0:00

Coming up on today's show,

0:02

GTA six has been leaked.

0:04

Diablo four has been leaked again,

0:07

and NVIDIA dropped some new hardware.

0:28

What's good, everybody, and welcome

0:30

to another episode of the What's Good

0:32

Games podcast. your source of

0:34

video in news commentary, analysis, and funniest

0:37

up every Friday. I'm Andrea Renee

0:39

join by one Welcome

0:42

back. Hello. Thank you. Thank you. Good

0:44

to see you looking ferocious today.

0:46

I love it. Thank you. Appreciate it.

0:48

Britney, once again took a sip of whiskey

0:51

during the intro and made a wonderful phase.

0:53

Pretty proud of everybody. Yay. What's

0:55

up? Yay. back

0:58

up in the Pacific Northwest, and

1:00

we are joined by a fantastic special

1:02

guest, the one and only Steve Spot is

1:04

here. It's like rack.

1:06

Darn it. I also don't

1:08

have a drink, so but cheers to

1:11

you, Britney, and cheers to you. So Steven,

1:13

spawn for those who aren't familiar is

1:16

the face of able

1:18

gamers, a fantastic group

1:20

that is making video games more

1:22

accessible for people who

1:24

have disabilities but also making game

1:26

developers more aware of all the tools that

1:28

they could be using to make their games more accessible.

1:31

So kind of a two pronged approach. But,

1:33

Steve, we are excited that you are here today.

1:35

I was just streaming with you couple

1:37

of days ago on your channel for your big

1:39

forty second birthday to me. Oh,

1:42

good. Happy birthday. You

1:44

don't sound so excited about being old. I, you

1:46

know, it depends

1:47

what time of the day it is. If I'm trying

1:49

you know, like, I missed the day of getting

1:51

carted, that was great. So

1:53

Oh, man. Those days are over for me too, man.

1:55

don't believe that's too bad. I just got carted

1:57

the other day. Oh, that must've felt good. Wow.

1:59

Every time

2:02

somebody asks for my ID, when I buy

2:04

a restricted product, I say, thank

2:06

you. Got blessed me by asking for

2:08

my identification. But

2:10

we are glad that you're here. You had kind of

2:12

a big month, Steve. You were on

2:15

a roll doing all kinds of streams

2:17

and all kinds of public appearances because

2:19

you were on a mission to raise

2:21

a crazy amount of

2:22

money. Yep. Every September

2:25

since the twenty twenty years I've

2:27

been doing in the vet club spawn together

2:29

where I basically rally the Internet to

2:32

try to raise a million dollars for able

2:34

gamers to be able to keep doing the mission

2:36

of helping people gain. And, you

2:38

know, it's it's a hard year. There's

2:40

lot of people who are into financial

2:42

plates, but so far, we're up to you little

2:45

over two hundred thousand dollars. Wow. So

2:48

Wow.

2:48

Wow. Amazing. Amazing. Indeed.

2:51

That is phenomenal. I

2:53

don't know how you do it. I get tired

2:55

just watching you tweet

2:56

as much as you do from me, honestly.

2:59

I mean, There's a there's a guy on

3:01

one of the streams I visited the other day. And

3:03

he did the normal thing. Every streamer does. Oh,

3:05

yeah. So go ahead and see you here. Nice to, you know,

3:07

Steve. We got you started this the other the other. And

3:09

then said all the nice things everybody does. And then

3:11

he goes into, man, I just wanna say thank you

3:13

because, like, I know it's really hard to do all this,

3:15

and I can't believe you have strength to keep sending

3:18

out those messages. I swear to God, I almost cried.

3:20

I was like, someone will be rinky dust. This isn't

3:22

easy.

3:22

Yeah. We were just talking about that before

3:24

we started recording. on how

3:26

just being a content creator by

3:28

itself, which you are, is

3:31

exhausting physically and mentally.

3:33

And then on top of that, you're running

3:35

this amazing charity, you're doing

3:37

all these developer initiatives, and

3:40

you've somehow find time to

3:43

play games with friends and then you sleep

3:45

maybe an hour or two weeks. No.

3:46

I don't have a baby, so that helps. No.

3:49

But I get one of those,

3:51

it's all over. That that seem as y'all

3:53

do now. It's just a matter of prioritizing your

3:55

time and trying to keep the burn out away. And, you

3:57

know, this is all the you know, whatever

3:59

which drama's happening lately. The other

4:01

things for that was people did go

4:03

into burnout, and it's not something we

4:05

talk about in the three, but, you know, it's something

4:08

that every content creator fights. And I

4:10

think it's just important that we always remind people

4:12

that it's pretty normal to feel in industry.

4:15

Oh, thank you. Absolutely.

4:15

I needed to hear that one myself.

4:20

Yeah. It's one of those things I think we

4:22

as content creators don't stop to

4:24

acknowledge and don't give ourselves enough

4:27

breaks because the demand for

4:30

performing is ever present. And

4:32

it feels like the next thing

4:34

is always right around the corner if you're not

4:36

constantly pushing the envelope that

4:38

you're gonna miss it. you know, and none of us wanna

4:40

miss anything at the same time, you know, I gotta take

4:42

care of you as well. So hopefully, you're

4:44

finding some time to do that, you know, this

4:47

month even though you're obviously taking

4:49

time to hang up with us to do our show,

4:51

which we're going to get into. And

4:54

we're gonna chat more with Steve about what

4:56

he's been up to a little bit later on in

4:58

the show. I wanna say thank you to this

5:00

month's Patreon producers, Chuy's Gatson,

5:02

Alex Eucapulos, Ferrisatilla, Justin

5:04

Fochi, and Punctivide, and punk defined,

5:07

a really funny thing happened as I hovered over

5:09

your name in our show notes. Google Docs wanted

5:11

to auto correct it to funk defined.

5:13

I like that. Oh. Which

5:15

if you're ever looking for an alternate moniker,

5:18

a fairly good catheter. If you're a function is

5:20

the way to become function of something.

5:23

I like it. It's a next evolution. And

5:25

welcome to our Patreon community MJ3

5:28

If you guys want to support our voices and video

5:30

games, patreon dot com slash what's good games is

5:32

the place to do it. And a pretty we

5:34

got some really lovely new reviews

5:36

as well. Oh, shout out

5:37

to Ed Garza eighty eight, backlog

5:40

cinema, and Giddyo says,

5:42

again. It really means a lot to us when we see

5:44

these reviews. We talked about it last week.

5:46

We got a really, really kind review from someone

5:48

where our podcast helped introduce her to the

5:51

video games and she was able then to kinda

5:53

chat about him with their husband and be a

5:55

part of, you know, like that hobby of his and

5:57

now they share it together and it's really

5:59

these kind messages, you know, we were just talking

6:01

about burnout. You know, sometimes it just gives

6:03

you that little extra push you need. It gives you that

6:06

little motivation. You know, it brings me

6:08

to my desk every week, so I can give you under your friendly

6:10

shit about stuff because I love her so much. Okay.

6:12

You know, it's my love language. She's a little bit.

6:14

What would I do without all of the ribbing

6:17

from Brit You

6:18

must Probably be sad. Yeah. He'd

6:20

be

6:20

so sad. He definitely wouldn't laugh as much.

6:23

That's for sure. Speaking of laughing, I

6:25

posted a clip on my Twitter feed

6:27

this week if you all missed it. From a

6:29

a Patreon exclusive after

6:31

hours stream that Britney and I did last

6:33

year, And I was going through one

6:35

of what's good old hard drive folders,

6:38

like trying to clear out some old files. And I

6:40

saw this file and I was like, what was And

6:42

I watched it and I was like, this is

6:44

amazing. We clearly had done

6:46

the happy hour stream right before

6:48

because we were very tipsy. that

6:50

podcast. And I decided

6:52

to try out a bunch of voice moths on this

6:55

voice mod system that John installed on the computer

6:57

and polarity in suits, so if you missed it.

6:59

Oh, man. Was that the one where he had the big deep end

7:01

voice? Yes. Oh, oh, that made

7:03

me poo. That was bad. Yes. Maybe

7:06

it'll make an appearance during the show sometime. Who

7:08

could say? Thank you to HelloFresh for

7:11

sponsoring this episode. We'll tell you more out

7:13

them in just a little bit. But for now, let's jump

7:15

into the news because boy oh boy, there was a couple

7:17

big stories. I mean, last week, there was some

7:19

massive news happening coming out of TGS,

7:22

but this week's news is

7:24

not as positive, but

7:27

probably arguably bigger. Mhmm.

7:29

So I'm sure y'all saw.

7:32

that GTA six, Grand Theft Auto

7:34

six, the upcoming game that Rockstar Games

7:36

has acknowledged is in development, had

7:39

over ninety video clips

7:41

leaked online via

7:43

a hacker. And it

7:45

was probably the biggest

7:48

breach of video game

7:50

clips that I've ever seen.

7:52

Oh, yeah. And hearing that it was

7:55

a GTA six when this news first broke.

7:57

I was shocked because we

7:59

just talked about how Take Two has

8:01

infamously strict codes

8:03

around security and even

8:05

when we get to prerelease code which is

8:07

very rare by the way. Rock star

8:10

just does not do previews. That's

8:12

just not what they do. They're like, our games are good.

8:14

You're gonna buy them. We don't need to show it to press

8:16

ahead of But when they do it, it's a

8:18

really small group of press. And

8:21

I know a lot of peers had mentioned the

8:23

lengths she had to go to when she was previewing

8:26

red dead redemption two, and we went through something

8:28

very similar where the legal agreement

8:30

they send you, that you have to agree

8:32

to in order to get COVID ahead of launches

8:35

is wild. So to hear this happen was like,

8:37

kind of like, okay. This is crazy.

8:39

So the story this write up comes from Polycom.

8:41

I'm not gonna read the whole thing. But essentially,

8:44

they confirmed that they suffered network

8:46

intrusion over the weekend

8:48

and more than ninety clips of the in development

8:51

game were published on a Grand Theft Auto

8:53

Forum and is considered one of the largest

8:55

leagues in video game history stream. So they posted

8:57

a response on Twitter. The response says,

8:59

we recently suffered a network intrusion

9:02

in which an unauthorized authorized third party

9:04

illegally accessed and downloaded confidential

9:07

information from our systems, including

9:09

early development footage for the next Grand

9:11

Theft Auto. At this time, we do not

9:13

anticipate any disruption to our live game

9:15

services nor any long term effects on

9:17

the development of our ongoing projects.

9:20

We are extremely disappointed. I

9:24

love the use of that phrase. Extremely disappointed

9:27

Sorry, dad. Right. Exactly.

9:30

To have any details of our next game shared with

9:32

you in this way. Our work on the next

9:34

Grant Faddle Game will continue as planned

9:36

and remain. We remain as committed as ever

9:38

to delivering an experience to you are players

9:40

that truly exceeds your expectations. We

9:43

will update everyone again soon. And of course, we're properly

9:45

introduced to this next game when it is ready. We

9:47

want to thank everyone for their ongoing support through this

9:49

situation. Yeah. Damn. Damn.

9:52

You know? I mean, the bummer. It's a bummer for

9:54

multitude of reasons. But I think the most fascinating

9:57

there's a lot of things are fascinated about this. But

9:59

what I was really surprised by was just

10:01

the reaction to this, particularly

10:04

from fans of Rockstar Games.

10:06

It blows my mind how many folks

10:08

just unaware of the game development process.

10:11

And when we say that it's a miracle that

10:13

games get made in the first place, you know, we're

10:15

not being cheeky and silly. It's a very,

10:17

very complicated processor. so many

10:19

moving parts, so many intricate details that

10:21

you don't think of. And I only saw a few

10:23

photos from this leak. I didn't know there were ninety

10:25

videos until I read this article. That's just mind

10:28

blowing. But from what I did see, obviously,

10:30

you know, you're seeing a game in a very

10:32

early development process, and

10:34

you're probably there's no context to

10:36

any of this. So you don't really even

10:38

know what you're looking at. And just to see

10:41

the way some people reacted to this,

10:43

they're like, oh, it looks so bad. It looks so

10:45

unfinished. Look at the way that person's walking.

10:47

Except it didn't look bad. It looked

10:49

really freaking good. Do you know considering

10:52

where they're at and developed it? Like, that's

10:54

it. It looked amazing. Oh, you didn't have things

10:56

that's what people don't understand. Right?

10:58

They see this thinking this is what the game's gonna

11:00

look like when it comes out, like, in years,

11:02

I don't know, It just goes to show we have a really

11:04

long way to go and this is probably a conversation

11:07

for a different time, but it makes me wonder how

11:09

do you remedy this in a sense

11:11

of you how do you open up the doors

11:13

and show folks like, hey, this is how games are made.

11:15

This is why it's a really convoluted

11:18

intricate process that you just have to understand

11:20

it all works out at the end. Oh, sometimes sometimes

11:22

it doesn't let's be real. Yeah. So I don't know.

11:25

It was just really interesting and it really opened

11:27

my eyes and man, there's just so many people

11:29

out there who just don't have an idea

11:32

of all the work that goes into a game,

11:34

especially on the scale of Grand Theft Auto six.

11:36

think one thing that would help it. And and you

11:38

ask a really important question, like, how

11:41

do we fix this? Right? How does the audience

11:43

become more familiar with what games look

11:45

like as they're in development? And It's

11:47

hard. Right? Because one hand, you don't wanna show

11:49

a game before it's ready. You don't wanna show it and give

11:52

a bad impression, which is why this is such

11:54

a monumental league. for

11:56

rockstar. But at the same time,

11:58

it's really important for people who are enthusiasts.

12:01

Right? Like the die hards, the people who are searching

12:03

for all of these nine d clips online, to

12:05

understand what they're actually seeing.

12:07

Right? Like, as you all know, like,

12:10

as as everybody in this call knows, games

12:12

and development are rarely done visually,

12:14

and they are really fun when you play them. Honestly,

12:16

like, it's still testing out mechanics. Like,

12:19

things aren't final. Everything's broken.

12:21

Like, you it's it's not a playable game yet

12:23

because it's not done. Right? So it's

12:25

like asking somebody like, hey, how does

12:27

my cake taste and it's just flour and eggs?

12:29

It's not great. You know what I mean? Like,

12:31

the pieces that go into

12:32

it. Yeah. So, like, maybe there's a

12:34

there's a moment once the game is released

12:36

to, like, see the concept art which is

12:39

always beautiful, but then also some of the prototype

12:41

which are broken and janky. And maybe

12:43

there's story to be told there. I know Rev

12:45

Valentine tweeted also, I think

12:47

earlier today, hey, devs. My

12:49

my d m's are open. Like, tell me what games

12:52

look like two years before they're ready. Like, show

12:54

me pictures if you can and aerial

12:56

night who made aerial night's never yield. replied.

12:58

And the two years before and when

13:00

it was at or at least look very, very different. And

13:03

of course, people who have seen GameDev in

13:05

progress know this, but it's hard for public

13:07

to really understand what a

13:09

product looks like before it's even close to being

13:11

shipped. Steve, you

13:12

see games in progress all the time?

13:14

You know, the problem that I think we're gonna

13:17

in your two faces that the developers

13:19

don't want to show things early

13:21

because if they do, they get harassment

13:24

and death threats because it's exactly

13:26

what the public wanted, but then

13:28

we get the finished product and

13:30

people are upset because it took forever to

13:32

get there. So the gamer audience

13:35

has really put developers into a corner

13:37

where it's really hard to win this scenario

13:39

here. So you see a game early

13:42

and there's so many NDAs of games

13:44

that have scene and and you all have seen games early

13:46

too. So, you know, it's it's just gray building

13:48

blocks. There's no color. There's

13:50

no video game there. It's literally

13:52

what through. They've got place folders

13:54

there where it says funny comment here

13:56

or voice line there, and you have

13:58

to just imagine what it's gonna look like.

14:00

And the GTA six week was

14:02

so far ahead of that. But you know that means

14:05

if that's their early build. And what they're

14:07

actually going to come out with is gonna be great.

14:09

But still had people on the Internet who were like,

14:11

I could do this better because me and

14:13

my auto mechanic job. I know what developers

14:16

really need to do, and it's like, you know,

14:18

you don't. And so in my

14:20

section of the world wide site for the accessibility

14:23

more than just the development, it's run into

14:25

the same thing constantly where people just know

14:27

that they know better than the people who do it

14:29

for years. And I don't know how you fight that

14:31

kind of

14:32

I think you kind of have to just ignore it

14:34

knowing that you're doing innovative

14:36

work and that your previous games sold

14:39

over hundred million copies. think over a hundred and

14:41

thirty million copies. So they're

14:43

fine. I think, you know, devs are always

14:45

gonna take it personally just like we as

14:48

creators also take it personally

14:50

when people attack us even if we know

14:52

that we do good work. It still

14:54

hurts when people attack you. Right? And

14:57

All I hope is that the team at rockstar

15:00

can bounce back from this and say, hey, you know what?

15:02

I'm gonna adjust it off. Gonna just keep

15:04

going knowing that our game is gonna be amazing,

15:06

and all you have to do is look at previous

15:08

work from the studio to know that GTA

15:11

six is gonna probably be everything and more.

15:14

Once they finally do intend to

15:16

show it. So just another quick blurb

15:18

about this surprising no one.

15:20

The FBI is looking into this hack because

15:22

the hack worker. Well, I'm not going to name

15:24

because they can go fuck themselves.

15:27

Also, hacked some other big

15:29

people in the industry, not in the video games

15:31

industry. should say in the just general

15:34

corporate world dealings. So

15:36

if you wanna learn more about what's happening

15:38

with the hacker, you can go

15:40

look at your own, but I would encourage you not to because,

15:43

why? Don't give them anymore clicks. Speaking

15:45

of hackers, that's

15:47

not why DHL will four was leaked

15:49

on the Internet. Instead, it was one

15:51

of their own employees getting

15:55

completely, like, thrown into the bus

15:57

by a friend. So let me tell you guys

15:59

about the Diablo four league.

16:01

So this actually isn't the first league. Diablo

16:03

four has had a couple other happen

16:06

earlier on in the summer, but

16:09

they had some footage which

16:11

appears to have originated from the ongoing

16:13

friends and family beta version of the game

16:16

labeled a private test build, leaked

16:18

on Reddit with forty three

16:20

minutes of gameplay footage that was

16:22

uploaded So it

16:25

looks like somebody recorded

16:28

their friend plane as they were streaming

16:30

to a private chat in cord.

16:34

Which To me sounds like,

16:36

hey, bro, we were supposed to be just

16:38

playing bubble together and instead you

16:40

recorded it and then have the gumption

16:42

to post it online when the

16:45

build clearly has watermarks all

16:47

over it. The GTA

16:50

build had a bunch of, you know, identifiers as

16:52

well, but this one very clearly had watermarks

16:54

stamped all over the footage and it's like,

16:57

how dumb are you to

16:59

think that no one's gonna find you? That's

17:01

literally the reason why it's watermark. So

17:04

that also happens. So feel bad for the team

17:06

of Blizzard who's like and we're trying to do some

17:08

testing so that when the game launches, it's not

17:10

super broken. Man. The

17:12

people just keep screwing it up. But the good

17:14

news is that a close beta

17:16

is coming soon and public tests are coming

17:18

in early twenty twenty three. That's the actual news

17:21

from this week. Yay. day. Subbleset

17:23

Entertainment announced that they're going to be hosting

17:25

the beta for the role playing game.

17:28

The confidential closed beta test is gonna playable

17:30

twenty twenty two on PS four, PS

17:32

five, PC, Xbox one, and series

17:34

x, and then the public testing phase open

17:36

to all. they said, is slated

17:38

for early twenty twenty three.

17:41

As we know, the game is going to be coming

17:43

out in late twenty twenty three. Hopefully, you're

17:45

welcome. And yeah. So

17:47

I'm excited for Diablo because when we got that

17:50

last big drop of information, what

17:52

was that summer game test? It looked

17:54

so good. Oh, it looked so good. I

17:56

barely

17:56

looking forward to that one. That one. Oh,

17:58

next year. Whole. It's gonna be so good.

18:01

Next year, gaming.

18:01

I might even play this one. and I'm

18:03

not a Diablo girl, so I'm excited.

18:06

k. Are you a Diablo girl, Steve?

18:08

I am such a Diablo girl.

18:10

One of my favorites. I I love

18:12

Diablo two. The double three took a strange

18:15

turn, but I still played the crap out of it. And

18:17

I definitely say it's probably the the number

18:19

one game other than Starfield that I'm looking forward

18:21

to right just getting back into the

18:23

job livers.

18:24

Too many RPGs next year. Oh.

18:27

Someone so many. Who's got time? We just

18:29

talked about it. We don't have time in the day, but we're gonna

18:31

definitely play a Diablo and maybe we can play together.

18:33

That can be nice.

18:34

It's weird. There's a solid love

18:36

positivity. My my favorite thing is a friend of

18:38

mine Casey tweeted out just saying,

18:40

basically, I wish games developers would

18:42

just stop publishing games for, like, six months

18:44

so I couldn't catch up. And it was so

18:47

refreshing when you know, especially when you're someone

18:49

like me, you have so many streamer friends. It's like

18:51

everyone's like, there's such a drought. There's

18:53

nothing to play. I'm like drought. dude. There's,

18:55

like, nine games out a week. What are you talking

18:57

about? It's just the drought. Yeah.

18:59

Okay. The drought.

19:00

Now is that because they only wanna play certain

19:03

game? No. I'm they're out of touch a dreamer call or

19:05

I'll admit that. I'm a crusty old woman who likes

19:07

to be alone. Is it mostly because

19:09

folks just wanna play the most popular thing?

19:11

Right? So did them miss a drought? Or is it like,

19:13

why would you consider I I can't imagine drought and

19:15

video game industry going hand in hand.

19:17

You know, I've I've never figured out that kind

19:19

of either. It it seems to be it's

19:22

it's it's weird q three

19:24

is where all the developers are holding

19:26

for q four Christmas releases. And

19:28

so all the ones that have been super hyped up

19:30

and the audiences are like, when are you gonna play this

19:32

game. Those are still two months

19:35

out. And so the ones that their audiences

19:37

are demanding, those are not ready to play

19:39

yet. then there's all these other games and they're

19:41

like, I'm gonna go back and play this

19:43

other game called Skyrim for the ninety

19:45

fifth time. Uh-huh.

19:46

Because why not? Play it

19:48

on your Alexa apparently.

19:49

This is young. Oh, boy.

19:52

I'm with you, Steve. I think it's refreshing when

19:54

people acknowledge that there's good games coming

19:56

out all the time. because it's true. And my back talk

19:58

also could use a break.

19:59

If we just didn't publish video games

20:01

for a full year, I so would never be

20:03

able to catch up, honestly.

20:05

went back and played the one that Andrea and

20:07

I mirrored over at AmesCom,

20:09

where it was the little city

20:11

Sam where you play on the back of a dragon

20:14

dinosaur that a living mountain. And it's so

20:16

much fun. It's really good.

20:18

And it's, you know, I don't ever play this. Like,

20:20

we won't we'll do a game and then completely

20:22

forget it exists. because you're showing it off in the

20:24

early build, and then when time comes out, you forget about

20:27

it. And I was like, this was actually really

20:29

great. And, like, I was super happy we got

20:31

to see it early it was really good. I

20:32

remember hearing about that one. That I sounded totally

20:34

like my jam. Try to remember what the name of it was.

20:37

For Wandering Village. Okay.

20:39

I have it. There you go. He had

20:41

it right on bringing that big brainy earth, sir.

20:43

No.

20:43

It's not like my email was opened, but Oh,

20:45

I

20:46

you know, you you could have

20:48

just taken a compliment.

20:48

Right. big name. That's it. We can

20:50

contact everybody.

20:52

So

20:54

the next story, I wanted

20:56

to include even though fans of our show know

20:58

we don't typically cover a lot of hardware

21:00

news because we're just not big

21:03

gear heads over here. But it's kind

21:05

of a big deal that NVIDIA has announced

21:07

the RTX forty ninety and

21:10

the forty eighty graphics cards plus

21:12

DLSS3 So

21:15

there's a lot of words in this article

21:17

that Our words.

21:19

So a lot of words that

21:23

don't sound like we're

21:24

so in English.

21:25

So I'm not gonna read the whole thing, but

21:27

I pulled it up from euro gamer.

21:29

There's several sites on the Internet

21:32

that do really great hardware deep dives,

21:34

but I just pulled this up for some of

21:36

the basics. So the forty ninety

21:38

twenty four gigabyte version will be available

21:40

on October twelfth, so happening very soon,

21:43

and is going to cost sixteen hundred

21:45

dollars, so fifteen ninety nine. While

21:47

the RTX forty eighty sixteen

21:49

gigabyte arrives in November and is

21:51

gonna cost twelve hundred dollars. So

21:54

I'd love that. Nvidia is like, you know

21:56

what? Chip shortage, whip shortage. we're

21:59

just gonna keep putting things out. And

22:01

I am glad that, you know, there isn't the

22:03

crazy aftermarket markup that was

22:05

happening at the beginning of the pandemic where

22:08

getting graphic cards and all their

22:10

kinds of computer parts seem to be

22:12

just wildly overpriced, but

22:14

that thirty eighty rush was wild.

22:17

Yes. Well, if people would just stop mining

22:19

for Crypto. We would

22:21

probably not have this problem anymore. Just

22:24

one many reasons. So, Steve, you

22:26

are a big PC gamer. obviously.

22:29

I would love to hear from you what

22:31

you think about when you hear news like

22:33

this. Does it blow your skirt up? Or are you like,

22:36

man, I don't really care about latest

22:38

and greatest. If my machine works, it works.

22:40

Like, I don't know what kind of a PC gamer are you?

22:42

I mean,

22:42

it's it's one of those things where you go

22:44

check your own privilege. I'm often, you

22:46

know, like, current rig is sponsored by Origin,

22:49

so they just throw PCs at

22:51

me. So I get to this to be like, yeah, hey, new stuff.

22:53

As far as just upgrading. It's in

22:55

me. It feels like the era

22:58

of when you've had

23:00

to upgrade to the newest card in order

23:02

to play the newest game is

23:04

kinda over. Now it feels like you

23:06

really got a good three to four

23:08

years before you're like, oh, can't handle

23:11

this anymore. And honestly, even that,

23:13

usually, it's I can't run this game

23:15

and stream at the same time. That's when

23:17

I know my card is getting older. So, you

23:20

know, for people who aren't trying to eat while

23:22

they're playing. I feel like, you know, nowadays,

23:24

NVIDIA's never gonna sponsor me. You can freaking

23:26

just buy a card and then just wait five years

23:28

before you buy another much.

23:30

Oh, just run two pieces of

23:31

say that you unless they sponsor what's a good

23:33

game. I can just buy it every year, probably every

23:35

single year. You buy it.

23:37

Well, we've worked with both

23:39

the wonderful folks at Nvidia and at

23:41

AMD. In fact, each of our

23:43

production PCs, one has Nvidia,

23:45

and one has an AMD card in it.

23:48

So we're, you know, equal opportunity

23:50

lovers of graphics hardware. But I

23:53

think it's a really bad thing that you said

23:56

though. This idea that this race

23:58

to always get the fastest, most powerful

24:00

piece of gear is just not as

24:02

necessary because of

24:04

the different ways that you can optimize your

24:07

systems, the ways that you can customize it. But

24:09

also, how I think the launchers

24:11

are becoming way more friendly

24:14

towards different types of hardware sets, which

24:16

I think is the most important thing gamers. And as

24:18

you mentioned, accessibility for

24:20

people of all different budgets. Right?

24:22

Like, not everybody gets to have, you know,

24:25

big daddy origin throwing them PC parts off the

24:27

top. That's right. But

24:31

I think it's a really interesting to watch

24:33

and I always have this section of people

24:35

that I follow on Twitter who always get whipped

24:37

up into a frenzy whenever -- Mhmm. -- the new

24:39

stuff is announced. And I think it's really

24:41

impressive what high end computers can

24:43

do, but there's just too many drivers. I can't

24:45

install all these things. I'm

24:47

guessing you all covered when GeForce

24:49

now came out. That was such a game changer.

24:51

The fact that you can log in to GeForce's

24:54

cloud based service. And there's

24:56

so many streamer friends I've got that are

24:58

just streaming from their laptops now

25:00

on these high end games because

25:02

they're just in the cloud. They don't need the

25:04

hardware to work on their end. It's up

25:06

in the cloud now and you can stream while you're doing

25:09

it. And it's, you know, It's really amazing

25:11

technology we live in now.

25:12

It's interesting that you bring that up because

25:14

I think people sometimes forget that GeForce

25:16

NOW was really the first to the cloud gaming

25:19

scene. while Xbox,

25:21

you know, Project XCloud maybe

25:23

made the splashiest entrance because

25:26

Xbox, you know, trying to tie

25:28

into everything that they're doing marketing wise

25:30

with GamePass and PC GamePass. But,

25:32

I mean, Nvidia was really doing it successfully

25:35

first, and then, of course, you know, Stadia

25:37

and Luna are there being like, we're here

25:39

too guys. Which,

25:43

you know, they are. They're there. They're

25:45

English nerds. They're they're they're

25:48

they're they're tracking. But I'm looking

25:50

forward to seeing how the cloud

25:52

gaming scene continues to evolve

25:54

because, you know, is it gonna make these

25:56

graphics cards irrelevant? I hope so,

25:58

man. I wish I, you know, I've been trying to

26:00

follow this PC shenanigans for years.

26:03

My aunt, huge PC games are huge into

26:05

IT, like top of the food chain and IT and

26:07

her department. I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

26:09

I was just playing scoring the other day and I had

26:11

eighteen different things I had to adjust

26:13

and, like, sometimes it runs well, sometimes it didn't.

26:16

And I You know what I

26:18

mean? Like, it's just not gonna click with me

26:20

ever and I've accepted that. So let me click

26:22

a button and let something else somewhere in the cloud

26:24

do all the work for me and just let me live my best life.

26:26

That's all I want. Yeah. I mean, because even

26:28

this one sentence from this story, the

26:30

new streaming multi processor uses

26:33

a new technique, shader execution, reordering,

26:36

or SIR, which NVIDIA claims provides

26:38

a two to three times speed up for ray tracing

26:40

and a twenty five percent improvement for raster

26:42

lives. a heck. Those are words. Right.

26:44

Definitely.

26:45

Now what they usually do is they grab a

26:47

soup can and they open up, like, the little words

26:49

spaghetti, and then they just list it out. Whatever

26:51

work out. That is what the press

26:53

release says.

26:54

This one's even better. There are similar

26:56

advancements in the dedicated ray tracing

26:59

silicone with a doubling of ray triangle

27:01

intersection throughput, a new opacity

27:03

micro map engine that doubles the speed of

27:05

ray tracing of alpha test geometry and

27:08

a micro mesh engine that increases geometric

27:10

richness without the VVH build

27:12

and storage cost. There's also a more

27:15

powerful tensor core for AI. I feel like

27:17

he just read some munt. Like, I heard

27:19

mesh in there, and I'm like, okay. I feel like I'm

27:21

getting turned on, but I don't know what you're saying.

27:24

It felt a little more

27:25

Right. -- I will say You saw the reason

27:27

and go up or a neck like this. Yeah. Alright, girl.

27:29

Go ahead. Keep talking about things. No.

27:31

We because we don't

27:33

say triangles. I

27:37

do wanna give a shout out though to

27:40

the Ray tracing trailer

27:44

released for the

27:46

portal RTX version that's

27:48

coming. The this, I can get behind.

27:50

Let me see if I can pull this

27:52

up for -- I understand. -- for y'all to take a look

27:54

at that because it's pictures, not words.

27:57

Right. I

27:58

feel like pictures of each of us. What the

27:59

ray tracing this is what the ray tracing

28:02

is going to look like. It's like it's remember

28:04

that that old video with the

28:06

shoes. Like, these shoes suck. These shoes

28:09

roll. That's like fucking my reaction. action

28:11

to these

28:11

previews. Thank you for being But,

28:12

I mean, this one looks good. Oh, yeah.

28:14

It looks real good. Oh, yeah. That one sucks

28:16

and that next one rules. Okay. little

28:20

neon light the way it reflects off of that must

28:22

be all that. Right. Tracy and shenanigans. Oh

28:25

my gosh. SCR technology. Right

28:28

there is triangle. Yeah. We're so

28:30

good. Yep.

28:31

We're doing so great. Watch me if it makes

28:33

you better footage just makes me

28:35

once again want portal three. Come on, Val.

28:37

You you got it in you. The guy who wrote

28:39

the original even said that he wanted to

28:41

do it, that it's your fault game. So If

28:43

that'll give us more games, please please please

28:46

We're asking nicely. Alright. Okay.

28:48

Let's continue on with the news. Just

28:50

a couple more things here. Motive

28:53

has announced a single player

28:55

Iron Man game is in

28:57

the works as part of a new EA

29:00

and Marvel collaboration. Now

29:02

you may be thinking, Andrea, where's

29:04

the discount? And I would say, Marvel

29:07

games are not something that my

29:09

Disney based husband works on.

29:12

We can't even drink. No. The Marvel

29:14

team has their own studio. John

29:17

does not work on Marvel But

29:20

you can still take a shot if you want to. Okay.

29:22

This is water. So I'm all gone. Wow.

29:25

I mean, it's it's very naughty juice, and

29:26

I'm a real cool adult. No. Yes. Although

29:29

juice. I think that

29:30

this sounds interesting. My

29:32

relationship with Ironman as character

29:34

is like, he's cool. I like the sound.

29:36

His his blasslers make the Like,

29:39

that sound as cool. Yes. Yeah. But

29:42

that's fun. How do you feel about Iron Man

29:44

as a character?

29:44

I mean, the fact that you can see.

29:46

I've expanded the figurine of

29:48

just lost camera. I probably should give you

29:50

some idea. I absolutely love the character.

29:53

It's my favorite. It's even in twenty five.

29:55

Yeah. The thing of it is for

29:57

me is I love RDJ's performances

29:59

as I remember, but at the end of the day, the

30:01

character is a disabled person

30:04

who has a terminal illness that is going

30:06

to die, is tech is slowing

30:08

it down, and just the same as my medicine

30:10

is slowing down, my death, but it will happen.

30:13

this this is Will. And at the end of

30:15

the day, I feel like that character

30:17

is very identifiable to me because it's

30:19

a character that is trying to do

30:21

good in the world but continually f's up.

30:23

And it feels like that's just, you know,

30:26

if you're a good person, that's generally the kind

30:28

of what happens is you're like, I'm gonna save

30:30

everybody. Oh, shit. I just got people killed.

30:32

Well, you know Well,

30:34

you have you killed. like, you can mess in

30:36

something on the show today, Steve. whatever

30:39

written I do in an off hours is Hey,

30:41

now

30:41

you promised you weren't gonna call me out.

30:43

What is this, sir?

30:44

Keep dragging me down. You're going with me.

30:46

So

30:46

What is your ideal, though,

30:48

if you think of Ironman single player game?

30:50

What do you wanna see from that? No.

30:52

Cancel. Great. Just because almost

30:54

not HIPAA. How dare you,

30:57

like, I would drop this. Hold on. Nope.

30:59

That was the closest we ever

31:00

got to Ironman flying that we've

31:03

had so far. No.

31:03

We can do better things. Cater. No.

31:08

Fine.

31:08

We're just gonna let that one go. Okay.

31:10

So not Anthem. Oh, Do you

31:12

have anything positive to contribute to this comment?

31:14

Well, it's positive. Thank you very much. I'm trying

31:16

to tell them about a month ago. I think it will be

31:19

flushed out. I mean, it's it's not the makers

31:21

of dead space, you know, that was it's it's

31:23

a cult classic. Everybody who loves horror,

31:25

loves that that build. I think they're gonna

31:28

go down the same kind of single player story

31:30

path. They've already said it's not gonna be multiplayer.

31:32

I think, you know, if they do it, right, they

31:34

will be on par with vitamin, whereas

31:37

an open world that is controlled.

31:40

You can't go literally everywhere, but

31:42

you'll have things to do is you can

31:44

get in with the character and and in with the lore

31:46

of the world and hopefully it'll bring in, you

31:49

know, people who aren't necessarily ironman

31:51

super fans like I am to understand

31:54

the story and maybe I'll have less people

31:56

being like, why do you like that guy the most? So

31:58

who's saying that? Who doesn't

31:59

get that Ironman's cold?

32:01

Not you did not remember the whole

32:03

Ironman versus cap thing that Marvel

32:05

did, and it took I did the Internet. And

32:07

I'm like, yeah, man.

32:08

I guess. I don't know. I always recognize

32:10

that both of them are cool, but

32:12

team ironman

32:13

for sure. Yep. Well

32:14

yeah. Sure. Yeah. Agreed.

32:16

Thank you. Read your checks in the mail.

32:18

Wonderful.

32:21

Well, we'll hopefully get more news bad

32:23

at a future day because it was really more of just like,

32:25

hey, we're making this thing and and and that's

32:27

that. In case you missed it, Britney

32:30

I hear that there's a resident, you know,

32:32

showcase happening next month. No.

32:34

Take a drink before

32:35

that. I had no. I had to make

32:37

some of them get ready to use my Philku cards.

32:40

Yeah. There is. And this is exciting because

32:42

know nothing about it. So get to go into

32:44

it and, like, be surprised with everyone. So yeah.

32:46

So TGS resident evil had a little bit

32:49

of a presence there. We got to read

32:51

some impressions from folks who played resident

32:53

evil village on PSVR two.

32:55

Apparently, lady Demetrius looked

32:57

fantastic. I've read some mixed reviews

33:00

on how the game actually played on PSVR

33:02

two. We're remembering this game was

33:04

not built for VR. So, of course, it's not gonna

33:06

be like a perfect experience, but that's still

33:08

some ways away, so I don't have to worry about that. We

33:11

also heard a little bit about the shadows of

33:13

Rose, the DLC that is coming out. October

33:15

twenty eighth, this follows Rose

33:17

Winters Ethan's daughter. We're gonna

33:20

get about four hours of content from that,

33:22

so that should be exciting. Also, Capcon

33:24

confirmed that this is going to wrap

33:26

up the winters involvement, you

33:29

know, like immediate involvement into the series,

33:31

which I think is a pretty interesting choice. When

33:33

I am very behind, I think they serve their purpose.

33:35

Now they can go live their best lives as weird

33:38

bio, mutant human things,

33:40

whatever they are. Cool. Let's bring in some of

33:42

the OG characters. We don't need create anymore

33:44

characters. Capcom, you have enough to work

33:46

with. Where's my Jill Valentine versus my

33:48

Claire Redfield? Please be coming back. Thank you very much.

33:50

And then, yes, we have this resident evil showcase,

33:53

and Capcom said, and I quote, we can expect

33:55

news and updates on resident evil Village

33:57

Gold Edition, resident evil four,

33:59

and more. So the gold edition

34:02

is village with three pieces of DLC.

34:04

You have your third person mode. You have

34:06

your shadows of rose, and then you have your mercenaries,

34:08

some new characters. like Lady Dee will be in there.

34:11

I am expecting that

34:13

we're going to see more gameplay

34:15

from our season before remake think we're gonna

34:17

get some pre order bonuses, and I think we're

34:19

going to get a demo. As

34:21

someone who knows a little bit about how these showcases

34:24

are run, I think that's kind

34:26

of you know, the shtick. Show us the gameplay.

34:28

Show us the preorder bonuses. Show us the statue

34:30

we're gonna get and then give us a

34:32

playable demo. I imagine it will be on

34:34

Playstation because that's just the way they

34:36

roll. And probably

34:39

we'll see something on resident evil REE

34:41

verse, which is their multiplayer game

34:43

where you get to play has stars of

34:45

Roosevelt and some of the most well

34:47

known enemies and you get to battle it

34:49

out and it was supposed to come out a while ago, but

34:51

it delayed. Yeah. So anyhow, that's

34:53

fun and exciting coming sometime in October,

34:56

and that's kind of where I'm at with it.

34:58

I think it's just mostly gonna focus on resident evil

35:00

ore and it's like those things I mentioned.

35:03

And I'm gonna hopefully be able to stream it

35:05

and react with everybody, but we're

35:07

gonna be a lot in October, so who could

35:09

fault year. It's true. I

35:11

love -- It's true. -- script goes full resident

35:14

evil nerd. It's it's it's

35:16

the passion that bores out of her about horror

35:18

games.

35:19

Yeah. You're talking about dead space earlier, and I

35:22

was over here clenching my butt a bit because I'm replaying

35:24

the first one right now. And I'm like, oh, that's so good.

35:26

Love it. It's been a hot minute

35:28

since since I've gone back. But, you know,

35:31

I have no doubt that you will keep

35:33

us and rest of everything

35:35

happening with Resideo Honeywell. You

35:37

know, I know I'm not usually super consistent

35:39

on that. So I'll do my best this time

35:41

around. Yeah. Have you ever considered, like,

35:43

being a horror professional? Like,

35:45

you know, specializing in those kind of games or anything I

35:47

thought about it, but I didn't wanna pursue

35:49

it because you wouldn't partner

35:50

out with me. No. I am a big scared

35:53

baby. No. I will not. Between you and me,

35:55

I just can't find anyone, you know. What am

35:57

I? I like Chuck Cheney, you know, here. Yeah.

35:59

See, you're you're I know you're down to

36:02

rides, but it's not fun to give you shit. Like, to

36:04

give shit to the people who aren't done. Right? That's how this

36:06

works. You know what I mean? Every six months,

36:08

like, freaking clockwork. Great. We'll we'll

36:10

send me a message on Twitter and be like,

36:12

if we haven't hung out in River. Let's play horror

36:14

games, and I'm like, no.

36:16

Let's play some Phasma phobia. Yeah.

36:19

But aren't you better at Phasma phobia than

36:21

both of us? Yeah.

36:21

I'm wouldn't say the words

36:24

better. I would say that I've been desensitized

36:26

through enough trauma that I can

36:28

now play it. Oh, your brain. Yeah.

36:31

No. Oh, no. Again, look, we're braver.

36:34

I don't know about that. No. I like, my

36:36

my my my community made me play fazema

36:39

for an entire week as a subco.

36:41

And then the following times afterwards,

36:43

I slept with the light on because I was like, this

36:45

is in my brain now. So

36:46

So you won't get mad at me if I leave you

36:49

in the house like Andrea does.

36:50

Oh. Be did shadow kill Andrea

36:52

that way last time if I remember. Right? So Mhmm.

36:55

So you did attempt murder. Got

36:58

it. I was out first. Brit closed

37:00

the door behind us that. No. That's not

37:02

my fault.

37:03

I'm used to being left behind by Britney.

37:05

She always leaves me to die

37:07

a ghostly grew gruesome death. It's just

37:10

I tend to hang out by the door, so I have

37:12

an easy escape route, and you're a ball

37:14

deep in the upstairs. Like, in the far

37:16

this We have objectives to

37:18

accomplish. I'm trying to earn more than

37:20

just five dollars. I'm telling you it's actually

37:22

ten dollars gonna be worth it if you get a cold

37:25

reading. thing. I mean,

37:27

maybe depends on how many cameras

37:29

I need to buy for the Next Go sign.

37:30

That same as in that game with you.

37:32

We should play it. They

37:34

put on a big Well, and it's very close to October.

37:36

Hello.

37:36

Yeah. Once in October, there's two. there.

37:39

customization update where you're gonna

37:42

be able to make the game be

37:44

whatever level you want it to be. Oh,

37:46

well well well, I

37:48

guess we'll just have to set a date then.

37:50

There was one last store just a quick in case

37:52

you miss it that we could probably talk about this

37:54

for a while. We're not gonna, but I just

37:57

wanna mention that there was a story they

37:59

came out because Bernie mentioned VR. Playstation

38:01

has been talking about VR, some news broke

38:04

during Tokyo game show, where

38:06

Playstation confirmed. So Sony of

38:08

entertainment confirmed that the PlayStation

38:11

VR two headset that is

38:13

slated to be released in twenty twenty three

38:15

is not going to play original

38:18

PSVR games. It will only play

38:20

games from PSVR two. And

38:22

when I first saw this headline, I was like, that

38:24

seems like really bad decision

38:26

to make. And I understand

38:29

from a technology standpoint, their

38:31

reasoning is about the

38:33

way that games have to be designed for the new

38:35

hardware, but I think we're just so

38:37

used to platforms being

38:39

cross platform for these last

38:42

few generations that this idea that PSVR

38:44

two isn't going to be able to play. The

38:46

old PSVR games is kind of a head scratcher,

38:49

especially since the library isn't

38:51

that big and the adopters

38:53

for VR's still relatively small

38:55

compared to the general gaming audience. I was just

38:57

kinda like, why'd you make this choice?

39:00

Money. No.

39:03

But, like, that's the thing is they're leaving money

39:05

potentially on the table. by

39:07

not being able to sell old games

39:10

to people who buy the nine hundred. I'm not a

39:12

maker of hardware, but I imagine to make

39:14

games compatible, to make the PSVR two

39:16

headset compatible the first PSDR that

39:19

they probably would have to spend more money per unit

39:21

in order to make that a thing. And they're like,

39:23

why would we do that? Or we can just sell a

39:25

whole new headset and all new software

39:28

to people suckers. I don't know. I'm just

39:30

I'm just shaded shaded right now with Sony. I think

39:32

some of the things that their spokespeople come out and say,

39:34

and it's really stupid, and this is another stupid

39:36

thing that they said. Love your games.

39:38

So how do you really

39:40

feel though is my question. Mhmm.

39:44

I think I missed

39:46

I totally sorry. No. I just completely

39:48

missed everything. You said Steve.

39:49

You just thinking about you were thinking about how

39:51

much you hate Sony and you just couldn't

39:53

Oh, no. I hate that

39:55

so much. I you know, I did I did

39:57

that keynote with Microsoft, so now I'm just fully

39:59

committed

39:59

to Microsoft. And never No. No. No. No.

40:02

No. No. No.

40:04

No. No. Do you have

40:05

some some issues

40:07

that you would like to discuss here of the show, Britney,

40:09

this is turning into something I didn't anticipate.

40:12

Oh, let's go. So

40:13

in case it wasn't clear, Britney

40:15

is being because she's she's joking.

40:17

because our cast stick for everybody listening being

40:19

like, what's happening? If you're listening

40:21

to the podcast and you can't see British

40:23

facial expressions,

40:25

I was

40:27

getting at is that she had

40:29

to deal with some feisty

40:32

Internet commenters who

40:34

have clearly mislabeled her

40:36

as an Xbox fan girl,

40:39

which she is, of course. Mhmm. Oh,

40:41

was that something that's not true? I do feel like

40:43

I should. I and body that persona. I think

40:45

It's cute.

40:46

How long is I can, like, a little x men suit and

40:48

you got, like, the little x men patch on your shoulder?

40:50

I like it.

40:51

Yes. I also like Manhattan Bridge.

40:53

Bridge. Oh, I like that. And Sony Bridge just

40:55

don't go well together. You know? It's just Let's just

40:57

Also, yeah. They what? Brody. It's

40:59

right there. It's right there. Brony.

41:02

Even though I know that Brony is the name for

41:04

a subculture of my little pony fans

41:06

on YouTube. No. But yeah. No. They're very

41:08

serious. Yeah. Like, thank you, Andrew, for the disclaimer

41:10

I know there's some people out there who are

41:13

gonna probably listen to this and be like, oh my

41:15

god. What's good games? It's so biased.

41:18

golly. We will definitely make a clip

41:20

completely high gosh. And it would be gravy

41:23

at the looks we would get. I will just gently

41:25

remind all of our viewers and listeners that

41:27

Britney deep seated love of

41:29

JRPGs. It means that she has

41:31

a long, long history. Loving Sony.

41:33

Okay. Like, behind me, most of the games in her

41:35

So so

41:36

many. So many. That's fine.

41:37

Yes. So I think I just wanted to

41:39

bring this up as a story because I think it's important

41:42

and talking about technology and hardware.

41:44

It's just it's different. Most of the technology

41:46

that we're seeing is intentionally cross

41:48

platform, and they are intentionally not

41:50

cross platform. And from an r and d perspective

41:53

and a technology perspective, I understand it,

41:55

but I still think it's very not a consumer

41:58

friendly choice. to make it so

42:00

that the new hardware is so advanced

42:02

that all of the work that was done on the platform

42:04

before it, which was all very innovative

42:06

stuff. is not going to

42:08

be able to be played. It's just gonna essentially

42:11

be RELX locked to that system.

42:13

Like, it's, like, two thousand one franchise. I

42:15

don't know. Yeah. Gotcha. Passing along the

42:17

cost of the consumer seems to be a pattern.

42:19

mean, obviously, I'm not a developer.

42:22

I don't know what goes into your developing, but

42:24

I do kinda feel like didn't we

42:26

already kinda learn all these lessons

42:29

when we had to retrofit all

42:31

games to work on the three six Steve,

42:33

and we went through that whole thing where

42:35

you had to be able to play backwards compatible

42:37

game. Because the industry in place well, the

42:39

gamers rose up and said, you know, hey, that's

42:41

not cool to spend a hundred dollars on the game,

42:44

and then I can't play it anymore. Like, we've been

42:46

here before. Oh, yeah. We're only, like, three

42:48

people. play VR right now.

42:50

Hey. Well, they did

42:52

sell millions of units. I think my

42:54

point though was I get that

42:57

VR games are unique and that they require

42:59

very different types of technology

43:03

and the way that you build a VR game

43:05

is different. I get that. I just I

43:07

was hoping for for a different outcome,

43:09

but it is what it is. I at least they're

43:11

being clear about it. right

43:13

now before the unit has

43:15

launched. Because if this is a story

43:17

that debuted right around the

43:19

launch, I PSVR two, I think it would be

43:22

a much different conversation we're having.

43:24

So and that audience is also used

43:26

to paying a premium for their experiences. So

43:28

I can see it going over a little bit more smoothly

43:31

because as you mentioned, Andrea, the messaging

43:33

is clear and it's up front. So that is

43:35

helpful. Indeed. Well, that

43:37

is going to do it for our news

43:39

for this week when we come

43:41

back We're gonna talk about what we've been

43:43

playing, including some previews from

43:46

one Britney Grombacher. Stick

43:48

with us everybody. It will be right back.

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46:26

that what's good game sent you. Welcome

46:29

back everybody. It the second segment of the

46:31

What's Good Games podcast where we talk about

46:33

what we've been playing and any preview

46:35

events that we've been to. And Britney,

46:38

it looks like you got

46:40

to play quite a few things that

46:42

you teased on the episode last

46:44

week and now you have all of the information

46:46

and I saw a tweet about

46:49

squelching. Lots of squelching. Yeah.

46:51

Cool. I've done. It felt good. This was my

46:53

first I mean, let's do an account packs.

46:55

My first preview event since twenty

46:57

twenty. So Square, Phoenix.

47:00

Yeah. Oh, I got to go play some of their

47:02

stuff. Notably, Chris' core Final Fantasy

47:04

seven Reunion, Star Ocean did the design four

47:07

was there and a whole bunch of other titles, but

47:09

definitely wanna talk about Crisis Core.

47:11

And then I also got to

47:13

play the game that is the most

47:15

excited about her potential game of the year

47:17

twenty twenty two, Skorn.

47:20

Oh, you know it? Skorn. She's very

47:22

excited about it. She's excited for all of swelching.

47:25

And I I understand that you've done some research

47:27

into what swelching is. I have, because

47:29

I I took a very academic approach to

47:31

this word. in particular because

47:34

we we're referencing the word squelch

47:36

in other context. Right? Not

47:38

in gory bloody horrifying nightmares. it

47:41

didn't feel like it fit. So here's the actual

47:43

definition of Squalch. This is from Oxford

47:45

Languages. So in a verb

47:47

tense, It is the third person present

47:49

squelches, past and squelched. And

47:52

it means to make a soft sucking sound

47:54

such as that made by walking heavily

47:56

through mud. and it could also

47:59

be used informally

47:59

as a forcefully silence

48:02

or suppressed someone. Now, the noun

48:04

format of Squelch plural noun

48:06

squelches. It's a soft, sucky sound

48:08

made through applying pleasure -- pleasure -- -- pleasure -- pleasure -- -- pleasure -- pleasure -- -- pleasure -- pleasure -- -- pleasure -- -- pleasure -- -- pleasure --

48:10

-- pleasure -- or flesh. -- and in electronics,

48:13

a circuit that suppresses the output of

48:15

sever if a signal strain falls below a

48:18

certain level. And its origin is

48:20

from early seventeenth century, originally

48:22

denoting a heavy crushing fall onto

48:24

something soft. Jesus.

48:28

This is an educational podcast, you

48:30

guys. He's

48:34

setting up. See, blink if you need doesn't

48:36

it like you said the soft sucking sound

48:39

multiple This

48:41

is the definition from Oxford languages.

48:43

This is serious academic information.

48:46

Okay? We have to take

48:48

this series for expecting to

48:50

join our show this week, but you're welcome.

48:56

I'm

48:56

fine with everything. Definitely

48:58

fine. Thank you, Chris. Yeah.

49:00

I first became acquainted

49:02

with the words squelching through the

49:05

captions in the witcher

49:08

on Netflix because turns out

49:10

they're squelching in literally every episode

49:12

of the witcher on Netflix. What's

49:14

your love's a good squelch? There's

49:17

a lot of squelching in that story line. Well, I

49:19

might be the only one very squelch. I'll be

49:21

White text in there. This would help But I was like,

49:23

oh, no. It's not it's not red text.

49:26

He's joking, everyone. He's fun. He

49:28

doesn't need help. No one needs to come to his rest.

49:32

Wow. Oh my gosh. Now

49:34

it's blinking. Well,

49:36

okay. The reason why

49:39

oh, geez. By the way, thank you very much for that.

49:41

accommodal lesson on the words.

49:44

It's good to learn together. The real

49:46

reason we brought it up though is because Britney

49:49

watched some footage.

49:51

Oh, I do play? Oh,

49:54

okay. Well, let's take a look

49:56

at some of the b roll I have first. Okay.

49:58

So scored. Yeah. This is a

49:59

that fleshy looking game that's

50:02

been teased since, like, like, twenty fourteen. So

50:04

this game I think is a timed exclusive

50:06

for Xbox series x and s and

50:08

it's coming to PC, not coming to last generation

50:11

developed by ebb software. So I'm just

50:13

gonna read the steam description because I feel

50:15

like it does it more justice than I ever could. is

50:17

an atmospheric first person horror of

50:19

adventure game set in a nightmarish universe

50:22

of odd forms in somber tapestry.

50:25

It is designed around the idea of being

50:27

thrown into the world isolated and

50:29

lost inside the streamline world. You

50:31

will explore different interconnected regions

50:33

in a nonlinear fashion.

50:35

Each location contains its own theme,

50:37

story, puzzles and characters that are integral

50:40

to creating a cohesive world. Cool.

50:42

All of that sounds great. And then you actually

50:45

look at the setting of this game, which is inspired

50:47

by h r Geiger, and I'm gonna try

50:49

my best to pronounce this properly. z

50:51

g swab, Bekczynski. Sorry.

50:54

It's it's a very complicated name, but I did my very

50:56

best name, but I did my best. So If

50:58

you're wondering, what what does that mean?

51:00

So Geiger's most distinctive sadistic innovation,

51:03

he did the xenomorphan alien, so

51:05

he designed that, so pleasant.

51:08

and he he that

51:11

that's so cute. That should be so cute.

51:13

That's so cute. That's so cute. That's

51:15

so cute. Steve

51:18

just fully lean and just putting

51:20

up the way to help. That baby is just gonna

51:22

get so much more smelter rific. Oh, what?

51:24

You don't wanna keep watching this view. Oh,

51:26

it's being good to hear from this. Great. Yeah. So

51:28

guy here, he was all about the representation of

51:31

human bodies in genes and cold interconnected

51:33

relationships, biomechanical. And I

51:35

had to look all this up because I was like, who the hell

51:37

are these people? Very famous people. and

51:39

then you have the Polish painter, Bekczinsky,

51:43

Schinsky, who created disturbing images

51:45

showing a gloomy surrealistic environment

51:47

with detailed scenes of death decay, landscapes,

51:50

filled with skeletons, deformed figures,

51:52

and deserts. So cool.

51:54

Now I've really painted a picture here. So you

51:56

make up in scoring as like this fleshless human

51:59

in

51:59

this weird ass setting full of pulsing

52:02

flesh and other effed up stuff. and

52:04

you just kinda wake up and the game's like,

52:06

okay, go. And you know nothing

52:09

about where you are. There's no UI.

52:11

You have a pause screen. mean, and you just

52:13

essentially have to wander around

52:15

and figure out what the heck is going on. Yeah.

52:18

Yeah. Yo. Yo. This is just It's

52:20

so gross. If you're watching with us at youtube

52:22

dot com slash what's good games, this is a new

52:24

gameplay trailer. And I'm just like, everything

52:26

is essentially made of it like

52:29

organic material like flesh and

52:31

muscle. Things are pulsating a

52:34

lot. And yeah,

52:36

but, you know, it was really interesting because I

52:38

just start of the game and again had no clue

52:40

where I was supposed to go, what I was supposed

52:42

to be doing, what the point of anything

52:44

was, and just have to start running

52:47

around and finding buttons

52:49

and pushing buttons. The first thing I

52:51

found of note were cart tracks that I could

52:53

manipulate. And like, okay. Well, this is probably

52:55

going to come into be some semblance

52:57

of importance at some point in my life. But, like, right

52:59

now, it's not. I'm just gonna keep wanting to do this falsification,

53:02

school, terrific atmosphere. And so

53:04

and then I found a switch. And then I

53:06

okay. So then I rebrand. And

53:08

then I went out this huge lift And

53:11

then I found all of these pods that were

53:13

lined up against the wall, which looked like probably

53:15

hundreds of yards away from me. And then

53:17

I found a button to my left and I pushed it

53:19

and I saw that it operated a crane and then

53:21

found another button to my right and I pushed

53:23

that and I found that I could actually manipulate

53:26

the pods in the order in which they're in,

53:28

and only two of them had a faint

53:30

glowing light coming out of it. So I

53:32

said, okay. Well, I probably have to manipulate

53:34

these and move these in such a way that the cream

53:36

will grab it and then squeeze whatever's inside

53:39

in probably a piece to this puzzle

53:41

that I'm trying to figure out. Yeah. Sure. It

53:43

was some human in there. A human

53:45

thing, a humanoid thing. I don't know

53:47

what it was. It was in this trailer that we're watching

53:50

disturbing as all hell. And that's essentially

53:52

what I was doing as I was just playing the game,

53:54

looking everywhere, trying to figure out what it

53:56

is I'm supposed to be doing. And

53:58

from that standpoint,

53:59

really thought it was interesting because

54:02

it reminds me of an escape room

54:04

almost a very fleshy escape room if

54:06

you will, where it's just like, okay. Go

54:08

on. Like figure this out and as you're

54:10

playing, you're kinda trying to piece together,

54:12

what what is going on in this area?

54:15

What like, I don't know what that is. That's stirby

54:17

looking. What is the point of

54:19

all of this? Why was this created?

54:22

Obviously, this game is not going

54:24

to be for everyone. I think the premise of it

54:26

is very fascinating in the sense that, again, like, you

54:28

don't know. You gotta figure out what you're doing. And I

54:30

think that would be more attractive to more people

54:33

if it didn't look the way it did. But again,

54:35

this is the developer's vision of it. Because

54:37

it did remind me almost a being again in escape

54:39

room and almost like very

54:42

fleshy Zelda attention because I that's what I

54:44

love about that as you just get thrown in and it's

54:46

like, okay, figure out what you gotta do. is

54:48

this game gross? Now this is gonna again,

54:50

lot of squelchy. So there is blood

54:52

and there is gore. But it's mostly

54:55

I found it to be more unsettling it's

54:57

not like you're walking around and things just squirting

54:59

blood at you all the time. And, you know, there is

55:01

some disgusting stuff. Lots of, like, weird

55:03

organic pulsating fleshy, mussely

55:06

looking shit. So, I mean, if you don't like

55:08

that, obviously, you're gonna wanna stay far far

55:10

away. You know, like the hand switches

55:12

or the buttons I was talking about earlier, they're

55:14

not just like little red buttons that you push.

55:17

Oh, no. They're like holes for each one

55:19

of your fingers that you have to stick each finger

55:21

in and each one squelches as

55:23

you do. It's like

55:24

play do.

55:28

Oh my gosh. Every time I come back

55:30

is Steve's camera. It's just on your holiday.

55:32

That's something. Yeah. No. mean, the

55:35

way you're describing this sounds

55:37

utterly uncomfortable and

55:39

discomforting. And I am

55:41

concerned that people are

55:43

seeking out these experiences. You know?

55:46

Yeah. Steve is really

55:48

is really his responsibility right now.

55:50

I will say, I didn't. I don't

55:52

know if it was because I used to play

55:54

in a game like on my monitor because I had

55:56

to play it on steam. I did definitely start

55:58

feeling a little nauseous. And for me,

56:01

that's a lot because you know

56:03

what kind of games I love playing. It doesn't really

56:05

phase me, but something about this

56:07

definitely kinda gotten under my skin, and then

56:09

it went away within, like, twenty minutes. And then I

56:11

was back to Puline lovers

56:13

made out of muscle tissue. It was great.

56:15

Yeah. And then towards the end of the demo, I got

56:17

this gun thing. It I think this

56:20

might be that we're just watching on YouTube. It reminds

56:22

me of one of those toys that maybe you

56:24

had as a kid where you pull the trigger and like a boxing

56:26

glove, like, protrudes out and then you pull it back in

56:28

lock into place, you push it and it protrudes out again.

56:30

And I just used that to knock

56:33

some some bitches around it.

56:35

Nothing like me. I did get a health bar at some

56:37

point, but Yeah. Yeah. It's a very

56:39

interesting game. Never

56:42

ever have played anything like

56:44

it. Definitely, it's not afraid

56:46

to go places. I'm so sure you've you've

56:48

come to learn. So it

56:51

sounds to me based off your description that

56:53

it feels the way the action

56:56

unfolds, feels sort of similar

56:58

to what Eldon Ring did, where you're just

57:00

kind of dropped in the world and you're

57:02

not really given any guidance you don't really

57:04

know where to go, what to do, just kinda explore

57:07

and figure it out on your own. Would you say the best

57:09

way, but it's not this huge world. Right? It's

57:11

you had this main chamber. In my demo

57:13

anyway, I had this main chamber and then some

57:15

branching rooms and then some switches

57:17

that did certain things. So you kinda just have to

57:20

around and press and touch everything and then just

57:22

see what happens and then just kinda put

57:24

together your own story. So I think

57:26

again the premise of it I love.

57:28

Obviously, just where a lot of people are gonna be turned

57:30

off is just the presentation. It's utterly

57:32

fascinating and it's one of those games that makes

57:34

you stop and think like who thought of

57:37

this. And it while very disturbing,

57:39

I do think it's fascinating that the human

57:41

mind for some people is capable

57:43

of coming up with stuff stuff

57:46

like this. Stuff that is just so repulsive. It's

57:48

just like, wow. Like, you thought of that. I

57:50

never in a New England years would have thought of that.

57:52

And if you like that kind of mind look like

57:54

maybe this is also that sort of game for you.

57:57

But anyway, yeah, that's Skorn. Yeah.

57:59

That's Skorn

57:59

ways to tell them boys and girls, cats and

58:02

dogs. definitely not a regain.

58:04

Definitely not an Andrea game. Absolutely

58:06

a Steve game, but, you know, that's for him.

58:09

I really want to be

58:11

able to play this. guess this is the best way to

58:13

say it because I love the

58:15

mystery. I love, you know, getting dropped in

58:17

and trying to solve puzzles and figure out what's going

58:19

on. games like escape academy or like

58:21

right up my alley, but like straight up even

58:24

just one of the things you passed by in

58:26

that b roll that we were playing if you're not watching

58:28

on YouTube dot com slash musket games.

58:30

It was literally like like an open flesh

58:32

ruin that just like flopped out at you and

58:34

that literally made my stomach move.

58:37

Like, I don't enjoy that

58:39

at all. So I'm wondering if is

58:41

there even a world where I could, like, play or

58:43

even watch someone play this? I I don't know.

58:45

I wish I could. I do. It sounds fun. It sounds

58:48

fun. I'm gonna be really curious to see how I

58:50

do with this game long term. I curious

58:52

enough about what this

58:54

game is even like, what's happening in it

58:56

that I wanna go back and play. But

58:58

after about an hour fifteen of playing it.

59:00

I was like, okay, I'm ready to step away from

59:02

now and like play something a little bit more lighthearted.

59:05

It's just one of those things, so we'll see.

59:07

But Scored.

59:08

Yeah. Coming out this October.

59:10

Ladies and gentlemen. Less than a month away now.

59:12

Uh-huh. But a game that's a little bit further away

59:15

that I think you're probably a little bit more excited

59:17

about. the game that I don't know where

59:19

it fits into all of the Final Fantasy

59:21

seven games that are apparently coming out there. It's

59:23

like five of them. Good time to be alive. Yeah.

59:26

So crisis core file, Tennessee seven, reunion.

59:29

The very first sentence

59:30

of my notes is all of

59:32

the daddy. because there are a lot of

59:34

dummies in this game and they're all very attractive.

59:37

Okay. So this I play this demo four times.

59:39

Bless all of the hearts in squirting staff

59:41

because my flight took off way later

59:43

than I thought, and so I had a lot of time to kill.

59:45

So I played this demo two times on PS

59:48

five, one time on Switch, and another time

59:50

on PS five, but in Japanese. So

59:52

I'm very familiar with it. So this originally

59:55

released in two thousand seven on the PSP.

59:57

And then in June oh my god. Look how

59:59

glorious

59:59

this is. In June, during the twenty

1:00:01

fifth anniversary of Final Fantasy seven, we got

1:00:04

the announcement that we're getting the remaster.

1:00:06

Very important to note that remaster of Crisis

1:00:08

Core Final Fantasy seven. So for those of

1:00:10

you like Andrea who are like what the hell is this game. So

1:00:12

this game focuses on Zach fair

1:00:15

who plays a very very important

1:00:17

role in cloud's life and

1:00:20

from the looks of it into a

1:00:22

large role in the final Fantasy seven

1:00:24

remake because we

1:00:26

see him making an appearance in the latest

1:00:29

trailer, which is pretty mind blowing.

1:00:31

but that's a whole rabbit hole that I don't

1:00:33

need to go down and go into all the narrative.

1:00:35

Just isn't worth it at this point, but there

1:00:37

will be a spoiler cutest to mark my words.

1:00:40

So what is in this remaster? You

1:00:42

have HD graphics, new three

1:00:44

d models, newly arranged soundtrack,

1:00:47

The story is pretty much

1:00:49

the same, but because this is part of

1:00:51

remake and this is the prequel to Final Fantasy

1:00:53

seven remake, you gotta expect that we're and

1:00:56

get some certain scenes that are gonna play

1:00:58

out quite differently from the original

1:01:00

in two thousand and seven. Of course,

1:01:02

I asked the fine folks I was like, yo,

1:01:05

can you tell me about the the story of this game?

1:01:07

And I got a generic bold BSPR response,

1:01:09

which is expected. But had

1:01:12

to ask, So and you also need a lot

1:01:14

of the voice actors are returning for

1:01:16

this because a lot of the characters from

1:01:18

the remake are in this game. including

1:01:21

cloud, Sephiroth, Arith, Zach,

1:01:23

of course, and it comes out in December.

1:01:26

So for the few who want to know, my

1:01:28

demo started off at Fort Hamblin WuTai,

1:01:31

and it ended right around the time

1:01:33

I met up with Separoth. And again,

1:01:35

not gonna talk too much about the story because everything

1:01:37

I saw is pretty much beat for beat

1:01:39

as it was in the PSP version. Again,

1:01:42

I do anticipate that will change, but don't

1:01:44

have any information on that. Now they weren't gonna

1:01:46

they weren't gonna tell me anything. So

1:01:48

the thing that I think is really

1:01:49

important

1:01:50

to talk about is I wanna set

1:01:52

proper expectations for this game. think

1:01:54

when it was first announced, a lot of folks were thinking,

1:01:57

oh, remake. Remake. Definitely, this

1:01:59

is a remaster. It is not gonna have

1:02:01

the same visual fidelity as the Fantasy

1:02:03

seven remake because it's

1:02:05

just not. It's not really

1:02:07

rebuilt from the ground up. Although you are

1:02:10

getting the new three d models and you do have the

1:02:12

new lighting I think it looks really

1:02:14

good. It's not you're not gonna get

1:02:16

all the the polish of the remake.

1:02:18

The animations I think you can't really tell

1:02:20

in this footage, but when you're watching cut scenes,

1:02:23

a lot of the animations, facial animations,

1:02:26

the movements just look really stiff

1:02:28

and pretty outdated. Example is, like,

1:02:30

when a character's turning, their whole body

1:02:32

just moves. Instead of, you know, like, the step and

1:02:34

pivot, that's a lot more natural. This

1:02:36

mocath does not exist. Right? That's kind of what I'm

1:02:38

getting at here. And then here, we're looking

1:02:40

at combat, and this is obviously something that

1:02:42

a lot of people care about. You know, you talk with Square,

1:02:45

Dodge, with x start with r one, you have a

1:02:47

target lock. The camera follows you.

1:02:49

So it definitely is a lot more smoother than the

1:02:51

original PSP game. On the bottom

1:02:53

right, you have your material and your items you can

1:02:55

access. The one thing that I think a lot of folks are gonna

1:02:57

be scratching their head about that aren't familiar

1:03:00

the original one is the digital

1:03:02

mind wave, that's in the top left corner of

1:03:04

the combat. So you can think of this

1:03:06

like a slot machine that's constant instantly

1:03:08

running. And as you land certain combinations,

1:03:11

you're gonna get certain buffs. Maybe

1:03:13

you'll get a limit break, which will give you

1:03:15

an attack that you can use at your easier. If you

1:03:17

hit 777 you'll level up.

1:03:20

Maybe you'll hit a combo so you don't have to

1:03:22

so deteriorate doesn't cost MP or

1:03:24

certain attacks will won't cost AP.

1:03:27

So that's gonna be like kind of the funky fun

1:03:29

thing. It's just like a permaslot machine with your

1:03:31

favorite characters running in the top left. But it's

1:03:33

a part of combat and it's like whatever it's

1:03:35

it's cute. I guess the other thing I wanna

1:03:37

chat about, because again, not going into the story

1:03:39

here, is the voice acting

1:03:41

of this game. So So obviously, like,

1:03:44

I never wanna come across as rude or

1:03:46

insensitive when it comes to someone working on

1:03:48

their craft. Like, this never my intention. But

1:03:50

because this game is fully voice

1:03:53

acted now. There are a lot of lines

1:03:55

that I feel like just come

1:03:57

across a they feel a little forced

1:03:59

especially in English. if you go back

1:04:02

and watch the PSP version, I think the

1:04:04

lines that were voice acted were done really

1:04:06

well. I thought

1:04:07

I just rewatched them a replay or

1:04:09

a let's play maybe like a few weeks back just

1:04:11

to kind of freshen up on it. And I still thought it sounded

1:04:14

really good and Zach sounded perfect. but

1:04:16

in this remaster, I thought it just seemed

1:04:18

a little a little almost like cheesy

1:04:20

isn't I don't know if cheesy is the word, but Zach

1:04:22

is such an enthusiastic in the beginning

1:04:25

almost I'm almost gonna say naive character

1:04:27

and just some of the lines like, I get to meet

1:04:29

a hero. Just it just didn't

1:04:31

sound like super natch So then I did do

1:04:33

a demo in Japanese and, like, of course,

1:04:35

the enthusiasm that comes, you know, with Japanese

1:04:38

voice activity, it just seemed so much

1:04:40

better. So you're just saying that the job

1:04:42

isn't

1:04:42

quite what you like ultimately. Yeah.

1:04:44

And it's hard because I only got to see

1:04:46

a snippet And compared to the

1:04:48

PSP version, like, I thought the PSP version

1:04:50

was way better. But again, not everything was voice acted

1:04:53

in PSP. So that might be why there's kind of like

1:04:55

a hyper focus on that. So just again setting

1:04:57

expectations, the yeah. That's

1:04:59

all I wanna say. But the TLDR is

1:05:01

I'm excited as game exists. I'm happy we're

1:05:03

getting it as a little bridge between this and

1:05:05

rebirth. I'm really excited for people to get

1:05:07

to meet Zach Fair because, again, very,

1:05:09

very important character and Andrew in particular,

1:05:12

like, I hope you played this game. I think it'll

1:05:14

provide a lot of interesting context. Yeah.

1:05:16

So I think it would be helpful for me

1:05:18

and maybe other people out there who,

1:05:21

like me, never played the original

1:05:23

game and only have recently gotten

1:05:25

into it because of the Final Fantasy seven remake.

1:05:28

So narratively, where does this

1:05:30

game up with

1:05:33

the second game, which is now called

1:05:35

rebirth. It's not episode two, which

1:05:37

is what we thought it was gonna be. Right? So crisis

1:05:40

core reunion takes place

1:05:42

right before final Fantasy seven remake.

1:05:44

The first one. Okay. So everything that happens

1:05:46

in Crisis Core is like a prequel to

1:05:48

the events of final Fantasy seven make. Okay.

1:05:51

That's good to know because I did not know that at

1:05:53

all. I mean, it's hard. Right?

1:05:55

Yeah. Maybe they need to do a better job. about

1:05:57

that because Zach plays such a

1:05:59

small role in

1:06:02

Final Fantasy seven remake. And if you

1:06:04

don't even know who the black haired guy is

1:06:06

at the end, you're like, cool. What's the importance

1:06:08

of this? And we've talked about this. Right? Of

1:06:10

a lot of the most important hard hitting moments

1:06:13

are lost on you if you're not a fan, if you didn't

1:06:15

know what you were looking for. He had never played before.

1:06:17

So even though he's such an important character,

1:06:20

his appearance is very brief. So

1:06:22

-- Yeah. -- yeah. So you is it gonna be

1:06:25

integral that you play this game? Like, I

1:06:27

don't know because I don't know where

1:06:29

Square's taking remake and rebirth

1:06:31

or what role Zach's gonna play? but

1:06:33

it sounds like right now, like, yeah, I would highly recommend

1:06:35

you give it a shot and see if you can get into it.

1:06:38

And if you can, wonderful. Sure.

1:06:40

Listen, I will give it a shot because

1:06:42

I was very surprised that Final

1:06:44

Fantasy seven remake became my game

1:06:46

of the year. The year that it came out and

1:06:49

I don't think any of us saw that coming. And

1:06:51

I am interested to

1:06:53

see more about, you know, kind of more about

1:06:56

the narrative of what's leading up to it. And if

1:06:59

the combat is even sort of like

1:07:01

remake. I could be convinced

1:07:03

to try it, but it feels like it's more turn based.

1:07:05

or is it more action wise? I mean, you

1:07:07

yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you run around, you push

1:07:09

square to attack, ex to dodge, and then at the bottom

1:07:11

right, you have your material, which or your

1:07:13

spells and you have your items. Yeah.

1:07:16

Oh, yeah. Okay. So we're good. That sounds great.

1:07:18

Yeah. I'm in. I'm in.

1:07:20

Let's good. Let's go. Let's go.

1:07:22

And yeah. If you're into those characters,

1:07:24

like, Eric and Zach, and Sephora, and,

1:07:27

like, all that, like, you're gonna wanna

1:07:29

play it. You know what I mean? Mhmm. You know,

1:07:31

yeah. Yeah. All the data. All the data

1:07:33

is. Well, Steve, did you

1:07:36

have some contributing information about

1:07:38

the daddies that you would like

1:07:39

to share? You know, I am an equal opportunity,

1:07:41

daddy, lover. And

1:07:44

all the daddies deserve to be loved. And,

1:07:46

you know, know, as equal opportunity, daddy

1:07:49

person. I feel like it's our duty

1:07:51

to make sure that they are all loved equally.

1:07:53

Back to you, Andrew. professional.

1:07:56

Nailed it. It's so

1:07:58

difficult. Is there anything

1:07:59

else from the event, Britney, that you

1:08:02

wanna go over? Yeah. know, I'll save it for next

1:08:04

week, though, because there's a lot to

1:08:06

talk about. And, yeah, I'm Skype. Oh, yeah.

1:08:08

Next week. Okay. Let's do it next week. So

1:08:10

we'll we'll put a pin in the rest of

1:08:13

the ScreenX preview event

1:08:15

that Britney went to again if you wanna check

1:08:17

out some of the photos that we showed. Oh,

1:08:20

oh, sorry. I'm seeing one more thing slash one. Okay.

1:08:22

Real quick. The game ran

1:08:24

amazing on the switch. Of course, there

1:08:26

were some, like, graphic. Okay. Now, like,

1:08:28

it looks a little grainier. I'm sure there's a more technical

1:08:30

term for that. But, I mean, I never had any

1:08:33

frame hiccups. It never appeared slowdown

1:08:35

and I wasn't even playing on an OLED version.

1:08:37

It was the OG switch. So if you're

1:08:39

thinking about playing on the switch, I can't

1:08:41

recommend against it because it looked It

1:08:44

looked really good. Yeah. So and it ran wonderful.

1:08:46

Viva the switch. Good job. little machine I could.

1:08:49

Excellent. Well, just

1:08:51

quickly, I wanna talk about this

1:08:53

game that I played on stream

1:08:55

with Steve the other night because I had never heard

1:08:58

of it. And Steve texted me was like, hey,

1:09:00

We're getting together for my birthday.

1:09:03

We're playing this game called

1:09:05

tabletop simulator. That was like,

1:09:07

okay. So is this a tabletop game?

1:09:09

What what is this game? And he was like, don't worry

1:09:11

about it. Just install it and play. And I

1:09:13

was like, alright. You're the birthday play.

1:09:15

Let's play. So let me see if

1:09:18

I can pull up Steve's stream from the other night

1:09:20

so you guys can see what this game is. But Steve,

1:09:22

how would you describe what tabletop simulation?

1:09:24

It's literally just the simulator that

1:09:26

allows you to play just about any tabletop

1:09:29

game that you can possibly imagine budget

1:09:31

to dragons or, you know, fall

1:09:33

of winter or checkers or

1:09:35

chest like anything in between.

1:09:37

It's pretty much a great way, particularly

1:09:40

during the pandemics that we found ways

1:09:42

of staying connected by playing

1:09:44

board games together when you couldn't get together virtually.

1:09:46

There's also a great way to include someone

1:09:48

like myself who's disabled and can't actually

1:09:51

physically move pieces. in a video game

1:09:53

sitting like on the piece. And so one of

1:09:55

my favorite ways of staying connected with friends

1:09:57

by just enjoying a good game of board

1:09:59

games

1:10:00

I love the idea of this. And now that

1:10:02

we've played it, I'm like, okay, I'm down

1:10:04

to do more. So the game that we played

1:10:07

was called muffing time. time.

1:10:09

No. No. No. I'm gonna say Here's oh.

1:10:11

There you go. It's

1:10:14

a fucking

1:10:14

time. Okay. So we'll explain that

1:10:16

in a second. So this is showings in b roll

1:10:18

of steve stream twitch

1:10:21

dot tv slash steve in

1:10:23

spawn, so that's i n. Steve

1:10:25

in spawn. We'll put his link in the show

1:10:27

notes. If you guys want, please go to his channel.

1:10:30

Drop him a follow. He streams all the time.

1:10:32

He invited me to play with some of his other friends.

1:10:34

And so this is kind of what the game looks like.

1:10:36

We're sitting around this virtual card

1:10:38

table and we're playing essentially

1:10:41

a card game. where

1:10:43

everybody is dealt certain amount

1:10:45

of cards three cards I think it was to

1:10:47

start with. And the goal of

1:10:49

the game is to get exactly

1:10:52

ten cards in your hand at

1:10:55

which point you shout.

1:10:57

It's muffin time. And

1:11:00

then there you have to

1:11:02

get the play has to go around the

1:11:04

circle one more time, and then if you still have ten

1:11:06

cards in your hand. you win the game.

1:11:08

There was some debate about exactly

1:11:11

what the win conditions were just

1:11:13

like everything in this game was

1:11:15

debated. So these cards on

1:11:17

the table are three different colors.

1:11:20

They are blue, green, or red.

1:11:22

And the blue cards are action cards, the green

1:11:24

cards are counter cards, and the red cards

1:11:26

are trapped. cards and they all do all

1:11:28

kinds of different things. You can see one of the cards

1:11:31

that Steve is holding here is called the

1:11:33

pointless card and it literally has a pointless

1:11:35

button on it. And on it, it

1:11:37

says this card does nothing. So when you

1:11:39

play it, literally nothing happens. Like

1:11:42

Yeah.

1:11:42

There's there's there's a lot of good time. Like,

1:11:44

there's trap cards you can put down, but you put them

1:11:46

that upside down so you can't read them. And it

1:11:48

can be something like you can put this card

1:11:50

anywhere on the table or anybody playing

1:11:52

it. if they touch it, then they

1:11:55

have to pick up ten cards or something like that. Like,

1:11:57

it's one hundred percent messes with you.

1:11:59

But the the wording is intentionally vague,

1:12:01

so you have to sort of argue in debate

1:12:03

over what the card really just said?

1:12:05

That's

1:12:07

interesting. So I wanna I wanna know

1:12:09

though how many times did you get yell it's muffin times,

1:12:11

Steven. I don't think I did the entire

1:12:13

night. Andrea got -- Oh. -- ended up to

1:12:15

yell at several times. I made her do take too.

1:12:18

couple times because I was like, no. Power rangers

1:12:20

style. Oh.

1:12:21

I accidentally yelled

1:12:24

it's muffin time. The

1:12:26

first time because I thought it was

1:12:29

ten or more cards in your

1:12:31

hand. Mm-mm. Yeah. So embarrassing. It

1:12:33

was embarrassing. It was embarrassing. It's not my fault.

1:12:35

It wasn't for me. on his livestream,

1:12:37

having to be, like, oh, my dad is not

1:12:40

actually it's not actually muffin

1:12:42

time everybody. Okay.

1:12:45

JK. If it's but done.

1:12:47

It's a really fun game because there's

1:12:49

a lot of opportunity for

1:12:52

you know, joking around with your friends and laughing.

1:12:55

And obviously, as Steve mentioned, the

1:12:57

debating over, like, what does this card actually

1:12:59

mean? And Some of the cards are

1:13:01

really chaotic, so you can really

1:13:04

turn the tide of play or really just up

1:13:06

end play like I had a card it was

1:13:08

like a call me crazy, and

1:13:10

it and the directions on the card where everybody

1:13:13

returns all of your cards to the deck and

1:13:15

you duffle and start the game over.

1:13:17

That's crazy. So basically, like, it stops all

1:13:20

play and the entire game just starts

1:13:22

over. up. And it's like, do

1:13:24

I wanna play this or do I not? And before

1:13:26

I joined the game, you guys have been playing for, what,

1:13:28

two and a

1:13:28

half hours, three hours? And it was playing for five

1:13:31

hours. Andrew, ended up having two

1:13:33

or three drinks, and it was

1:13:35

it was good.

1:13:36

Oh my gosh. So there was a moment

1:13:39

where I just broke. I was drinking

1:13:41

the cookie cookie. So we're gonna

1:13:43

cookie cookie That is so good. I can

1:13:45

see how you would have had a look. And I had, like,

1:13:48

three fingers of it in a glass I was

1:13:50

nursing it slash drinking it probably

1:13:52

too fast. And I was a little

1:13:54

tipsy and I don't remember what

1:13:56

it was that set me off. It was probably something

1:13:58

really mundane, but I just got into a

1:14:00

laughing fit where I just started crying. I

1:14:02

was laughing too hard. And I was just

1:14:04

like, I was like, thank god my camera's not

1:14:06

on. And Bruce Bruce Green, who was playing

1:14:08

with us at the time, was like, are you okay? So

1:14:10

I was like, I'm like laughing

1:14:12

crying, so it probably sounds like could be cry,

1:14:15

but I was just I couldn't breathe. I was

1:14:17

laughing to heart. I don't even remember what it was

1:14:19

that was so funny.

1:14:19

Like, any of us do? We we were all

1:14:22

laughing about it because was was, like,

1:14:24

oh, she finally got a chance to let her hair down.

1:14:26

Get to her. It

1:14:29

was definitely one of those nice plates. Yeah.

1:14:31

The baby has is with the center and you can

1:14:33

just be goofy. It was fun. It was it was

1:14:35

good content creator friendly. It wasn't you

1:14:37

know, it was just not typical streamer content

1:14:40

where you're just interacting with Chad and being

1:14:42

nuts. It was literally just, like, five,

1:14:44

the eight of us just be a goofball. and

1:14:46

literally screwing each other up with no purpose

1:14:49

other than just to keep the game going. And nobody

1:14:51

ended up winning after five hours. So, you know

1:14:53

Whoa, really? Yeah. Wow.

1:14:54

Wow. several times

1:14:57

people drew the it's my birthday

1:14:59

card, but I don't think

1:15:00

Steve you never actually had that idea. Nobody

1:15:02

actually gave it to me so that I could win.

1:15:04

So I was like Oh, I thought Root gave

1:15:06

it to you once. Did he not No. He didn't sort

1:15:08

of giving it to me. And it was and that's the

1:15:11

employer hat sale because it's your

1:15:13

a birthday when you play it. So

1:15:15

this game is a good content. It definitely is

1:15:18

fun games. If you just wanna have some fun there's

1:15:20

a physical version of it as well. So you're looking

1:15:22

for, you have three, four friends. You wanna be goofy

1:15:24

for a while and not actually win a game, then

1:15:26

that's I highly recommend it.

1:15:27

have lots of situations where that would apply.

1:15:30

It's muffin time.

1:15:32

So I noticed on the left,

1:15:35

on that gameplay that you're showing that there's

1:15:37

a lot of tools there. Is that -- Yeah.

1:15:39

-- is that for UC or what is that part of the game

1:15:41

or what is

1:15:41

It's it's for anybody playing the

1:15:43

game. So you have tools where you can grab

1:15:45

cards, you can throw them around, you can flick

1:15:48

them across the room, you can make cool

1:15:50

tokens and uses draw on a table and

1:15:52

people draw the eggs, and that's great. Oh,

1:15:54

great. Say no more. Yeah. Well,

1:15:57

I feel like there there may be a

1:15:58

stream coming in our future. So you

1:15:59

get angry and just throw all your cards in the table.

1:16:02

there actually is a button at the top there.

1:16:04

If you saw it, it says flip the table. Literally

1:16:06

flips the entire table.

1:16:07

Oh, I see that. Oh, amazing. a

1:16:11

fun.

1:16:11

Yeah. That feels a little

1:16:13

too much chaos, but you mean, I

1:16:15

guess you could

1:16:16

bring us up to flip it. Then there's a on

1:16:18

the rewind button so you can like, bring him all

1:16:20

that.

1:16:20

Oh, okay. There we go. I'm into it.

1:16:22

Control. But we had a we had a great time, and

1:16:24

it and it was really fun. And you were

1:16:26

also playing fall guys.

1:16:29

of which there was an announcement that

1:16:31

I told my husband that we

1:16:33

would talk about because

1:16:35

they made an announcement. Let me

1:16:37

look up now. Yeah. Get your

1:16:39

shots. Get your shots right now. Yeah. My

1:16:42

buddy the games. Is John

1:16:45

Drake? Is he would feel without the What's the James

1:16:47

podcast? every week, he whispers

1:16:49

to Andrew. He's like, if you don't talk about

1:16:51

our new announcement, I'm gonna divorce

1:16:53

you, and Disney's gonna fail. And

1:16:55

so poor baby girl over there, she's stuck.

1:16:58

She's beholden to this agreement that she's just

1:17:00

kinda found her so forced into, and I really

1:17:02

feel bad for you. Well, don't feel

1:17:04

too bad for me because, you know, somebody

1:17:06

has to pay the mortgage on this house and it's not

1:17:08

me. Take a shot, everybody. We're talking

1:17:10

about xenomorphs. Yes, aliens

1:17:13

are underneath my husband's Disney

1:17:15

purview, which is weird thing to say out

1:17:17

loud. The team over at MediaTonic and

1:17:19

Fallguys announced that Zeno Morris are

1:17:22

in the season pass for folk guys,

1:17:24

which is so weird. Like, if

1:17:26

I would you want your folk guy as a xenobore,

1:17:29

Steve, do you have any favorite costumes

1:17:32

when you play ball guys?

1:17:33

in the past. It is all about sci fi.

1:17:35

This this Yeah. So it's like the xenomorph

1:17:37

and you got spock and

1:17:40

you have the cat so they have like

1:17:42

a cat suit where you're an astronaut with

1:17:45

the little ears as if it's a cat helmet.

1:17:47

But do y'all remember the movie, the abyss

1:17:49

from, like, the ninety something like that?

1:17:52

There was this, like, ink goo

1:17:54

that they were learning to breathe

1:17:56

through if you fill your helmet with it. So that's

1:17:58

exactly what the suit is. Is this got the pink

1:18:00

goo So you can't actually see what

1:18:02

the little fall guys look like because that's like the lures

1:18:05

that we don't know what they look like underneath there will

1:18:07

be inserts. So you you

1:18:09

can't see it through the helmet. So it's pretty

1:18:11

cool. I'm a I run cat

1:18:13

gang over in my stream where I just yell out

1:18:15

cat gang and people yelling back with their suits

1:18:17

on. It's pretty fun. That's all guys is just

1:18:19

such bioticness. I'm I'm on the

1:18:22

opposite end of the stream with Brent. I I want

1:18:24

less stress in my life. Brent wants

1:18:26

more gore and weirdness. I was a lot

1:18:28

silly fun. So

1:18:32

I've been on such a big kick of fall, guys,

1:18:34

and short night. And anything where if

1:18:36

it's low stakes, you can just play in the

1:18:38

game. And then if you lose, you lose, who

1:18:40

cares?

1:18:41

That's fair. You know, that's a good way to live.

1:18:43

You know, I probably would do me a

1:18:45

lot of good for mental healthified player games

1:18:47

fall guys instead of scoring and resin evil.

1:18:50

But, hey, we have

1:18:52

to get into some Fortnite then, you know,

1:18:54

because because Re has been

1:18:56

on a Fortnite kid. I have.

1:18:59

I almost filled out my last season

1:19:01

pass and unfortunately I forgot

1:19:04

to go in and cash in the rest of my v bucks

1:19:06

to fill out the last page -- Wow.

1:19:09

-- before it flipped over. But

1:19:11

I was all the way to the the second to last page

1:19:13

the bonus pages. So was

1:19:15

very pleased with myself with the progress regardless.

1:19:17

Yes. Impressive. Impressive. But

1:19:20

a game that you are spending it

1:19:22

feels like more time with currently is

1:19:24

one that came out just about

1:19:26

month ago and had the Internet

1:19:29

whipped up into a frenzy and is sitting

1:19:31

on my switch waiting for me to play, cult

1:19:33

of the lamb. Yeah. So

1:19:35

I was out of town. As I mentioned with

1:19:37

my husband, Danny Pena, we were back

1:19:40

in Miami for his big book release

1:19:42

for the start of Hispanic heritage month with Daniela's

1:19:44

video games, and that entailed lots

1:19:46

of trouble. So I had

1:19:48

plenty of hours on the plane and

1:19:51

sitting in a room, waiting for soundtrack,

1:19:53

and just sitting at someone's house, waiting

1:19:55

for him to cook dinner. and

1:19:58

lots of time with my steam deck

1:19:59

and I installed cultivate and started

1:20:01

playing once I I took off. So

1:20:04

as of right now, since I started

1:20:06

this time last week, I have about sixty hours

1:20:08

in. And

1:20:11

I'm on day eighty of

1:20:13

my cults. Right now I have eleven

1:20:16

followers alive because one of the hair

1:20:18

tics and the dungeons actually just turned one

1:20:20

against me. I had to fight against them, which sucked

1:20:22

because it was one of my favorites. And altogether,

1:20:24

I've had eighteen followers over the course of

1:20:26

my game. So it's great. And

1:20:28

I will say what I really love about

1:20:31

Cultivuleam so far, it's like my favorite

1:20:33

parts about animal crossing with my favorite

1:20:35

parts about Hades put together in one game.

1:20:37

Everybody who listens to us good games knows how

1:20:39

I feel about both of those priorities. So

1:20:42

it is highly addictive. Like,

1:20:44

if we were to have a category for

1:20:46

most addictive games, this would absolutely take

1:20:49

Fortnite's crown. because I

1:20:51

I swear to you that the loop is so

1:20:53

so tight. I could either spin

1:20:56

a good twelve hour straight just hanging

1:20:58

out with my cult. or a good

1:21:00

five hour straight just running dungeons or

1:21:02

fishing or playing the the little

1:21:04

gambling game that's inside of Cultivuleam?

1:21:07

Like, it it is just so easy to be like,

1:21:09

okay, while my people are sleeping, I'm gonna do a little

1:21:11

farming, and then get the poop from the outhouse, and then put

1:21:13

it over here, and then run over here and fish a little bit.

1:21:15

And then when we get back upstairs, from the outhouse,

1:21:18

it's a family like nice. And then when I call

1:21:20

my It's a cult leader. Yeah. Exactly. And

1:21:22

I call my cult it's cult of dance, but I call it going

1:21:24

up I don't know why, but when I go back upstairs to

1:21:26

hang out with my people, then I'll just do

1:21:28

a quick little fishing ritual and go fishing again

1:21:30

and once that's expired, I'll do little fasting

1:21:32

ritual, so nobody pooped all I'm gone, and then I'll do a bunch

1:21:34

of dungeon runs. Like, it is so easy

1:21:36

to get caught in these loops. And

1:21:39

my goodness, what a status buying game.

1:21:41

I absolutely adored it as top

1:21:43

of my list for gaming apps. You know what me

1:21:45

too? I haven't talked about it on what's good, but

1:21:47

I'm probably like thirty hours into

1:21:49

cult of the lamb. I haven't picked it up in a while,

1:21:52

but something I also loved about it, Rehan,

1:21:54

you touched on this. Is that what ever you're

1:21:56

in the mood for, you can do. If you wanna

1:21:58

decorate your coal and put down a whole

1:21:59

bunch of new pathways or decorations,

1:22:03

or torches or whatever, you can

1:22:05

do that. And then when you get bored of that and you wanna

1:22:07

do some dungeon runs, you can do that too.

1:22:09

You can just take your time with it

1:22:11

and I love games that let you

1:22:14

do that because you never feel rushed, you never

1:22:16

feel like you have to do a certain thing, you

1:22:18

can just make it whatever you wanna make it.

1:22:20

And there's lots of choices. Like, you can run

1:22:22

your cults, like, in a very dirty

1:22:25

and nasty way where everyone just kind of

1:22:27

like hates you. Or you can be, like, kind of, an

1:22:29

coated, which is the route that I took, but

1:22:31

I could definitely see myself going back and just

1:22:33

be in a complete a hole. You know what I mean? Are you

1:22:35

being nice or are you just like telling everyone

1:22:38

go kick rocks. I'm being fairly nice. I

1:22:40

do slightly regret that I did not

1:22:42

take the doctrine that allowed me to murder.

1:22:45

Yeah. because sometimes people are annoying, and

1:22:47

I'd rather just kill them than trying to kill someone

1:22:49

because then you have to wait till they get older, and

1:22:51

then you can do a sacrifice because everyone's

1:22:53

like, oh, cool. Death is cool. you know,

1:22:55

there's lots of different interesting ways you can

1:22:57

play. And, yeah, the loop is great. This

1:22:59

is really funny, Andrea. I think you'll like it. I think

1:23:01

you'll have a good time with it. I definitely think

1:23:03

you'll like it, injury. And there's way more decoration

1:23:07

than the b roll that gives credit for, as Britney

1:23:09

mentioned. Yeah. I just I'm like,

1:23:11

okay. I clearly need

1:23:13

to start Disney Dreamlight Valley. But

1:23:16

I also need to start this.

1:23:18

Just take a shot, everybody. And I'm like,

1:23:20

okay, I have to do both. I must play

1:23:22

both of these games. How do I

1:23:25

get a time turner so that I can

1:23:27

go back in time and make

1:23:29

time in the day to play both of these things because I

1:23:31

don't know

1:23:32

how to do it. I'm not sure if we're on a on on

1:23:34

time crunch here. So if I am just to appear

1:23:36

to answer really, really quickly, but I was curious

1:23:38

new ladies being the forefront of

1:23:40

gaming podcaster. Do you

1:23:42

have opinions on the the loop

1:23:44

cycle that we're kinda seeing now where

1:23:47

Start b Valley goes very here's

1:23:49

start a, here's the end point b. If you wanna

1:23:51

keep going, you start a whole new day, but we're seeing

1:23:54

things like Dream Valley and

1:23:56

gone through the land where there really isn't a

1:23:58

logical place to pause. It's kinda

1:24:00

like you could go forever if you want. And

1:24:02

it seems like games are moving that way

1:24:05

to where there is no logical

1:24:07

stop. It's just stop when you want to?

1:24:09

Yeah. It's it's interesting. So I've played

1:24:11

those sorts of games my whole life. I started with Harvest

1:24:13

Food on Super Nintendo,

1:24:14

what tends to happen The slight

1:24:16

slight slight bias. What tends to happen to me

1:24:18

is there's an organic point when

1:24:20

I just start to peat her out. And

1:24:23

I can usually tell when I'm about five

1:24:25

to ten hours out of that hitting that wall.

1:24:27

And it's usually when I feel like I've

1:24:29

mastered the game where I've gotten

1:24:32

efficient economy running. There's

1:24:34

really not much more to do. Everyone in town loves

1:24:36

me. I can bang anyone I want. You

1:24:38

know, like, so that's kind of my organic.

1:24:40

I love that though because again, like, you can

1:24:43

just stop whenever you want and you

1:24:45

can just pick it up whenever you want.

1:24:47

It's no rush. So I

1:24:49

personally love that, but I know for some

1:24:51

people that's really like it's a pain point

1:24:53

because they don't have that definitive stop.

1:24:55

And so you don't know like when f I played enough

1:24:58

and that's why I stopped playing Cole to the Lam is everyone

1:25:00

loved me, everything was upgraded. I

1:25:02

still have one more I think they're Dungens

1:25:04

Rea. I don't know exactly what they're called -- Yeah.

1:25:06

-- to do, but I just really don't have

1:25:08

any interest in finishing it because I

1:25:10

feel like I've mastered the sim part of it.

1:25:13

that's interesting with the amount of hours you've

1:25:15

played that you think that you're like, okay,

1:25:17

I've played enough. because clearly

1:25:19

for me in animal crossing new horizons,

1:25:21

that number was like eight hundred hours.

1:25:24

And that's what I was like, okay, I think I've played

1:25:26

this game enough. But it's like it's such a different

1:25:29

vibe because it's, you know, there isn't a lot

1:25:31

of things to chase in these life sentences.

1:25:33

I think the idea is you get

1:25:35

to make the game what you want. And even when

1:25:37

you would go talk, you know, to Tom Nook,

1:25:39

because he was the one who would give you things

1:25:42

you'd be, like, what am I supposed to do now, Tom?

1:25:44

And he'd be, like, just go live your life and enjoy

1:25:46

being on the island. And it's, like, what's

1:25:49

what's up? I think it's

1:25:51

interesting that we're seeing more life

1:25:53

sims. We talked about how there was

1:25:55

such a surge in life sim

1:25:57

announcements during the last Nintendo

1:26:00

and it's I posed the question

1:26:02

on Twitter. Is it because animal

1:26:05

crossing new horizons sold this

1:26:07

crazy amount, you know, over thirty five million

1:26:10

copies? Or is it because

1:26:12

there's just always been this many life since

1:26:14

and I just am now starting to see them and

1:26:16

care about than more. And a lot of people

1:26:18

in my timeline said -- Yeah. -- call me

1:26:20

and call me that -- Mhmm. -- there's definitely

1:26:23

more life since than there ever has been.

1:26:25

Part of it is because Animal Crossing

1:26:28

did so well that people are like, obviously, we

1:26:30

missed the market for live ins

1:26:32

and Nintendo has a corner. Let's get

1:26:34

a piece of it. Yeah. I mean, I would guess that as

1:26:36

many games as we've seen recently

1:26:38

have been pitched forever, but they've gotten

1:26:41

greenlit because of animal crossing

1:26:43

and you know, there's a lot more faith in that

1:26:45

format. But to help answer your question, I

1:26:47

think for me, I really love

1:26:49

games that let me choose, as Britney alluded

1:26:51

to, what part of the game name is the game for

1:26:53

me. Right? Like, for me, it's like hanging

1:26:56

out with my people upstairs. Like, I just

1:26:58

love my little cult. I love adding

1:27:00

people to it when people start getting weird and

1:27:02

like, wanna eat poop. I'm like, you gotta go,

1:27:04

like, no dude. You

1:27:06

know, like, I I just love managing my

1:27:08

little group of people, and I'll do my dungeons

1:27:11

to get stuff, like, to get different

1:27:13

materials in order to upgrade my

1:27:15

or in order to cook a new type of meal or in order

1:27:18

to build a new type of building, that's the only reason

1:27:20

I'm interested in running dungeons. I actually am

1:27:22

not interested sit an in game in the actual

1:27:24

story of Culture of the Lam. Now, I'm

1:27:26

not saying it's not wonderful because it is actually

1:27:29

really great The characters are super super

1:27:31

interesting. The NPC as you met meet

1:27:33

are really really quirky and have lots of

1:27:35

fun dialogue. Like, there is that game

1:27:37

for the person who's looking for that there too.

1:27:40

But for me, I just wanna hang out with my little

1:27:42

weirdos. And that that's just

1:27:44

what I find exciting about the game. So

1:27:46

I can see similar to Britney me tapping

1:27:48

out before I probably finish it or, you know,

1:27:50

unlock all of the dungeons or get to the end

1:27:52

game and beat all the heretics. simply

1:27:54

because, like, what I'm getting out of it is

1:27:56

enough for me. You know, I don't need

1:27:59

to get to in game in order to

1:28:01

have enjoyed my time with it. and

1:28:03

it is still at the top of, like I said, at the top

1:28:05

of my list for game of the year. But I think

1:28:07

it's just really great that as gamers, we have

1:28:09

so many games that give us so many choices and

1:28:11

even within one title, There's so many

1:28:13

ways to play a lot of these life sentence as

1:28:15

well. And I wrote in the show notes.

1:28:17

I just love my little cults. You wanna

1:28:19

a boo. Gonna put it on You're gonna put it on

1:28:22

a t shirt. Yeah. But no

1:28:24

no poof eaters. The eaters are

1:28:26

not welcome in the cults. Let it be

1:28:28

known to everybody. Well, this has

1:28:30

been really fun talking about some games

1:28:32

that are coming out, some games that have been out.

1:28:35

And Steve, I wanna say you for

1:28:37

joining us today. I would love

1:28:39

to hear more about what you're playing

1:28:41

on your Twitch channel and where people can

1:28:43

come hang out with you and play video

1:28:45

games. No. I mean, I do so much

1:28:47

in the community games area. We

1:28:49

do our Small guys community nights

1:28:51

and our marbles on stream. And, you

1:28:53

know, I I actually have Andrea

1:28:55

to think believe it or not for where

1:28:57

I turned into my twitch career because we

1:28:59

we were talking one night about variety

1:29:02

streamer. And hell, it didn't really fit me.

1:29:04

And Andrea was like, you're more of like a personality

1:29:06

streamer. And that really stuck with me. And

1:29:09

then that's what I've been kinda calling myself because

1:29:11

I don't really play games to be good. I'm not

1:29:13

really playing odd only fans. I'm

1:29:15

just hanging up, you know, being a guy.

1:29:17

No only man. But apparently,

1:29:19

you can. That's that's the new hotness.

1:29:21

Right. I'll be your first subscriber. Let's

1:29:23

go three thousand dollars a night. Oh.

1:29:25

the

1:29:28

And just kidding.

1:29:30

I'm pretty done on the night. Anyway, so

1:29:33

I'm, you know, I'm always on twitch just trying

1:29:35

to have fun with people. And so if you

1:29:37

wanna come by and and hang out, you know, twitch

1:29:40

dot tv slash stephens on spelled

1:29:42

the streamer way. Pretty much over there, we're

1:29:44

always just being goofballs. love people to come by

1:29:46

and hang out, you know. One of my favorite things to do

1:29:48

is hang out with friends even though Andrea, you're asking

1:29:50

people that we don't have to waste stream everything. I

1:29:52

think it's it's always good to play with your

1:29:54

community as well. So that's where you can

1:29:56

find me more often than not. It's usually on Twitter

1:29:58

as well. So

1:29:59

I had messaged

1:29:59

Steve after we had this really

1:30:01

fun night and just reminded

1:30:04

him, you know, like, it was so fun to

1:30:06

play. We don't get to play enough together.

1:30:08

We don't always have to play on

1:30:10

on stream so we can be a little bit

1:30:12

more off the cuff. But think also

1:30:15

it's about it's about balance. And right now,

1:30:17

I wanna get back to streaming more.

1:30:19

Well, I've actively thrown off the bat.

1:30:21

Maybe, you know, you could stream a little bit less and

1:30:23

take more time for yourself because you're clearly working

1:30:26

really hard, and I don't wanna see you burn out.

1:30:28

You know, circling back to that burnout conversation

1:30:30

we had at the very top of episode of,

1:30:32

you know, we all, as people

1:30:34

in the spotlight, even if you're not a content creator,

1:30:37

this pressure to be on social

1:30:39

media or to be posting online and

1:30:41

to be taking pictures and photos and be out

1:30:43

in the world doing stuff, I think is been

1:30:45

really tough for a lot of us in

1:30:47

the aftermath of being so

1:30:49

isolated for so many years during the pandemic

1:30:52

and getting back to it is

1:30:54

a little bit rougher, I think, than maybe

1:30:56

we were ready for. think at first, I

1:30:58

was like, alright, I'm all cooped up.

1:31:00

Let's go. Let's go. And then I was like, oh my the

1:31:03

pressure people to, like, you know, go

1:31:05

out and socialize is really way

1:31:07

more tough than I thought it was going to be.

1:31:09

It's hard sometimes to find that balance.

1:31:11

thank you again for letting me plug

1:31:13

my stuff and spawn together if anybody

1:31:15

out there is content creator or just wants to

1:31:17

do anything to the cause, spawn together dot

1:31:20

com is my passion. project to help people

1:31:22

with disabilities. But Andrea usually reminds

1:31:24

me I don't have to be working all the time, so

1:31:26

I'm just you're hanging out playing games. But

1:31:28

to circle back and push back to

1:31:30

all of you listening to what's good

1:31:32

games. When grit read out that review,

1:31:34

please keep in mind, those reviews really do

1:31:37

help. As all the ladies here, I'm sure, could tell

1:31:39

you they do the same. You get every once in

1:31:41

a while a message that says, hey,

1:31:43

really love your stuff. I'm sure you do this all

1:31:45

the time, so you're probably sick of it. But

1:31:47

I love when you did this. And every

1:31:49

single time I go, oh, I don't hear

1:31:51

that all the time. Actually, quite the obvious it?

1:31:53

Most of them are DMs are full of Dupixent

1:31:56

eight. So anytime you wanna leave a review

1:31:58

somewhere, it helps lower than you might

1:32:00

realize. So if you feel something good about something

1:32:02

you love, I highly encourage you, put it

1:32:04

into the universe. Talk about what you love. You don't

1:32:06

have to only talk about what you don't like.

1:32:09

Yes. We're all saying

1:32:11

snaps preach, Eamon, one

1:32:13

hundred percent. I had just mentioned

1:32:15

that talking about what all the people

1:32:17

that got laid off when the awful

1:32:19

news that we got last week for the multiple

1:32:22

gaming media websites that, you know, suffered

1:32:25

layoffs. This idea that you

1:32:27

know, making stuff, whether you're making content

1:32:29

or video games or specialty

1:32:32

video game controllers or software, whatever

1:32:34

it is. It's hard to do,

1:32:36

and it's usually pretty thankless. And

1:32:38

so if you like somebody that does something that

1:32:40

you consume, no matter what it is,

1:32:42

Tell them you like it. Tell them you appreciate that