Video Gamers Podcast - [Side Quest] Path of Exile 2, Marvel Rivals and Indiana Jones - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

Gaming Hosts Ryan and Josh are veering from the path and embarking on another Side Quest! On this awesome gaming filled episode we’re talking about the imminent release of Path of Exile 2, Marvel Rival and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, plus rate 2024 gaming as a whole and dive into some fun video game questions! Video game chat with your friends, from the best gaming podcast around! Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Ol’ Jake and Disratory Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q   Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, fellow gamers, and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. Sometimes the best part of gaming is just chatting with your gaming buddies about the latest news, upcoming game releases, did somebody say Path of Exile 2? Or asking each other dumb video game-related questions like, which evil villain are you most like? It's the fun, lighthearted chat that gamers know and love, and that's what we do in our side quest episodes.

Before we get into the show, though, some introductions are in order. I am your host, Josh. And joining me, I think if I mention Path of Exile 2 one more time, he might just have me committed. It's Ryan. Wait, wait, what's this game? I've never heard of it. Oh, that's the worst thing you can ever say, Ryan. You've never said anything to me at all about Path of Exile 2.

Okay, listen. You know, you're an excitable feller, just like I am. And the fact that you are not as excited as I am is driving me insane. I am sending you videos. I am trying to hype you. And I just don't know if it's like the Diablo coursing through your veins or what it is. But I feel like I am failing miserably and I don't like this

man. I need you to be like, yes, yes Path of Exile 2. I'm sure I will at some point, but Decker Kane is like hovering over my shoulder like, no. But you're not, Ryan, and you should be. And it's, why? Why won't you join me?

I may or may not intentionally not be watching those videos just so i don't get hyped up because i know i will i need you hyped ryan i feel so alone don't don't even act like i won't be there i'll be like point i know you're gonna join in you know and then you're gonna be like whoa this is awesome but i i need somebody to make me not feel crazy about my hype level for this game no i do think you should feel crazy but okay but i think it's i think it's justifiable all right that's fair well don't don't worry everybody we're gonna talk about path of exile 2 here in just a little bit um but first ryan we do have a little bit of housekeeping to do. We have another new supporter of the show. Oh my goodness. The support has been pouring in, man. We can't thank y'all enough.

Like, honestly, we've been doing this for years now, like legitimately for years. Now we pour our hearts and souls into this. You know, we, we, we spend a lot of time trying to bring people the best content that we can bring them. Uh, we really prioritize this podcast over a lot of other things in life. And I mean, we do it because we love it. Don't get me wrong, but to see people like enjoy what we put out to the world and then want to be a part of that and kind of support this podcast really does mean the world to us. So when, anytime we see, we always get an email that says, Hey, so-and-so has signed up and you and I love them. It doesn't matter how many times it doesn't matter how many people, every single time that happens, you and I instantly like message each other on discord. And we're like, dude, you see

that we got a new supporter. It's the same as the first one. However many we have, it's the same as the first. We're excited every single time, and it feels the same every single time. You see that email little notification come through on our phones, and we're like, oh, oh, yeah. And we just, like you said, start texting each other like, look, we got another one, blah, blah, blah. Or, look, we got this review. It's everyone out there that listens and appreciates what we do. It really does mean so much to us. Yeah. It's, it's really hard to voice the, uh, the feeling that we get from people enjoying this podcast. And like I said, wanting to be a part of

it and stuff like that. So a huge thank you to new supporter Raven, who signed up with a rare status Raven. I don't know if you're on our Discord. I don't think you are. So if you aren't, click the link in the episode description. Come on in, say hi. We got an awesome community. We'd love to thank you there as well. But thank you for supporting the show.

And listen, if you want to be like Raven or all the other people that help make this podcast possible, you can head over to MultiplayerSquad.com right now. You can pause the episode. We won't get upset. Go sign up. Come on back, and you'll get a shout out too on a future episode as well. Ryan, you mentioned we love reviews. We do. We do love us some reviews. We've had some really good reviews rolling in lately too. I'll tell you what, man. The listeners have been on point lately. They're good. They're dialed in, man. It is funny because they really are.

So at this point, it's just like, dang, man, they keep one up in each other. But if you leave us a review on Apple, there is a very good chance we're going to read it on the show. Like this one that comes in from Judicium7. And it says, a great gaming podcast by some truly genuine dudes.

I have been listening to the Video Gamers Podcast for a number of years now, dating back to the days when they were the multiplayer gaming podcast. There honestly is no gaming podcast like this. The humility, genuineness, humor, and perfect touch of nerdiness of Josh and Ryan are the perfect mix. Not only is the podcast incredibly enjoyable, but it is also family-friendly. No worrying about cussing in grotesque language coming from these gents. Every time I see a new episode is dropped, I start thinking about how soon I can start listening. When Paul, the previous host, had to step down, I couldn't imagine how difficult it was going to be to continue this as a two-man operation.

I can honestly say Josh and Ryan have done an outstanding job keeping the quality and genuine feel of this podcast going. Josh and Ryan, you should both be incredibly proud of what you have done with the Video Gamers podcast. I agree 100%. Man, there was a lot of uncertainty when paul came to us and said hey guys i can't keep doing this but we had so much support from people yeah in the community and that listened to the podcast we we kept things going and i'll be honest man i feel like we're

in a really good groove you know it's that kind of like that sigh of relief to say, hey, we can do this and keep this thing going. We're having a blast. It's still growing. Everybody's been so supportive. So thank you, everybody out there. Thank you, Judicium7, for leaving that review because they make our day. Yeah. Oh, every time, like we said before, these ones, whenever we see them come in they always uh they

always brighten us up and it just gives us that juice to keep going i know when we were talking about if we were going to keep doing this we're like let's do it if they hate us and all all the listeners you know plummet and we don't you know they don't like us anymore then maybe we'll pass on but it just kept going everybody kept uh chugging along, and the downloads kept growing. So we love it, and we're going to keep on keeping on. Yeah, we really are. Like I said, we've been having a blast, and we love the support, and we hope that everybody out there enjoys this.

So all right, Ryan, enough of this mushy stuff here. Let's get into this episode. We've got ourselves a side quest episode. These are fun, man. They're just a little bit of random stuff that we love to talk about, some questions that we kind of ask ourselves about games and just each other in life in general. We always like to start these off with just a general question. Ryan, what have you been playing lately? What are you up to? What are you doing, man? Yeah. So aside from Soccer 2, we're obviously playing that for the deep dive coming up. And we will keep our thoughts on that hidden until that episode.

But Astropod? Are you back in Astropod? Well, here's the deal, bud. Here's the deal. They released their time trials so you could do speed runs. So I've been maybe diving in a little bit to doing speed runs and trying to figure out how the heck these guys do. I'm doing everything I can to try to beat their times or get even close.

And they're killing it in like 35.4 seconds. And I'm at like 39. And I'm like, how are they shaving off these extra seconds? And there's just, I just can't do it, but I just can't help myself from trying. You know, four seconds seems like an eternity when you're like, dude, I just nailed that level. And then you realize you're four seconds away and you're like how like how are you doing this it's like what's more shortcuts there's this one on this one level where you have

to laser the the seal in the water that shoots you up and so then you can like laser again and not have to use like an ice uh you get like three ice packs you can use to slide across and then you have to do that so you can take the other three shortcuts and if you can't get that there's no way you're gonna beat it but it's like the hardest thing to do in the world it's it's unreal like i tried it for like two or three hours with my son and we just could not get it dialed in he was he's a little more emotional than me when we play games and so he was very very frustrated he's like dad let's do something else i can't do this anymore i'm like all right bud we can we can move on but it's just it's um time trials when they're they're short get me i just because if i can flip and turn it over within a minute or two i'll just

keep trying it over and over and over if it's like a long extended thing i i probably won't do it but it's short time trials are like my jam dude you should look into a game called neon white that is legitimately the entire game is just that and almost every single level you can beat in under 60 seconds but it's all about time trials okay and it will show you the ghost of like other people oh that's awesome why you're trying to do it to kind of see how they went about it and stuff too that game's a lot of fun man and it will show you the ghost of like other people oh that's awesome why you're trying to do it to kind of see how they went about it and stuff too that game's a lot of fun man and it's got a lot of neat mechanics to it and you get like these little gun cards so you have to like kill enemies during this the level as well so it's like not only are you trying to do the platforming part but you have to like whip around in like mid jump and like shoot a guy that's off to the side

and so it's super fun you should if you like time trial type stuff dude neon white would be right up your alley it's nowhere near as like as good of a game as astrobot but if that part yeah of things like entices you that game would be something you'd enjoy i don't need any more of that yeah i know right so um i have you know it's funny because i've kind of been in the in my comfort zone with gaming we are playing stalker 2 we're going to record that episode actually in a few more days um and so we're getting kind of close to the end of our play time with that um and then i've just i'm still in the overwatch train we've had a bunch of friends that have been

playing so almost nightly we have three or four people on playing and that's been a lot of fun i'm resisting i'm trying i see a i see your son playing man and i keep wondering like i wonder when ryan's gonna be like hey guys like i'd hop in with you i told you i pick a ball i was watching him play for a minute because he got a player of the game and then he used i was watching another match of his and seeing those skulls pop up, I'm like, ooh, okay. Ooh. I know that feeling. It doesn't. Dude, Ace, a good friend of the show, Ace of Shame's been playing with us. He's brand new to Overwatch.

He's been playing for literally a week and that is it. And so our group is very widespread. So come join us, Ryan. All right. Join us. Join us. Come this way.

Like Homer on the couch, join us. Yeah, exactly. And then I kind of mentioned this the other day too, but I have been playing Hearthstone again. I need like a chill game to play when I'm eating a snack or kind of doing something on the side. And Hearthstone's been kind of filling that role for me. I'm going to mention Hearthstone again here in a little bit on one of these questions. All right. And then we did want to kind of update people on the remaining schedule for the year, because we always take a two-week break over Christmas to spend time with our families and just kind of decompress a little bit. So, man, this sounds crazy for the year, but we're almost done for the year. We have our Stalker two episode, which is going to come out Monday. Then we have our infamous game of the year, end of the year episode. Paul is joining

us for that episode. We were all chatting about the different categories that we're going to award, uh, the different games and stuff like that. So I'm super hyped for that one. It's always one of our most popular episodes. So be on the lookout for that one. If I have my dates right, that's going to come out on December 12th, if I remember correctly. So it'll be in place of a Thursday episode. But man, I'm hyped for that one. And then we always come back after New Year's, which another episode that is an absolute favorite of mine, which is the most anticipated games of the year episode where we get to get hyped all over again for all the games that are coming out in 2025. And man, there's some really good ones coming out early in the year, but then there's going to be some crazy ones coming out later in the year too,

that I think people are forgetting about. So that episode's going to be a lot of fun as well speaking of games ryan december we're at the end of the year we are we've got we've got a couple games coming out we pretty soon that's late in the year huh yeah i know right um one is a little game. We really haven't mentioned this very much on this show, especially in the last week or two, so I feel like we're doing a disservice for people. But that's a little game called Path of Exile 2 that comes out December 6th, so the day after this episode.

Have you heard of that, Ryan? Not too many people have been mentioning it. Maybe it's my circle I'm with. know i don't know kind of it might be like i don't know some people consider it like an indie game or something like that but just like a blatant copy and kind of remake of of a superior game i don't know how dare you i was gonna try to let that slide ryan i wish everyone could have seen Josh's face. That was strictly for him. Him and me, just so I could see his reaction.

Listen, people have been hearing me gush about Path of Exile 2. I've been posted on social media about it. I'm not going to spend the next 10 minutes talking about this game. All I'm going to say is, you know, trust me. Trust me when I get very, very hyped about this game. All I'm going to say is, trust me, trust me when I get very, very hyped about a game. This game is going to be way better than I think people are giving it credit for. I've been watching a ton of videos on this from a lot of different content creators, and almost universally, they are all saying that this is going to be a kind of genre changing game and that gamers will be talking about this for a long time, kind of like they've been doing with Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3. And I've heard this from multiple different content creators that there's something very, very special about Path of Exile 2.

That's all I'm going to say. It's coming out in early access, so it is $30 to pick up the early access. If you can wait, then the game will ultimately be free to play when it does release in about a year. But the early access gets you about 25 to 30 hours worth of campaign content, and then a lot more endgame content that they've been focusing on after that. This is very similar to like Diablo. So it's that action RPG thing. I'm going to leave it there.

Just trust me. Watch some footage. I am so beyond hyped for this game at this point. I cannot wait. But if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, we don't do this lightly where we really get a game very hyped up. And as much as it's bugging me that ryan's just looking at me with this blank face i'm telling you man this game's gonna be fantastic so

that's it it's all i'm gonna say all right and then crazy oddly enough because i in my hype for path of exile 2 completely forgot that this game is coming out the exact same day. You forgot. Marvel Rivals is coming out. Now, Marvel Rivals, famously, when they showed off gameplay, everybody went, this is just Overwatch with superheroes. Yeah. And did you ever play any of it, Ryan? They had the beta for a little bit, but I don't think you had a chance to when the beta was out.

I don't think I was able to get into the beta, but I know you talked glowingly about it so far with what you played. And from what I saw, it looks pretty good. It is pretty good, man. It's very hard for me with somebody that's got 1,700 hours in Overwatch to not compare any kind of hero shooter to Overwatch by nature. And obviously, there's a lot of comparisons with Marvel rivals. But I will say that I had a very good time playing this game during the open beta that they had. And it's very polished. It's a lot of fun. The characters feel unique. It's easy to pick up,

kind of hard to master, which is what a hero shooter should be in that regard. So I would highly recommend people at least giving it a try because i had a lot of fun with it and i'm really looking forward to it releasing on december 6 as well i'll be honest i'm not gonna play it for a little while because i'm gonna be so wrapped up in path of exile a little busy a little bit it is it is a fun game i do have some some hands-on experience with it and i would give it a recommend from what I got to play with it. Ryan, one more game.

And I know you're excited about this game. So this is your moment, Ryan. Indy, Indy. Yeah. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is coming out December 9th. So is only a few days away.

We got a recent game kind of like release trailer. So it was a new trailer showing off some of the gameplay and a little bit more of the story. Ryan, I feel like you are way more excited for Indiana Jones than I am. So the roles are reversed now. So I'm going to stare at you blankly while you tell me why you're so excited about this game. I think it's hard because I don't know. If you're not an Indiana Jones fan or a history buff, it may not resonate as well with you, but I'm such a nerd with history and archaeology to where just that setting and environment does something for me.

So playing a game like that, if the combat and the world is kind of subpar, then I'm a happy guy. So I'm hoping that that's what we get. From what we saw today, when we recorded this that was released, it looks pretty good. So fingers crossed,

it's not going to be game of the year. It's not something outstanding or amazing, but I just hope that it's a really solid game that just is a lot of fun and something I can enjoy. I will say, especially from the trailer that they literally just released that showed off a little bit more of the gameplay and stuff, it did get me a little bit more excited for this game because they show you interacting with like you're down in a dungeon or like, you know, an old ruins or something.

And you're trying to figure out like this puzzle. And there's these spinning platforms that you actually wind up jumping on and trying not to fall off and stuff. So a little bit more like the controls and the action part of the game was showcased a little bit. And it kind of made me feel like, this actually looks pretty cool man like he's using his whip in different ways that they hadn't shown before and it looks like you're actually trying to make your way through these old ruins that you might have discovered and it kind of gave me that indie feel yeah that i wanted from like an indiana jones game um Very reminiscent of like the opening to Raiders of the Lost Ark where he's running from the boulder and stuff like that.

So this, this is weird because I'm not going to play this game. Yeah. Like I, it's just, I know in my brain that I'm going to get busy with other stuff. The holidays are going to get here. The new,

the new, you know, it's going to be 2025 and games are going to be releasing. And this is one of those games that for me will just kind of go by the wayside, but I'll always go like, I wonder if that's a good game or I'll, you know, I'll watch a review or something and be like, oh, cool, but I'll just never get to experience this game. And I want it to be good, you know? So I'm kind of hoping that you play it maybe. And then you can, you know, I can live vicariously for you. I'll let you know so i'm kind of hoping that you play it maybe and then you can you know i can live vicariously for you i'll let you know brother so all right listen we've got some fun questions uh to get into but we do have to take a short break before we get that so we will be right

back all right ryan we're back that kind of wraps up the uh updates and news portion uh for this episode let's let's have a little bit of fun ryan we always like to That kind of wraps up the updates and news portion for this episode. Let's have a little bit of fun, Ryan. We always like to ask some of these questions and chat games and things like that. Ryan, what's a game that you used to love, but you just can't stand anymore? Oh, man, this is hard because as gamers, develop i think like a bond or a connection to a game you love like you you know it's especially if it's one that means a lot to you you'll defend it you know to the death like it's a child or something you know so i i unfortunately with

thousands of hours in destiny i just i i just can't do it anymore, man. As much as I loved that game and as much as I think it's one of the purest, just straight shooters that is so crisp, they just did too much wrong to justify

the right, and it's just something I don't even touch anymore and it makes me sad but that's one that's just off the shelf was it was it the commercialization was it the expansions in the hey it's did you feel like it was just money grabs was it i think it was a lot of money grabs they got into the microtransactions they started doing things to where it wasn't um it wasn't as much you know about the story and and the progression as it is just like getting people to play getting people to to go on and stream it was all about you know twitch and and everything else so they just it kind of went the way of you know like fortnite or anything else to where it was more about not the game, but all the commercialization of it.

And that's just really... It just turned me off so much. And it just wasn't what it was prior that I loved so much about it. And it breaks my heart. But yeah, it's dead to me. It's weird because I have played Destiny 2. We did a deep dive on it. I never played the original Destiny.

I can understand why people love the game. I mean, I definitely had a good time with it. I had my complaints about kind of some of the bloat at the point where we did the deep dive on it. But even for somebody that wasn't really into it, it's weird because from the outside, if I had to guess, I would say it's like, I feel like they lost their passion for the game

and it just became a business moneymaker. And so the passion that they originally had just wasn't there anymore. And it was more about, we need to ship this expansion, we need people to buy this stuff. And I feel like they just kind of lost their way. I could be wrong, but it doesn't sound like it. But from an outside perspective, that's kind of what it felt like for somebody that wasn't directly involved.

That's very fair. No, that's a very fair assessment. I would agree. Well, I mentioned, Ryan, you got to witness a rare Josh Rage session the other day. I mean, okay, semi-rare. Uncommon? We'll go uncommon. There we go. We'll go uncommon, yeah. Uncommon, Rach. Freaking Hearthstone, man. I played so much Hearthstone back in the day. It was one of my favorite games for a very long time. Battlegrounds came out, drew me back in, and then I got really,

really mad at Blizzard for everything and uninstalled Overwatch and Hearthstone and all that for probably a solid six to eight months, if not longer. And then I got sucked back into Overwatch. I'm not going to lie. I'm having a lot of fun with that. And then I kind of went, well, I mean, I could probably give Hearthstone a try again. And I was having some fun with it. Here's the problem. I am a super competitive person and I am the kind of person where difficulty rings true for me, which is why I love Elden Ring. I want to be the person that fails. I don't want RNG. So I don't want randomness to affect the outcome for me because I get really frustrated at that. And the other day I was playing Hearthstone and it was like the worst bad luck you could possibly imagine.

And I raged in our private, we have a private like for friends, a discord server. And I went off for probably five minutes, wrote up this giant paragraph of why this is the stupidest game ever. And I can't stand that randomness comes into play, especially in a competitive game where I have like a rating that's involved in all this stuff. And I, after five minutes of just raging, finally was like, I hate this game.

And then I came back like two minutes later and I was like, you know what, man, I'm uninstalling this crap. And then I backed it up with a screenshot showing that i had uninstalled and so yeah that's my answer for this one forget you a hearthstone stupid game i remember why uninstalled you the first time now um yeah but also it's a fun game so if you don't mind randomized stuff affecting the outcome that you had no control over either so that's all i gotta say about that it's all either. So that's all I got to say about that. All there is about that. Yeah.

All right. Well, I feel my blood pressure going up. I know, right? Like, all right, moving on,

moving on. Yeah, moving on. All right, Ryan. So here's a good one. Taking a look at our leaderboard. What's a hidden gem that you'd recommend to somebody that they might not either be aware

of or haven't played or you think just deserves a mention for as a reminder for people to say hey don't sleep on this game so this one was a little hard because you know typically really good games get really good recognition most of the time so it, it's hard to find those hidden gems or ones that, um, people really haven't gone out and tried or, or haven't got enough publicity to bring people in. So I'm going to go with one that was pretty recent and it's an older game, but it was by far one of the best experiences I've had gaming.

Part of it was because it was with you guys, you and paul this was a um a force of friend that we did back in the day with paul and he made me play heavy rain which was just one of these like choose your own adventure you are picking what you do your your main guys or a few of them can die pretty dang early if you don't make the right choices and and certain things you can do can just totally change the outcome of the story and and the way you progress it's it's just one of those games that um there's so many layers to it and there's so many levels and and it's just absolutely amazing i i personally somebody who

is big in gaming, I know I get usually kind of stuck in my track of what I'm playing in the moment, but I haven't heard a lot of people talk about this. And so if you can, Heavy Rain is a game that you should definitely try out. It's not super duper long. It's something you can play.

I wouldn't play it around kids, but it's heavy. But it's a really, really good game that I would recommend to anybody, any adult that wants to play just a solid, amazing story, amazing campaign, awesome gameplay. There's some just really cool features. It is a little dated, but it doesn't take away from how you play the game. That's mine. I loved it.

It is one of those experiences that you... It's a very memorable game. Anybody that has played Heavy Rain will go like, oh man, that game is insane. It it is one of those ones that leaves you thinking about it even after you play it. What's crazy is when we did our deep dive on it, we had a lot of people that picked it up and almost universally people

were like, dude, this game is insane. And it's so memorable. I'm so glad that I played this because I can't believe I had been missing out on this experience. So it is one of those experiences that everybody should have. So I'm with you on that one for sure. For me, this is a game that we played way back in the day. Well, I don't want to say way back, but a couple of years ago, we really had no idea what to expect. And it's a game called The Forgotten City. So this is basically like a mod that came about from Skyrim. And you can definitely feel the influence on that. And then it got turned into a fully fledged game. But it's just so good, man. And I have never heard anybody except for us on this podcast talk about it. It involves a time loop. It involves these really neat moral choices.

So the premise, this is not spoilery, but the premise is that you find these old ruins and then you get teleported back in time. And in this city, it is this utopia that exists where if anybody commits a sin, the entire city will be destroyed. And so it is a society that is trying to live together without anybody doing anything wrong. And as you start to play the game, things go wrong. And your job is to kind of figure out what happens. But you get in this time loop where the game will reset every time something happens to go wrong. And so through playing this game, you start to learn a little bit more about the people and what's going on and the mystery and the kind of intrigue behind it. And how can you stop this

crime from happening? And it is such a neat game that is so well executed that again, kind of like Heavy Rain. I will always remember playing forgotten city just because of how unique it was and how fun it was. And it, it just is very well done. The time loop has done well, but the, the sense of like mystery and discovery and like,

how do I stop this from happening? Yeah. And trying like 20 different ways and then slowly figuring out the little snippets of like the you know little breadcrumbs that they give you to kind of lead you in the right direction was was honestly flawless in my opinion so highly recommend looking that up again it's called the forgotten city so that's no that's yeah that's one that i actually haven't um i haven't checked out i mean i'm too busy playing uh just repurchased modes of Skyrim. But, I mean, it's over almost 9,000 reviews on Steam,

and it's overwhelmingly positive. Everything. It's got all these crazy out-of-the-world reviews. So, it's wild how you get these games that are reviewed so well, they just don't track to kind of grow big, big, big time. Never heard a single person mention this game. Not on social media, not anywhere. Not that we have exclusiveness to this, but it's one of those games where, again, we talk about hidden gems.

Forgotten City is well worth it. It's probably a 10-hour game total. And what's the price? Do you still have it pulled up? What the price i do uh 874 right now it's actually 65 off are you kidding me for under 10 so it is uh yeah for uh i don't know how many more hours this is but yeah 65 off it's it's 874 dude just go pick that game up right now yeah because it's fantastic man it is such a bundle the bundle is 1325 oh i don't know what the puzzle i don't know yeah digital collectors edition i guess there was a little bit of dlc but uh and then some music or whatever but yeah overall i mean it looks awesome and if it's kind of based off skyrim you know

you're gonna have a good kind of base there. Absolutely. Yeah, it was a mod that I don't know if it's a fan-made mod or what. But yeah, go check that out. Has there been any other, I mean, other than maybe Grand Theft Auto, like that's modded as much as Elder Scrolls? No, I don't think so. It's just, what a dedicated community, man.

Because then you have like Gary's mod, which was, wait, isn't Gary's mod a Half-Life mod, though? I don't think so. It's just, what a dedicated community, man. Because then you have, like, Gary's mod, which was... Wait, isn't Gary's mod a Half-Life mod, though? I can't remember. I've never played Gary's mod. I've seen it a bunch, and I know that's one of the most, like, millions of copies sold kind of thing. But I'll be honest, I don't remember what that's tied to. All right, Ryan, here's a host question for you.

What's the luckiest thing that's ever happened to you? Well. You can't say meet your wife or any of that stuff because that's too cheesy. Speaking of cheesy, I'd say if it wasn't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all. No. no um man i i just i uh i guess personally i i'm not a a big time advocate of luck i think you kind of make your own luck okay so uh so i i'm not one of those i don't i don't believe in in chance or these things i think you know when people yell at me oh you shouldn't have said that you know when a sports game's happening i'm like oh yeah because i influenced the game yeah two thousand miles away blah blah

blah i'm not a big superstition guy at all and i come from hockey and there's those are some of the biggest superstition guys you'd ever meet in your life uh but it's just it's not for me so i'm personally i'm not a big luck guy i would say anything that i've done or had happened most of the time is because i put in the effort or tried something's happened just because you never won like a contest or something free or anything like that i i not that i can think of i mean i won some money on a scratcher once i mean okay there you go nothing nothing crazy or big i just i never i don't know anything that i do i go into it and i put full bore into it and i'm focused on that and that's maybe my adhd brain but that's what i'm focused on and that's what i'm directed towards so

anything that happens is because i was working towards it and so i'm not you know the luck part is is not in my brain, but I'm sure. That's crazy. Cause I once found a bag on the highway that had $50,000 in it. So now I'm just kidding. Well, don't say it on the radio. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'll be honest. Like I'm kind of with you in that sense that I don't know if like, maybe I'm just not very lucky, but it's like, we've never had anything like in that, uh, like, you know, like that where it's like we've never had anything like in that uh like you know like that where it's like oh i found 20 grand or something yeah my wife won some tickets to cirque de soleil when they came to phoenix one time and they were like 80 tickets and so i remember she it was like a local news

station then you had to comment on a facebook post or something and she did and then they actually like messaged her and were like hey you won these tickets you can come pick them up and my wife was like we won tickets and it was it was like, they were good seats. They're probably like $200 worth. But that's the only thing that could come to mind for me is like, yeah. And I know that sounds like it's kind of a negligible thing, but I'm with you in the sense that it's like, I think your outlook on life kind of affects your luck in a sense. your luck in a sense, you know, but it's like, I'm not a gambler, even though I know you love gambling. And I know a lot of people will say, Oh, I had good luck tonight. And I know there's a lot of strategy behind like betting

and blackjack and stuff like that too. So yeah, winning free tickets is about the luckiest thing that I think has ever happened. Actually, hold on. I want to take everything back. I said, there was this one thing that happened one time, And this is probably why I'm still alive. I was in... I had a 91 convertible 5.0 Mustang when I was 18 years... Actually, when I was 16 years old. But this accident happened when I was 18. I was headed down the road.

I was in the left lane of a three-lane just main street. A commercial tow truck pulled left in front of me and i luckily this is this is the part where kind of the luck verse uh you make your own luck type thing i was able to turn and kind of get in front of him enough to where the front of his car or the truck kind of caved in the side of mine and it shot me off all the way onto the curb and i wasn't hurt i wasn't injured i was i was good to go if i had not done that i would 100 have drove driven under the the flatbed tow truck and it would have took the whole top of my car off and i probably wouldn't be here today so So you want to call that luck, divine intervention or skill, whatever.

But that's one that came to mind, you know, aside from everything else. But that may be considered luck. I'll take it. All right. I'll take it, too, because it means you're here doing this podcast. There we go. All right, Ryan. Let's talk about the year as a whole.

We've got our end of the year episode coming up. Yes. On a scale of one to 10, how would you rate 2024 as a whole for gaming? You know, this is a pretty good year, dude. This is a tough question. This is a tough question, though, man. This is a tough one,

because it's like, where do you put that at? I mean, we had a ton of games this year, and we always, I remember when we were a ton of games this year and we always i remember when we were talking the end of last year we're like man i don't know i don't know what's going to come out we'll be able to get to our backlogs that was a joke like that yeah that didn't happen you know and and so um the the let me let me do this ryan let's just let me let me name a few games yeah list them off let's hear what they're so we had you know we had space marine 2 yes um we had stellar

blade which i never got to play but i'm still very interested in uh we had senua saga hellblade 2 come out we had pal world that released and took the world by storm. We had Helldivers 2, which came out very early in the year, which really took the world by storm. We had Dragon's Dogma 2, which we were super hyped for. We had Elden Ring Shadow of the Ur-Tree, which famously people said shouldn't be up for a Game of the Year nomination, but it released this year. I thought that game was absolutely fantastic. We had Black Myth Wukong, which we had been following since the day it was announced. Bellatro, which, again, talk about a game that took the world by storm. Awesome cult. I love it. You know, I mean, honestly, I might actually pick up Bellatro here. I don't own it and I

need a card game to play. And since I hate Hearthstone now, I actually, I think I'm thinking about picking up Bellatro. You're going to make Steve very happy. I'm not going to lie. And then we had Astro Bot, which kind of came out of nowhere. I mean, the list goes on and on. We have Star Wars Outlaws that we almost didn't play and then wound up playing, and it was better than we thought. I'm not going to bring up Dragon Age Veilguard because we didn't like that game,

even though we were excited for its release. I mean, there's been a lot of games that I know that we have been excited for that have come out. Not all of them have met the hype level that we had for them, but it feels like it's been a pretty strong year. I think it has,

especially for something that we didn't think was going to be that outstanding. From what we got, I mean, and gosh, there was a bunch more that was slated for the end of this year that got moved, you know, that we didn't even get. So, next year's looking great, but as far as this year goes, I mean, I'm going to put it at

a solid 8.5. 8.5? Yeah, I think that there was some great games that really shot this score up this year that are honestly all all timers astrobot is just such a dang good game i keep getting sucked back into that stinking thing you know and there's so many like you like you listed and and uh couple couple you know downers that

that bring it down a little bit but i think I think it was definitely an above average year overall. I'm with you. I will say that sometimes the hype, I feel like there's a lot of games, and again, this might be just a personal fault. I get very excited very easy. I know the feeling. It's funny because I literally was telling my wife about Path of Exile 2 on Friday. I'm like, baby, don't expect anything from me. I'm totally not a dad or husband this weekend. I've been looking forward to this game for a week now

because I just realized how good it looks. And she laughed at me and she said, you say that like every other week. She's like, what's that stalker game that you said you were super excited for? And it's like, oh, yeah, well, I was excited for that. Now I'm excited for this know and it's like oh yeah well i was excited for that you know and so yeah exactly so and so again this might be a little bit of personal uh you know issue but like i do feel like there were some games that i was very excited about that i was slightly disappointed and that doesn't mean that they weren't great games but like dragon's dogma 2

i was hoping was going to be like the next Witcher 3. That's what my brain was. And while that is a perfectly good video game, it wasn't what I was hoping it was going to be. Blackmuth Wukong, phenomenal game, up for game of the year. It was just missing a little bit of something for me where it was still a really good game, but not quite what I wanted it to be. But then we had Astro Bot, which came out of nowhere that was way better than it had any right to be. So I'm going to give it an eight. I'm actually just slightly under you

because I do feel like it was a very, very strong year for video games. Hell Divers 2, in my opinion, and Astro Bot are what are carrying this for me. Yeah, for sure. Otherwise, I would give it like a seven and just call it good, you know, but not great. But those two games, I think, really bump it up

a whole point, in my opinion. So, all right, Ryan, we're running low on time. We got to end things with a food question, dude. Oh, always. And we have a little, we have a kind of a little holiday food question here. We're going to play a little game of good or garbage. It's the holiday food edition.

So I'm going to list a food, and then you just tell me whether you think it's good or you think it's garbage. And we don't have to explain if you don't want to, but we'll just leave it at that. I feel like you made this just for me. Did you do this just for me? I didn't. I actually tried to think of what holiday foods were. And I mean, I don't want to say ham because it's like, dude, ham's delicious. And everybody just had ham for Thanksgiving.

So I tried to keep it a little bit more Christmas-oriented. The problem is it's a lot of sugar. And I know that you're not the biggest fan of sugar. But they may also realize that it's like are there any christmas foods that are like salty doesn't doesn't seem so no it doesn't seem so all right so first up ryan eggnog garbage garbage for me garbage yeah i'm i'm uh uh yeah it's just it's too thick and just thick sweet my wife loves eggnog yeah i what's really weird about eggnog is i like the first sip of eggnog i always go like yeah that's pretty good and then i don't want any more of it okay

okay so that's okay okay think okay that feeling that's how i am with like sweets and ice cream and stuff so my wife will get mcflurry or or any sort of ice cream or milkshake i'll take one bite and if it's a little too big i go it's just too much and so like it the little bit is good but after that it's just it's too much and so that's how that's exactly how i feel okay because i can't imagine drinking an entire glass of eggnog but that sip is good i'm like okay that was tasty but even if it gets you drunk i'm like no no thank you that sip is good. I'm like, okay, that was tasty. Even if it gets you drunk, I'm like, no, no thank you. That helps me kind of understand your take on sweets there. So, well, another sweets, Ryan, carrot cake.

Garbage. Nah, carrot cake's good, dude. Carrot cake is so underrated, man, because the seasoning, like the spices that's behind carrot cake is great. Peppermint bark. So, for people that don't know this is chocolate with crushed up peppermints on it i guess a very very popular thing garbage garbage for me i can't stand peppermint and i don't like plain chocolate either so those two just ruin each candy canes so that follows suit uh garbage garbage for me i don't know why anybody likes candy canes even

the fruity flavored ones like somebody went peppermint socks let's make some fruity and i'm still like these are garbage no yeah watermelon and all those other ones no thank you yeah no thank you gingerbread garbage ah gingerbread so good dude so now i'm not talking the cheesy gingerbread houses that come like they're three years in that box that are like yeah like don't know i'm not that is not i don't even know that you're supposed to eat those things because that is garbage but actual like good gingerbread like or ginger snaps oh man so amazing all right and then finally ryan fudge garbage garbage for me i don't like fudge i don't like plain chocolate i love chocolate in stuff or like as a base for things like give me a a Reese's cup.

Oh, man. But just plain soft chocolate does not do it for me at all. That's why I laughed because you sent me this. And Josh does a lot of the outlines for the shows. And so I was looking over the food questions. And I'm like, he made this just for me because I was like, garbage, garbage, garbage. I mean, I think a lot of these are garbage too. So, oh, man. All right. Well, listen, I think that does of these are garbage too. Oh, man.

All right. Well, listen, I think that does it for this episode, Ryan. We're kind of right on time there. So just wanted to remind everybody, if you enjoy the podcast and you haven't done so already, make sure you follow us in your podcast app. It's either a plus button or a subscribe button, but that way you get all of our episodes the day that they release. It also helps us in the rankings and the algorithm. So make sure you do that. If you are not in our Discord server, you are missing out. What a phenomenal group of gamers.

Just today, we had another person that said, hey, I've been listening for years. I figured I'd finally pull the trigger. Joins the server, chat and video games. Everybody's super welcoming. It's not fake nicety. It really is just genuine gamers that love chatting games with people and stuff like that. So if you're not in our Discord server, click the link in the episode description and join us. It is family friendly. It's an awesome place to be for sure. You can follow us on socials at VideoGamersPod. I've been posting a lot about Path of Exile 2, so you don't want to miss that. And if you want to help

support the show, if you want to keep this thing rolling and growing and being awesome, you can do that over at MultiplayerSquad.com. You can sign up. It's very easy to sign up. You can sign up for as little as $5 a month. I did some math. I think that's like 20 cents a day. What? I'm not a mathematician, so don't hold me to that. I'm sure there's somebody that's going,

that's not right. That's basically like what? 70 cents an episode. Yeah. I don't know, man. I'm just going to agree with whatever you say, because I'm not doing the math right now. But basically, it's next to nothing. And it really does help keep this show going. And we really do appreciate it as well. Our next episode is Stalker 2. I know we've been playing that a lot. We've had a lot of people asking us about it. So that's going to be a great episode that comes out Monday. So be on the lookout for that one. And that it so until next time happy gaming see ya