Video Gamers Podcast - Starfield Final Thoughts, Where Wind Meets, and Dragon's Dogma 2 - Video Games Podcast

Episode Date: September 28, 2023

Video games hosts Paul, Ryan and Josh bringing you the week's hottest video game news like no other gaming podcast can. We give our final thoughts and impressions on Starfield now that we’ve had time to let it simmer. Then we dive into the upcoming video game called Where Wind Meets that has us very excited, Dragon’s Dogma 2 gameplay and more in this week's awesome gaming filled episode! Thanks to our LEGENDARY Supporters: Redletter and Gaius214 Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com//videogamerspod Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/videogamerspod Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q   Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com. Hello, fellow gamers, and welcome to the Video Gaming Podcast. On Thursdays like today, we break down recent gaming news over the last week. I am your host, Paul, and joining me, he is a whimsical drinker and poet and loves to intimidate bears in the wild by roaring into a bell. It's Josh. That's an odd intro, and yet I knew exactly what you meant by all of that, Paul. Oh, good.

I was a little worried. I was hoping the traits would stick with yes yeah oh i can't wait to talk about some of the stuff from this week and then joining me and josh he is living out schrodinger's cat in real life flashing back and forth between two possible realities it's ryan am i dead am i alive you don't know until you look did this bomb go off did we stop it all right guys today we're going to cover so much cool stuff we're going to be addressing dragon's dogma 2 where winds meet we're going to talk about the announcement of the division 3 and then we will give some of our i guess semi-final thoughts on starfield and that portion will include some major our, I guess, semi-final thoughts on Starfield, and that portion will include some major spoilers. So we'll go ahead and throw that at the end in case anyone does

not want to hear some of those final thoughts. And then before jumping into these games, please make sure to rate our show five stars in Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a written review and come check out support options through Patreon. It starts at just five bucks a month and you'll unlock bonus episodes and other perks. You can check all of it out at MultiplayerSquad.com. All right. Now we are recording this episode during the last day of the Tokyo Game Show. Up to this point, it's been relatively disappointing. Not a whole lot of earth shattering news, but we did get some gameplay and some new looks at some other highly anticipated titles let's let's start out with dragon's dogma

does that work for you guys all right so this is coming out next year it is been being made by capcom we got to see a nine minute gameplay deep dive the game, and this is a follow-up to the original, which came out in 2012. It is an action RPG hack-and-slash game. I never played the first. I don't know about you guys. This was my first exposure to Dragon's Dogma, but what are some of your guys' thoughts here on this title? It was definitely my first exposure as well, and I'm a little disappointed because I'm sad I thoughts here on this title it was definitely my first exposure as well and i'm a little disappointed because i i'm sad i missed out on this because it looks pretty pretty freaking

sweet yeah yeah your type of game josh or uh ryan yeah no i i i thought a lot of this stuff looked cool i like the you know support class with the healing and stuff as as far as like the sorcerer and then uh the archer abilities um i i thought the the gameplay and the the kind of cinematics on how they fought and everything looked looked really really cool yeah i it's so funny because i never played dragons dogma one i i i have heard good things about it but i think at this point it's kind of old and it's you know like it's just not a super popular title anymore so i start watching this gameplay and this is all stuff right up my alley. I mean, classes, fantasy world setting.

It looks like fun combat. I will say that I had to laugh at the narration when they're going through Dragon's Dogma 2. Yes. Yes. This is the first thing I wrote down. Go ahead, Josh. This is so funny the way they described like the classes in the game like they're getting they're talking about an archer

right and they're like archers use ranged weapons to damage their foes using a bow and an arrow as an archer you will fire arrows at your enemies and i'm like I know what an archer is guys. And then they're like introducing the fighter. The fighter participates in melee combat, often using a shield and sword to punish and damage their enemies. And it's like, I know what a fighter is like. Are they going to do this? Are they going to do this for all of them?

And then sure enough, they're like sorcerers depend on magic to cast spells from afar. And I was like, tell me more about the game, guys. I don't need to know definitions of classes at this point. This was literally like RPG 101 day one in the classroom. They literally defined fighter, archer, mage, and thief, as if you've never heard these terms before. They only stopped short of saying healing is when you add health back onto one of your teammates. That's about as close as it got, though, in the rest of this trailer. It was very funny. I will say these are

not the most creative classes or terms. This is like very traditional. I liked a lot of what I saw here, but I don't know that they're looking to bring a whole lot of like innovation and creativity to RPGs. Yeah. Everything. I mean, I do like what I saw in the gameplay.

I do think it looks fun. I was just a little taken aback by how simplified they tried to like narrate this and i was kind of like i'd like to know a little bit more about the actual gameplay or the systems the one thing that they showed that i did like was like the sorcerer had like this really long like cast time almost like it was like they were casting i don't know chain lightning or some kind of lightning blast and it was a solid like five seconds of channeling that, which is what a, I mean, that's lore, you know, relatable for like a wizard or a sorcerer or something like that. So that part to me was a little cool, but I I'm glad

I'm not the only one that realized that. Cause I was laughing while I'm watching this, just going like, guys, come on. Oh, I wrote down another quote. A camping kit allows you to spend the night and recover your health. That is verbatim in the trailer as well. I will say out of the cool stuff to maybe put a more positive spin, I loved how they showed if you play as a thief, when you fight some of the bigger boss enemies, you actually can literally jump on their back and mantle and climb your way up while stabbing and fighting this giant monster. I thought that was really cool. But this trailer also does not give you a single ounce of story. This is very basic reveal type stuff.

I don't know that I saw anything that would necessarily get me super hyped to play it. I thought it looked neat. I'm kind of waiting maybe to learn a little bit more about story before I really feel hooked, if that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, we didn't see a ton. Again, I like what I did see. I dig these kind of games like this too. I mean, this follows a lot of the same kind of animation or camera angle style of games like this too i mean this is this follows a lot of like the same kind of animation or like camera angle style of games like gothic and elix and uh you know apparently dragon's dogma 2 i don't know what dragon's dogma 1 looked like i'm assuming it was similar but yeah this is this is up my alley i did when i saw the thief i'm like oh josh would probably like that yeah you know

josh is always about just climb up the back with your Rogue knives and just start slashing them. It is funny because I watched all these other classes, and then they got to the Thief, and it's like this dude's super fast, zippy, and just going ballistic with these two little daggers on things, and then zipping away, and then he's climbing up. And I was like, well, I know what class I'm playing in this game. I think everyone's going to want to play thief the one thing that's a little bit of a bummer is that it is just a single player game but you do run around with three ai controlled squad mates that they call pawns that run around with you so i think it'd be a lot more interesting if it were multiplayer um and then also i did, I thought this was really neat, there are no loading screens at all in the world while exploring. So, if you go into a cave or a

dungeon, it seamlessly loads you into that content. The only time that you will see the game break and then start something is if it's a video cutscene. But as far as exploration goes, it'll be like the original God of War or the God of War reboot where everything is seamless, which is very cool. I do have a question for you guys, because I want to know if this is just me or not. They did talk about how you can have like a full party and it's AI bots that are basically following you around. I will 100% never use that feature in a game like this because the combat's a little bit more real-time it's not like balder's gate 3 where you have a party and everybody takes their turn kind of thing

like in an actual action rpg setting like this i don't know why but i have zero interest in having ai bots follow me around and sit there and wail on things like i'll play the game solo even if it's more difficult like is do you guys do that or is that just a weird Josh thing where I don't want bots following me around? That's a weird Josh thing, man. Is it? Dang it, man. Yeah, I got to have my guys there so then I can yell at them. Like, come on, dude, heal me. What are you doing?

You know, talk crap to them, get mad. You got to have the group. See, I want to be the master of my own fate, man. I don't want some bot that didn't heal me, you know, not healing me. Isn't this exactly the same like what you get in DOS 2 and what you get in Dragon Age? No, because those are turn-based. So in that case, I'm okay with that because then I get to dictate what they do during the turn. It's my party, right? I get that the AI makes them move around, but in DOS 2 or Baldur's Gate party, right? Like I get that the AI makes them move around, but in DOS two or Baldur's Gate three, like I control each of those characters in,

in Dragon's Dogma two, you don't control the other characters. They're just, they're doing their weird little AI bot thing. And I don't know. Yeah. I don't want that at all. I will play the game solo the whole way. Well, okay. Yeah. I mean like Dragon Age two and three, you know, you don't control, I mean, you can control them but you're playing actually to be honest i yeah maybe i'm a little bit of a micromanager i guess i don't know no way you play dragon age inquisition not every base not no no no no no but what i'm saying is if i'm like fighting a big dragon and it's a hard fight i will 100 like real-time pause and then like issue orders to each person and then let them fight a little bit and then real-time pause and kind of do it like that. Like I'm not saying

for every single action, but when strategy is needed, I'll dictate the strategy. Yeah. AI controlled bots is usually not the greatest way to go about things, but in some games it turns out okay. I guess it just kind of depends. All right. I'm kind of surprised we spent that much time talking about that one, because I thought Where Winds Meet was a way more interesting game to look into. This is an open world action adventure game set in ancient China. I thought this game was really fun to watch a trailer of. I thought the music was beautiful. I am normally not one that really loves these like Eastern RPGs, but there's something about ancient China that I really enjoy. This has sword fighting, magic, platforming elements, and exploration. We got

to see 18 minutes of gameplay. I loved the very beginning of this gameplay trailer because there's this thrilling sequence where you are riding on horseback and you're riding across these fields where you've got all the like red flowers and grass everywhere there's catapults shooting you there's other people on horseback shooting arrows at you you're shooting arrows back and then all of a sudden at the end of the fight like you pull a baby out of your robes, and it's like, what? This is how you create intrigue. It was this really fascinating action sequence.

I don't know why they're carrying this baby around. Now they're in this giant boss fight that reminded me of Souls bosses. I thought that this game actually looked really interesting, and I was wondering if you guys feel similarly. Agreed. Yeah, I thought that was really cool, especially the effect where he's spinning in the air, and the baby just gets grazed on the cheek and starts crying. It's like, whee! And then he's like, oh, here we go.

And then the boss comes, and they start the boss fight. I thought the actual engagement of the boss fight looked really cool. I thought how they battled in the sequence was super neat. So I'm excited to see kind of where this goes and what this entails. I thought the graphics were beautiful. So yeah, I'm like you too, Paul. I'm not big on those Eastern Asian things where it's like, you know, just all kind of looks that same way. But this, this looks pretty neat. I'm going to say two games that I think that this meshes very well.

And I think that's going to generate a lot more interest for people that maybe have never heard of this game. This looks like ghosts of Tsushima meets. Oh, that's what I was going to say. Meets dark souls, dude. Like that, the first, but I'll tell you, I had a really cool surprise at the end of this trailer. So in the beginning, like you said said paul awesome horse chase scene all kinds of chaos yeah riding

across the field i was like oh this is ghost of shishima like i'm in and then they went through the boss fight thing and i'm like oh wait this is this is dark souls like i'm in and then they got to a point later on because this was a long trailer, it was an 18-minute trailer. But then all of a sudden, they get to a point where you're in a town and you're running through the town talking to people and getting quests and going to the different vendors and stuff like that. And then I went, is this the modern day version of Jade Empire? Because that's, I mean, I love the Jade Empire, dude. Bioware, Jade Empire, that game was phenomenal.

And that's when it all kind of clicked for me. And I was like, I am hyped about this game now because this is not just Dark Souls, but in like an Eastern setting. This is not Ghost of Tsushima, but with Dark Souls bosses. There's something more going on here. And then Paul, you alluded to it in the intro where they start showing off some of the skill trees

and the different abilities and stuff. Yes. At one point, you're watching a frog jump around and then your dude learns how to frog jump? Like, what? You know what I mean? And then they show a bear. Some bear gets ticked off at you.

So your guy's doing some crazy martial arts thing. Kung fu forms the bear and hits the bear way up into the sky. And then the bear goes flying. And I was just like, what is this game, man? Sometimes you got a kung fu bear, man. Dude, I legitimately loved everything i saw in this trailer and there was just a lot of surprises where i went i really like what they're doing with this oh dude there's some of the abilities so one of them was called goat charge yeah and i had to pause the screen

because you see the animation i i wrote down the description grab the horns of a goat running from behind you and leap onto its back to charge forward with it. Hold the goat's horns to control the direction, launching up all targets along the way. So you literally spawn a goat, jump on its back and just buck every enemy where they go flying 10 feet. I imagine you can use this to knock enemies off ledges to stun large groups of enemies i mean that's hysterical they also had lion roar where your character just like all of a sudden summons the world's biggest bell and then just roars through it like a lion which actually scares the bear and it runs away for a while like this was very much more creative than what I saw from Dragon's Dogma 2.

This actually had really clever things, not to mention all the traits. Like they show when you do character creation, some of the traits that they had in there that I jotted down were drinker, witty, mountain lifter, chatterbox, brainy, seafarer, poet, whimsical, you know, all these terms. I'm very curious to learn down the road, what are all the pros and cons of this stuff? Why would you make your guy a drinker? Is it where if you drink alcohol, you can fight better like Jackie Chan in Drunken Master? But then if you don't drink alcohol, do you start losing health? I'm very curious to find out.

Yeah. I love all the different aspects that this game is showing off and the different systems that they have on top of what looks to be great combat, really good graphics. I mean, it really looks like a complete and total package where it's like you're getting RPG elements, you're getting action elements, you're getting a beautiful setting, you're getting story, even though we don't own a ton, but it's like, yeah, like you mentioned, why are you holding a baby? Like, why are you fighting a boss with a baby in your robes, man? Like, yeah, like there's just, there's mystical stuff that, I mean, I, there's so many things that just make me go like, Ooh, Ooh, yeah. Okay. That's cool. Oh wait, that's really cool. Okay, that's cool, too. So when that starts happening, like I said, this is going on my list.

And at the end of the day, Paul sounds like he can push people off cliffs. So he's happy. That's all I need. And it did make me chuckle because at one point you see a goose running on some stairs. And as they pan past it, its its name title card is goose on the loose just running around the town the goose oh this is so funny man this game seems like it it looks very interesting very well made i'm very highly intrigued by it do we know make sure to go check out uh so the name of the game is where winds meet i do not think we have a release window yet for

that one dang it uh all right well wait a minute it says a expected in late 2023 i saw that i that might be an old article too though yeah a few said that they were thinking it would probably be late 2023 early 2024 i. I think those are just old guesses. I don't think we know for sure on this one. I would be surprised if it's this year. If it releases this year, this is going on my list of like one of my more anticipated games for later this year.

Yeah, which is saying a lot. For such a killer year in gaming. All right, well, let's go ahead and take a short break, and we'll be right back. All right, we are now back. The Division 3 was officially announced this week by Ubisoft. You guys are both enormous fans of the series. You in with me, Ryan?

Oh, I'm in. Let's go to the dark zone, baby. I'm just going to clear out of the way you know this is this is your guys series are you guys excited like what are you looking for how do you feel about division three yeah i i mean yes yes and yes um i loved the first two division games they're not without their flaws um i i would say my biggest complaint with The Division 2 was just boss fights are bullet sponges. You have to unload 40 magazines to kill a boss. They're not really predicated on really cool mechanics or positioning or stuff like that.

It was just don't die in the 10 minutes that you're sitting there just with an assault rifle unloading on this boss. So if they can fix that, you know, if they can add more of the raid type mechanics, which they've done in the end game for division two, they definitely had these like raid type bosses. But I mean, if you give me more of the same, but fix some of the pain points, I'm a hundred percent in, honestly, even if you don't fix it, you call it the division three. I haven't played division two in a really long time. I'm probably in anyway, just because I really enjoy the series. We don't really know a whole lot at this point. What I am curious about is how is this going to be different and upgraded from the Division 2? And we've talked about it before. Division 2 Heartland is coming out as a free kind of expansion pack. But we jokingly said it doesn't really look like it adds anything other than like suburban houses versus like inner city buildings.

So I'd like more info. But honestly, I really enjoy the series. I'm probably in regardless. Oh, yeah. I'm in for sure. No matter what, at least to check it out. And as far as like, I know that was a huge issue with the bosses. And they're just, like you said, straight bullet sponges.

But I more than anything enjoyed just going through the city. And that was my favorite part. The bosses were kind of there. And, you know, you do the raids and stuff. But the small groups, the small areas you'd run into, the little buildings that you'd navigate through, the labs, all of those things. That's what I loved. When I see just this desolate wasteland of apocalyptic life, that always hooks me every single time. So I'm 100% going to be in on this game for sure.

I'm with you, Ryan. Now we just got to get Paul to play it. How do we get Paul to play it? So, Paul, there's... I liked the Division. I thought it was fine. Part of these areas, there's cliffs and you can just kind of push people off. Oh, there you go. I don't believe that. That is not true. Yeah, you never saw the giant hole in the middle of Manhattan you can kick people off of? If the Division 3 lets me

ride on a goat, I will absolutely pick it up and play it yeah no i i enjoy the division i think this is one that'll kind of depend on timing i don't know if i'll necessarily buy it at release if you guys both really want to play it maybe we'll all pick it up and cover it on the show but otherwise it's more of the kind of game i would wait until it would go on steam sale play it a few hours until it got grindy and then i would quit um that's exactly how i played the division one i think i got like a good 10 hours out of it and kind of got bored but i think i paid like four dollars for it so oh nice that yeah that's just kind of like in general the division's nothing i'm excited for but i always enjoy playing it

while i'm in there it's so good with friends too, though. It really is such a fun, like co-op experience really, really adds to it a ton. Just wandering through the city as a group, you know, coming across cool quests or, you know, boss fights or something like that. It's a looter shooter too. So you're always getting really cool loot. You've got skill trees.

So you're unlocking like really cool high-end abilities depending on your class and stuff like that. They dangle that carrot really well. All right. Well, yeah, we'll have to keep our eye out on the division three. We'll let you guys know as we learn more info about that moving forward. All right. Time to check in on Starfield.

Now we did in initial impressions episode where all of us played it and basically did nothing else for three straight days. And then we recorded that episode. At this point now, I have beaten the game a couple times. I know Ryan beat it. Josh, I believe, has given up on it at this point. But I thought this would be a good time to kind of check in with everybody, see kind of like what our final thoughts are on Starfield, as I think we've all kind of now kind of reached the end point for us individually um i want to start on a more positive note and since ryan beat the game i'm assuming

he's a little more positive on it so ryan what are your thoughts on starfield at this point now that you're more like you know i don't know out of the honey moon hours in i'm enlightened i'm actually almost to 80 hours um wow yeah and so i still and i know i had said this previously i still feel like i haven't done much of anything i went through the main campaign i went on a couple side kind of uh sequence quests but there is just so much to this game and everywhere you go there's something new that pops up. Everywhere you go, there's some other quest, some little side quest that starts another chain. And it just feels like it opens up a whole new game for you still. And, I mean, like I said, I've got almost 80 hours in.

So, I've just got a whole new sequence. And I'll try to not do spoilers. But I got into this planet where there was this crazy monster that just ripped through this whole, like, research facility and everything. I'm sure you guys know which one it is with – I think it was with the Rangers. But it was awesome. You have to, like, kick on lights and then machine guns. And you have to do this stuff and get blood samples it was it was just so cool and it was just one of the missions and it was one of the million that i haven't even done yet so there's still so much more gameplay there's so much more um to explore i haven't even tapped into outposts really i've

messed around a little bit i haven't really i, I've done a little bit of shipbuilding, not really messing. I'm on Starfield Reddit and I just watch the crazy things these guys make and how much money they spend on them and all the crazy designs. You know, it's, there's just, I could ramble on all day.

So yeah, it's crazy. So I think there's two main things I wanted to talk to you about, Ryan. First of all, I think we have to talk about the quest called Entangled. I thought that was by far the peak of Starfield for me. Did you feel the same way? When you had talked to us before I had got to that mission, I was really excited to see what you were talking about

because you were raving about that mission. And when I got to it, I didn't remember the name and I wasn't paying it. I don't ever look at that stuff. I just, you know, play the game. And so I wasn't sure, but I was playing it. I was like, this is like one of the coolest things I've ever done. This has to be the mission Paul was talking about. And I didn't look because I was so sucked into the game.

But afterwards, I realized that it was. And I was just blown away. I thought the way they did it, the way they executed it was just amazing. I had so, so much fun on that level. So to explain the way that quest works. And for me, Josh and I did an episode on all-time favorite quests. And if we were to rerecord that, this one would make it, no question. So I think a lot of people are familiar with Schrodinger's cat thought experiment,

where basically the whole idea being that looking at probability, you have two different possible results. And the theory is that you could have two different multiverses, one where each outcome becomes true. Either the cat in the box is dead or the cat is alive. And then once you open the box and see, that is now the reality and the set outcome in your universe. Well, this mission takes that idea and makes you play through it where there is a lab doing all of these hardcore experiments. And it comes down to whether or not there's an explosion that goes off in the lab. And you start flashing back and forth between two realities where you're talking to people running a lab. And then all of a sudden you're like in the ruins of this lab. And there's one

dude named Raphael who's alive. And he's like, yeah, everyone died in this explosion. I'm the only one left. I've been here for a year. And then all of a sudden, you blink back into the other one, and you're learning that Raphael died in this lab accident. But he died, but everyone else lived. And so, you start playing through both realities. And it's very clever because you might get blocked in one reality, and you have to manually switch to the other reality and then you kind of like work your way through like a puzzle and then at the end they give you a choice well which outcome do you want to be the case where rafael is finally rescued but everyone else is dead or everyone else is alive and you've abandoned rafael but there's actually a hidden third way

to go about the mission where you can actually reconcile both together and actually rescue everybody. But I just thought that was such a fun idea. If you like physics and that kind of stuff at all, I thought it was a very clever way of putting that into the game, but not making it too brainy. It just kind of makes sense. There's two universes. You just swap back and forth as you work your way through it all what a cool idea i kept wondering what that quest was so i'm glad you explained it finally because i'll probably never see it oh no dude you gotta you gotta at least play to do that quest yeah it's so cool i have a feeling it's one of those ones where it's like actually playing it and seeing it in person is way better than like hearing it

described. Cause you're actually living it at that point. Well, there's like, like Paul was saying, there's, you'll get stuck at, uh,

where a door won't open in like the facility that's active and running. So then you can, there'll be these like kind of little glyphs or sparkly areas and you go and you can shift into the other universe and then boom, that like wall is just destroyed because of the ruins. And then you can go through and then you can shift back into the other universe and then boom that like wall is just destroyed because of the ruins and then you can go through and then you can shift back into the other area and so you navigate your way between the two realities to get to the area you need to like complete the mission which it was it was so cool the way they did that and then um i didn't know that there was a third

option paul but yeah i definitely saved my boy Raphael. So, me and him took off. And you let everyone else die? Yep. Yeah, mine was cool because if you check his corpse, he has notes. And you find out that he figured out how to merge the realities. And they give you instructions. And it's like 12 steps long.

And if you go through and do everything he says, you actually bring them together. And you get to see rafael and all of his old crew get back together and they're like crying and rafael's like i saw you all die a year ago i can't believe we're all back together oh really cool idea and then also just to talk a little bit about how new game plus works and we're going into all things spoiler obviously but the whole idea being that i i have been on record saying i hate when video games go into multi universes because then nothing matters and there's no stakes in anything this is slightly different because basically you find out your

entire purpose is to find these artifacts that give you power you collect them all in a current universe hop into a new universe and hunt down more artifacts and get even more powerful i don't know if you guys ever saw the movie the one with jet lee back in like the early 2000s oh yeah that's exactly what this game ended up being that was a movie where if you defeated yourself in another universe, you got more powerful. This is the same kind of idea. So in my first playthrough, I was very nice and rule-abiding. And then on my second playthrough, I was like, oh, I'm just a power-hungry explorer in space. I treated everyone like garbage. I came in and I was just really like, yeah, I'm powerful and I'm special.

So get out of my way. Here's where the artifacts are. I'm going to I'm special. So get out of my way. Here's where the artifacts are. I'm going to go collect them. You do all my dirty work. And I thought it was so funny to be able to play through multiple times and like have a different attitude because I felt like that's what you would get. That's what you would devolve into as you're just hopping universes. Everyone is disposable and it's just about getting more power.

So I ended up really loving the final third of starfield i thought it was very clever in how it encourages you to do new game plus and that that explains a lot why uh the hunter is the way he is too yes exactly it just explains exactly why he comes off the way he does when he's like who are you you know what are you guys doing? I'm me. And Josh, I think you're just done with Starfield at this point. Do you think you're going to go back to it at any point? There is still a part of me that wants to experience this entangled mission, to be honest with you. And I have a lot of praise for Starfield. Being away from it for like two weeks now, I will say that I think Starfield is a very good video game. I would recommend it to anybody out there. I will say, we kind of talked about this a little bit offline, that I don't know that I feel like

it is a revolutionary or very special game in that regard. It's a lot of classic Bethesda and the freedom of choice and a ton of content and stuff like that. But it's just weird because I don't have this wistfulness for Starfield like I have for games like Cyberpunk or even Skyrim, to be honest. Skyrim, I really, really got wrapped you know, wrapped up in and played a ton and Starfield's just, it didn't grab me that way. And that's, I'm not trying to slander Starfield. So don't hear what I'm not saying in that regard. I just, there wasn't anything special enough about Starfield to make me remember it fondly other than that. It's a huge sandbox where you can do just about anything you want, But I feel like there's a dozen of those games out there too. So it's a weird place because it's like,

I can appreciate how great this game is and how some people will say, this is one of the best games I've played in a really long time. But I also understand the side that there's a lot of people out there that are saying, this game is fun, but it's nothing special. And so I think I'm squarely in the middle of looking at both sides and kind of nodding my head and saying like, yeah, I get what you're saying. And it's like, I kind of understand what you're saying too. See, I would definitely say it's not revolutionary, but I would still say it's really special because it does all those things so well. And a lot of times when I hear people, and I know you're not doing this, Josh, but when I hear other people really criticize Starfield, it's usually like one specific thing.

I don't like that there's so much fast travel, or I don't like that I can't just take off into the sky and land on a planet. And it's like, okay, yes, that's true. Those things aren't in the game, but there's also 700 other things that are so good about it. And there's just so much to get into. I don't know if you feel the same or not, Ryan. I think for a lot of people, I think most of the struggle comes down to expectation. And I think if you go into this expecting Bethesda's take on the original Mass Effect trilogy, that is much more how this game plays. It is not No Man's Sky really at all.

It's much more like Mass Effect in how it operates. I'm curious to see over time as mods come in. I think that'll change things up a lot. I think similar to Cyberpunk, expectations were unachievable. And so over time, as the game improves and there's mods, I wonder if more people will jump back in and maybe find more fun. But for me, it's not a game of the year winner,

but I'm so glad that I was able to put so many hours into it. I do have to wonder, I would actually like to do this because it's kind of like Cyberpunk, where my initial playthrough of Cyberpunk, I kind of went, yeah, that's a good game. But then my playthrough a year ago, when we went back through it i was like this is one of the best games i've ever played like i have to wonder with starfield like once there are more mods and they kind of fix a lot of the the you know the little things that detract from that experience modders always fix it i mean i do wonder if like if i play starfield a year from now like am i going to be like whoa like this game is incredible

now. And so I can see that comparison and I can see how it could be that way. A little, I will say, a little behind the scenes. We may or may not have gotten to a little heated argument about the exploration of Starfield and

the fast travel nature. And I was on one side and I may or may not have switched to the other side now. I will say I was with you Paul and I was calling Josh crazy and I'm like dude you're wild man but the more

I played I put in like another 20 hours from that conversation and I just with Skyrim I could just wander and you would just run and then you run into something and you could play. Now, if I want to do that, I have to get up, I have to launch my ship, I have to fly

to another planet, I have to land, then I have to get out, then I have to go look around. It just, it's not as seamless as the exploration is on those. I still love it. I still think it's cool you can see something off in the distance you can go run and just check it out and see what's there and all the detail within the facility is amazing but i will say um i've backtracked a little bit on on the

ease of the exploration compared to those types of games yeah i mean i get it i would not call starfield an exploration game at all if you're going to this wanting exploration you're going to be disappointed i will also say it's not complicated you jump in your ship you look at something and press f and then you land and then and then you're there but at the same time there's pros and cons to all these things right me personally i don't need a game that provides me 400 hours of content where i can just land on a random planet and find procedurally generated stuff i prefer to play like the original mass effect trilogy give me all handcrafted content

i don't need to go off and explore and find random stuff i'd rather have a really good 50 hour game that's all hand all handmade and handmade. And that's not Starfield, but Starfield, you can squeeze way more hours out of than like mass effect three. If you wanted to, you could play Starfield a thousand hours and still be, you know, doing new stuff.

So I think it just comes down to whatever your inclinations are as a gamer. But at the same time, if there's something you don't like in Starfield, don't do it. You know, if you're not digging Ranger missions missions go do something else if you love dog fighting just stay in your ship keep flying to new systems and you'll keep dog fighting like you know just lean into what you like and i think you'll get more enjoyment out of it as well for sure yeah

all right well i know this episode ran a little bit longer than normal but there's just so much to talk about here this week that wraps up everything here for this week in gaming as a reminder please make sure to go check out patreon support options at multiplayer squad.com and make sure to rate and review our show we love and appreciate you all and until next time happy gaming see ya all right see everybody See ya. All right. See everybody.