Video Gamers Podcast - TWIG: E3 Extravaganza, BF2042 Hype and Halo Infinite - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: June 17, 2021

Gaming hosts Josh and Paul are back with another video game news filled episode of This Week in Gaming. This week we get a head start on the first half of E3, chat BF2042 gameplay footage, Halo Infinite thoughts, share what we’ve been playing this week and more. All the gaming news you could want, now with half the calories! Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/multiplayerpodcast Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/multiplayerpod/ Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/MultiplayerPod Visit us on the web: multiplayerpodcast.com/ 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! Hey, everyone. Thank you for listening to the Multiplayer Gaming Podcast. Each week, we release two family-friendly episodes that explore the world of gaming, and we're so glad to have you guys here with us today.

Every Thursday is a Twig episode episode standing for This Week in Gaming, and we like to break down what we've been playing lately and talk about recent gaming news. I am your host, Paul, and with me, I have my regular co-host, totally regular guy, nothing extraordinary, plain, vanilla, it's Josh. You know, Paul, you keep insulting me like that, man, vanilla. It's Josh. You know, Paul, you keep insulting me like that, man. We're going to have a problem, okay? We talked about this last episode. We did.

A man can only take so much. You got so offended that I referred to us as two regular guys, which I did not know would be an insult. So I was going to triple down on that. I love that you basically said one extra guy after that. And then was like i mean he's got he's kind of got a point yes yeah i'm fine being the plain vanilla host and josh is the uh the color commentator and you know that's that's totally fine all right so thursday this week in gaming, we usually spend the first few minutes talking about what we've been playing lately. Josh, you and I jumped into Apex Legends for the first time in ages. It did not go so well.

I thought it went great if you were the other players. Because we were the easiest squad ever to kill. I know, right? It was bananas. Apparently, if you don't play Apex for like a year year and a half you're actually not very good at it so we are a little rusty oh it was it did not go well um you remember how we were saying like we kind of had a little bit of that battle royale bug yeah yeah yeah that bugs that bugs dead is that gone it's squashed the bug yeah apparently apex has bows it has five characters i hadn't even unlocked so the last i had played was when revenant was still

new uh also i jumped into the cycle for the first time in forever you did not reinstall the cycle did you nope no okay i i i know i know myself be true to thine self you know and uh i i knew that i was done with the cycle um i you know i have been known to cave to peer pressure uh from time to time but in this case i was like no because i know how this is gonna go and one of my favorite things now is to see you guys playing the cycle and then afterwards go like so how'd your match go and then you know people are like well you know we finished second there was like some s plus ranked team on there so i'm like oh so basically yeah it's still terrible bad match making you know all that the best game to ever just be destroyed because of a lack of a player

base but it's still exactly the same. Not a single thing has changed. The game itself is incredible. Amazing concept. The cycle through of the different contracts and the whole PvEVP stuff is fantastic. But you jump in, you immediately see, oh, there's a squad, a TFZ. We're all going to get blown away. They're going to destroy. Or everyone is C- c ranked and you know

that you're gonna win by a huge margin out of all the games that i played i probably i didn't play that many it was probably like six to eight we did have one that was super competitive there were three squads all alive at the end all within 20 victory points and that was actually such a blast because it's so rare to get that in the cycle. And see, that's the problem. Yeah. You're either stuck in queue for 20 minutes or it's just not competitive. But man, that one out of eight matches was just so good. But I'm not willing to put up with seven bad matches just to get there. And see, that's my point, right? Because back in the glory days, and there's a reason that we talk about the cycle a lot, because back in the glory days, nine out of 10 matches were those super close.

Oh my goodness, we just pulled that out by the skin of our teeth, that kind of stuff. It was very rare to have the bad matchmaking where you just knew that you had no chance at all of competing in this match. And now it's like, number one, I don't want to sit in queue for 10 minutes waiting for that match only to load into the lobby to see this super high-ranked team because there's only 40 people left in the world that are playing this game. And honestly, the developers of the cycle owe our friend Brandon a Christmas card because I don't think anybody out there has lobbied so hard to try to keep that game alive as Brandon has. It's like part of me is like, oh, that's so cute. Like Brandon really

loves this game. And then the other part of me is just like, dude, this is so sad. Like Brandon, he just can't let it die. Like I feel like, I mean, you're familiar with the show Pet Cemetery, right? Stephen King, Pet Cemetery. I know of it, but I don't know any of the details. like i feel like i mean you're familiar with the show pet cemetery right stephen king pet cemetery i know i know of it but i don't know any of the details oh wow paul as far as you love movies so it's like a haunted graveyard with yes you can take your pet to the pet cemetery and if you bury it it will come back to life okay but then it comes back all freaky what could go wrong right exactly right what could go i feel like brandon is the guy that's carrying the cycle to the pet cemetery because he's like, I'll never let you go. I'll never let you go.

Meanwhile, the rigor mortis has set in. There's flies everywhere. This thing's going to come back and claw you in the eyes, man. Just let it die well and the crazy thing because we didn't talk about this last week but i did play a little bit of the cycle alpha because the game's going back into development they're making a lot of changes they they do have you agree to an nda so you know i won't share any of my thoughts about it but the game you know if you just look up any details, you can see they're basically turning it into a clone of Escape from Tarkov, which I know my initial impression was that I was a little confused because the animation style implies fast action, arcade style shooting.

But then to have Tarkov mechanics seemed like that would be kind of odd. But it's still an early development. It looks like they're going to make major changes. I don't blame them because the cycle's dead. If they don't do anything, it's already dead. You can't really mess it up. But the one thing I will say is that our friend Brandon is definitely appreciating the cycle for what it is right now. So I think he's trying to squeeze in as much time as he can while he still has his favorite game available trying to make those memories as fast as he can exactly i'm honestly impressed that he has sucked you guys back in i saw four of you guys playing earlier today

yeah and i was like kudos to brandon because this never would have happened without his lobbying yeah no absolutely uh that all being said i don't know if we're gonna have any more Brandon because this never would have happened without his lobbying. Yeah, no, absolutely. That all being said, I don't know if we're going to have any more four person squads, but maybe we'll see. What about you, Josh? What have you been up to outside of our couple of rounds of Apex that did not go well? Yeah, those were terrible. So I told you about my experience with Tainted Grail, this like customizable roguelike card game. And I loved it for like eight hours, and then I was done with it. So one of our users, shout out to Papa Thunderfist, because he was like, hey, Josh, you should look at this game called Griftlands. And I was like, what is this? And he's like, he tells me, and he's like, it's a roguelike card-based combat, card-based negotiation with random interactions that can occur on the map and stuff like that.

He was like, it's super fun. I really think you'd like it. So I picked it up, got it for $9 because Epic, thank you for that $10 coupon, Epic. So I got it for like $9. And this is the game that i've been looking for man oh yeah so it's super super good anybody that's into that genre go check out grift lands it is very well done i mean you can get it super cheap right now it's getting like nine out of tens on some of the game review websites um Yeah, it's very well done.

It's a lot of fun. It has a lot of replayability, which Tainted Grail to me really didn't have. My only complaint is that it's a little easy. I think there is options for higher difficulty, but I think it's just that I'm so amazing at these card games. That must be it.

You know, that it's really just that, I mean, my expertise just really shines through, even if I'm new amazing at these card games. That must be it. You know, that it's really just, I mean, my expertise just really shines through, even if I'm new to the game. Yeah, yeah. So I did beat it on my first playthrough as far as the first run goes, but it was a lot of fun. But yeah, I wish I could up the difficulty a little bit.

But yeah, anybody that likes that genre like me, highly recommend checking it out. Like I said, shout out to Papa Thunderfist for the recommendation because I am liking it. Yeah. And if you guys want to be at the forefront of seeing those kinds of recommendations, come join our free Discord. There's a link in the podcast description. You can visit our website, multiplayerpodcast.com. It'll take you right there to our Discord.

And you can join it for free. Now, Papa Thunderfist, we do appreciate good suggestions. I might have a little bit of a bone to pick, because does this mean, Josh, that you are no longer playing Bloodstained? Or are you going back to it? Because as soon as I saw in my Discord, I did not see what he suggested, but I saw you type, oh, that looks awesome. I'm definitely going to download it and play it right now or something.

I did download it and play it instantly. Yes. I was like, this is going to steer him away from Bloodstained. You know I have. That's why, Paul, you know me so well, because my game ADD, basically, if I don't play a game for like three days straight, the chances of me ever playing that game again are slim to none. I don't think I'm done with Bloodstained yet.

I don't know that I will completely finish it. How long is that game? That's my question. It's like a 30-hour game. It's pretty long. Okay. So the chances of me beating Bloodstained are like seven and a half percent. So this is why we have you play games like Operation Tango.

You'll finish it if it's a three-hour game. I go from playing, yes, and that's the thing. But then the other day, I fully admitted to playing that Tainted Grill for eight hours straight. And Paul, I don't know about you, but we had the most marathon session of Satisfactory yesterday. Oh my goodness. It was all day. It was all day long. It really was. The thing that

cracked me up the most is you and I were trying to plan how we were going to build our newly built base or redo everything because that's kind of part of what you have to do in that. You said, Josh, right now I have the IQ of like 40 because we had been staring at this game and planning

everything out for hours and we just got like brain dumb. Dude, I was almost a math major. I love math. Math is my number one gifting. Like, this is why I love science. I was a chemistry major because it's the most, you know, math. Well, I guess physics is more math. But, you know, I really loved math and science. And we were playing Satisfactory. and I'm staring at this thing, like, struggling to do 240 divided by eight. And then two minutes later, I'm like, how do I get from splitting one line into eight? And literally, all you have to do is just double, double, double,

go one, two, four, eight. And you were there with me, Josh. I ran back and forth looking at our other factory, and I was really struggling, man. And it's rare for me to do anything like that. It was just hilarious because I felt you so much. I dreamed about Satisfactory last night, Paul. That's how much we played. I was playing this game in my sleep, man.

It was so terrible. I mean, it was a lot of fun, but yes. Paul, the plastic's the choke. We need more plastic. Oh, man. That stupid plastic, man. I mean, it was a lot of fun, but yes. Paul, the plastic's the choke. We need more plastic. Oh, man, that stupid plastic, man. But yeah, I'll either go from major marathon gaming sessions of eight hours in one day to playing a game a little bit here and there and then just never touching it again, man. There's just really no in-between for me with the exception of a very, very few games. Gotcha.

All right, well, we have a lot to talk about this week, so let's take a short break here and hear from one of our sponsors. This episode of the Multiplayer Gaming Podcast is brought to you by the Blizzard Gear Store by Fanatics. If you're a long-term listener of the show, you know how much we love Blizzard games here. We even have Overwatch as our number one game on our leaderboard. And I've got great news for you guys out there. You can actually help support our show by purchasing Blizzard gear

through multiplayerpodcast.com forward slash blizzard store. There is clothing for men, women, and children. There's collectibles, toys, so much stuff to browse through and look at. I was taking a look and saw you can order a replica of Genji sword that you can hang on your wall. There's Lego sets, D.Va onesies. What more could you guys want? So please check it out at multiplayerpodcast.com forward slash blizzard store now back to the show all right josh we have a week that is just absolutely jam-packed with news courtesy of e3 we are actually recording this like almost exactly halfway through e3 yeah so we can address what happens the first couple of days if there's any major news that came out of Nintendo Direct,

we just don't know about it yet because it happens later this week. So I thought it would be good to just leave you plenty of room, Josh. Let's just go into Battlefield 21. I'm sorry, Battlefield 2042 first. Yes. Because I know that this is the game

you want to talk about the most. I am so excited is the game you want to talk about the most. I am so excited for this game. The trailer, like the cinematic trailer that they released looked really good. So many throwbacks to old school Battlefield moments. It really gave me hope for this to kind of turn the series around. I've made it no secret that I'm much more of a Battlefield fan than I am a Call of Duty fan. They finally showed off gameplay today, and I loved every second of it. I mean, it looked like chaos on top of chaos, which is exactly what Battlefield should be. There was guys jumping off of 100-story tall skyscrapers. There was tanks being dropped down

by commanders. So it seems like maybe the commander role is back. It's just there. They showed every vehicle, all the infantry stuff. There was this super cool moment where these guys are in an elevator going up to the top of a skyscraper and they're changing their

loadout while they're riding up this elevator. So you don't have to die before you can change their loadout while they're riding up this elevator so you don't have to die before you can change your loadout so you can play you know long range sniping medium range engagement and then you can go down to like the street level swap out your attachments on the fly and now you're ready for close quarter combat i thought that was amazing i loved everything that i saw about the gameplay revealed. They showed the big twister thing that's going to destroy maps. They talked about how weather is really going to influence each map and the combat and stuff like that. At one point,

they showed a helicopter getting sucked up into the twister. And I was just like, dude, that was such a cool moment. Because if that's how it plays out in the map, that's going to be great. I think it just I'm super pumped for it. You know, it looks as good as I was kind of hoping that it would. So one of the big things about 2042 is that if you have the old PS4 or Xbox One, it'll only be up to a 64-player match. But if you're on PC or a next-gen console, it's bigger and better, question mark? 128 people. How do you feel about matches being 64 v. 64?

I will say this. That's probably the one thing that I'm not super pumped about. I was much more of the 32 versus 32. That's a lot of people. It's a lot of people. And I do like that you can be tactical in Battlefield. And I always felt like the somewhat smaller maps, like I said, the 32 versus 32 to me was perfect because it gave you that ability to be tactical. It was not just this spray and pray fest of bullets flying everywhere and you're dying every three seconds. I mean, you could work as a squad. You could move from point A to point B without being seen. And when there's 128 people on a map, I worry a little bit. It's still not

going to keep me from getting this game and playing a ton, but that is one of my few concerns about it right now. Now, there is still a lot for them to reveal and for us to learn about this. So I might be excited right now. I hope that doesn't change, but we'll see. Because like I said, not a fan of Battlefield 1, not a fan of Battlefield 5. Battlefield 4 was pretty good. I had fun with that game, you know, but it's been Battlefield 4 was the last Battlefield that I was, you know, really just enjoyed playing on a regular basis. So I am very optimistic with a side of caution still. I hear you. Yeah, 4 is the last one that I really actually played.

I think at one point we downloaded 5 like with the xbox game pass or something we played it for like a day i think yeah i didn't play it very much so i don't really know a whole lot of what they've done lately in battlefield but in watching the gameplay with this one it definitely seems like they focused a little more on gadgets so it was almost a little reminiscent of warzone where warzone added a lot of things like you know the the the heartbeat monitor and like some more electronic stuff so in this trailer for 2042 we saw bombs with detonators so like it gets put on a car they fly a car off a ledge detonate the bomb we saw a grapple hook which apparently grapple hooks are the new big thing because we're also going to talk about halo

infinite in a few minutes i did get excited about the grapple hook the guys the guy grapple hook hooking up to the top of that crane to get the sniper yeah yeah that was neat uh there's also a wingsuit that one of the classes will have access to there's also a healing pistol now let me ask you how do you feel about games having healing pistols like Otta in Overwatch or having a medic shoot healing darts into players? Because it's very goofy if you think about it. It is a goofy mechanic, but it is a shooter game. So I'm okay with it.

I can suspend my disbelief in a game like Battlefield, where skyscrapers are crashing and people are jumping from rooftops into moving helicopters and stuff like that. Or jumping out of airplanes and then back into them. Yeah, exactly. So I'm okay with that part of it. I mean, the only thing with that is that the time to kill has to be high enough

that somebody shooting me in the butt with healing darts is actually going to matter. Because if two bullets or one headshot kills me instantly, what good is having a medic on your team? Unless they can revive too, which is fine then, you know, but I'd like having different classes. That's one of the things that I'm really excited about with Battlefield 6, or I'm sorry, 2042. I got to start calling it 2042 now. Yeah. There's 10 different classes.

So I like that. I saw some people complaining about that. And I'm like, dude, to me, that gives replayability. It gives longevity. It gives you better squad building mechanics because you can build out how you want. People can find that niche that they naturally fit into. I'm a big fan of that.

I don't know why people would complain about it personally, but, you know, to each their own, I guess. But I, you know, I'm excited for it, man. I think there's a lot that they are showing that looks right. I just hope it's, you know, it's back to the older Battlefields. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Because I know we were such big fans now there are also going to be three modes in battlefield which is kind of neat so they have all-out warfare

by the way great name i like that more than calling it conquest or something all-out warfare is fantastic they also have another mode called hazard zone which they give the most generic description they say that it is a squad-based multiplayer experience. Great. I don't know what that means. I'm curious to find out more. And they have a third mode that we don't yet have any details on. But they have said none of them will be Battle Royale. See, I was chatting with a guy earlier today, and they were talking about when are they going to reveal the battle royale for battlefield and i went i i thought they said that they there wasn't going to be and he just went there they

have to like they have to have a battle royale to compete with war zone and i disagree man i like maybe we're just out of the battle royale like love right now but to me i think it's a super overdone genre right now like we saw it was an ubisoft that tried to make hyperscape and that game just flopped i mean that game was terrible like it wasn't terrible in the way that it was built it was just that hey man i'm either gonna play apex i'm gonna play war zone maybe i'm still playing a little bit of pub g over there but i didn't really offer much right you know and and that's the thing is it's like i don't know that this genre is going to be able to have new games enter it and do very well because i feel like it's just the top two behemoths and that's apex and war zone and when you get tired of those

two what about fortnight josh oh you left out the number one game of all time the most profitable And that's Apex and Warzone. And when you get tired of those two... What about Fortnite, Josh? You left out the number one game of all time. The most profitable game, most played. The number one game of all time. I hope you felt dirty just saying that, Paul. I hope, you know, you need to wash your mouth out, buddy. I'm sorry. Yeah, so Battlefield 2042 will be releasing in october of this year uh fingers crossed yeah and we will absolutely cover that one on the show i mean i can say that now we will definitely deep

dive battlefield so that one will certainly be on our radar and then you know i guess we need to make a little bit of time for the rest of e3 because you know we've only talked about battlefield so let's talk a little bit about halo infinite So they did confirm that multiplayer will be free to play. You'll be able to buy a separate campaign. And we got some more gameplay footage of multiplayer. What'd you think? I said in chat that there was nothing that really impressed me about what they showed. Now, I'll say this. I'm a little biased because of our recent bad experience with the Master Chief Collection. So maybe I'm a little jaded. A little tainted.

Yeah. Maybe I'm a little just bitter about the recency of the terribleness that was that. So I need to probably go back and review my fond memories of Halo multiplayer in my head a little bit. The way that they showed off the multiplayer didn't really show off a whole lot to me. There was a couple little moments where there was a guy that somebody was behind a shield with a turret maybe, and somebody was shooting that shield. They had a really great sticky bomb throw that landed on somebody, and then that landed behind the shield. It just, you know, there was some aim down sights, but then again, it only looked like it was on the battle rifle, which already had aim down sights. So I'm not sure if they're going to have aim down sights in Halo Infinite.

And that worries me. I don't know if that's just a weird coincidence or if it wasn't given any thought, but that was my number one concern where I said, I still don't know what is going to have aim down sights and what doesn't. However, I will say I was a little surprised that your reaction was a little bit more negative because to me, it was just like good old-fashioned Halo. It was the good old sticky bombs. You hear the announcer yelling out all the different statuses. The announcer was great. I was very happy to see that the announcer was back. You see the guy get out the sword and then assassinate someone.

It's what we've been talking about, right? We loved Halo back in the day. We just want it brought into 2021. And that's what this looked like to me. The grapple hook I know was very ho-hum in its acceptance a couple months ago. This I thought kind of highlighted a little more of what it can do because there are like ships and things in the air and you can grapple them

and use it to either get around the map or to get into the vehicle and fly it i thought that was really neat there was the they did showcase the grapple hook a lot better this time and i was pumped for that there were there was two parts that really stood out to my to me one of those was like you said the guy grappling i think it was a banshee or something, and just reach it. So the enemy was piloting it. He grapple hooks up to it and then does the thing where you yank the guy out of the vehicle and steal it from him. I was like, okay, that was really cool. And then there was another moment where one guy killed the other guy and then grapple hooked his weapon and then just instantly equipped that weapon on the fly. And that was another really cool moment. I was like, okay, I'm starting to see some of the cool stuff that you can do with this. I just need to see that this

is like 21st century, you know, like gameplay, because again, you could do all that stuff in the Master Chief Collection. You could do all that in Halo Reach, right? You had your, you know, your energy swords and you had your sticky bombs and stuff like that. But that gameplay, to me, felt very, very dated. They have to up the feel of the combat and the movement and the mechanics. I don't know how they do that. That's on them to figure out. And if they can, then wonderful. And I'm all about it. And I love the fact that it on them to figure out and if they can then wonderful and i'm all about

it and i love the fact that it's free to play for multiplayer like there's nothing to risk right so that is a very very smart thing that they did because if you can land people into the multiplayer and have them have fun with that i think a lot of people are going to be much more likely to buy the campaign at that point you know and so i i am excited for it i don't mean to sound negative about it it's just that there wasn't anything that i saw in this demo or this trailer that made me go like oh yeah baby you know so i hear you yeah yeah for me i just felt like if it's exactly the same old halo with modern controls and hopefully aim down sights, you know, that that's all I'm asking for.

Now, this game is still supposed to come out this year. We don't have a release date. They say it'll be out for the holidays. So this one's probably going to be relatively close to Battlefield. I'm guessing this one's probably going to be November. So, you know, we should have it before Christmas and we will certainly cover that on the show also. And that one will be free. So hopefully we'll have lots of matchmaking going on within our Discord server and lots of listeners playing with us. Oh yeah, which is great. That's why I'm really

looking forward to some of these bigger multiplayer games because it just lends itself. And that's like Battlefield, right? Like one of the things I look for there is that we can have any number of people playing. Like nobody gets left out. Nobody feels like, oh, they have a full squad already. Like it's easy to join. Form up a squad. Doesn't matter if you're a two-man squad. You can roll with us until that squad fills up or whatever. But that is going to be very nice to have some larger multiplayer games to play. Yeah. Well, we are actually basically out of time josh so there's a few things that are getting scrapped from the list we were going to talk about elden ring oh that's like an action rpg you might want to take a look at pumped for that game man i know that's not up

your alley paul but this game this game was giving me like chill bumps, man, watching this trailer on this. I was just geeking out. A funny thing about Elden Ring is that the story is being written by George R.R. Martin. And the only thing I wrote in my notes is, Josh, is he ever going to release another Game of Thrones book? No. when I heard this was, you know, get back to writing Winds of Winter. You know, what is he doing? You know, doing more work outside of Game of Thrones. But Elden Ring is one you might want to check out. And then also there is an Xbox mini fridge that is coming out. And it appears to hold maybe 10 cans of soda. This thing's very small.

I can't believe this is actually a thing. But even Microsoft poked fun at it and said in the trailer, yes, this is really happening. I've been kind of in the market for a little mini fridge, Paul. I'm not going to lie. It depends on the price. My favorite part is that it shows on the left side in text, Xbox Velocity Cooling Architecture. I'm like, dude, it's a refrigerator. This is not new technology. We don't care it's a refrigerator. This is not new technology.

We don't care how it gets cooled. This is nothing new. I cracked up about that, man. That was very funny. Yeah, like throwing out, almost like it's a graphics card or something. Alright, well, thanks for listening, everyone. Please make sure to subscribe to the podcast, rate us five stars, and

leave a review. Also, if you'd like to consider supporting the show head over to multiplayer squad.com you can get some awesome perks you get a shout out on the show and also come join our discord servers so you can chat with me and josh and other listeners of the show we would love to have you guys there and then we will be back on mond for a bonus round episode. Yep. See you, everybody.