. This message is approved by the Multiplayer Gaming Podcast. That's right. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll see you guys for another episode on Thursday when we cover this week in gaming. And then we'll be back with a bonus round episode next Monday. And we'll see you guys then.

All right. See you, everybody. I'm following. This is fun. I don't have to host something. You don't have to do nothing. This is always more fun for me. That's my motto in this whole podcast.

It's just... What a motto for a team. Sorry, Paul. But you knew this was coming when you signed up to do this with me. No, it's fine. We talked about it literally in the last episode that I over-prepare. Josh does absolutely nothing.

It's like the listeners know, man.