From 8-Bit to 4K Episode 9: The Clair Obscur Awards

[00:00:10] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to from 8bit to 4k episode 9. I'm your host this week. I'm Jack Sohlman. I've got with me two other guys here to talk to you about video games. We've got Mike of many names. [00:00:23] Speaker B: Hey yo. [00:00:25] Speaker A: And we've got Pillow Path. [00:00:26] Speaker C: Hello. [00:00:27] Speaker A: Alright guys, we have a Discord come join. The Discord link is in the episode description and tell us how bad our takes are on the game awards that we're gonna talk about in a few minutes here. But first we gotta give some shout outs to Codex, Ninja Pillow Pet, Skippius, Esquire, Labana and Uncle Chrisco for supporting the podcast at the shoutout tier. Thank you very much. If you want to support the show, head on over to the podcast network. We're a part of patreon.com the Four Wards podcast. $1 a month just tells us that you love us. $5 a month gets you an exclusive feed of some behind the scenes audio of our prep work before each show. And $10 a month gets you that same exclusive feed and we will shout you out at the top of every episode. And that does apply to our League of Legends podcast, the main four awards podcast, as well as this one. So guys, it's been a couple weeks. What have you been playing? What games do you want to talk about? Mike, I'm going to kick it over to you because you have the most games in your list. Most things in your list. [00:01:25] Speaker B: Well, I'll be, I'll be quick about the first one because it's not a game. Okay. I recently restarted watching a show from my childhood that I absolutely love and it's my favorite sci fi show. I love Babylon 5. [00:01:39] Speaker A: Babylon 5 is so good. [00:01:41] Speaker B: It is. It should have been up there with the same names like Star Trek and Star Wars. It is so fantastic. But it never got the same sort of publicity. It was always a sci fi show. It was never in the other main zeitgeist. So it, it got snubbed. Which is a true shame because the five full seasons of 23 episodes, hour long each, absolutely fantastic. Going through season one again realizing that, wow, there's a lot of setup stuff that I completely forgot existed and a bunch of never show up again. But like there's even this early on, like episode seven, you get to see bits and pieces of things that'll be wildly explored way down the factions. There's an episode where one of the main characters, because the ensemble cast is huge, is an alien named D'. Kar. And for like the first 10 episodes you don't like him. And he is designed not to be likable. And then he goes and does something fantastic and has one of the most thought provoking and meaningful quotes of the first season. And just this beautiful moment and I forgot that was there. I'm so happy I went back and watched it. [00:02:57] Speaker A: I also love Babylon 5. I will say a lot of season one is filler, but it's filler that builds character. It's not, oh, we need to have this many episodes to fill the season. It is like, hey, we're gonna have a bunch of low stakes episodes so you can learn the characters and how they interact and how they react to things and learn about this world through a bunch of low stakes stuff. It is very intentional filler. [00:03:22] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a lot more. It's a lot more. Episode of the week and, and there's, there's still going to be episode of the week all throughout the show. But it really is prominently here because you're just getting introduced to characters and then little bits and pieces from those episode of the weeks get sort of built upon and built upon and built upon until suddenly you have this really great interweaving story going throughout all five seasons. [00:03:49] Speaker A: Exactly. And the easiest way to Sum up Babylon 5 is it's Star Trek Deep Space Nine, but unshackled from all of the stuff that comes with being a Star Trek series. [00:03:59] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, it is. It is planned into space station intergalactic and it's outside of the problem that is Star Trek's universe. So you get to have significantly more new and interesting stories. Like there's, there's hints that, that there's deep, deep undercovered alien things. There's definitely war that's going through immediately. Humanity has developed telepathy. So there are telepaths that are like a subsection of humanity. Gets real interesting real fast. [00:04:31] Speaker A: It's great. Highly recommend 10 out of 10 show. If you have it available to you to watch. You should watch Babylon 5. If it's not available to you, fucking pirate it and watch it anyway. [00:04:40] Speaker B: Yes, there's a small chance the director will be remaking the show. J. Michael Straczynski. Like he has mentioned that he wants to do another rework of the show and has like started to work towards it. So I'm hoping that we're gonna get new Babylon 5. [00:04:57] Speaker A: I hope so. That would be cool. [00:04:59] Speaker C: Be nice because like I haven't seen it and that's kind of my. Right up my alley to things I like. But I feel like it would be really hard for me to go back and watch it now with everything that I'm accustomed to now with like makeup. [00:05:12] Speaker B: Design is absolutely brilliant. So everything where the practical is, is beautiful. The one place where it starts to fall a little bit short is when you start getting those space shots with ships and it's noticeably 90s graphics. It's. [00:05:27] Speaker C: It's a, it's a ship sitting on a string, probably in the middle of a dark room or something. [00:05:31] Speaker B: No, no, no. These are like early age computer graphics. [00:05:34] Speaker C: Oh, gotcha. [00:05:35] Speaker A: Yeah. It specifically is low res, low fidelity cg. It, it is the limiting factor. I did check. It is available to watch on the Roku channel with ads in the US So there is a way to legally stream it. So that's what we're going to actually recommend you do. If it's not available in your country, then pirate it. It's worth watching. [00:05:57] Speaker B: It is. Or if you're like me and absolutely love it, buy all fucking five seasons three times. [00:06:01] Speaker A: Yeah, buy. Buy it on disc. [00:06:04] Speaker B: I have, I have all of the discs and I have a digital version and I've had to do that digital version a second time. [00:06:10] Speaker C: Not to veer too far off topic, but while we're on the topic of like old TV shows, me and my wife were watching a Christmas tradition of ours in our house and we always watch like Christmas vacation, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. And we were watching like. And in these older shows they have their. I just want to get your guys opinion on this. Do new shows, you think newer shows and newer movies, do you feel like they go a little bit too far with like the sexual like no revealing. Do you think they. Because, okay, so reason I bring this. [00:06:46] Speaker A: Up, I think they don't go far enough. [00:06:48] Speaker C: Like a National Lampoon. There's a. If you've never seen it, there's. There is a scene where the dad is daydreaming about this retail worker that he saw at the mall in this pool and all it is is her throwing off her bathing suit and back in the day. And I feel like that was a hot and heavy scene for that time period. And nowadays all you're seeing is just nudity and just live sex on. [00:07:17] Speaker B: I'm a fan of British TV and British comedy. There were boobs on screen in 1971. [00:07:24] Speaker A: I was gonna say the first movie I ever saw that had nudity in it came out before I was born. It is a Tom Hanks movie called Bachelor Party. There is straight up full frontal nudity. In Bachelor Party, if you're watching the full uncensored version and not the cable. [00:07:43] Speaker C: Version, I guess, like, what I'm thinking of is, like, I'm just thinking of, you know, think Game of Thrones, where every episode someone's banging and there's, you know, something going on. Are you afraid, like, when they do some of these remakes that they're going to change it up to be, like, more modern? [00:08:02] Speaker B: Like, I'm not worried about that. Game of Thrones ex. [00:08:06] Speaker A: Yeah. As long as the creators are not shoehorning it in where it doesn't need to be. If the characters are going to go, fuck, I don't mind if they see that or if they cut away. Either one is fine. I'm not gonna be upset one way or the other. I don't think it's a problem one way or the other. I think the problem is when they have to tiptoe around the idea of two characters getting it on or more than two characters getting it on because they're not allowed to show what they want to show. And you can tell when it's a creator being stifled versus this is what they wanted to show. And it's just more tame than it's. It's. It's the Legend of Korra thing where they weren't allowed to have Korra kiss Asami. [00:08:46] Speaker C: I didn't want to derail too much. I just, like, you started talking about it getting a remake, and it made me think of, like, man, I hope they don't ruin, like, identities of these shows that made them so great back then. [00:08:57] Speaker A: There's definitely some sex in Babylon 5 that they absolutely could go more raunchy with or keep it tasteful and both would be fine. [00:09:05] Speaker B: Oh, God, yeah. Easy. Between both Jakara and Londo. Yeah. [00:09:10] Speaker A: Also Delenn. And Delenn. [00:09:13] Speaker B: Yep. [00:09:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Sheridan. Like, there's multiple instances of it to where I'm fine with either direction they go as long as they do it in a, like, artistic, intentional manner and not, like, gratuitous. Also, I just like seeing tits. Let's be real. [00:09:29] Speaker C: I'm a simple drones. [00:09:31] Speaker A: All right, Pillow, tell us about one of the games you've been playing. [00:09:36] Speaker C: So just a few days before recording this, Ashes of Creation was released into its alpha 2 state onto Steam. It's just now it's open access. All you have to do is pay the fee of what when it was released, $42 with the discount they had on there. And you got access to the Alpha 2 of Ash's creation. I was really excited about it because, I mean, I love MMOs. I'm a huge wow fan. Everybody knows that. I think we talk about it every episode in some aspect. It was a rough launch and I'm not the kind of person that's going to bag on a game because that's in Alpha. Especially even though it's been in alpha for like, you know, four, three or four years, it's had plenty of time to move forward. I don't know, I haven't followed the development process of it. I'm not that far into it. I saw a new mmo, I said, oh, shiny. I bought into it. I didn't, you know, I didn't get to play it the first two or three days because of the server issues and the launch issues. So I just sat back. I finally got into it last night, got to play for about an hour. Beautiful game. It's an Unreal Engine 5. It's awesome. The questing is really great. Smooth. It felt good. I just think I realized last night while I was playing it, I think I'm too old to get into new MMOs. Like, I think I just like my World of Warcraft. I mean, I'm going to continue to follow it and keep trying it and see how it unpolishes or keeps polishing because I really like the crafting system in it. But yeah, I think I'm just too old to get into it. But I want to mention, if you have tried it or if you're thinking about trying it, it is a alpha. It is not complete, it is full of bugs and issues and you're, you're not going to enjoy it if you're thinking of it as a full game. So wait to get into it, don't review bomb it because you're unhappy that it's not a finished, polished game. You can either wait, watch the streamers or buy into it, realizing that you're only going to have a few hours to be able to do some stuff. [00:11:43] Speaker B: So much like Fellowship. It's, it's early access. You're. You're getting into a noticeably not complete thing. They're asking for help for fixing bugs and issues, but they wanted to see do people enjoy what we've created? [00:11:58] Speaker C: Mm, exactly. [00:11:59] Speaker A: Fair enough. Alright, I'm gonna talk about a game that I think a lot of people are not enjoying what they've created, unfortunately. So Metroid Prime 4 came out and I've been playing it. I'm most of the way through. I have not finished it yet. And I want to be clear up front. I do not think Metroid Prime 4 is a bad video game. It is, however, definitely the worst Metroid prime game. It's straight up, not a Metroid game. It's a Zelda game with a Metroid skin. It's extremely linear in the worst kind of annoying ways. So in a typical Metroid game, you get a new power up that lets you go to different places, so you try to figure out which place you go next. Some of the newer ones have been a little more handholdy in that regard and kind of directed you in the right direction. This game does do that. [00:12:53] Speaker B: Even the first prime gave you the detection over here. Once you got a new thing, it. [00:12:58] Speaker A: Didn'T tell you how to get there, but it told you the general gist of where to go. And this game does that and that's fine. My issue is with the way this game does that. And I'm going to give you an example. There is a fire area in the game that you go to and then are immediately told you can't progress further because you lack a required power up to cross lava. Like it says on screen, you do not have the necessary power up to progress here. So you leave and you go do other things. And eventually you get the ice power. And the ice power explicitly says can be used to freeze things. And it makes mention of using it to freeze lava. So then I was like, cool, clearly that must be the power up that lets me cross the lava so I can enter the fireplace, right? I go there, I shoot the lava and nothing happens. And the message pops up saying, I don't have the required power up. Then and only then, after it took five minutes to get there from the place where I had just left, then and only then does it pop up and go, oh, hey, you have a new power up. You should go here and use it here instead. Like actually fuck you game. And this game is full of moments like that. It's extremely obnoxious. The areas you actually explore, the maps are fine. They're a little more linear than I would like, but it's fine. But half of them are explored with NPCs. Protecting them isn't a big deal. If they get downed, you just revive them. It's fine. But there's so much dialogue. There shouldn't be any dialogue in a Metroid game, first of all. But second of all, I'll push back. [00:14:43] Speaker B: A little bit on that. Dread was fucking amazing. Even with its dialogue. [00:14:46] Speaker A: Okay, Dread has a little bit of dialogue. [00:14:49] Speaker B: That is the right amount of dialogue. [00:14:52] Speaker A: Fusion had more and it was slightly too much, but still in the tolerable range. But also all of those dialogues are text boxes that pop up. Dialogue happens, then you get back to the game. Even in Dread. Well, Dread had in Metroid Prime 4. These are full on extended cutscenes of characters who have just been introduced. Talking to Samus like your old friends. Or in one case like they're a fangirl of Samus. Which is a little amusing because you get lines like oh, she's doing Morph Ball. That's not an exaggeration. That's literally a line in the game. It's. It's not good. This game is like a 6 out of 10 game. It's not a bad game, but it's a huge disappointment. Don't buy Metroid Prime 4 if you're on the fence. And I want to be clear. There is good things. This game runs fantastically on the original switch. I don't have a switch too, but it's been locked solid at 60fps. Even in heavy combat in crazy effects going on. Doesn't care. And it's visually quite appealing on the original switch. It is a good looking 60fps original Switch game. That is a technical achievement that they do deserve credit for. [00:16:09] Speaker B: The things that I have heard have amounted to. When you're allowed to do the Metroid thing, it does the Metroid thing very well. Atmosphere, play, voice. [00:16:20] Speaker A: That is where it's fine. [00:16:22] Speaker B: But it does so many things in between there that mess it up. Which from what it sounds like is almost every one of those dialogue options sounds like it could never have been put there and it would have been a fine game. [00:16:35] Speaker A: Yep, pretty much. You could literally sounds like remove all. [00:16:37] Speaker B: The high said something. [00:16:39] Speaker A: You could literally remove all the NPCs entirely. Remove all the dialogue and the game is just better. They don't add anything. [00:16:48] Speaker B: Like I. I'm not opposed to having a little dialogue if you're going to have it. It needs to be thoughtful and not right. [00:16:56] Speaker A: But this isn't expositional dialogue. It's not world building dialogue. It's introducing this character who you've never met before and don't have a reason to care about outside of this one sequence in the game. Because it never follows up with these characters in a way that is interesting or engaging. With the exception of the very first one who you have to go back to for each of your primary weapon upgrades. [00:17:22] Speaker C: Why? [00:17:22] Speaker B: What? [00:17:22] Speaker A: Oh, Bo. Yeah. You go to a place, you get a power up and then oh well, you need to take this chip back to this dude who can rework it so you can use it in your arm cannon, which is a whole bunch of backtracking and several load screens. And the load screens are bad on switch one. [00:17:40] Speaker B: Okay, that one. That's annoying. But two I can understand. Like for the first time ever, they went. Why can she work random alien technology into the chozo suit? Having someone randomly able to do that. Okay, but why is someone not a Chozo able to do that? Who isn't Samus? [00:17:56] Speaker A: He's a random Federation engineer who you rescue at the start. [00:18:00] Speaker B: No, give. Give Samus. Like, if you're gonna do that, make Samus go back to her fucking ship to do it. [00:18:05] Speaker A: She doesn't have it. And that's. That's story reasons. She doesn't have it here. But you don't go back to the alien who gave you the versions of powers that you're using in this game. I'm trying to be vague so as not to be overly spoilery. [00:18:20] Speaker B: The luminar 2.0. [00:18:22] Speaker A: What's that? [00:18:23] Speaker B: The luminarch 2.0. [00:18:25] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. This game does so many things wrong. And it is so frustrating because it does do the fundamentals right. The controls feel great. The game runs fantastic. The boss fights are fine. Some of the areas are fun to traverse. Some feel like a chore because they're just kind of empty. And then the open world is a huge, huge miss. [00:18:48] Speaker B: So this. This comes with my. My first big big question. Does. [00:18:51] Speaker A: Yes. [00:18:52] Speaker B: This feels like one. The with the open world thing. This is a game that is out of time entirely. This was like supposed to be five years ago. [00:19:04] Speaker A: No, because everything other than the open world itself being just kind of an empty field. It's Hyrule Field from Ocarina at a time is what the open world really is. But with a motorcycle in the desert. [00:19:16] Speaker B: Okay, so this is not like from the five years ago. Everything must be an open world game. Therefore you must go in there. [00:19:22] Speaker A: No, there. There's a grand total because I've visited every tile. There's a grand total of six shrines which are basically just Breath of the Wild Shrines, but really simple. And they give you upgrades to your various elemental shots. They seem to be optional as far as I can tell. Okay, they suck. But the open world is the part of it that feels the most out of place. The rest of it feels extremely typical modern Nintendo in all of the negative ways that I can say that. [00:19:55] Speaker B: And then here comes my other part. The whole voice acting thing sounds like this was a Producer on high going, this needs to be here. [00:20:04] Speaker A: The entire game very much feels like Nintendo did not like how little control they had over Dread and they were heavy handed in control of Metroid Prime 4. That is my vibe I get from playing it is Metroid Prime 4 feels like a modern Nintendo game in every negative way I can say that. Whereas Dread felt like a classic Metroid game updated for modern platformers. [00:20:29] Speaker B: Then why the fuck did they give the game up to begin with? I don't. [00:20:33] Speaker A: Don't fucking know. I'm glad they did because Dread fucking rules. Go play Metroid Dread. It is the best. [00:20:38] Speaker B: Modern Metroid Dread is fantastic when you actually get the voice acting in that game. Those cutscenes are beautiful. [00:20:46] Speaker A: Yeah, they're fine. They're short, they serve a purpose and then they let you get back to the gameplay. Metroid Prime 4, they are long and they don't just let you get back to the gameplay. And then you have really boring escort sequences with all of the various NPCs. [00:21:02] Speaker B: That's. That's highly disappointing. I'm still. [00:21:05] Speaker A: Do not waste your $60 on Metroid Prime 4. Seriously, just don't. [00:21:09] Speaker B: I'm still going to do it because I am the Metroid fan and I need to play the game. But I'm going to be annoyed by that, knowing that it's there to begin with. I've heard you can turn off the tutorial function so that it doesn't give you the random tutorial bits. [00:21:22] Speaker A: Okay, okay, you can. And I had it off at first and I soft locked until I turned it back on and left the area and re entered because I fundamentally had missed how one of the powers works because nothing fucking tells you you can do this. One of the early powers you get lets you use psychic powers to grab motes and use those motes to power machines. You also, when you get bombs, get the ability to put turn your bomb into a mote that you can throw into machines. What they don't tell you in anything if you have tutorials off is when you throw those bombs, they're still bombs and they blow up and can activate bomb slots. So to exit the starting area you have to do this at the end. Like the. The first major area you do with a real boss fight and everything. You get bombs and you get to this point where there's a bomb slot and it's to the fuck high up to go to and you're just given a bunch of stuff and there's a whole bunch of different things to do. So I thought, oh, okay, maybe I need to go find more green energy, because that's one of the quests that I had just been given that'll let me get a platform so I can get up there or something. And I spent over 30 minutes running around trying to figure out how to get Samus in Morph Ball form to this bomb slot, when the actual answer once I turned tutorials on because I was done and fed up and had no idea what to do was to just turn the bomb into something you could throw and throw it in there. I have not turned tutorials off since I'd rather be handheld than have that bullshit. [00:22:58] Speaker B: So it's also unintuitive. [00:22:59] Speaker A: Okay, yeah, I am not kidding when I say don't waste your money on Metroid Prime 4. It's not a bad game, but it is deeply frustrating and infuriating as a huge Metroid fan who still to this day plays super Metroid at least twice a week. I'm gonna be replaying the original Metroid prime afterwards because I need to get the taste of Metroid Prime 4 out of my mouth. But at this point, I'm too far in. I'm gonna finish it just to be. [00:23:21] Speaker B: So I can finish it out of spite. I must win. [00:23:24] Speaker A: I'm near the end. [00:23:25] Speaker C: Okay, I really sucks because you guys are super excited about it. [00:23:29] Speaker B: I have. Yeah, I bought a switch because of the initial announcement. You know, back in. It's a bober. Oh, wait, I'm only exaggerating. [00:23:37] Speaker A: The good news is Metroid Prime Remastered is really good. Unless you're a speedrunner, in which case go play the GameCube original release. But for anyone who wants to play it casually or in any kind of non speedrun environment, go play Metroid Prime Remastered. It's the best casual version of the game. Definitely. Okay, Mike, your turn again. Talk about an actual video game this time. [00:24:01] Speaker B: All right, we'll talk about a game that also has some complaints to it, but much less. [00:24:08] Speaker A: You say, much less you forget that I'm on this podcast. [00:24:11] Speaker B: Yeah, but you haven't played this port, so you get to only do some of the complaining. [00:24:16] Speaker A: Go ahead. [00:24:18] Speaker B: I've been playing the new season of Pilot Exalte and they just released a new Class Turid. They just updated some more endgame stuff. They put in a lot more season work. It's not a full release game yet. It's still very obviously not finished. And that's one of the immediate core complaints. Yep, it's not finished. There are still noticeable problems while going through things however, I'm actually enjoying myself again. It has. They. They have made a class design that fundamentally flows in that really satisfying manner. The work that they have done on the Druid is outstanding. The animation flow, the movement, the impact between form changes and the actual abilities is outstanding. [00:25:13] Speaker C: I heard it was even better than the druid on Diablo 4. [00:25:17] Speaker B: They're very equivalent in terms of the like, motion, movement, fluid. Path of Exile 2 has one thing going for it, which is these absolutely awesome tattoos that are on all the Druid forms that actively glow when you gain range, which is a core mechanic for most Druid forms. And it's something you can gain with a couple other classes pretty easily. So, like the Druid, just as inherently a character has these tattoos that glow while you get the rage. And then if you're. I think if I haven't done it with any other class, that wasn't the Druid using the weapon. Maybe that still works with other people. I hope so. But it's. It's this visual tint that makes it. There are combos that bleed together exceedingly well. Unlike a lot of Poe one things, there is much less pick and choose other things. You want to feed them into this. This is very much. You're geared towards doing something with this. You can choose what you want to do within that. And between the flow of all of them together. I have seen work very, very well. You don't have to go solid bear or wolf or Wyvern. You can mix and match and pull and piece within the class itself, but it is much less open to freedom than you had in Path I. [00:26:46] Speaker A: Yes, that's my biggest issue with path of exile 2 is that path II is very much a game where your class, your everything is a framework. And you're building a character based on what do you want this character to do and picking a class based on what do you think will fit the framework that I want to put that into. [00:27:07] Speaker B: And that is where you and I fundamentally differ on this one, because I hate that. [00:27:12] Speaker A: And. And that's valid. My current character in POE one uses a wand to attack, so it's a projectile attack build. But I'm playing a Templar so that I can get crazy mana scaling for my energy shield and crazy strength and int scaling for my energy shield and mana, and it all flows into itself and scales exponentially. So it fits perfectly on what I'm doing. But other people would play a Templar and they might be a straight up spellcaster or they might be playing Righteous Fire is a popular way to play Templar, which is where you literally set yourself on fire and then run around burning everything around you. And path of exile 2, it feels very much like, oh, you want to play a druid, you're going to be a shapeshifter, you're going to do shapeshifter things. You can pick one of the three. Oh, you want to be a huntress, you're going to be a spear fighter. Pick one of the like ways to be a spear fighter. Oh, you want to be a monk, you're going to use a quarter staff and you're going to be melee. In addition to that, path of exile 2 is obsessed with having combo skills where you have a builder and a spender of some kind. The specifics vary from class to class, but all of them boil down to every pack of enemies. You do your builder and then you do your spender and then you move on to the next pack and you do your builder and you do your spender and it gets really old really fast. Now in that regard, I don't know that Path I is any better, because Path I, you just do your one skill on every pack all the time. But those are my biggest issues with POE2 that aren't just the game's incomplete. [00:28:49] Speaker B: My first. [00:28:50] Speaker A: Everything else boils down to the game is incomplete. [00:28:53] Speaker B: My first character was much more like skill into skill into skill. They all function combination together and they weren't a like build into this, spend into that, which. So sort of what I do now. But also not really. [00:29:05] Speaker A: My first Poe 2 character was I put down a storm and then cast until I run oom and then leave the storm so I can regen my mana so I can do it again. It's still a builder and spender. It's just the specifics vary and that's kind of what I mean. [00:29:19] Speaker B: I have to open path of exile 2 to remember what that fucking character was. [00:29:21] Speaker A: Everything in Poe 2 is some variation of do a thing to become powerful, then do your powerful thing. Now you're weak again until you do the thing to become powerful again. Sometimes you just want to be a character who just does a thing over and over and kills everything with it. And path of exile 2 doesn't let you. It's all about switching attacks and switching spells. And that's great for people who want that. [00:29:44] Speaker B: The only spell that I like truly enjoyed doing nothing, but this one spell was Righteous Fire. I quite enjoyed that Righteous Fire playstyle of. [00:29:56] Speaker A: And it doesn't have an equivalent to that yet in PC. [00:29:59] Speaker B: No, it doesn't. Let's see, where is it? [00:30:03] Speaker A: The other issues with the game, I think mostly can be boiled down to the game is incomplete. Things like there's not enough weapon types yet, there's not enough skills yet, the campaign isn't complete, some of the campaign zones suck. All of that I think will be fixed. But this is also why I played on the first release and have not touched path of exile 2 since. Cause I'm gonna wait till they fix all that shit. And if they don't fix it, I'm just gonna keep playing Path of Exile one until they stop supporting that and then I'll go play some other game. Because Path of II isn't what I want it to be. [00:30:30] Speaker B: Oh, I did Lightning Warp. That was what my first thing was. I lightning warped, which did something else and then something else at the same time. So I just. And that was pretty fun. [00:30:40] Speaker A: Fair enough. Any other thoughts about path of exile 2? Right now? [00:30:45] Speaker B: The main thing, I have not gotten to the end game yet. I am, I am told specifically they have put a good deal of effort since the last time I played the end game into getting more endgame. No game has endgame like POE1. And if you're expecting anything to ever have it stop, you're not finding that that is a decade plus of iterations on top of iteration on top of iteration, where they left mechanics so that you have multiple separate trees to do in the end game. That hasn't happened in any other one ever. And nothing else has the amount of framework there. So stop expecting the same thing. [00:31:31] Speaker A: There's a reason that wasn't a criticism. I leveled at it. Path of Exile 2 is an incomplete game. It's. It's fine for it to be incomplete, but this is. [00:31:38] Speaker B: This is something that I keep hearing explicitly is this. It doesn't have an end game. It's not there yet. It took four years before they even completed Poe 1. [00:31:51] Speaker A: I remember Poe 1 early Poe 1's endgame where it was just aimlessly running maps with nothing to do other than just run more maps. And it sucked. [00:32:01] Speaker B: I don't even remember if there were maps when I last. When I first played Poe 1. I remember ending in Act 3. [00:32:07] Speaker A: Yes. When I first played Poe 1, we ended on Piety in Act 3, who is not the current end boss of Act 3. There's more to Act 3 than there was when I played. We did that three times and then we went straight into maps and There was like 10 tiers of maps or something and there was nothing afterwards. [00:32:25] Speaker C: I could get why people get frustrated when they buy like an early access game and they're playing it for a long time that the content isn't there. Like I can completely understand that. But you always have to know the game is not complete until it is in 1.0. [00:32:41] Speaker A: That's. I think the biggest mistake GG made with POE2 is early access is $30. Unless you are someone like me who has spent $480 on Path of Exile 1 over the lifetime of the game. I got path of exile 2 for free. I got my money's worth. I played it for 50 hours. I'm not touching it again until 1.0. And that's fine. On 1.0 it's supposed to be free by the way. They should have just released it as a free to play game in the first place. In early access they would have gotten more testers so they would get more feedback, more people experiencing it who have never played POE before. And I think the expectations would be very different than people coming in treating it as a buy to play game because that's what it is right now. [00:33:19] Speaker B: But also I think that could backfire significantly to what you want, which is a lot more people coming into the game going, oh, this other game was very good. Let me start playing some of it. Well, I want this sort of a game style out of it instead of this. [00:33:33] Speaker A: But I don't want Poe 2 to be path II. I have Poe 1 for that. I want it to be a different experience. I just feel like some of the freedom of type of characters you can make is lost. And that's like core to what makes POE POE and not Diablo. Like that is the distinguishing factor to me is that POE is much more. [00:33:54] Speaker B: Freeform to me is that fucking skill tree you are free access to go anywhere you want on it. [00:34:01] Speaker C: I say most of my games in my Steam library like are early access games and I understand that they're not going to be finished and I'm fine with that. I give these developers my money to play their early access game because I want them to hope that they finish it. I. I'm trying to help fund their game, right? Because most time if these games are going to cost money when they come out, they're going to be much more expensive on their full release. Like I got one that I installed earlier that I played for a little bit and put it back runescape Dragon Wilds like it's a really fun game and it's going to be much more expensive when it comes out on full release. So I went ahead and bought it, but it's not a finished game. Like people just need to stop review bombing games that aren't finished. [00:34:46] Speaker A: The difference there is that those games are still going to be buy to play when they come out. Path of exile 2 is going to be free to play when it comes out. [00:34:53] Speaker C: Oh yeah, like Ashes of Creation will be free when it comes out. It'll have a monthly subscription, which you know is a thing in its own. But at least they're not making you buy the game. I just volunteered my money to buy it to hope that this helps somehow. You know, like, I try to support games that I want to see succeed, but you're not gonna see me go on there and be like games terrible. I couldn't get to the very end and beat the end game. Like that just doesn't make sense to me. People frustrated. [00:35:25] Speaker B: This seems to be a lot more since COVID of the culture of review bomb has become a major thing since COVID and I don't like. [00:35:34] Speaker C: No, it's not a toxic in which. [00:35:38] Speaker B: Yes, it's proper to give negative reviews. It's absolutely okay when a developer buys a company that you liked and then breaks the game on you. That happened to a game I was about to buy. That game has gotten nothing but bad reviews since that is okay. I don't think it's okay to man, you announced a thing that I don't like immediately. All reviews go to negative. [00:36:05] Speaker C: I think the first time I remember really happening like really bad was during Helldivers too. [00:36:11] Speaker B: Helldivers got that okay. [00:36:13] Speaker A: To be fair, in this specific instance of Helldivers 2, it was very clearly from the get go due to a decision made by their publisher, not by them as devs. That was forced on them. And review bombing caused the publisher to back off on the bad decision. Review bombing actually made positive change. In the specific, specific case of Helldivers 2. I don't think review bombing is good, but Helldivers 2 is the exception to the rule. And also one of the devs got canned for advocating for the review bombing by the publisher they fucking fired him for. Is a very different scenario than most review bombing. [00:36:55] Speaker B: Yeah, that was publisher on high made decision not the game developers. And that's one of my key things. Publisher and game developer are separate entities. Yes, you can, you can give constructive criticism on changes to a game without review bombing it. That was a functionality that was going to change something entirely. That is a different scenario. [00:37:23] Speaker A: That was also literally the game just becoming unplayable for people in A lot of countries, yes, because Sony was being fucks. [00:37:31] Speaker B: That was, that was Sony greed. [00:37:32] Speaker A: All right, that's, that's enough about that pillow. Tell us about the Long Dark. [00:37:39] Speaker C: All right, I'm going to cruise through this because we got a lot to talk about still. [00:37:42] Speaker A: We do. [00:37:42] Speaker C: So Long Dark. Best survival game in my opinion. Out there. It does the nutrients, the sleep, the energy, like everything you need to survive you. It's my winter cozy game that I like to play because when the wind starts howling, and I've talked about it before, when the wind starts howling it gets cold outside. I like to sit down and survive in the northern wilderness. And that's what it is. Your, your survival and your hunter. And I've talked about it before. I've just been playing it. It's my winter cozy game. Fun game. Try check it out. [00:38:13] Speaker A: Fair enough. All right, I'll be quick on this one too. And then we'll use Mike's last one to transition into our big topic. So I recently remembered that Steam Link is a thing. I have Steam Link on my Android TV device that I use. I use a SHIELD tv. I can play games on my TV from my computer. I forgot that was a thing for like two years but I remembered so I started playing Tales of Berseria and then also I got this controller for my phone so I can do it on my phone too. I got a gamesir controller that was like 30 bucks. It's pretty nice. And playing via Steam Link on my local network for a game like Tales of Berseria which is a jrpg. It's an action jrpg, but it's a jrpg. It's not so latency sensitive that Steam Link matters. I'm having a great time. If you don't know, I love the Tales franchise. I fucking adore this franchise. I've been playing them since Fantasia on the Super Nintendo which I had to download a fan translation to play because it wasn't available officially in English until the GBA. I own physical copies of both of the PS1 Tales games which sold 50,000 copies in the US total. There's not very many of them. I own both of them because I love this franchise. Tales of Berseria is another one of those but this time it's really, really edgelordy like holy shit. They are trying so hard to cater to the 13 year old boy audience. On Tales of Berseria the main character, Velvet, is a scantily clad long haired woman with a demon arm who's out for revenge. And I am really underselling how edgelordy all of this is. [00:40:06] Speaker B: How many spikes does she have? [00:40:07] Speaker A: Uh, I don't think she has any spikes but she's wearing so little clothes that the characters comment, aren't you cold in this snow? [00:40:15] Speaker B: Um. [00:40:18] Speaker A: Every line is about like how she's given up on her humanity. She just needs revenge on the guy who wronged her. And I'm, I'm glossing around how he was. She was wronged because that's the entire prologue of the game and it's spoilers. I have not gotten far enough in Tales of Berseria to talk about it from a like mechanical endgame perspective. But early game at least it plays a lot better than most of the other modern Tales games do. The combat is pretty good. It reminds me of Tales of Graces, which is a good thing and not of Tales of Berseria or Tales of Xillia or even Tales of Arise. And I liked Arise. The combat feels fluid. Characters so far have been entertaining even if they're really, really corny and cheesy and very cringe. But yeah, that's what I've been playing. It regularly goes on sale for like five to ten bucks on Steam. I must have bought it at some point on a Steam sale because I literally started playing this because I was like, wait, I own this Tales game. It's supposed to be good and I've never played it. Let's fix that. So yeah, I will. I will be playing more of that at some point probably when my wife wants to hang out because it's kind of funny to watch edgelordy JRPG dialogue. So it's an okay like couch co op kind of experience even though it's not a co op game. Alright Mike, last game you've been playing this week is a game we're gonna talk about a lot in our main topic. So briefly tell us about what you've been playing and then we'll get to our main topic. [00:41:48] Speaker B: So I did mention that I would start playing Claire Obscure. Jeez. Well within the first three hours I was fucking hooked. Easy. So things to know before you get into this game that are. That are good ways to point out. One, it is noticeably not a triple A game. They don't have the same sort of budget for visual fidelity on like real life face animation or. Absolutely like the realism point. It's. It's like a game from five years ago. Visual fidelity, high end. So it's noticeably like back a full stage in graphical fidelity because of course they don't have the same budget. The game is very French. There are mimes. There are joke outfits on which you can get a beret and a baguette on your back. [00:42:44] Speaker A: Perfect. [00:42:46] Speaker B: It is artsy. It is beautiful. And within the first hour, I wanted to fucking cry. You learn very quickly throughout the prologue. The basic premise of what the world is here and the way the prologue ends hurts a lot because the voice acting is superb. And I think they gave it to the wrong person. We'll get to that eventually. Because I was so immediately drawn into the character they set up as the main character. Gustav, noticeably French. Lumiere, the main city. Oh, it feels down to the. Down into the cheese. I was so immediately attached to this character that I. I felt actual pain at the end of that prologue. It gets you hard. I'm starting to understand why it got so much, and I'm like, sex hours. Hold on. Let me. Let me get an exact time frame of how far in I am. [00:43:50] Speaker C: 7.8. I looked for you because I was confused. I was wondering. We have the exact same amount of playtime on it. [00:43:56] Speaker B: 7.8 hours. I'm not terribly far. I know. There's way more. I know. I haven't even gotten the full cast yet, and I'm already deeply attached to the characters and very moved by the story. [00:44:11] Speaker A: Okay, so would you say it's Game of the Year material? [00:44:15] Speaker B: Even this far in it's Game of the Year material, it beats out a couple of other games on that list that I saw. And I'm like, damn, I haven't even played a third of the game. And I already believe it's better than a couple of the other nominations. Not necessarily what I picked for it, but also, I've finished two of those other games. [00:44:40] Speaker A: Yup. Okay, so that was kind of my segue into our big topic tonight is we are going to talk about the game awards that happened. Yeah. Geoff Keighley's big production, the big industry show where they show off a bunch of new shit and give awards to games that came out this year. And the throughline of this year's Game awards has been Clair obscure Expedition 33. It is now the winningest title ever in the Game Awards. It beat Baldur's Gate's record. Baldur's Gate 3 was the previous record holder with nine wins and 13 nominations, by the way. So I'm gonna speedrun through the ones. We don't really have anything to dispute or discuss, really. Claire Obscure won game of the year best game direction, best narrative, best art direction. I don't think any of us have any issue with that. It deserved it, plain and simple. [00:45:33] Speaker B: It feels like it. Yeah. I mean, outside of the. Yeah. I still think as of right now, where I'm at with the complete story behind Silksong 2, I still think that deserves it. I think by the time I get even five more hours in, I will that will be changing my tune. That's how Crypt I Already Am by Clarence Garrett. [00:45:54] Speaker A: Fair enough. And we do need to mention this is a JRPG. If you hate JRPGs, I'm sorry, it's just not going to be for you. And that's okay. [00:46:02] Speaker B: And actually point up to the last thing you were talking about, JRPGs and latency. This needs that latency to. To play it properly. You have some pretty quick timing to deal with in its action battle. [00:46:16] Speaker A: Fair enough. So it's, I'm guessing like Mario RPG esque timing kind of things. It's not that specific. Close to that. [00:46:23] Speaker B: Closer to that. Yeah. [00:46:24] Speaker A: Okay, so let's talk about some of the awards that it either was in and didn't win or awards that maybe we think it should have had better competition in and kind of got swept ahead because it was so hyped. I think Hades 2 got robbed on best score in music. I've heard music from Expedition 33 and it's good. I am not disparaging Expedition 33 when I say that Hades 2 should have won this award. Hades 2's music is incredible. Like straight up incredible. I cannot stress how cool it was to where when I got to the Scylla and the Sirens boss fight and they play a full fucking rock song for you, which is an absolute banger. Go look up Coral Crown on YouTube. It's great. And then the next time you meet them, because again, Hades 2 is a roguelike. They play a new song that is about you and how they're mad at you and they're going to drown you to death. It's so good. It's another banger rock song. And then you keep going and there's more. They have a different song when you fight the Hard mode version. And then they have a fucking love ballad, like an 80s rock love ballad, because one of the Sirens becomes infatuated with you and writes a love song about you. That's just the music for the Sirens. The actual rest of the soundtrack is also incredible in Hades 2. I think if you removed the Sirens parts, I wouldn't be sad about Expedition 33 winning because I think they're comparable otherwise. But the Sirens Songs put Hades two over the top for me. [00:48:07] Speaker B: I understand what you're talking about. I have been listening to Lumiere on repeat for three days. [00:48:14] Speaker C: Do you think that some of these, that expedition 33 won is just because other people never played the games? Do you think that maybe it won like the best music because, like, maybe people just didn't pick up Hades because they're not a roguelike type of people? [00:48:29] Speaker A: I think it's more that Hades 2 spent a year in Early Access, so people were exposed to the music last year and aren't throwing thinking about it this year as much. And Expedition 33 is the most hyped game at the Game Awards, I think. [00:48:40] Speaker B: One, that's true. But two, Silksong had fucking phenomenal music and it did not get talked about. Ghosts of Yoto's score is outstanding. That, that, that Kurosawa film score, that beautiful aesthetic part of that. [00:49:00] Speaker A: That's. I think the important thing to note here. Every single title in best score music 100% deserved to be there. Whereas some of the nominees for some of the other categories, Clerb's Gear won, like, why the fuck is Donkey Kong Bonanza in the Game of the Year discussion? [00:49:13] Speaker B: That one. That one. That's the one thing on that. Like, obviously all of us have said. None of us have played Death Stranding 2, so none of us can say whether or not that. Pretty much every other category that we skipped over, almost everyone in that list could have been a winner. Maybe not narrative for Kingdom Come, I don't know about that one. But like, art direction, all of those were good game direction, all of those were good game of the year, apart from Donkey Kong, pretty much fantastic. Narrative, pretty much fantastic score and music the same. I'll be bitching about the next one. [00:49:47] Speaker A: In a moment, so let's get to it. Best Audio Design is the first place where Claire Obscure did not win. It was nominated. But best audio design went to Battlefield six and Pillow. You actually expected this. Why did Battlefield six deserve this? [00:50:03] Speaker C: Well, last episode I explained it kind of. So I'll touch back on it. Like, to me, Battlefield 6, the game is about a lot of the audio design creates the game. Otherwise you're just. You feel like you're just in a shooter nonetheless. But with the sound design, it makes you feel like you are in the war zone. Like you're in a cinematic. It lets you open, immerse into the actual gameplay itself. Other than that, I feel like you're just playing like Ed, you know? No, no Backlight. I don't want any backlash from this. It feels like you're in a COD match. Like, COD doesn't. Call of Duty does not have this art or this audio design that immerses you into it. But battlefield, like, especially if you have surround, you know, surround sound headphones or speakers, however, use it like your explosions are coming from a 360 to direction like it's insane. And that's why I feel like it did. It did win. Like, so that's. That's why I feel like it won is just because of how immersive the sound actually made for you. But Mike's got a good argument up. [00:51:08] Speaker B: There, and my argument here is Silent Hill was goddamn robbed out of this. To make a proper horror game, you need atmosphere or otherwise. It's not a horror game. It's just a thriller or it's not truly there. And Silent Hill, like, in much the same way that you're talking about vocal performance in the next one. She made a great fucking case. And vocal performance, by God, the sound design of this game is amazing. Absolutely amazing. And it makes the game what it is. A true immersive horror. And you don't get that without outstanding audio design. [00:51:53] Speaker A: Fair enough. All right, let's get to the next one that's controversial. And you and I had different takes on. [00:51:59] Speaker B: Yes. [00:52:00] Speaker A: Best performance. And they're spot talking about specifically like, voice acting or motion capture. Those kinds of performances. So best acting would be a way to describe this. They gave the award to Jennifer English as Mayel. You pronounce that in Expedition 33. And I was upset that. I think Troy Baker as Indiana Jones got robbed. He did such an incredible job. He absolutely sold that character in a way that I don't think anyone else could do today. You felt that they picked the wrong Expedition 33 person. So explain. [00:52:33] Speaker B: Well, they had three people up for Expedition 33 in best performance, which I think was too many because Jennifer English did a good job, and she was. She was a great character. Charlie Cox, who is the actor for Daredevil, if you don't know who that is, he makes such a good performance so soon. That makes you absolutely heartbreak instantly. His performance is outstanding. The emotion he can get that he can. He can seamlessly switch between deep and thoughtful into playful into deeply disturbing. I won't go into some of the other points in there, but, like, it gets dark quick, and his performance sells it so well. It helps that he is. He is what I feel is the main character, at least early on. I don't know if there's another person who will sweep in later. Maell is a good character. I don't think she has the same impact that Charlie Cox does as Gustav. [00:53:41] Speaker A: At least not yet at the point you're at. [00:53:44] Speaker B: Also true. But I think that having all three of them there is what got it. I think if they just stuck with one, no matter which one it is, it would have won. But I don't think. I don't think one game should get three people in this performance. I mentioned it last time. They need to split best performance into best lead and best support. [00:54:07] Speaker A: That's how I would do it. Because I think that didn't this used to be like a best male performance and best female performance and they stopped doing that because that was getting people upset. [00:54:19] Speaker B: Maybe. But I think that's still probably an okay thing to do because that allows you to always honor a woman and always honor a man. [00:54:27] Speaker A: True. [00:54:27] Speaker B: Because you'll always have something that is absolutely amazing done by a woman. Jennifer English has a great performance and if it was Best Male and Best Female, yeah, I could easily see her winning Best female, maybe her versus Konatsu Kado for Silent Hellef because she also did an absolutely insane job. [00:54:44] Speaker A: But fair enough. Definitely one of those other categories where everyone deserved to be here. [00:54:49] Speaker B: Yes. And hearing I have now heard the Troy Baker part. Yeah, you're right. Oh wow. He does a good job sounding like Harrison Ford. [00:54:57] Speaker A: He does such an incredible job to where like if you were to just play footage from Harrison Ford's early Indiana Jones movies, any of the original trilogy, and then have Troy Baker dub over the lines, you would have be hard pressed to tell which is which. It's actually incredible. He does such an insane job. We're gonna move on from performance. The next two categories we're going to talk about are intertwined in a way that I think is interesting to discuss. Clair Obscure won both Best Indie Game and Best Debut Indie Game. I don't think Best debut Indie game is in dispute. The only other game in that list that I think anyone would even put in the ballpark is Dispatch. And Clare Obscure deserves it. Over Dispatch. [00:55:42] Speaker B: At the beginning of the year, I heard a ton of good things about Blueprints. Like people were talking about it being a best Indie Game talking at the time. But it. I don't think it holds a candle to either Dispatch or Claire Obscure. [00:55:53] Speaker A: Exactly. Like, not to disparage blueprints, it's a great game. It ain't Dispatch and it definitely ain't Clair Obscure. My issue is more that Clair Obscure gets to win both best debut indie game and best indie game. It should have been excluded from one of these categories just on a straight up fairness principle because it winning both means games like Hades 2 and Hollow Knight Silksong don't get the win. Or alternately, if it was excluded from best debut, it would have let Dispatch get a win that it does deserve. Dispatch is great and it, by virtue of being game of the year, automatically wins both of these as well. Like, I don't think it literally was the case, but like, yeah, if you're picking it as the best overall game of the year, it's gonna win every other just best game that it fits in the category of. [00:56:40] Speaker B: Yeah, if you're talking about a best game of this genre, it's going to win that genre. [00:56:45] Speaker A: That that's my issue. There is for indie specifically where it's supposed to be about like, hey, let's promote someone who doesn't necessarily have as many resources to promote themselves. I don't necessarily think Hades or Hollow Knight needs that. [00:56:58] Speaker B: You've brought up a point. [00:56:59] Speaker C: Now. [00:57:00] Speaker B: I have an interesting, interesting point here. I think perhaps Game of the year should be its own category above the rest of the other ones so that once you are in the game of the year nomination, you are not in any of the other nominations for game. [00:57:14] Speaker A: Of Best blank game. [00:57:17] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. [00:57:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:57:18] Speaker B: Because you are still win all of. [00:57:20] Speaker A: The other ones that aren't like best blank game, like, oh yeah, Best performance would still be eligible. Best narrative would still be fine. [00:57:27] Speaker B: Yes. [00:57:28] Speaker A: Because you don't necessarily have to have the best of those to be the best overall game. [00:57:32] Speaker B: Because once you are the game of the year, you're automatically the best of the other titles. Pretty much. [00:57:37] Speaker C: Yeah. That makes perfect sense. [00:57:39] Speaker A: That's my issue. Not that it doesn't deserve these. It was the best indie game of the year and the best debut indie game of the year. This is the first game from these deaths. [00:57:48] Speaker B: This is their first game. Holy shit, guys. Keep it up. [00:57:51] Speaker A: Right? It's just that the way these categories are structured, that's the criticism here. We're not criticizing Claire Obscure for these awards, but. But the award categories themselves set all these other games up for failure that they don't deserve. They deserve recognition too. [00:58:05] Speaker C: There's definitely been backlash on the game awards this year, so I'm sure next year they'll come in with a little bit of restructuring. [00:58:10] Speaker A: Hopefully they do every year. So do we have anything to say about best Ongoing? No. Man's sky won best ongoing game, I think for the Second or third time that it's been in this category. [00:58:20] Speaker B: It fucking deserves it. [00:58:22] Speaker C: I mean, me and Mike called it last week, her last episode, we called it would happen. [00:58:27] Speaker B: It absolutely deserves it. Best community support, which is the tie into this one. Why was this given to Baldur's Gate 3? Yeah, they've been putting out some extra content, but the stuff that they have put out this year specifically does not deserve it. Yes, they've been giving us more shit, but it's not to the level that any of the other ones in this list gave. [00:58:48] Speaker A: Frankly, I would have felt better about four Fortnite winning best community support than Baldur's Gate 3, and that's saying something. [00:58:54] Speaker B: I'm not disparaging what Larian has given in Baldur's Gate 3, but this year specifically has been nowhere near as much as they gave the previous year as the postgame stuff. If it was going to get it, it was going to get it before. They've done a lot of little bits of work. But it's not the same kind of support that Fortnite's given, that no Man's sky is given. Helldivers just gave you a massive reduction in size down to, like, 25 gigs, which is great. The optimization that they put into that game is amazing. All of those, I think, more than Larian did for this one. [00:59:31] Speaker C: When, like, a game gets put into one of these categories, you don't think about the stuff that they did this year. You start thinking back to everything and they're like, oh, yeah, of course. [00:59:40] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's, I think, the problem. [00:59:42] Speaker C: Forget that this is the 2025 and not, like, all time, in which case. [00:59:48] Speaker B: It still should go to no Man's Sky. [00:59:50] Speaker A: Yep. [00:59:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:59:51] Speaker C: I think no man should have got both. [00:59:53] Speaker A: It should have gotten both. And also, like, they just don't need two categories for this. Best Ongoing game already covers everything. Best Community support would entail just merge them. [01:00:03] Speaker B: It should. I agree. The only reason I can think of to have a different one is that, like, the ongoing game itself has something, but the community support team has given you, like, hey, we need to give you guys this because something happened and we're like, no, we need. You think we deserve this. Whereas an ongoing game can just be like any. This is the style of game. Now, that is a genre coverall. Yep. [01:00:29] Speaker A: All right. Couple other awards we're going to speed through. Best Action game went to Hades 2. It was easily the best game that qualified for that category. Best Action Adventure game went to Silksong. I think we all agree it was easily a game that qualified for that category. Best RPG went to Clair Obscure Expedition 33. It was game of the Year. Of course it wins the category that it's allowed in. This is kind of what we were talking about. We feel like Game of the Year should supersede all of these and it should be excluded from just the best genre game. [01:00:59] Speaker B: Yes. And I know we were saying this earlier. Pillow does not believe this deserves to be RPG because of how he feels about JRPG versus Western rpg. It's a style difference if you don't want. It's a different one. [01:01:11] Speaker A: If it's a world where Game of the Year was supersedes all of these and it's excluded from all of the just best genre game. Kingdom Come Deliverance two probably would have been the actual winner and that's what you would have picked right below. [01:01:24] Speaker C: Oh yeah, that's what I voted on. [01:01:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Although Kingdom Come, like Mike said, just for the list because it would have been the Game of the Year one. [01:01:31] Speaker C: Just for the exact reason. Like Mike said though, like I think of RPGs Western wise. Whereas, you know, JRPG is its own thing. It's okay to have two separate audiences. That's okay. Like I've seen the arguments online. The exact same arguments I have. And I'm not going to argue the facts like it just happened. Can't win them all. Or I guess you can almost. [01:01:54] Speaker B: Only if you're Lord of the Rings. They're the only ones who get to win all their rewards. [01:01:57] Speaker A: The next category is a bunch of games we haven't played. I don't know if any of you have played two xko, but that's like the only one that maybe you've played. I've fighting game. [01:02:06] Speaker B: I think Touch have won it. [01:02:08] Speaker A: So Best fighting game is the category. And the winner was Fatal Fury City of the Wolves. I haven't played Fatal Fury City of the Wolves. I have a lot of respect for the Fatal Fury franchise. It's as storied as Street Fighter. That being said, I'm really glad that they gave this to an actual new game because two of the five nominees were just collections of old fighting games games. I am much happier with Fatal Fury winning, even If I think 2xko probably should have gotten it because it means CapCom Fighting Collection 2 and Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection did not win. [01:02:43] Speaker C: That would have been so bad if all the games from a long time ago win because they were just made like as a collection. [01:02:52] Speaker A: But also like what does that tell you? About fighting games because that's been a problem in this genre for forever that frequently the older games are just better. People still play Marvel vs. Capcom 2 over every subsequent Marvel vs. Capcom. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is the better game. People still see Street Fighter third strike. [01:03:11] Speaker B: I still see people bringing CRTS to play Melee. [01:03:15] Speaker A: Yep, that's been a problem for fighting games forever. So that's the biggest reason I'm glad the collections didn't win because it means that at least the new game gets the nod for best game in a game award for this year. Speaking of weird choices, Best family game was a category and there were some games in here that I mean I have no opinion on Lego Voyagers or Lego Party. I don't know why there's two LEGO games in here. Sonic Racing was always going to lose to Mario Kart. I don't know why it even got to be in here because there was no dispute. But somehow for best family game they picked a single player game. Donkey Kong Bonanza won best family game. When you guys think of a family game, do you think of single player games? Because I sure as fuck don't. [01:04:05] Speaker C: I think like Mario Party. Yeah, like. Like a board game. [01:04:10] Speaker A: When I think family games, I think something that is appropriate for kids to play with their siblings and or parents the only kids can enjoy together trading. [01:04:21] Speaker B: Off on life deaths. Like the. The old controller. Like you, you. [01:04:26] Speaker A: You play fucking NES anymore. Mario Kart World was a nominee. It should have won this award because it's a game that all your kids and parents can play together. [01:04:38] Speaker C: Like I want to make sure three other families besides I want to make sure everybody knows we understand that there is a co op feature to it but in the sense that it is, it does not count. Like to me like it's. [01:04:51] Speaker A: It's little sister mode where your. Your younger sibling can do a little thing to keep them distracted while you actually play the game. It's not actual co op. [01:05:01] Speaker B: It's not designed like Split fiction is which is explicitly designed as a two player game. [01:05:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:05:07] Speaker C: Which is crazy to me that Split fiction didn't win based how it takes to won what game of the year like a few a few years back. [01:05:17] Speaker B: Well it sounds like It Takes Two has an absolutely amazing story to go with it. But fiction's wasn't as good. [01:05:22] Speaker C: But like what I mean is like it's. My wife plays it Split Fiction with her friend and she's not even a gamer and she absolutely loves it. So that to me like something tells me it's at least A decent game. [01:05:35] Speaker B: Yeah, it's definitely up there. Should be in family game as we're talking about that, you know, sports. Mario Kart. Yeah, that deserves it. [01:05:42] Speaker A: Yep, it absolutely deserves. Best sports and racing game. I just think it also should have been the best family game because it is something that the whole family can play. Or one of the Lego games should have won it, whichever one is better. I just don't think Donkey Kong Bonanza should have been eligible for this because it is a single player fucking game. And what I think family game. I do not think single player. [01:06:00] Speaker B: I think only one. They could figure out where to put it because it's not going to action game. It's not going. [01:06:07] Speaker A: I would have put it in action adventure. It loses an action adventure, but that's where I would have put it. It does fit that as a genre. [01:06:14] Speaker B: Yeah, but it doesn't make it into that. That category's final because of what else is there. That's. That's the thing. They needed it to be in a final somewhere else. [01:06:24] Speaker A: Then just exclude it. It just doesn't need to be here. And it definitely, definitely shouldn't have won. Okay, that's enough of me on the soapbox. Like I said, Mario Kart did win best sports racing game. And I don't think that's in any dispute. There wasn't much competition this year. Best Simmons strategy game. They gave to Final Fantasy, the Evilist Chronicles. And this kind of ties to what I was talking about with the fighting games earlier. I know there was a lot of work done on this, but this is essentially a remaster of a PS1 game that is widely hailed as one of the best games ever made. So to be fair, it's Final Fantasy Tactics. It's a fucking amazing game. [01:07:03] Speaker B: Part of this is also. I don't think anything else within this category actually deserves it. None of the other games here are a good enough sim strategy game. [01:07:13] Speaker A: Civilization 7, I know, had a lot of controversy about the quality of it. Like, people are like, this is the worst civ that's ever come out. [01:07:21] Speaker B: Tempest Rising is two part museum. Jurassic World Evolution 3 is probably the closest one. And that's just because you get to build dinosaur places. [01:07:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:07:30] Speaker B: But like, Final Fantasy Tactics is wonderful. And they actually did a lot to make a new mode to put in the voice acting, to put in the new animation work. It's a proper remaster lately. Original story and gameplay. Yeah. [01:07:49] Speaker A: Like the core game. Everything that makes it Final Fantasy Tactics is identical. It got a fresh coat of paint. It's A very good fresh coat of paint with a ton of work done. But this is a 25 year old video game. [01:08:01] Speaker B: The only reason I'm not like hyper mad is because there were no awards when it, when it was made. So like nothing else really deserves it this year. If there was a game that actually deserved it, maybe I'd be mad. [01:08:15] Speaker A: But it's a 20, 28 year old game. It came out seven. I thought it was 99. [01:08:21] Speaker B: There's. There's nothing here. [01:08:22] Speaker C: It still goes to tell you, like works. It's still better than modern games, older games. I mean it's just, it's just how it works. [01:08:28] Speaker B: It is just better. There's nothing. [01:08:30] Speaker C: Sometimes that comes. Sometimes you don't have to fix what's not broken. [01:08:33] Speaker A: And that's kind of why I want to talk about it the way we did is just because it does deserve the win. I'm just mad that it deserves the win because it shouldn't. Okay, best multiplayer they gave to arc raiders. Do you guys know anything about arc raiders? Because I know one thing and it's bad. [01:08:50] Speaker B: The one thing I know is the, the AI voice work thing. [01:08:54] Speaker A: Yes. [01:08:55] Speaker B: And that is supposedly the only place they have used any form of AI I don't like that. I don't think enough people like my game for it to be there. I think Night Rain is potentially there, but it's Elden Ring. So like, I don't know if everyone's gonna want that one. [01:09:13] Speaker A: I don't know. I haven't played anything in this list, so I'm not. I don't have two strong opinions on it. But I know about the, the AI thing for arc raiders specifically. And a lot of people are very upset that it was allowed to be here using AI to do anything, period. [01:09:29] Speaker B: Yeah, the, the, the reason that it's. It's not a complaint where it is is because what they used AI for had nothing to do with the game design itself. [01:09:39] Speaker A: Yes. [01:09:39] Speaker B: It was used for not having to pay voice acting, which. [01:09:43] Speaker A: Yep. [01:09:44] Speaker B: I don't know enough about the game to be like, did they just need background voice work? Because if all you're doing is doing. [01:09:53] Speaker A: My understanding is it's literally for AI characters who are intended to be like your, your AI assistant or something to where like they tried to make it as thematic as they could, but also they could have just not used AI and just hired a fucking voice actor. [01:10:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Like there, there's a point where like I'm not happy with it and there's a, it's a It's a practice that needs to be watched closely. Yep. [01:10:18] Speaker A: The next award we are happy about. Even though I don't actually think it's that good of a game. Doom the Dark Ages won innovation in accessibility. Mike, do you actually know about the accessibility stuff in this game? [01:10:30] Speaker B: Well, yes, I do. I've played quite a bit of the Doom Dark Ages. Doom the Dark Ages is one of the like best menu games you can get for what you can do as a slider. They put a ton of effort into giving you customization works like I'm going to open it up right now because I still have it installed and give you like an idea of the kind of customer customization you can do with this because it's. It's done this. [01:11:02] Speaker A: My question is to push. Does this compare to the Last of Us to. [01:11:06] Speaker B: I'm sorry, I did not play the Last of Us two. I'm sorry I missed what you said there. [01:11:13] Speaker A: I was asking how it compares to the accessibility in the Last of Us Part two because my understanding is the accessibility features in the last. A blind person was able to play the Last of Us Part two. [01:11:25] Speaker B: So I'm not sure if that were like at that level. Mostly because you have a lot more action oriented and the speed like the gameplay does not exactly allow for that form of. Of placement. But like you have the ability to customize the colors of the pickups in the world to suit your need. You can change the fundamental. Like the. The shield that they give you has a slight seek to it. You can turn that kind of thing off so that you can make it harder on yourself. They have different ways of doing variable recolors. You can obviously do camera shakes and a world saturation. The amount of like customization you obviously have full customizable controls which needs to be there. The graphic list goes on and on and on. For the amount of things you're allowed to go up and down with, you can change fundamental gameplay actions. Like the sort of things that you. They put in are so useful for people who don't have control over themselves with. With saturation and. And colorization that you can switch around for everything for highlight and movement like that is super good. And the amount of extra assisting they give you. Well as I saw with the shield that sort of stuff really gives it so that people who have a hard time with mouse controls or keyboard controls, controller controls, etc. Can really make it so that it's. It's a lot. It's a lot more playable. [01:13:11] Speaker A: Fair enough. All right, the next category I have an opinion on, but I don't know how you guys feel about they gave us a best adaptation category and this feels weird to be in the game awards. First of all, because it's not about a video game. It's about shows or movies based on video games. The award went to the Last of Us Season two. I'm not disparaging the Last of Us. I know a lot of people felt different ways about the Last of Us Part two, the game. And my understanding is all of that's still true in the series, in the TV show version because it's based on Last of Us Part two. I'm very glad a Minecraft movie didn't win because Jesus Christ, we didn't need fucking chicken jockey memes for the Game Awards. [01:13:57] Speaker B: 1. I'm very. I agree. Absolutely. That needed to be not a thing. [01:14:02] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm just sad that Devil May Cry didn't win because if you haven't watched the Devil May Cry series on Netflix, you should. It's really goddamn good. They 100% nailed the vibe and mood and everything of the original Devil May Cry of Devil May Cry three, you know, the ones that everyone universally loves. And also it's extremely well voice acted. The music fucking slaps, the animation is great, the action is great. Devil May Cry's adaptation is incredible. They did such a good job translating everything that people love about this franchise to a TV series in a way that is still a new experience. It's not rehashing the exact story of any one of the games. [01:14:55] Speaker B: I think that's the part that makes it a like a contender to be such a good thing. Because if they just retread one of the games like Castlevania has done when they retread a couple of the games before with that Castlevania Netflix series, which was phenomenal by the way. [01:15:10] Speaker A: But the Castlevania Netflix series is incredible. But it is also they're retreading an any game. The original Castlevania Netflix series is loosely based on Castlevania 3. There's not much story to work with there, so they had to make up basically everything and like actually characterize the characters. And they did a great job. So I think it's fine. I was leaning more towards like the Last of Us where it's a good TV series, but it's also just kind of adapting the source material kind of literally. Yeah, I don't know there's that much value to the show if you're an avid fan of the game. Whereas Castlevania and Devil May cry. It does not matter how big a fan you are of the games and their stories, you're still going to find things to enjoy in those adaptations. Not just, oh, I'm a fan of this and they made a reference to my thing, but like, oh, this is a new thing that draws on the things I love and expands on them. And I think that's an important part of what an adaptation. What makes a good adaptation. [01:16:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:16:10] Speaker A: Whereas Last of Us is just a really competently made TV version of the game. [01:16:15] Speaker B: That's definition of adaptation. And I think it's well worth discussion. But at least the acting was damn good. [01:16:22] Speaker A: Yep, it's well made. I'm not disputing the Last of Us's quality in production. I just felt like it didn't do anything that the game didn't already do. Okay, here's the one that we're all annoyed is a category that exists at all. They had a most anticipated game category and of course, surprising no one, GTA 6 won it because it is the most anticipated game that exists today. Since Silksong no longer is anticipated, but actually out. That's it. That there was nothing else that could ever compete with GTA 6. GTA is gonna make Rockstar all of the money. [01:16:57] Speaker B: I'm gonna get this out of the way fucking now. Why is this an award? Yep. This is bullshit that this is an award. It's. It's just hype. It's just hype and it's not even good hype because there's not anything special here. If, maybe, maybe if to get an award for this you needed to have a new trailer every time you got up for this, maybe then it could be something. But fuck this. Like, I spent half of the fucking show getting anticipation things because of releases. I care more about all of that than I do about this award because they showed me to new cool shit. Yep. Fuck this award. [01:17:36] Speaker C: I think this would be, like you said, like, bring a new trailer. And I think the game has to be slated to be like, released the next year so they can potentially be in the new awards, which GTA 6. [01:17:50] Speaker A: Is, to be fair. And some of the other titles in this list are not. [01:17:54] Speaker C: Like, most of them don't even have release dates. [01:17:56] Speaker A: Yeah. So in fairness, GTA 6, it at least would meet that criteria. [01:18:03] Speaker B: If. If they're going to do it, you absolutely. It has to be most anticipated game of 2026. They have to label it for next year. It has to come with something to make it anticipation. Whether it's just a Trailer. A hype trailer. You do them all the time to sell commercials. Give us a new one of that for the game awards. If you're going to do this as a category. Until this is at least the bare minimum this award needs to get the fuck out of here. [01:18:32] Speaker A: Yep. All right. Let's get to the last. Get the fuck out of here. Before we move on to talking about things that are not the awards directly. Wuthering Waves won Players Choice and Players Choice is specifically 100% public voting. There's no industry votes counted for this. It is pure just what people voted for on their website. [01:18:53] Speaker B: This is fucking Boaty McBoatface. [01:18:55] Speaker A: Now, if you don't know what Wuthering Waves is. Wuthering Waves is a mobile game. It's one of those gotcha games. I'm not disputing whether or not it's good. I'm not the target audience. I have no horse in that race and I choose that euphemism very specifically because Wuthering Waves did not win best Mobile Game. Uma Musume. Pretty derby did. Wuthering Waves was nominated for best Mobile Game and lost. How in the ever loving fuck did it beat Clair Obscure and hollow Silksong, the most wishlisted game that crashed every game store on release. How did Wuthering Waves beat those games? This should have been silksong. 100%. [01:19:43] Speaker B: Dispatch is here. Fucking. I'd give Genshin impact over Wuthering Waves. Fucking what is. What is this award? [01:19:51] Speaker A: This is fucking stupid. Shame on all the people who voted for Wuthering Waves. For some fucking reason. I don't. [01:19:58] Speaker B: This is Bodhi McFucking Boatface. [01:20:00] Speaker A: That's exactly what this should have been is Uma Musume, which wasn't even fucking nominated. [01:20:06] Speaker B: Also true that that game apparently is like actually fun. [01:20:10] Speaker A: Never. [01:20:10] Speaker B: I don't do mobile games. [01:20:11] Speaker A: I have no idea. Again, I'm not the target audience. But like it was clearly the best gotcha game of the year. It's the best mobile game of the year. Everyone seems to love it. And it wasn't an option when Wuthering Waves was, which is also a mobile gacha game and lost to Uma Musume. That's fucking dumb. [01:20:30] Speaker B: I've. I have no idea what the categories to get into this thing was. But I, I. This has to be Pony McGrawface. This was let's vote something in for the shits and giggles of it. It's gotta be. [01:20:42] Speaker A: It's gotta be. Okay, we did leave out a few categories because we either don't have Any opinions on any of the games listed or just didn't think it was interesting to talk about. I do, however, want to talk about categories or games that we think were snubbed from the awards and I'm gonna consolidate several of them. They had a category for best esports game and I think that's fine to exist even though it's literally just gonna be. Which is the most popular of these games. Ongoing games that'll run on any shit computer. But they also had best esports athlete and best esports team and then listed a bunch of players from various games and a bunch of teams from various games, which is nonsense because most people don't follow esports in half a dozen different video games. They're only going to know the best esports athlete or best esports team that was nominated from the game. They actually, actually follow what this those two awards should have been instead is most hype esports moments and they should have curated a list of crazy shit from various games in esports that were hype fucking moments and then had them available to vote on with clips so you could click on it if you didn't remember or didn't see this and go and watch what that hype moment was. [01:21:58] Speaker B: Make no mistake, every year there's a new hype as fuck moment from every single game. [01:22:04] Speaker A: Exactly. Literally. Their best esports game list, by the way, was Counter Strike 2, Dota 2, League of Legends, Mobile Legends, Bang Bang, and Valorant. I don't know shit about mobile Legends Bang Bang, but I guarantee the other four all had crazy esports type moments that could have been in this list and that would have been a much more interesting, better category instead of just best esports athlete. Well, by what metric? You know that Chovy wound up winning this because he was the League of Legends person who was nominated. There was no. There was one guy nominated from Counter Strike and two Street Fighter and two valorant people that most people haven't heard of. League of Legends is the most watched esport, so of course it won best esports athlete and same thing for best esports team. Like Vitality won for their Counter Strike 2 team. But what makes them the best esports team? I don't fucking know. It's a dumb award. All right, Mike, you already covered your. Why is most anticipated even an award at all? So Pillow, what category do you think should have been here and just wasn't? [01:23:03] Speaker C: I think they need to have like a best horror game category. Like, to me that makes sense. It's one of the. One of the like one of the most top played genres. It's just horror games. People love it. So it's just surprising that they don't have that on here. And to tie that in a row. [01:23:18] Speaker B: They'Ve had a horror game in the game of the year discussion. Silent Hills being talked about like it's there. [01:23:25] Speaker C: Yeah, they want to do a best mobile game, but they don't want to put best horror game out there or bus suspense, thriller game. Like something along those lines. Like just horror game is fine even. [01:23:34] Speaker A: Just like they split up action and action adventure. But they can't bother having a horror category. They go as best fighting game when there's nothing of note. But they can't give us best horror. [01:23:43] Speaker C: Like I'm a horror game fanatic. Like, like let me fight. Let me put my voice into what I think the best horror game is. [01:23:50] Speaker B: I'm a bitch. And I think this absolutely deserves to be there. I don't play horror games, but there are some really good horror games. [01:23:57] Speaker A: Yep. [01:23:58] Speaker C: And just unanimous on that one. Yes. Just side note, to end it off, I really think that they hope to see Five Night at Freddy's the Movies too in there next year. Even though it was released like late December. I don't know if you've seen it. I love Five Night at Freddy's. It's a horror game. I love it. The movie's fun. [01:24:17] Speaker B: The last movie was crap. Actually. [01:24:19] Speaker A: It is important to note that the Game awards do have a cutoff that I think is like end of October for to be able to be in the Game Awards. So games that came out in after that cutoff this year will be eligible for next year's Game Awards. [01:24:34] Speaker B: Yes. So it's. I believe it's. It's either end of October or beginning of November. It's one month before the voting starts so that they can get a full month of. These are the categories. You get to see them and look at them. [01:24:46] Speaker A: So if that's the case, it would have been November 11th would have been the cutoff and anything that came out after that will be eligible in 2026, but was not eligible here. [01:24:55] Speaker C: I don't think we'll see it next year in there, but I hope we do. I enjoyed it. I thought it was a good movie. It's cheesy at some points, but a good kind of cheese. [01:25:02] Speaker A: Fair enough. All right. The last part of the Game awards we want to talk about is of course the real purpose of the Game Awards show is to serve as a vehicle for the game industry to Promote their new shit. That's the reason the Game Awards exist. It's kind of supplanted like what used to be E3. No one cares anymore. It's the Game Awards now for showing off your new stuff. There were a bunch of games announced at the Game Awards, some of which we're actually excited for, which is notable. There were also a bunch of games that got updates announced at the Game Awards. We're not going to cover those. You either play that game and are interested in the new update because you play that game or you don't play that game. And the update doesn't change anything. I want to kick this off with one. Both of mine. Mike I know is also very excited about. Pillow's excited about some of Mike's. They announced a new Divinity game. Not Divinity. Original Sin game, Not Baldur's Gate 4. Larian is making a new Divinity game, which is their, I believe, original IP that they made before Davidia. Original sin 2 made them actually big and big enough to take on a big project. [01:26:15] Speaker B: Yes. This is the culmination of Larian's work with everything else. This is why they said no to making more Baldur's Gate. Yep. I'm so hyped. I'm so hyped. [01:26:28] Speaker A: This is Larian being able to make completely their own thing. But now they have the resources that they didn't have when they made Divinity 1 and 2. [01:26:39] Speaker B: This is why companies like this take contracts from people like Baldur's Gate, from wizards, because then you get. If your game has the sort of polish and love that gets you what you got out of fucking Baldur's Gate 3, which is probably the best game in its genre right now. You get to then do whatever you want for the next one because now you have the money and the resources for it. They can take what they earned from Baldur's Gate 3 and go back to that IP that built them. [01:27:10] Speaker A: Yep. And to be clear, Divinity Original Sin 2 was basically Proto Balers Gate 3, but in their own Divinity franchise, Divinity is the IP that Larian owns. I'm excited to see what they can do. Post everything they've learned from Balers Gate 3 with a budget to match. Because Balers Gate 3 sold gangbusters with their own IP I'm anticipated game. [01:27:37] Speaker B: Fuck that award. Just give me the videos like this, right? [01:27:41] Speaker A: This was more hype than actually their. Any of their best anticipated games was the announcements of games that we actually care about. [01:27:48] Speaker B: This was also one of those weird, super clever things that happened with The Game Awards. They made a random statue and stuck it in the desert. Yep. And then moved it in front of the studio that day to be like, no one knows what the fuck this is. It was Divinity. Yep. [01:28:03] Speaker A: If you saw videos about the weird statue in the desert, divinity is the the cause. So some good viral marketing as well. The other game I was excited about that they announced is a new Control. [01:28:15] Speaker B: Oh my God. [01:28:17] Speaker A: If you did not play 2019's control, I hope you haven't been spoiled. Just go play Control. Just full stop, go play Control. It's so fucking good. Control was easily my favorite game in 2019. It's incredible. It's gorgeous. It's unsettling. It's super fucking creepy. It's extremely well written. It's got great gameplay. [01:28:43] Speaker B: This is the kind of game that I can play because it's not really a horror game. [01:28:47] Speaker A: Yes, it's very much like. It uses horror elements and horror like understanding to do a non horror thing. Kind of like how I would argue that like the original Jurassic park is horror adjacent, but it's definitely not a horror movie. [01:29:03] Speaker B: It's also $40, not on sale and it will go on sale again. [01:29:06] Speaker A: It's regular sale for 10 to $20 for the expansion as well. Just pick up Control on sale. Control Resident got announced it is a sequel following the sibling of the protagonist of the original Control. We don't know much more, but holy shit, I want more control. Inject it straight into my veins. [01:29:28] Speaker B: If you've never seen Control, heard anything about Control. If you look at that thing and go, oh, I like the movie Inception. That's the sort of mind fuckery you're gonna find in Control. [01:29:38] Speaker A: It's. If you're familiar with the FCPS on the Internet, which is basically a series of like creative fiction creepy things that people have written over the years. It's like open source creative fiction creepypastas. That's what Control is. Control. Is that turned into a video game? [01:29:56] Speaker B: Yeah, pretty much. [01:29:56] Speaker A: It's incredible. So yeah, all we know about it is that it's a sequel and it stars the brother of the protagonist of the first game. And that's enough for me to be excited. Control fucking rules. I'm so excited for Control Resident. Also, the original Control was easily the best looking ray traced game when Ray Tracing was new. I hope that Control Resident pushes tech boundaries in some way and is impressive visually. All right, Mike, what did they announce that you're excited about besides the shit I just said? [01:30:28] Speaker B: Well, apparently they decided to target me directly with half of their announcements because I'm on all of the lists. I'm a really big fan of. Obviously we're talking about strategy games, the. The Total War franchise. And I'm a huge Warhammer fan. There may come a time when we talk about Warhammer as a whole thing, but that may get to a point. I'm a huge Warhammer nerd. Both fantasy and sci fi and total war 40k got announced. Holy shit. How are they gonna do this? They're taking a map based thing and taking it onto a galactic scale. I have no idea how it's gonna work. And I'm so excited to see it work because CA has done nine years of work straight on Warhammer and it's. It single handedly revitalized the Warhammer fantasy ip. I can't wait to see what they do with Warhammer 40K. I just. I fucking can't. It looks so interesting and I love the game for Total War. It's such a good game. I'm not gonna go shout about that more. Really gotta go to the next one. The next thing that was the next one announced that was talked about is Warlock. Dungeons and Dragons, which all I can think of is that you get to play a warlock during Dungeons and Dragons. The amount of things that they. That they showed there looked so intriguing. Like I'm a huge D and D nerd and Warlock is one of my favorite classes. And this is just be a warlock. If they get this right, this could be a huge push forward to allow for more interesting fantasy. Because D and D already has such an established universe. Obviously we're talking about Baldur's Gate 3. That's DD and. And now they're bringing it into. I think it's third person over the shoulder. But it was hard to tell from the trailer. Off the top of my head. That sounds so fucking cool. Give it to me. Yep. [01:32:23] Speaker A: This is very much a you're excited just from the base premise, we don't know much yet kind of thing. [01:32:29] Speaker B: Absolutely. [01:32:30] Speaker A: All right, Pillow. Yours are things we know a little bit more about. Tell us about the games that they announced that you're excited about. [01:32:38] Speaker C: So Force 3 got announced and this is the next after the Sons of the Forest, which was after the Forest. It's just a survival game. If you've heard me at all during any of these episodes. You know, I love survival games. I'm just excited for it because Sons of the Forest to me was great. The forest was awesome. It's spooky. It's a survival game. Right up my alley. The next one though is, I think the bigger hype. Yeah, I don't think you guys. Do you guys have anything to add about the forest for Move on the forest. [01:33:11] Speaker A: I didn't even know there was a second one. [01:33:13] Speaker C: So it's spooky and it's fun. [01:33:16] Speaker B: Three looks like they're taking it to a whole new dimension. Almost literally. [01:33:20] Speaker C: Yeah, literally. So the next one is, I think the more hype I'm super excited about. This is Star wars, the Fate of the Old Republic. I. I'm just excited. Like I have been wanting a Star wars role playing game for so long, but this all in public. [01:33:38] Speaker A: This isn't just a Star wars role playing game. This is a spiritual successor to Knights of the Old Republic made by a lot of the people who worked on the original Knights of the Old Republic and the original Mass Effect trilogy and now unshackled from BioWare and EA. [01:34:01] Speaker B: Still beholden to, of course, third Lord and Savior Disney. [01:34:04] Speaker A: But yes, it's a Star wars game. [01:34:06] Speaker C: I know it's inevitable. I know Knights of the Old Republic still has a huge following. Like, I mean, Knights of the Old. [01:34:12] Speaker B: Republic is one of the best Star wars games ever made, but IPs for Star wars ever made. It's better than more than half of the movies. [01:34:23] Speaker A: I. I wish Knights of the Old Republic. I had the worst experience possible with my attempt to play Knights of the Old Republic. I am not exaggerating when I say I had a battle that went on for five minutes with neither side hitting each other even once on the first planet, which is the worst part of Knights of the Old Republic. I gave up. I was like, nah, I know this gets better. I believe it gets better. I'm not gonna play this. [01:34:48] Speaker C: I mean, so it goes without saying. And I'll keep it short. I love role playing games too. I love Star wars universe. This is everything that I want, hopefully in one game. And we'll see lots of anticipation to be on this one. [01:35:02] Speaker B: This one's a long, a long wait. We know next to nothing. Apart from that this is not coming in the next two or three years. [01:35:10] Speaker A: We don't even know. We don't even know platforms other than Windows. We don't know if this is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X or if this is going to be a next PlayStation and next Xbox console release almost certainly. Or if it's going to be Windows only. [01:35:27] Speaker C: It's. It's most certainly if it's going to. [01:35:30] Speaker A: Be next gen for that matter, with how Microsoft has Been running Windows into the ground. Maybe it'll get a native Linux release. We don't fucking know yet. [01:35:38] Speaker B: It's. It's most definitely. [01:35:39] Speaker C: It will be on Steam. [01:35:41] Speaker B: Yeah. It's going to be a while out. So this one. Is this out of everything that we've talked about here? This specifically is going to be like the wait for GTA 6 is gonna be Star wars fan of the Old Republic. It's gonna be that. [01:35:56] Speaker A: Yep. And it is a spiritual successor. It does not directly continue any of the plot line from the old Knights of the Old Republic games. It's just set in the same Old Republic era of Star Wars. [01:36:07] Speaker B: No revan for you. [01:36:09] Speaker A: For better and for worse at the same time. [01:36:11] Speaker B: Yeah. This gives them some freedom to actually make something wholly new. [01:36:15] Speaker A: Yes. I think this has the potential to be a better game because they are making it a spiritual successor as opposed to a proper sequel. [01:36:25] Speaker C: We'll. [01:36:25] Speaker A: We'll see if they succeed in four years when this comes out in 2029 or whatever the. It winds up coming out in. [01:36:32] Speaker B: It's gonna be a while. [01:36:34] Speaker C: But don't make it too fast that it's a bad game. Take your time. [01:36:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Like I said, I know that Knights of the Old Republic is a genuinely good game. Despite my negative experience with it. I'm still excited for Fates of the Old Republic. I just like, I want good Star Wars. [01:36:50] Speaker B: Please give me good Star Wars. [01:36:52] Speaker A: There's not enough of that. There's too much bad Star wars in recent years. Oh my Star Wars. [01:36:57] Speaker B: Yeah, they also like, okay, there's a new pod racing game coming out which was one of the best games Star wars related. So hey, we're getting more pod racing too. [01:37:08] Speaker A: Yeah. They did announce a new Star wars pod racing game. That one. We do have a release date. It's coming out next year 2026. I have no opinion on that. I don't think anyone's excited for pod racing specifically. Although I will acknowledge that the original Episode one racer was a genuinely good video game. And also fucking hard. Like, holy shit. That might be one of the hardest racing games ever made. [01:37:34] Speaker B: That should never. [01:37:35] Speaker A: That's crazy. No, it's way the fuck harder than f0 because it was punishing when you made a mistake in a way that F0 isn't. [01:37:44] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. You absolutely get wrecked for your pod. [01:37:47] Speaker A: So we have no idea if the new one will be like that, I assume. No, because they don't make punishing games like that anymore unless their name is from software. Software. We'll find out next year. Alright, that's gonna be it for us this week, guys. This was a long one. We have a lot of opinions about the game awards, guys. We do stream on Twitch. I can be found at Twitch tv. Jacksoman, Pillow can be found at Twitch tv. Pillow pet and Mike can be found at Twitch tv. Mikeofmanynames. Come hit us up when you see us streaming. We might be playing league. We might be playing something else. We play a lot of video games and again I mentioned this at the top. Join the discord. Come talk to us. Tell us what game we overlooked that should have been won instead of Expedition 33 in one of those awards gush. [01:38:33] Speaker B: About the one dog game they showed off where you get to play a sheepdog. [01:38:36] Speaker A: Yes. All right. This has been episode nine of the 8 Bit to 4K podcast. God damn it. I've been Jack Zoman fucking up the outro for Mike for pillow. Have a great night. [01:38:51] Speaker C: Good night. [01:38:52] Speaker B: Good night, everybody.