Hey everybody, It's Thursday, September fifth.
Welcome to the Giant BombCast Revengeance Still brought to you by NZXT. I am your host, jan Ashoba, and I am recharged.
I'm ready to.
Rescue all of my friends. We're all hanging out in the desert, climbing on top of each other, using each other as ladders, platforms and ropes. Speaking about the biggest rope because he ties us all together, Jeff Crubb.
If I was an astrobought that you define on a level, I would be in the suburbs level and I would be under the shingles on.
My roof, a roof connoisseur and all things home improvement. The handiest man in games media, Dan Record.
These are all things that people frequently say about me.
Yes, that's right. You have a tool belt on you, Dan. What's what's in the tool belt?
Cheesed the greatest tool of them all.
The block can make like a doorstopper out of it.
Yeah, wedge, Yeah, yeah.
Speak about cheese. We got the dairy man himself, the Milkman of the podcast. He's bringing milk door to door to door to door, straight to you. We only got two percent. We don't got all the men. We don't got out that costs way too much turbo Shawn Sean McDowell.
And we sure it's all don't have skim because that's just water. That's nasty.
What he's doing is every other type of milk. Dan, you have no taste buds.
And we have you.
No, no, no, no, hang on, Hey, I'm not laying this coach. Dan. You said that Baha Blast and Baja Blast zero sugar tastes the same, and that's just wrong.
So every diet soda and shoot soda test the exact same as their counterpart.
I had a dream last night that all Doctor Pepper got replaced with diet Doctor Pepper, and then someone tried to tell me that that was not the case.
Nobody getting shooting gaslighting yourself and your dreams.
Yes about diet doctor Pepper.
We have the Master Dreams agreeing with me. By the way, we just finished introducing everyone Master dream This is a fool Jan Yes maybe wow.
I didn't know. I think Will Smith is a smart guy.
I like how okay find Will Smith is great. I also blame Will Smith for my coffee problem, so I got but no beef. Really, thanks Will uh. Nikki Grayson is also here.
Hi, Hello, what do you think about milk?
That's all right, but I can't you know, someone if someone said to you that they looked at you and they thought you probably drank milk with dinner, kid, would you be a f I'm upset y Yeah, yeah, that's okay.
Yeah, I'm upset.
Yeah yeah, because like, no, why would you do that to me?
Yeah? I like that.
Yeah, and then like legitimately actually, and then I'd be upset further because like, oh, did you mean a milkshake? No, I'm too poor to for a milkshake shake ass Yeah.
Come on. It's gonna be one of those shows.
About we did all the good stuff before the ship started and now and now what Yeah.
Just because I looked away from like my camera doesn't mean that we stopped talking.
Touching the microphone arm I can. I'm watching it dangle wobbling.
No, so, folks at home audio listeners, you won't be able to see this, but people watching you can see my mic stand here. Let me just focus on this bad boy. It's technically all of its hinge, like what are you doing? And it's like a belcrow strip holding.
It up he's waiting for more things to break before he orders and new one of these.
That's what he's right, that's right. The gogglers almost there.
Folks's bab I can't break the doggsler. Yeah, hey, give me your address.
It took me forever to get a new desk and my I figured out that my desk had a hole in the middle of it. But anyway, huh, I got I got COVID.
Oh yeah, he did have COVID, so does Mike Manatti and I somehow don't despite the last thing I did. And see, I was hugged both of you, and I've tested twice and I seem to be fine this morning. So yeah, Dan, what.
Kind of hugger are you? When you're hugging?
Like's not a big hugger, but most people seem to do it. So I just kind of do the bare minimum. I just do the one arm round, like, ah, there you go, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's a hesitant hugger, which is you know, you don't do it.
You're not going to protest it. But it's just like I'm not one of the was like I gotta get in there, you know, sure, Yeah, yeah, it's weird. Yeah, I don't like that. Yeah, I'd rather just do a firm handschick to everyone or a high five.
Yeah, we did a high five and like at the last like gathering at people we had and Dan was very excited that we were doing high five.
Like, why aren't we all just doing that? This is not actually easy in and out.
You know. One of the best high fives I had was with Dan in Germany after we saw the Chipotle poster.
That's right, and we almost woke my cup. That's my biggest regret. We should have woke him up. It was really funny. He would have thought it was funny.
Uh, Jet's Well, we'll also talk about the Zelda game that y'all saw at packs West, but special shouts out again to everyone that checked out both packs panels at PAS.
West, the BCR where we did the Mount rushmore of gaming fish, and the Blake Club panel. I watched all of it yesterday and that's uh man, the we as a console huh.
Great Manati immediately spilling water all over my cross.
Yes, the yea, just like cost water at us.
You think that's like Mike's uh like opening move, like you know, like instead of a pickup line. It's like a oops, could you do that at EVO?
Like, could you just immediately when the fight starts just throw water in someone's face? They're like, you know, Fuji disk.
Yeah, I think you may be disqualified for really show me the rule.
Yeah, we're in the book and on the.
Rule book where it says you know, misconduct dan.
But it does if it doesn't explicitly say that you can't pocket stand another person.
Yeah, that means that it's a low after I give.
Me in the moment for it.
Do you two things judges do?
I don't know.
Are there judges at EVO?
Yes? For what.
Has? Like you are like, I'm gonna thank you if I don't pocket.
What if it's just a little pocket stand into their stick.
Or gummy?
What if you got what if in between rounds, say your head gets itchy and you each your head over your bones stick and a bunch of sand comes out because you have an.
I think you might just get punched at that point.
That's fine, Okay, Sean for whatever reason, down to me.
Because everyone complaining that it's so too loud.
No, no, no, you you go up. I'll bring you up and down. I'll be I'll be your Josh Grobin.
Let's do a future where I try to win EVO by cheating.
That's really good.
Delete that you're where a form relationships dance. Like what if we just burn everybody?
I think they would like it.
I think.
Come out there to do Ocean's eleven.
This, Yeah, Oceans eleven EVO, but instead of like stealing something, we steal a competition.
Yeah, I want to be I want to be the little guy that goes in the box from the Ocean's eleven team.
Please, there should be steroid Olympics, and there should be it's called sheeting ego. But like yes, but like no one's they're not. Like I want to watch someone do gear and then swim one hundred meters.
That would be awesome. Yeah, you know the lift stuff, throw stuff.
Barrels, Yeah, barrels exactly.
Yeah, we're really lacking as barrels in our modern day society.
I did We did do that mini game in that family party. Thirty great games for the Black Club that people should watch that we did at packs and I think my favorite one was at the end of the day, the barrel tossing one that you threw over the back of your head. It maybe want to go through throw shoot barrels, although I know that'd be way too heavy. I would just fail at that.
The first time I threw one, it would land on my head and I.
Would exactly, Yes, I would die.
How do y'all feel about those the new slapping shows like where it's just two stuff.
Yeah, data white slap slap off.
Right, and it looks very stupid, very dumb, very explanation here, dudes, just competitive slapping, turn based slapping. Yeah, I mean I I do think it's taking too long for people to get CTE. So I'm a fan, like, yeah, yeah.
Let's cut out the middleman.
Yeah, don't get right to it.
How do you feel about the car combat show where two people are fighting inside a car?
What I was not aware that I was not.
That's just a family road trips to my family. Like that it on.
TBS, like people are arguing or like metal No, like fighting in a car is one of them driving? No? No, no, it's it's it's a stationary car and they're fighting.
It's like bang bus, but but for fighting.
Yeah, that's just.
What you're wrong and you're not wrong, all right, Okay, there's no Yeah, what's it called. I don't remember the name of the show. I'm going to go google it. But folks, PCR today we are talking about We'll talk about Zelda later. Astrobot is now out. The review embargo is up in a folks. We have all been playing it. Everyone on the team has been playing it, including Dibb, who I believe Jeff Becklart said. Dibb said he was the first kid to beat it.
It's the only cool thing he'll ever do. And it's the only thing I've ever agreed with dib on is that this game is great. Yeah, yes, all right, he's right now.
Initial thoughts boys.
One of the best games of all time.
Yep, it's my favorite PlayStation game that they've ever made.
Good as good as like any Mario game.
Yes that lightly Super Mario Galaxy three is they made it in PlayStation put it on their council instead.
Yeah, it's like I think it's between this and Odyssey for best platformer ever. And the fact that it's even like in the conference, like if somebody told me, like definitively like I think this game is better than Super Mario Odyssey. I need some more time to think about it. Myself, but I wouldn't be like that's a crazy thing to say.
Had he said it's his favorite platform ever made, And I'm like, yeah, that is completely sound and reasonable position.
Yes, Yeah, that's interesting hearing that from you, because I know how much both of you guys love Mario platforms as I do myself. Jane kind of framed it this morning, was like even Sean like, so, I'm like, chan I speed around sixty four, what are you talking.
About saying that?
Like everyone, it appeals to everyone's tastes here.
It definitely does. Like my my little tweet this morning that we were all pointing out our initial impressions. I'm only through like the second world because this conversation was scheduled for Tuesday, but someone needed to talk about it.
We're doing it now. I got COVID. We got to talk about.
It one more time. But I'm I'm one hundred percent as I go. It's how these kinds of games. So I was through, gave up, Yeah, through the first two worlds, and then through half of a secret thing to do a butt check.
Then, so I five hundred percent of the first four and I'm at two hundred and seventeen by.
Okay, yeah, I'm ninety something.
I think I got credits, and I'm at two hundred and thirty. Okay, I'm at like, yeah, I met like twenty five and then there's three hundred total. So yeah, by the time Mike, I decided I was just gonna go, I was gonna go finish the game. Uh So, there were a handful of levels in the last Nebula that I'd never touched, and then there's several secrets that I just passed it that I'm gonna go back to.
For folks curious, not all of the bots are named are.
Named, Yeah, Like sixty seven are like PlayStation characters, and there's a bunch of j brones.
Yeah jobbers. This came up in our our meeting yesterday. But then I had asked the crew of like, is it bad that I start to carry less about the regular astrobots.
Look, they're building in the PlayStation five at the crash site. The rest are like hanging out and dealing with their gimmicks, you know.
Yeah, I still really like the asteroids, but yeah, it is special when you get a named one, for sure, and there are some incredible deep cuts. I don't think we're going to spoil any of them, really know, we.
Can't not to spoil.
Yeah, okay, I just want to speak in generalities here and not spoil things. So there's like five main worlds here, and when you beat the boss of each world, you go to like one stage that is themed around a specific game each world has, like so World one is like, oh, here's this franchise, and the world too.
We rescued that bot and then that bought takes you to their special world and then you get their power and play an equivalent like you play as them. Basically you can get mechanics. Well, it was in the trailer.
So the one I guess we could say is you know the God of War acts where there was a part where like after a certain world, you you there's a credos so God of War kind of like level and you get the axe and then you have the like you know, you have the.
Action and then you're playing God of War.
Yeah. And then there are other Sony franchise including like some surprising ones, some deeper cuts that I was like, oh, that's fucking crazy they're doing this.
Yeah. We said on Game of Mornings that I think if you had if we had chat try to guess all five that I think there's five. I don't think they would get them all. I know we would probably miss there.
There's two of them that not in a million years.
Especially World four. I was like, no way, you're a whole level, right, So that's just like that game. That's the thing.
You know.
There's one hundred and sixty named PlayStation characters, and they go deep into the well oh yeah, right.
And ones that are like there's like all the first party ones you would expect of course, then there's ones where it's just like, oh shit, I thought I thought Sony forgot about this. I don't. I've never heard anyone talk about this in years, you know.
And there's there's a lot of third party partner ones, like close third party games in there as well, Like you're.
Atressive some of them that they got, yeah, yet some of it.
And I'm so desperate, right, Like I think in a different world where we're game development, I think like the pipeline is more open, desperate for the to read the email chain where they emailed some of these studios and yeah, hey can we so you I know that you haven't touched this guy in thirty years.
But if we hang out with.
Him for a little bit, can hang out in the desert next to a giant PlayStation five and dance occasionally.
Is that okay, because like, yeah, some of some of the some of the some of the stuff they lift is is like wow, it's like we went in there.
And they do something so interesting that I feel like a lot of media movies TV included, do very poorly. Is like preying upon nostalgia, right, like and it just feels like they're pandering. But here, for whatever reason, it's done with such a deft touch where well, yeah, sure exactly.
Like everything is in context. Everything feels like, oh, they are having the character do something that they do naturally and build it into the level. Like again, I won't give a specific example, there's a level all about you know, you encounter shall we say, collectibles of a serve variety. You're like, oh, that's kind of like something else, and then you get to a thing of something else and you're like wait a minute, and then yeah, it's that character.
It's like, oh, that's smart, that's really smart.
Yeah.
Reminds me of not in terms of gameplay obviously, but like the way Smash Brothers also kind of serves as like ant no museum of just like between all the stickers and assist trophies and all the little like references within the levels and stuff like that.
Like this is that.
Especially when you go back to the crash site. So when you rescue these bots, they populate this crash site where the big PS five, it is like that's like the main hub that you're kind of like building rebuilding this PS five and oh it's so good. There's almost
this like pigman like quality. And you go back there. Yeah, because you'll go up to spots where it'll be like okay, you need twenty five bots for this, you need a hundred bots for this, And you hit triangle and seeing them all like this wave of Astrobots and a bunch of them are all gimmicked up, and it's like running there to like create a ladder or help you stand on a thing to break.
It's awesome.
Ye go ahead, And I'll just say like, uh, you know again, no spoilers, But I think the way that it all culminates in the end, I was I found it pretty moving. I think that I have a real attachment to Astrobot now as a character, his place sort of like the steward of PlayStation lore and what matters to PlayStation's history and how all those characters feel about him. They really do a good job with that stuff, and it's not overbearing. They don't overdo it. It's not some
big elongated cut scene. It's just you're doing a lot of cool stuff with that character, and then you know, of course he's gonna do the big thing at the end of the end of the game to like make sure that everyone's safe. He with really good stuff, but.
It's always like a wink, not it's ending.
They're gonna do like that one Jetly movie where they all have to like off each other.
Doubt it's it, Oh go ahead, Sean.
It's just the kind of winking where everyone knows that, like you know that I know that you know, like we're both on the same page. It's that kind of reverence to it, which I was kind of gonna say this for the end, but since front of topic, it's almost like the one depressing thing about playing this game is that you'll come across a character and like, Hey, it's that dude.
I love that dude.
Man. PlayStation hasn't done anything with you in twenty five years ago and you get a lot of them. Oh, it kind of reminds me of when PlayStation was made of the spicy, take a bit more fun and kind of character, you know, when you you know, PS one was not just Metal Year Solid, it was Metal Year Solid, and you know all the different mascot platformers in Castle Vania. It was a good variety and that type of thing is reflecting looking back at the history.
We were talking about this in game as mornings, but like I haven't been able to stop smiling as I play through this game. Yeah, that's like a unique feeling when playing a PlayStation game specifically because like everything is so dow or so Triple A feels so heavy, but this is so light and happy feeling, and that isn't just tied to it being like a platform er in that genre of game, kind of being negatively associated as a baby game even though it's not. It's a dumb association.
Get that out of your head.
Yes, that's the thing, is the I'm sorry, I feel like I was going to say that, Like I feel like, you know, you could be a young idiot like Dib and enjoy this, you know, because it's just it's Essentially, it's just x M square. You jump in your punch and occasionally you hold it in to do a spind punch, you know, occasion you'll get the powers we got to
talk about like R two occasion and like it. It does the thing that Maria does where it's like there's enough easy ish levels where you can go through, you can see credits with some pretty basic stuff. You can skip the hard ones. But if you want one hundred percent, which I'm working towards the platinum, there are some there are some levels specifically in each world. There are like you know these four kind of like many worlds that
have one bought each in it. And by the way, those are definitely going to be some like speed road shit.
Yeah, and those those are the start and retry levels that they promised when we're talking about this game. It's those those are the challenging levels.
And they can be really difficult. So it's like I do feel like, no matter where you are and like the gaming skill spectrum, I think you can absolutely enjoy this.
Yeah. I think my five and seven year old are playing it, and you know, there's it's simply getting a little bit more complicated for them as they get into the second world, but yes, they are just charging along because it's just it. It is at the you know foundation, you know, two buttons and movement, which is like, which is why I'm like, for me, I'm like, I still like prefer some marios just because I like to have that complicated movement. But this game makes up for it
by just having so many ideas constantly. You're always doing something new every ten minutes. I think that is why this game is going to get compared to Galaxy so much, because Galaxy is just a parade of ideas one after the other, and they never like keep those ideas around for too long. It's always going to be like, no, we're going to do that, and they're gonna do something new, and then something new and something new. And it feels like this is made by a team and like the
first time a team that really understood that. That's what made that special. And it's like, if you can come up with a good ideas, just okay, you can probably come up with another good idea after that, do that and make a whole game like that, and that's what this is.
Then they're so like as far as the powers and stuff, it reminds me of like, you know, in Mario three, you'd have stuff like the Tanuki suit or the Hammer Brothers suit, which only pop up a couple of times, and it makes it feel very special, whereas here there's all these different powers, and some of them are very, very like the fucking sponge. The first time, I was like, when I realized what I was and what I could do with that, I was like, this is fucking incredible.
And so far I've almost some of the game that it's only been like one level. Yeah, I don't want to. I don't know if we want to go into each specific power.
Okay, so Jan asked me for this before the show. The powers that have been in trailers therefore we talk about openly are Monkey Mouse, the two jet packs so bulldog and horizontal, and verkele Yes, the frog arms, the tie stop which I forgot that was the trailer. Yeah, that was great, the sponge, as Dan mentioned, and a penguin that we don't know what it does, just there's a penguin there.
Let's uh, let's talk about that sponge real quiksuse. This is where I realized, like why the game is so good, because every like I wrote in the tweet. Yeahs sponge worthy. Jesus christ I wrote in the tweet, like every ten steps there's something playful to interact with. And why that's important is like you want to go punch a bush made out of little Voxley pixels because it's gonna break
apart in a really satisfying way. And then there's gonna be a million little pieces on the ground and you're gonna do the spongea or the spin punch, and you're gonna knock them all over the place and they're gonna sound amazing, it's gonna look amazing, and it just feels so playful to the point where it's like you begin looking around the world and you want to interact with everything, and you see and you like, they'll just give an example, and this is the one example I'll give. And again
I guess very light mechanical spoilers. Uh, there is a fire at the top of a chimney and I'm the sponge and I'm like, well, I'm filled with water. There's no way I'm not going to go up there. I got to figure out how to get up there to extinguish that flame. And you start looking around, you see some trees like maybe if I get up there, go over there, And it just makes you want to explore and do the fun thing because there are fun things everywhere.
And I think that's where the game really just succeeds incredibly well, because everything is fun to do. It makes you want to keep playing it.
But there are a lot of times where, like you mentioned, like a bunch of little things on the ground and everything like that. There's that kind of like dessert themed area that kind of snow dessert sprinkles. There's so many fucking sprinkles around and it serves no purpose but like to just charge up your spin punch and just to spin around spreading sprinkles and feeling like all the haptic feedback stuff.
And that's because it's fun to do. Right, that's on his hair. Yeah, that's that's who made this game. People understand that is fun to do. Yeah.
Yeah, it's the only PlayStation five game that feels like a PlayStation five. Yeah, like they they understood that. They were like, oh, you can the controller does what you can do? What on this It's like whenever, like did you did you know that the Nintendo Switch has a touch screen?
Yes?
I don't know if.
Yeah, like Nintendo does not know that that thing has a touch screen. But it's like they understand the box fundamentally.
They understand the things that it can do, and they say, Okay, how do we make play interesting in a way that we can Only the only place that you can do this is on the PlayStation five, right, Like it is of Astro's Playroom is kind of this, right, but it's like it's not a full game, it's a pack in, so it's right, but it's like, if you're trying to sell someone on a PlayStation five, it's this video game, and it is It's not God of War, it's not Last of Us, like it's not any of the other
games that they have made, because they could conceivably run on a PlayStation four, and like you're gonna probably have the same experience. But when I was playing Astro Bought on my police station five, I was like, Wow, I'm glad I bought this box four years ago, which is the first time I think I've ever said that.
Yeah, Returnal is pretty good.
Returns really good. Yeah.
Like on that topic, though, Nikki, I will say that if you're like me and for like physical reasons, you turn off a lot of like the gimmicky duel sense stuff like adapted triggers and the because it's tiring. Well that's the thing though, because I have them turned off at a system level just because I can't deal with them in any game. In the game, you can turn on accessibility options that add visual feedback where there would normally be vibrations. Oh, you can change all the motion
controls to being just the left stick. And something is lost in translation there, but does feel like a really good the does media is halfway for people who don't
like that stuff or can't do that stuff. Like there's a portion where you need to like go down a tunnel and there's these tilting platforms, and clearly the design there is you're supposed to move Astro with a stick and then tilt the platforms independently to like open and close gates basically, And so that's a little awkward to when that's also on a stick, but it works, and so it's good that they have thought about this. So if you don't like that stuff, you can still get the most out game.
Yeah, for sure.
I so you listed all those powers a second ago, and it's not like Mario power ups where okay, those are gonna be sprinkled throughout the levels. Through throughout the rest of the game. You're gonna have like maybe two maybe three levels where you get those powers, and the
levels will be built around that. But it's like, no, they are going to be sorting through those, and then they're gonna have kind of bespoke levels to have just like something but one where maybe you pick up something and you throw it, and then the whole level be built around that. They are churning through ideas so fast that they very rarely ever go back to the well. And even when they do reuse power yeah, they're doing it's all yeah, I.
Mean recontextualized entirely right, Like you're you're using this power up in a place where you're.
Like oh shit, yep, like oh how cool.
Or like my favorite is when they will you will do half of a level vanilla and then you get the power up and you're like oh, gang, like hell yeah, like hell yeah, good video game.
Yeah. The frog Hands I love so much because you start off and it's it's already super fun because they're like extendo boxing glove things that you can like just beat the ship out of things with and then all of a sudden he's like like swingy little red things pop up and you're like, wait, it's also like a cool grappling hook by on a commander thing and that fus awesome.
Yes, yeah, it is definitely. Out of the power ups that Sean listed, I think the Froghands are my top favorite.
There's one way, so can we not talk about ones that Sean didn't just list?
I would say, okay, spoiler free.
There's one that it just does a cool thing on a technical level with the things in the level, with like sizes things.
I mean, there was the mouse one's trailer that's fucking incredible. Oh my god, it's it's just so cool to go from big to small and the.
Mind blowing moment, the blowing moment when you go small and you go in a tunnel and you're like, what happens if I hit you burst out of the tunnel. It's so cool.
You balk your head and it's like, yeah, I've always loved it. In Mario games, Mario three did the big small world, Mario sixty four did, but it was always like, oh, we're a small guy in a big level, or you have to go in a pipe and then you emerge in different You've never had a button where you can like the whole world is shrinking, but you can see
it when you're big. You can see like, oh, there's like this little thing in the wall here, and then you just shrink down and it just live, no load time, no transition, You're just all of a sudden, the tiny guy. It's fucking awesome.
God, yeah, I think my favorite power we can't talk about, so yeah, I'll just keep talking. The small Yeah. It is the kind of thing where you imagine like an ant Man game and it's like, oh, they just did it inside of Astro, all that effect of very rapidly becoming small and then the camera kind of zooming in behind you in a very smooth transition kind of way
so that it doesn't feel disorienting. In fact, you begin building that into your platform and so you're like, you see a tiny little mushroom pedal there that you want to get on, Like you could shrink and then jump on from one to the next, to the next and next, or you could jump up while like big size shrink and just immediately land on top of it and feel very fucking cool.
It's going to be so good for speed running levels that have this just being able to like jump and then hover and then shrink. It's like, oh, I just skipped an entire level that they want me to do is small because I thought to do this. And that's the sign of a good platformer to me, especially three D one, is when they think about the things that other developers might nod because they're like, no one's gonna do this, But when you get that wink in a nod.
That's what this whole game is, winks and nods them telling you, oh, we know you thought of this, Like that's why Mario Games get this a lot is because you'll go up to a platform up there like there's no way they thought me being up there. They get there and like look, coin pops up.
It's like a little because we knew you'd yeah that thing.
It's not always a bot or a puzzle piece or an actual collectible.
It's just like yeah, exactly, and before I gots I tried. That's what I was trying to say, is the tweet I did this morning was, uh, this is I think genuinely the first platformer that we don't need to compare to Mario because it's at the same level and also does enough of its own thing that it doesn't feel like it's just copying, because it is physically just Mario galaxy you're flying around to specifically, you're flying around a
galaxy going to the level. The levels are all like floating platform structure.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's all like giant you know, basically gigantic islands floating in the middle of space. But they all feel unique. The power ups are laid out the same way where you get the power up, and the levels clearly designed around the power up. It just all feels so immaculately woven together. It feels fantastic.
Then there are these big moments within levels too, like some of them are just really solid levels. And then I'll just say there's a tree. Uh, And there was a moment involving a tree where I just stopped moving and I just looked at this fucking tree for a while. I was like, I love everything.
Inane.
Yeah, I get it.
And then like even then, it's like, oh, I wonder if it would react if this happened. And then you do something that's like, oh my god, there's like a trophy for it, and uh yeah, it's it's good.
I want to go get it.
The way that okay, okay, The way that it plays with scale, not just in including like the mouse power up where you shrink, but like when Astrobot is at its default size and just like the scale of everything, like the boss is just like, oh wow, this is maybe one of the best Little Guy games ever.
Yeah.
Yeah, Yeah, there's a lot of those moments that, like the tree, but like the more subtle ones, like dancing mushrooms that are just dancing the music in the background and they're just feeling it and like doing their thing, and it's like I was just kind of watching them like for a little bit, and I realist, like the whole level is just all these mushrooms dancing like that. Yeah, and it just makes the game feel alive and have this like silly language to it that I really appreciate.
I like that you said that the game does feel alive because despite being a single player game, it doesn't feel like a sorry I heard a beep.
And I guess somebody needs to play right now.
Yeah, despite being a single player game, it doesn't feel like an isolating experience.
Yeah.
I don't know if that's because you know, your whole thing is like you're rescuing all these bots, but like the fact that you are rescuing all these bots, and most of the time there's like a little here's a little easter you remember this, dude. No, it's fine, you'll get to know them anyway.
It's every time you go back to the crash site and you just see everyone kind of like greeting you. And then when you buy a bunch of gimmicks on the Gotcha machine, then you see it all kind of populated.
Gotcha those things like if you click astros, the named astros, a lot of those gotcha things are a little accessories for those those astros. So and then they get those in the world, so they'll just have them at the crash site and be playing around with them. And now sometimes it's added the context and be like, oh, I oh, that's who that character is. It's happen a couple of times for meum where like that's when I finally realize that.
It's important to note that when you when you come across those PlayStation or PlayStation adjacent mascot robots, they don't have their name on them. It just has a description of them, so it's like, hey, do you remember this one. We're gonna test your memory a little bit.
So one sentence like flavor text, yeah yeah, yeah, and that I think is where I do wish there was.
And I wonder if it's not in there, because it would be more of a tacit admission that maybe they are not treating this stuff with the reverence that it needs. But like there should be a zone where you go in and be like.
Oh, yeah, that's just the full history museum.
Yeah yeah, Like that's.
Who fuck Can I say, oh that crados? Okay, traders from God of War has appeared in God of War and God of War two, and.
It's clever little things like I'll spoil one of the hundreds or whatever. It's Joel from the Last of Us, so it'll say something like, oh, Haggard, dude, and then the flavor text will be like might tell the occasional white lie and like it's like, Okay, they're doing like fun little references for each one, and some of them are like deep deep cuts.
Yes, oh yes, absolutely, Nikki, you brought up a grievance any negatives of the game, and it isn't absolutely perfect I personally wish it had a run button, but that's like, yeah, the biggest.
Thing slower jam.
Yeah, I'm with you where it's like for me, it's like that's why, like I said earlier, I prefer Mario still just like the I feel like I have more control over Mario. But this game is built to be this way, so when I'm playing it, I don't really have any issues. This is the game it needs to be, and I'm very happy when I'm playing it. Honestly, I think if anything, it's like it's gonna sound safe. But
it's like there's so much good stuff. Sometimes it's hard to like even realize, like, oh I just did this amazing thing. I know I'm moving on from that already. Yeah. I almost feel like I don't get the time to appreciate how amazing the thing I just did was. It's crazy. Yeah.
The pacing feels good.
Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, absolutely, it's it's TikTok.
Yeah, like you are.
There is something happening immediately next that is different. I think the music is good. Yesterday we had a call. We we had a meeting that was not about anything. It was a business meeting, and then it turned into a small podcast that we did about the video. Again, I think then and afterwards, I like, I said the thing that I said about the music, which is that it felt repetitive, and I do still kind of feel
that way. But then, of course immediately afterwards, I like, play three levels that had unique music, and I was like, ah, the ship things. But it is a situation where I don't there's I sometimes am like, oh, the music does feel like the weakest link here.
I think there are some I think there are a couple really good tracks, yeah, and then I think there are a lot of weaker ones. I agree. I think that's true.
Yeah, I think it like it levels out to being fine. Yeah, highs are high and the lows are forgettable.
I think that this is the song that the Tree sings banger great.
Oh yeah, and the crash site.
Is the song yes, the yeah, the yeah. Muse did a great job on the soundtrack for this one.
You mentioned help the pacing, and you really noticed it when like, let's say you go back to one hundred percent of level. Let's say you missed a bot or a puzzle piece, and you know, like, oh, I can tell this is going to be near the end of the level because it's the third puzzle piece and you're
just running through. They are so much shorter than like the first time you do these larger levels, you were looking at every nook and cranny looking for bots, trying to just kind of explore and see what it's interactable. But if you're just running to the end of a level, like you can get there pretty damn quick.
Yeah, there's I mean, they're condensed small spaces with very dense with a lot of stuff in there, and I think that's probably the right way to design this game. I think it's going to be the kind of thing where in that that that Pepsi Challenge style of like the first taste of you going in there and just oh my god, it's just hitting me with so much stuff.
It's going to be very satisfying. And then as they dole out the additional content of these new challenge levels that are supposed to coming, and then the speed running challenges, it's gonna be like, oh, I'm glad that these levels are so short because it's like just quick, thirty second burst run through this space. I think they've kind of designed it best for both both of those kinds of worlds.
This this feels like the game that Little Big Planet was always trying to be.
Yeah. I think a lot of the platformers from PlayStation, I think we're trying to do their own thing, and then sometimes that was to their own detriment.
And I think, yeah, Little Big and I always had very big ideas about the creation stuff, but the actual platforming was always the weak link of that series, where it's like, this is a platformer first and foremost and almost solely, and the platforming is as good as platforming has ever been.
Yeah. Jan asked us like if we had any natives really, and I mentioned, like the so good it's almost a negative of reminding you of, you know, when PlayStation was a little more diverse. But I'm the two like actual they're not huge ones. But the actual negatives I would have is that I do think the game is at least again, I'm pretty early. I'm still in the first half ish, it's pretty easy.
Like I have, I would that in the first half as well, you got to get to some of those challenge levels.
The challenge levels, it's a different video game.
Okay, Well people said that about Mario Wonder as well. I thought that game was way too easy. So I'm no, these are hard.
These are hard Mario Wonder.
I was gonna say the last level of Mario Wonder, I was like, that was easy. I don't know what everyone's talking about, So I don't know. Maybe that's just a me thing.
Maybe maybe you're such a.
Well it's like of that is one of the things I like about Mario games is that you get to like that last world or a secret world, and it's like, oh, this thing is meant for you to take like a week or two on.
Oh yeah, odysty one and Champions Road in three D world, like those are like all timer hard mark.
And that's that's the kind of thing I want, like towards the end of a game.
But I like, yeah, what it is is like you're like, like Dan said, you're going to find this thing, right, and that's going to lock four challenge levels in many of these worlds, and those challenge levels are quick and much more difficult.
That's well, that's the thing I was going to say that. That's why I'm like halfway through on the The other thing is I do think the presentation is like a little sparse sometimes, Nick, you mentioned the music. Sometimes there's a decent amount of tracks, but they do kind of all feel the same because they're all faying the same theme of robotic music. I think that's something that you don't like in other platforms. They have such wildly different levels,
like the ice level, the fire level. They go out their way to have very different music. A lot of this feels the same, and I think other platforms have also gotten really good putting in NPCs that don't do anything really, but they are just there for flavor, and this game doesn't have a ton of that unless you are specifically doing again the thing they want to do and then you go on to the next thing you
want to do. When you go off the bean path a little bit or something, it's like, oh, well, there's the coin there, but it's like along this path it's kind of just barren.
Like sure, yeah, there's not like the little Captain toad waiting for you.
I mean there's a god amount of like, oh, seals and penguins and they're like little. Yeah, there's little monkeys.
Yeah, there's there's lots of monkeys.
Yeah, these are can't have size enough, very minor.
Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of apples.
There's so as you showered in apples at point.
Literally like not hundreds and sometimes thousands are showering.
Because you can have so many polygons on the screen. Uh huh, you can think it was possible.
There's a lot going on there, all the jewels, all the like little gold bits and stuff. Sometimes they'll be like on ground that you can kind of saw it through with your laser, so you're just making them fall into a hole and it's just the most satisfying physics.
There's there's one stage where there's a fountain of jewels and it feels like coming down here, yeah, and it feels like the PlayStation is not designed for it, and you look at it and you're like, this ship's gonna it's gonna burn break because like there's no way you can generate this many polygons on this box.
Great, right, No, really, never there's and there's no performance mode. It's just is the game.
It's just it's good.
What Digital Foundery put their video up and what the headlines Astrobot virtually flawless ps five tech.
Yes, Yeah, that's how it really feels, and that's what you get right when you make the box yep, yeah, right, like you understand it at a level that that no other studio is going to get and all.
So if you're given the time to make.
And I think that's video game that's more important. Here's that Tima Selbe does feel like they are in the same realm as say Insomniac, where they understand the hard ware they are working on. If they don't, they must have gone out of their way to understand it because the game is so well put together, it's so seamless.
They're like, there are no cracks showing at any point in time where you're like, oh, this is this is someplace you cut back on no is art style and the tech coming together just to make a beautiful game that feels it and they want you.
To look at it too, like like very clearly. There's there are these yeah, i'll talk about it whatever. There's there are these like photo stands that you can cover, yeah, and you go up to them and then they're like, oh, here's a very delicious like.
Pastilo scene that we are going to make for you.
Yeah, and it's going to generate it'sself in like ten seconds, and you're gonna get it and you're gonna look at it and you're gonna.
Go that's a good looking video game.
Yeah, that's then, and then you stop and then you go do something else in the video game looks just as good it is. I've taken so many screenshots in this video game because every time I look at it, I'm like, it is crazy that games can just look like this.
Yeah, they kind of don't need to look better than this. I mean, no, I would.
I agree.
It's so sick when you walk out to one of those things and you're like, oh, what are they getting me? Looking at that thing in the background, and then, like you said, you stand in front of the picture, everything changes, and then you step away and earthing goes back. It's like, oh, that was that was a neat little thing you did, that little cute little thing.
I think you can sleep with a cow.
Yes, okay, I haven't seen that yet.
Now you there. I think you'll if you play this game, you you'll know that you're going to be into it. In a very early level where there's a kind of a pyramid of balls and you could just like touch them and they start to fall apart and they go down the slide, and you go down this water slide with the balls. It's just joyous and if you feel that when you when that happens, you're gonna love everything about this game.
I talk a lot about like, oh, thinking games and Dewey games and there's a bunch of reading and story and stuff, and like this is the most video game ass video game I could imagine, And like, look, I get it when people say, like, oh, games don't have to be fun. It's like, yeah, but they're a lot more than they are.
What they were fun because they are games.
Yes, yeah, this is a fucking video game.
I was saying that this morning, that this somehow appeals to all of us and gets us to overlap and the vent diagram of like video game tastes a giant bomb because like this is also pulling subtly, like the heartstrings and making me sad and happy at the same time.
They even made something that Jeff Bakler likes. Why they said it was impossible.
There's two games was possible.
It's like and his son's at the end of the Grinch, Right, Yeah, no, I literally thought of that, like Backler's heart growing.
Man, all right.
You want to answer some questions, yan, I'm looking at.
All the questions and they're all too hyper specific where we would break an embargo.
So yeah, I saw the one about like, yeah, their licensed characters, not just not just first party, there's third party licensed characters in the past.
Yang. Let's go around the room here and uh, you know, we don't have to assign a specific score, but I want to.
But yeah, all of it.
Yeah, Well, before I was a Giant Bomb, I only used ten point rating scales and I gave out one ten and like literally over a thousand reviews and that was the link between worlds. This would absolutely I wouldn't think twice about giving it a ten.
Wow, Okay, yeah.
Ten, I would give a nine probably, like I like doing half points too, and maybe I would like answer up to like a nine point five. It's just like I have very minor issues with but when like your competition is like Super Mario Odyssey and you're like bumping noses with that, that's incredible game.
Yeah, there, it does happen. Yeah, for for me, it's always like that. The four is uh, I love it, and five is this is one of the favorite things I've ever played. It's a five.
Yeah, what's the biggest size of Coldstones.
Chats as the score higher than Mario Sunshine. I will say definitively Astrobot is better than Super Mario Sun on the box. Yes, I love that game.
How many Mario games is this better?
Then?
I mean the only ones I would really have to like stop and think and give a little more time to are like Odyssey and.
Galaxy two that I would It's like it's between Galaxy one and Galaxy two for me.
This makes the mount rush more of platforms a much more interesting conversation.
I mean, I mean, if like you were like not to do the oh there can only be one Mario rule, It's like, no, this now actually makes it on there. Even if there could be like three other Mario games, four Mario games.
This is a gotta have it. That's the biggest. Yeah, that's how I review games, friends, you know, phrasing it that way.
There were people asking the Giant Bomb chat for gm M this morning, like you know, I'm I'm thinking of game PS five just for this game, and I'm like, I don't know if I do it just for one game still at this point, But if you've been waffling because you want to play other PS five games, I think this is what pushes you. Over the end, you.
Can return You can return a PlayStation five to Amazon dot Com within thirty days.
True. True, you know, actually I think it's game should get a one because I feel like Dan has it in Medicare and the Fantasy Critic League.
Yeah.
I spent all my money on it, but it was a good investment though.
It's like the highest one of the highest rated games of the year, if not the highest.
Yeah, it might be. Yeah. I mean, if you're looking to get a PS five, there's games.
Yeah, it's like if you're looking to play everything else that is still exclusive to PS five, like I need one more game. I think this is the one more game.
You know already. If this game is gonna be it's gonna be five, you know. If this is the kind of game that you're into, Yes, it's worth a PSI is working for this, I think. But if you're like not sure, then yeah, look at the list of other games available.
Yeaheah, or like ask you know someone who has a play Station five, they probably haven't turned to lean on Yeah, lean on your community, like like legitimately and actually, like I I do want people to be like oh, or to think about this, like if people. If you're like, oh, I don't want to buy a PlayStation five, ask somebody, Yeah, yeah, to borrow the play concord and yeah, like just go ask somebody.
The library might have one.
You like legitimately might have a PlayStation five.
Like, go ask somebody.
Yeah, you don't always need to go spend five hundred dollars on a thing to go do that thing.
Yeah, still get a library card steal one. No, we're not card Jane.
You're saying that you can't break a little piece of glass at a target a target jin, I mean, so you're afraid of a target employee.
The thing that you gotta do is that most of those cases will open up if you just push the glass to a certain way, because you got to tilt it and then you slide it. I'm not from experience. I'm justlious as an engineer. You know, I see the Grand s caalculus of the universe, all right, you know this is.
Going to get a whole second life. Like as I've been playing through this, like I'm seeing certain levels and like that's going to be a feed round level.
Yeah.
The thing that I hate is that I'm not one of those people. But because of working with you freaks, I feel myself becoming it, and then I'm thinking like, all right, this is the line I gotta go through, all right, Yeah, and then like yeah.
Those challenge levels where it's like some of them you are like even just playing it to beat once, I'll die ten fifteen times. And I start realizing like, okay, so if I go just around this thing here and then I make the oh, I can skip that jump here and you start style yeah, and.
Then I'm all right, the apex of this jump, that's when I spitch. And it's an.
Addiction you don't have to spend money on because you already have the thing exactly.
It shows tears.
That's good. You're just gonna hurt your hands.
Yeah, hey, the dual sense sucks, right.
No, finally you admit it.
It hurts after this hour of playing this game.
Okay, I can show you hold visually. I show exactly why. Because this you have the handles pointing straight down on the.
Handles, it's that they're they're not they like force your hand into weird positions.
And knows how.
I think it's great.
Your faces. Meanwhile, if you look at the Xbox controller is sloped outward. It's a more natural resting position for your hands. That's where that fatigue comes from. For people like me who feel.
The get I get a pain in my wrist and and like the side of my hand here. Now, I did hate it when it came out, but that's because it literally did injure me and cause my finger would swell up because I played eighty hours okay week.
So now I looked.
I was comparing trophies with you, grub, and I saw that you played three hundred and thirty one hours of Astro's Playroom.
Oh I did, yeah right, kay? Oh go ahead? Did they reprofile it.
For the is the Elite the PlayStation Elite controller whatever, what's it called?
Does it reach?
I got that profiled.
It's the same control never I've been playing with the Astropod controller because it seems gramatically appropriate.
Nikki, the edge is the same controller with replaceable sticks and back paddles for one hundred and thirty dollars more.
That's crazy, Yes, okay.
One hundred and thirty more or hundred thirty more.
Oh wow, So it's like two hundred and ten dollars or something like that.
Oh wow, that's a lot for a controller.
Yeah, but that Astra controller looks real pretty.
Though it does sexually it's cool too. It's gotten smooth like blue stuff, and it looks like the your ship.
What does it tastes like?
I have not tasted?
Okay, all right, uh folks. That that is our Astrobot review podcast. You guys got it inya to talk about the game you saw at packs West.
Yeah, I mean, let's talk about it real quick. Hey, Zelda Echoes of Wisdom look shit hot? Yeah, oh yeah, it looks really good. Dan, I and Mike all kind of took turns playing a ninety minute extended demo that Nintendo invited us to, and I think what I was expecting was that the gimmick would be kind of a gimmick,
similar to how a lot of Zelda gimmicks are. But what it seems like it will live up to what has happened in Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild, where it's going to enable that level of creativity that we've now come to expect from Zelda games.
It over delivered. Like I was already very curious, you know, like anytime a k new to Zelda game is an nounce I'm curious about it. But the gimmick, the whole like echoes thing and making things with your wand and replicating them. I was surprised at how flexible it was. It kind of reminded me of systems driven.
Yeah.
Yeah, Like the first time I played Scribblenots. I remember on the show Florida, like that thing where you're like, oh, I need to get over here, and you're just like, I wonder what's possible. Let me test this? Oh cool they did that. I kind of had that feeling here where it's like, all right, I have all these echoes
at my disposal. I got like a bed, I've got this, I've got that, and I'm the weird stuff and most of the time, if it doesn't work, it fails in like an interesting way or gives you a different way.
And it was popping the whole room. We were all like watching each other play, and when things would fail, we'd all crack up because it really was legitimately funny how things were breaking.
But at one point Manatti was trying to solve a puzzle and he's like, I'm gonna do this with beds and fire and just wound up with Mike Manatti in a flaming bed getting.
Yes, that's my sleep paralysis. Dem yes, yes it does.
Does it run better than links Awakening?
It did it? It is so far as I was paying attention to this because I was mostly letting Dan and Mike playing. I played a little bit at the end, and I was kind of paying attention because I love Winks Awakening and I love that switch version, but it does have a lot of issues with what I think is an unreal engine issue of like streaming in parts of the world before you get there, and it like stutters. I think that's what's happening there.
Dude, that's what it was.
Yeah, I don't know how much we saw maybe a little bit of an overworld area. Now.
We were run around for a while because I was looking because it was like when you're outside in grass and stuff and links Awakening that's when it got really bad. And there's a lot of parts of bushes and grass that we saw and I didn't.
Notice there was no issues.
Yeah, okay, cool, but yeah, yeah, I can get good because that turned me off of links Awakening.
Like I love the way that they never changed that, they never fixed it.
Yeah, but it like even in trailers, like I was like, wowe, this game does not look like it runs well. Yeah, and then it came like that was like, wow, this is not really well but yeah.
That's part of the example of a tech thing that we've been talking about a lot on these podcasts recently. Is I believe that is it would be double buffered v SNC, So if it doesn't maintain sixty FPS for long enough, Nikky drops all the way down to thirty.
That's why it's so rough.
And that's why that's why people. By the way I think that thirty looks so rough a lot of the time is because if you directly compare it to sixty, people switch between performance and fidelity modes. But if you like, look at thirty after looking at sixty, then sixty. Yeah, game like that. So I'm I'm happy if they fixed that then, because I was saying.
We did not see that at all, which I think you know in Link's Awakening you would have saw it pretty quickly. So if not, if they've hidden it much better, there was uh. I think A good example of kind of how this is a little bit of an immersive sim is there are prescribed ways to solve some of these puzzles, and in TAM's demo, Tam became the Lord of Lord of Spiders. He asked me to go into our demo and say, hey, ask them about the Lord of Spiders. And I'm like, Tam, that's I'm not going
to do that. I'm gonna sound fucking stupid and crazy. And then I kind of like suggested, like, hey, it's like, you know, our friend was telling us how he salved everything with spiders, and every Nintendo employee was like, oh, you mean the Lord of Spiders.
Yeah, awesome.
He was supposed to like do like a very specific thing about like attaching himself to like the bind gimmick or whatever, and it study. He's like, no, I'm just gonna use spiders to get across this gap. And he's like, well, we're trying to show you something. He's like, no, I don't care, I'm Tam. I'm doing it. And Tam just used spiders to get all the way across and he
did everything in the demo with just spiders. And this was like you connect spiders through the ceiling and you can hang on their their webs and then they can attack enemies for you and.
Stuff like combat. Yeah, platforming, puzzling. Yeah, there's by the way, there's a jump button. There's like actual platform.
And it's jumping all the time, whether you're in the top down mode or the side scrolling mode. And the spider like web works in both as well, so like he works in the isometric kind of view and it's just, uh, yeah, you're gonna be able to solve everything to your heart's content. And I think that is very promising for me as someone who's like believe that Zelda has grown into this
new thing. It used to be they would come up with puzzles and you had to solve puzzles their way, and then you got that sense of discovery that that aha moment, but it was really their aha moment that they were like lending to you. And then since Breath of the Wild, it has become no, you really can come up with your own solutions and feel like you are part of the creative process here, and this game is definitely in that lineage, and I think that's really awesome.
They can try what's that they say, Yeah, they want the opposite direction. It's just like that's so.
Cool, just total freedom with this stuff, Like you can try stupid stuff like when you make a bed you can sleep, Like you can press a on it and like tuck yourself in and you will slowly recover herds. So a somewhat viable thing you can do during a boss fight is like, I'm going to run into the corner and try to sneak in a quick.
Nap on a bed, trying to sleep real quick. Again, That's that's what I do every day.
Yeah, that's that's a good solution right there. Yeah, I am. I was already excited. I am way more excited now. I was kind of like being like, yeah, I mean, listen, I love Zelda, I'm probably not gonna be going to this game, and then coming out of being like, oh that should be a game of the year, but who knows. Now it's it really could be that good.
When month, Yeah, you're great.
Next did you.
Say she already has it in Fantasy?
Yeah? Fantasy? Okay, I thought you said you were playing it. I was gonna get really mad.
And have questions.
Yeah, later this month, it's coming out.
Lovely Lastly, turns out there's a bunch of good video games out now.
Huh, so we're all gonna die.
Yeah, they're all so.
I don't want to alarm anyone, and I know I alarm everyone every single week of this website's existence.
Uh.
I think I might like Space Marine Warhammer a lot.
I think it might be a listen. Saber Interactive is a underrated sleeper studio. They kind of do nothing but like really solid games, and uh, the fact that they came out and we were able to deliver on Space Marine two is very exciting. Exciting to me. Jam, we got to figure out a time to do that catch up stream because I want to play a whole bunch of these games on the website. Do it right now? Whose fault is that?
Oh? Wait, is gonna be portrait? I hope?
So?
Oh, I was imagining landscape.
It's both I holding my phone sideways not.
Great, I hate, but you're right, like I don't like holding my phone period, and then like holding my phone landscape sucks. So I hope it's not.
Thanks all right, folks, that doesn't For this podcast, Revenge turns out Zelda Echo Echoes of Wisdom Will seems very very good.
Tam is the Lord of Spiders, and Astrobot is a burn You gotta have it. Uh, The biggest size of Coldstones that's too much ice cream. Maybe I don't know.
Uh.
Folks, thank you for joining us. We'll see you next week for another episode of the Giant BombCast. I've been channing, they've been Nikki, he's been sewn, he's been dan, he's been grubbed. And you at home, Go buy Astrobot Dog, or go borrow PS. Five from the library. Maybe they'll let you do that. Go check you just get a library card. In general, I love you.