TGI 677 - Don’t Turn Off The Heat

Welcome to the Gamers Inn. Come on in, pull up a chair next to the fire. It looks like you've had a long journey. I'm your host, Jocelyn, and joining Always is my co-host Ryan. Hello Ryan. Hello, Jocelyn. I can tell from the sound of your voice that's uh It's a riding high of just releasing your Patreon special. Yeah, I uh I'm I I thought this one was a little bit more fun than some of the the other ones have been. I always try to like

bring the story up or have like a good lesson learned or like some sort of positive something. And I feel like this this month, I will say this week's, this month's uh this month's Patreon special. Um, I feel like it was two two pretty good feel-good stories. So uh yeah, I I enjoyed making this one. And guys, I am so sorry that again It was delayed because I was sick. And I um I did record it last night. Ryan, thank you so much for getting it up today. Like the turnaround on that was insane.

And uh yeah, so sorry I'm a couple days late again, guys. I am going to just keep recording them in the background so that this doesn't happen again. I'm really, really, really, really sorry. Um, yeah. I'm just I'm gonna keep working as if they're due every month and then that way Yeah. Being sick shouldn't derail me so much again. Oh, it's all good. It was worth the wait. I I feel like I I listened to it. It was very good.

And as you said, you know, January's was was a upbeat story. March, watch out. It's gonna be a doozy. It's gonna be about uh video games melting or something or I do I do have um actually I think I have enough ideas for the next like two to three years worth because I do six episodes a year, right? So I think I've got somewhere around like twelve or fifteen ideas.

Um, so I think what I'm gonna do is like pick my five favorite and then put them out on Patreon and get you guys to vote on which ones you wanna hear. And then that's how I'll kind of do the content going forward. 'Cause uh yeah, I'm also totally open to suggestions. If there are, you know, stories you want to hear or things you maybe don't know the whole story behind you wanna me to do some research on and then tell you about it.

Just, you know, hit me up in Patreon, hit me up over on the Discord. It's uh tiny dot cc slash TGI Discord if you have somehow missed that link over all of our episodes. Um Yeah, so go and and check out the Discord and hit me up over there. Uh, but yeah, definitely gonna put a poll up over on the Patreon to get you guys to uh vote on what you want me to cover in the next episode. Like I said.

I have a lot of ideas. So yeah, I think uh there's some there's some good potential content there. But I hope you guys have been enjoying it so far. Um this one, little uh Super tiny teaser is about uh empty launches. So No Man's Sky and Sea of Thieves, and how they took two separate approaches. to uh kind of becoming comeback stories. So if that sounds interesting, then uh yeah, go and check it out.

Patreon.com slash the gamers in and Ryan, yours is coming up in well, sometime in February. And uh Ryan keeps getting the super easy ones where like his months have a natural theme to them. So he got like Halloween, Christmas, and now Valentine's Day. So I told him that he should play date everything so that he can talk about relationships and games and not just talk about bioware.

Yeah, so now Jocelyn's writing my specials and we've pretty much got it down. We're gonna talk about romance in video games, at least the the video games that I've played, and I'm gonna do a little research as well and Before anybody at home starts uh the Discord comments is like no spicy games. Okay. I think you should play at least one spicy game because I'm pretty sure that you just You need to you need to be able to uh

Comment in a very fulsome way, right? Like you can't leave an entire realm of gaming relationships unexplored. I I think I can. I mean, you know We'll let the Discord Oh yeah. Right. I wonder what the Discord will choose. I just honestly I want you to do it just for all the screenshots that would pop up that would say like look what it's playing You know it would and then like if I if I play it on PC it's like oh Discord's telling on me.

And now everybody knows everyone knows what you're doing, Ryan. I don't think that's gonna happen. We're gonna we're gonna keep it at a level of like P you know, bioware style Uh fourteen A scenes. No no rated R, no rated triple X. Yeah, no, no. Mature mature. That's as as as high as we go. And yeah, I I said I would play Data Everything. I've I've been looking it's funny because Data Everything actually got um uh added to the Humble Bundle choice for this month.

Uh w which I guess is fitting because as you said, it's February. So um if you wanna play Date everything, or uh the other game that's on there, which is like a a a whole other side of the spectrum, is uh Resident Evil Village is also part of the Humble Bundle choice. So you can play your Scary game. Well, I mean, people really did want to date Lady D, so Yeah, I never thought about that. That's true. Yeah. No, that's a good point.

Well then that checks out. That's probably why. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, more to talk about. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So yeah, we we we got the next couple of months planned and um I I look forward to I look forward to more thoughts rolling in on these host specials. They've been they've been a lot of fun and they are um except for the the exception was the EA one we put on the feed uh this month, but they are um they go to patrons.

uh via Patreon. So that's the best way to get access to them right away. And they are usually posted around the the end of the month is is where we where they've been falling late. Realistically. Yeah. Yeah. And that's absolutely yeah. Yeah. But like I say, I am I am very much like'cause what I had been doing was like taking a break until it was my month again and I'm that that obviously with a kid in daycare is not working.

So uh yeah, I'm going to just kind of continually keep recording them, try to get a couple in the bank for you guys so that we uh can release them kind of mid month instead of the end of the month and We won't miss any more deadlines. I'm very, very, very, very sorry.

Yeah, so anyways, um, I hope you guys enjoy them. Again, we're gonna be putting some stuff up on the Patreon, so go and check it out. But Ryan, what have you been up to? I mean, are have you been playing Resident Evil Village? Like are you are you getting into it now?

Yeah, so I've actually finished it. Uh I purchased it late last year, um, when Reckwim was sort of uh making the rounds and getting a lot of trailers and and and spotlight and stuff. And I'm like, you know what? They added that third person mode. with the DLC because I will fully admit I am a chicken when it comes to playing scary games and the first person view of these newer Resident Evil games are are not my Uh it's too scary for me.

Yeah, there were some areas for sure in village when I was watching some streamers play when it first came out and I was like, Yep, I am very much aware that I would not be able to walk down this hallway. Like Especially in like the in the castle like mansion right at the beginning and then I think there was like a kind of like an underground part with a lot of like cave hallways and stuff. And I was like, anywhere where I feel too confined and I can't like

get some distance and some context away from the the bad guys. Yeah. It's too much for me too. Yeah. It y I need to be able to see my surroundings and I and I get it. Like in in real life, like we We do have peripheral vision, but we don't have like three sixty view like

I don't like it in my cars. I remember I test drove a car and it's like they got the camera that does the 360 view and it's like that just weirds me out. But in a in a scary game, absolutely. Give me the Google Maps Street View. Let's do it. I wanna be able to see everything around me. Um and yeah, it's kind of weird to think that Resident Evil Village and the DLC came out like four, five years ago. It

Doesn't feel like that long ago. No. Really? Yeah. Yeah, it was uh twenty twenty-one and twenty-two. Kinda crazy. Wow. That's wrong. I'm sorry. That's wrong. I'm like I keep thinking back and I'm like, what was I doing when I oh yeah, I would have been working from home with some Twitch on in the background. Oh yeah, that would've been twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two. Oh for fuck's sakes. Yeah, that uh that weird sort of uh

Yeah, it's the weird in between. Yeah. It it just it really felt like It felt like twenty years and then like three months at the same time. Yeah. Like you feel like you lost time. Yeah. Like for me it really felt like this time that happened in in three years, but It not it not in the same scope as like the last couple of years, which have been very busy with everything sort of somewhat back to normal, um and and just Busier, you know, uh'cause there's just

More demand on on what we're doing. So I I think that's where that time kind of like feels different and and village falls Right in there. You know, when they announced that Animal Crossing was getting a switch two update and they were like, you know, this is six years after its launch I'm just

like what six years. Yeah, how is that right? And then it's like, oh right. We were all playing that in like, what was it? Probably like May or June of the pandemic year. Like I remember everyone, oh man, the Sunday morning turnip. Oh my God. I have turnip math like a freaking Google sheet in my

Google Drive that is like turnip prices. Uh there was like a whole and it was like it was not randomized, you could pr it could be predicted and someone had like mapped out the s anyways, that was a whole other thing. But We were obsessed. We were uh and no that one hit like ten days before lockdown. It was like March twentieth, I think.'Cause it was it really? Oh. Yeah,'cause it hit um the same day as Doomaternal.

Uh which is not aged as well, I suppose, as Animal Crossing, but um it it it's just an odd time for video games because like there were there were less of them, but they had more impact and I think there was a few that just kind of when they landed, I think even Village is a good example of like a game that had been in development pre COVID, similar to Final Fantasy VII remake, which also launched in twenty twenty.

Um i it kind of it had all been done and then had had to kind of like get across the finish line during this completely upended time. And and Village was right there with it where you were having like developer directs where people were talking from their home office and and showing development off uh being done remotely and It's it was really a different era and I and you know, s we still do have remote development and all that, but like a lot of these

curated direct style presentations are very much people in offices, like'cause that's what the corporate overlords want. So It was it was interesting returning to Village. I had watched the complete playthrough of of the game in first person on Twitch. Uh Scott Johnson had played through it and He played through it on easy and even then I was like no that's That's too scary for me and

And there's a specific moment and then p playing third person, they added it in the DLC for the Shadows of Rose DLC they launched in twenty twenty two, and they added this third person mode that was applied to the main campaign, and I thought, oh, this is perfect. uh I I'm gonna check this out. And then fast forward four years later, I finally get it uh three years later I I'm like, Yeah, let's do it. You know, I'm I should probably play this Resident Evil thing I've heard so much about that I

I love the franchise. I just am too chicken to play these uh these first person games. And I gotta say the third person mode uh is very good. You know, you you kinda worry. They they sold it as DLC they sold it with the DLC, so you need to buy the DLC to

to actually play it, but because Capcom heavily discounts their products post launch, it was I think I got the whole thing for like ten bucks. And it doesn't feel like they just You know you know how And and I mean modders do an incredible amount of work, but sometimes it didn't feel like it was like a mod where it's just like let's pull the camera back and use

Like apply a three D model to the actions. Like they went in and they they put a three D model in there of of our character, Ethan Winters. And they pulled the camera out and like they redid all the animations for all of the character interactions and the combat and all that. You can tell there's some seams, like you can tell there's some rough edges, but for the most part, they did a really good job of kind of applying this third-person view to a game that launched.

solely exclusive first person combat. Uh, and I think they did a really good job. So they were talking about with Requiem um making like giving you the ability to swap between the two, right? But they're building that in. from the ground up kind of thing, right? As opposed to like an add on later. Cause I remember them talking about how it was going to

like change, like if you were in third person, the things that were chasing you were gonna be able to run a little faster. You were gonna be more punished if you like tripped over stuff versus like in first person. things would chase you a little bit slower and you weren't as punished for a lot of the environmental factors and things. So like it sounds like Requiem is gonna have a much more fleshed out polished version of this system, but the DLC for for Village very much was like a

We're doing the best we can, almost like an accessibility kind of setting. Um, as opposed to a fully fleshed out system, like it sounds like what's coming in Requiem, right? Yeah, I think Requiem uh is is more, you know, from from the beginning we've designed this with both Implementations in mind. Both views in mind, yeah. Yeah.

And they kind of uh in along those lines you were saying, they they approached it as like, hey, if y you can actually set it based on the characters. So if you for Leon, which is more of like a classic action resident evil, you can do that third person, and then for Grace It's more of a sort of sort of horror. focus, you know, scary stuff, you could do that first person.

Is she the one that's like that's like stuck in the house or or every scene that I seem to see of her, she's in a house. Cause it's giving me like layer of fear vibes. Yeah. Yeah. She's uh they did they expanded a little bit in the latest

showcase to kind of show more of her combat style. But yes, uh the early marketing had her sort of yeah running around a house running from things and hiding and stuff which You know, we'll we'll play a part and I think Village uh actually gave us a good look at like

what Requiem could be because there's this the second sort of chapter, I guess, in Village is it almost had me stop playing because it was a it's a moment where they take all your weapons away and Um they take all your weapons away and there's like a puzzle. Where that you have to solve and it's very creepy. It's like it it feels like a haunted house. And then you solve all the puzzles and you you get into this room and then this like giant

mutant baby blob thing. Yes. Yeah. Yes. And I always I remember the giant mutant baby. I was like, I don't know if I could do this. And I was uh I was messaging my Uh Zombies Ate My Podcast co-host Lou about it and I was just like, I got to the mutant baby part and I don't know if I can do it.

And uh and he helped me he helped me through it. Uh he was my um emotional support uh co host there with with this one and and made it through. Like it's It was scary'cause it's that moment where it's like you lose your weapons'cause at least in the other, you know, modes it's like, Oh, well I have a

I have weapons, I can fight back, but in this case you just have to run and hide, and then when you're hiding you have to wait for the thing to like move away and I think um what we've seen of Requiem has moments like that in Grace's chapters whereas uh uh Leon's chapters are gonna be closer to the action of Resident Evil Four and and Village. So it's gonna be interesting to see that sort of combo.

And I am actually considering buying this one day one just to experience because I've uh I'm just off of uh Resident Evil Village and I did play the Shadows of Rose DLC, which goes back to that creepy setting with the mutant baby and uh I wouldn't say they top it. 'Cause it's not a mutant baby thing chasing you around, making creepy sounds, saying daddy over and over as it tries to like chase you down. Um but uh

It's like, um I don't know if you'll know this reference, but there's a famous like Doctor Who episode with the weeping angels. If you look at them they don't move and if you Look away. The opposite. In this case there's these like mannequins. Yeah, I do I do remember or at least I'm familiar

the concept of the weeping angels from Doctor Who. I do not watch it. I have not seen the episode. I didn't realize that it was an episode and not a recurring theme because that's one of the only Doctor Who things I know. Okay. It's a great episode, but uh very creepy. And yeah, this is uh there's a similar moment.

in this Shadows of Rose DLC with which you uh you play a character that's stuck in this this sort of like void make believe land and and there's these mannequins that will chase you if you don't look at them or you can't see them. And the way they move and the sounds you hear as they're moving off camera is just like, get me out of here.

Yeah. So I made it through though. I survived. I enjoyed it. I I the ending to that DLC, I won't spoil it, but it was like it was uh uh rather emotional, which I did not expect from a Resident Evil game. So that was uh that was interesting. Um look at Resident Evil is supposed to be running round solving stupid puzzles Taking out zombies and mutants and and dealing with like sunglass wearing villains.

It's not supposed to be like, you know, some emotional uh uh moment. I don't know. I think that they've been getting really good at their storytelling. I have been more interested in Resident Evil over the last couple of games than I've ever been in the franchise, like at all. And it seems like they just they have some really interesting and unique

characters and ideas and they seem to tell a good story. So I really liked Village and the trailers for Requiem keep pulling me in because I don't realize it's Resident Evil till the end. And then I'm like, Oh no, I don't play these games. Like, but may maybe I should play these games. Maybe the maybe Requiem is gonna be my like out of cause last year was like my

year of playing things outside my comfort zone. Maybe I keep that trend going and uh starting with Requiem. I don't know. When does it come out? When's Requiem soon, isn't it? February twenty seventh. Yeah. I don't know. What do you guys think? You'll have to let me know in Discord. Should I play Requiem?

This goes back to the conversation at the top of the show. They're gonna make you they're just gonna say, Ah, of course. They're just gonna make me. Yeah, exactly. Maybe oh, maybe that's an extra life goal. Make Jocelyn play Requiem. That's a perfect extra life goal. And uh yeah, I think that's awesome. I I'm looking forward to it. I I love Leon as a character, he's one of my favorite Resident Evil characters, although I do appreciate the R E one characters with Chris and Jill.

Um but I think Leon is is definitely up there and and the idea of the Uh more remakes coming down the line is also a good thing. So Resident Evil's very strong. I mean, it it struggled along the way uh with four or sorry, with five and six, uh six for sure. And then I think it just kinda like it found its footing with, you know, Biohazard and and some of the remakes they've done, so Capcom's kind of uh

figured it out and they've got a good formula going. So um yeah, we'll have Requiem thoughts. I'll definitely I'm I'm very certain I'm gonna play it day one. Just gonna figure out where I'm gonna play it, uh maybe on the Playstation. And then and then yeah, if I get a disc I can just lend it to you when you hit your extra life goal. So there you go. Yeah, there you go.

Uh yeah. Well, I mean I've been I've been playing a little bit more Frostpunk 2. Uh this is one I haven't touched in probably about a year, so

I played the Fractured Utopias DLC and it's really good. I've probably sunk as many hours into this DLC as I did into like the game when it first came out. I am obsessed again. And I mean, to be fair, probably the first like five hours of my time in the DLC was just trying to remember how the fuck all the systems worked. I was like, oh my God, my brain is not in frostpunk two mode.

But um I think uh it was it's really good, Ryan. I don't know how much of the Utopia mode did you play after Frostpunk 2 actually like after we kind of like went through our first Thoughts on Frostpunk 2? Did you get into Utopia as much at all? Uh I played I played one or two. two on the PC and then I definitely played one on the PlayStation when I played the console version. Um

And I I tried to set up like new scenarios and stuff and kinda go through that. So I I did get a good chunk in, but I didn't feel like I experienced all of it. Uh I think I just played some of the new maps they had because they added some free Utopia maps, I believe. Yeah. So the thing is, like the I guess the piece that I missed from Frost Punk 2 was the actual tales from the Frostland.

And so they weren't really like um I think Hails was like the first free update and it was like halfway through last year, I think. If I remember correctly. But I didn't go back to Frostbunk to play the tales, but they were like. three kind of unique scenarios within utopia mode that gave you like a little bit more direction. And so the Fractured Utopias DLC gives you two more tales, but because I had never like tried to play through those, like it's like another layer of Complexity.

So what you and I remember playing is like in Utopia mode, you would go in You'd pick your um your factions or you can randomize them. You pick your map or you can randomize them. And then you pick your goal or you can randomize it. And your goal was like, um, populate the frostland, which was like establish a certain number of successful colonies. There was like um I think have something about a metropolis. So like you have to have like fifty thousand population.

In your main city. There's like a plan for the future, which was like stockpile a bunch of resources. And I think there might have been a fourth one that I can't remember now, but like those goals were basically like what you tried to do on each map and you could like m mix and match your factions to have different like

challenges along the way to those goals, but the tales got like way more in depth about like giving you some some challenges and stuff. And you can play more than one tale at once. So it added a lot more complexity to Utopia mode, but I never went in and played it. So I jumped straight into Fractured Utopias, which added the Doomsayer tale and the plague tale. And I was like, okay, like I can do this, no big deal. They're so

Hard. Insanely hard. Like I played on the easiest difficulty doing the plague tale. And I think it took me six or seven attempts. Like it was so and like six or seven attempts getting to like Uh week like five and six hundred like sinking hours into these cities and just not being able to like beat the plague. So it's basically like some random like frostlander shows up with this like

random disease that all of a sudden like takes over your city. So you're like, oh, just build a lot of hospitals. That's not enough, Ryan. It's like there's just so many different things because you still have like all of the same mechanics happening where like you have to find resources, you have to explore the frostland. You have to make sure you have enough fuel and food and everything else. You've got to manage your factions and you're always going to have like

three core factions and then like the two smaller ones that pop up that are always completely a hundred percent opposed to each other. Like you do one thing that one faction likes. is gonna set off the other faction because you've you've not balanced them properly, right?

So there's there's always gonna be those five factions that are also making tension go up and everything else. And you have to make sure that you, you know, like do all your vaccines, do all your it's it's very research heavy as well. So it's like making you do all of these things.

And also research really, really fast because you've got a very short timeline, but also all the whiteouts are coming, Ryan. The whiteouts are coming. Like it's just, oh man, so punishing. But when I finally beat the plague one. Oh, I felt so good. I felt so accomplished. And even though I did it on like citizen difficulty or whatever easy easy mode is, I still felt so accomplished.

I I really do feel like I know we talked about this the last two times we talked about Frostpunk too, but those utopia sections and maps and challenges really are the game. Like the story mode is kinda on rails with some choices and you're very much forced into specific scenarios. But the utopia area really allows you to be like Let's explore a whole other sort of set of ideas and and challenges.

um and scenarios. And and I and I think it also pulls in like different things referenced throughout the campaigns, including it does, yeah. The main campaign. So yeah, it's it's a really neat addition and kinda reminds me of, you know, playing a additional like sort of sieve maps and kind of like, you know, randomizing a lot of stuff. The utopias are are not all random. Like it it's a specific scenario with like

For example, like this one's like a map that has like a lot of resources. So the challenge here, as you said, is to like stockpile and survive the the oncoming frost or whatever. So Yeah. So they've they've basically, like I say, they've totally revamped the like utopia builder, um, like scenario creator. So that now you can like add any number of tales. So there's five tails total. So if you were absolutely insane and you wanted to play uh the Doomsayers and the Plague in the same

City, you absolutely could. And then basically it just adds like complete the Doomsayer tale, complete the plague tale. to your list of like objectives that you have to do in order to like win the the utopia scenario. Um, your overall goal is still gonna be, you know, populate the frostland, um, you know, make the make the big city make the stockpile all the resources.

Like so you have that piece and then you have to complete the tales as well. So I got to the point in my one city where I beat the plague and then I think I had like 25,000 people in my city or something, and I'm like I don't have it in me to get to fifty thousand. I wanna try the other one. I still haven't beat the Doomsayer scenario, which is kind of my own like my own fault, I guess, because the Doomsayer scenario does kind of like lean pretty far into like the policing.

So like you're you have to like build you have to research and build like prisons so that you can jail and quote unquote re educate the tombsayers. Uh to try'cause the the Doomsayers, you have to get their population down to zero. So you basically have to either by solving all of your city's problems and reducing tension or which all the problems are are the same as as always. It's um squalor, disease, crime, and hunger and cold. There's five.

So you have to get all of those things to zero and then you have to make everybody in the city like you. And then the Doomsayers won't have anybody to recruit because they're like, ah, it's the end of days. And everyone's like, I'm warm and fed. What's your problem? So It's uh yeah, it's a very kind of interesting scenario, but

does lean very heavily into like the policing side of Frostpunk too, which I never normally do in my in my playthroughs. Like I'm always trying to like figure out the best way to get as many resources as possible and like really explore the frostlands and bring everything into the city and make everybody happy and you know like if they're happy they won't need to go to jail.

So I'm like not as familiar with like that side of the game. So I'm really, really struggling to remember, like, oh right. The game wants me to imprison these doomsayers. I gotta remember, I gotta research prisons. Yeah, well you do find sometimes when you're playing through the the Utopias or even the main game, you're given uh like a task to do and that task might require like three or four things of research or or even one. Mm-hmm. And if you forget, like sometimes that can

That can really set you back. If not Well, that derails your whole thing. For a while I didn't realize. So I can't even remember if this was in the original base game or not. But each like housing district will have a certain faction in it as like the majority faction that lives there. And so you actually have an action within your like um talk to the community. menu that says like it's like the last tab over and it says like it's a button you can push that says like heat homes for this faction.

So it's like if you want to make sure that all the foragers are warm, you push that button and it'll automatically heat those housing districts and not the other ones. And I was like I didn't even realize that button was there and I was trying to figure out how to like specifically heat the the homes of this one faction.

And I was like, I don't understand why I failed this. All of my housing districts weren't even just livable. They were warm. I'm like, why am I failing? It's like'cause I didn't go through the UI in the right way. To satisfy their like request or whatever. And I was like, oh, this is so dumb. But like failing that one thing, then it was like, Tension everywhere, no trust, the city falls. I'm like, come on. It was one thing. Yeah, but they're cold now.

They weren't cold, that's the problem. I just didn't push the right button. Yeah. Sometimes you accidentally I think they I talked about this with the PlayStation uh console version is they had like a new

uh heating thing which made it a lot easier from the base game like at launch on PC and and the PC got this upgrade as well. But it was just it was just a lot easier where instead of having to like select each house to heat it properly, you could just do like, hey Distribute heat evenly and and it kind of just wins.

So it was a little easier, but yeah, when it does say to you like, hey, um this specific faction wants you to heat their houses at this level for a certain amount of time, um, it can be it can be tough sometimes. You can and you can miss Like you can reset it by accident. I've definitely done that before. Yeah. Accidentally turn one house down or Or something and it's like, Oh, shoot. Let me just Now you've failed. Exactly. And everyone's upset at you and Yeah. Now it's snowing.

Yeah. No, but uh I I really did think that those Utopias were like a fun fun. This is another one of those games where it's like it is fun, but it's like there's a lot of like Bad stuff happening, you know? I literally said to Matt, I was like, um, I'm gonna go play Frostpunk 2 because it's less depressing than what's happening in the real world right now.

Oh. Yeah. I was just like, at least in Frostpunk two I can control things. Yeah. It's a video game. You're you it's it's fun. Yeah, no, I get it. Yeah. But it's uh yeah, I mean I think it the DLC and uh just the tales in general,'cause like I said, I never went in and played um the Tales, whatever it was called, Tail Tales from the Frostland, I think.

Um, I never went in and actually played that part. So like all of this utopia stuff is new because I played a couple utopias after I finished the main campaign and never really went back to Frostpunk. Um, just cause again, like we talked about it so much, I feel like in the past couple of months. But twenty twenty five was like crazy with the amount of things that released and the amount of amazing experiences that we had in gaming last year. So The the tales from the frostland

totally flew under my radar. But this DLC is really, really good. And I think if you haven't taken the time to like engage with Frost Punk 2 outside of the main story, this is a really good kind of like returning point. Because the the first three tales that came out last year are free and then the the DLC is the Doomsayers and the Plague.

Um, and so if you even just want to go in and check out Utopia mode with the Tales edition, it's really, really, really cool. And I think worth your time if you liked the kind of base game. They also added um at some point, I don't know when, um, like utopia bonuses for the uh like the extreme factions. And so the more you move your society towards their three ideals, so like

Um, there's merit and reason and equality. I can't remember all of adaptation is another one. Um, then those like extreme factions will give you bonuses and you get like bonus points and they'll do things like they you um their unique building will also house you know provide five housing for their faction by default um it'll say things like

Uh, maybe they'll give you more frostland teams or they'll give you like the my my favorite has been the Menders because their like default building you get off the start, their like unique faction building is a reindeer hut.

And it basically allows you to have a herd of reindeer in your city that every once in a while, like whenever you get low on food, you can just like butcher reindeer and it gives you like plus thirty food and you just have to watch your little like herd counter up in the corner. And you basically have like infinity food without having to

worry about finding it and extracting it and using workers for it and everything else. So it basically takes food completely off of your plate by putting lots of food on your villagers' plates. But yeah, it's like it's it's really, really interesting systems, lots more complexity. They also introduce like

um moderate laws that basically don't piss anybody off, which is nice. That's nice. So it's like, yeah, it's ways to kind of like uh deal with a problem. So every once in a while in Frostpunk, it'll pop up and say like You have no laws governing childhood. And you have to like make a law. But before it would be like,

This law will, you know, make these two factions happy and really piss off these other two. And then it was, you know, the other option would be the flip of that. And now there's like a third option that's like Nobody's pissed at you. Huzzah. But no one's happy. Well, exact well, that's kind of the thing, right? Like is like nobody's really angry, nobody's super happy, the like effect of the law is not as impactful as if you'd taken one of the extreme options.

But if you're trying to manage your tension in the city, it's a really good like. Everybody's fine choice. So yeah. It's I don't know. There's a lot more there it was a pretty deep game anyway. There's a lot more depth now. Fractured Utopias was really fun. It's very difficult. I probably should have started with some of the other tales just to get a feel for it, but Really, really, really well done and very, very interesting progression like through the tales.

So it's not just like, Hey, you've got a disease to manage. Yeah, this has happened. It's like someone will show up at your gate and if you can like follow them back through the frostland, if you have enough frostland teams and you can do enough exploring fast enough, you can find patient zero. But that opportunity goes away after a while and

You know, there's just there's a lot of moving pieces to it that actually make it really interesting. And they've done a good job too of adding in those little like pop-up things that are like, Hey, because you did this, here's my personal story in your city. So yeah, like I say, it's It's very well fleshed out and I I was very pleasantly surprised. Not that I thought I mean, I've loved everything Frostpunk of Frostpunk 2. Not that I thought that they'd do a bad job here, but

It was uh it's very, very well executed and I highly recommend it if you were a fan of Frost Punk two. This is definitely worth your time. Uh not on the Steam Deck though. No. I uh I did. Just uh I borrowed a Steam Deck from my brother-in-law, who hasn't really been using his, just to see if I liked it and and how it worked and everything else.

Um, so I was like, Okay, I I'm s trying to beat both tales from Fractured Utopias before I talk about it on the show. And like obviously I d I only beat the the plague one, not the uh Doomsayer one. But uh I was like, Okay, I'm gonna load Frost Punk two up on the Steam Deck, I'm gonna take it with me to work, I'm gonna play on my lunch hour, it's gonna be great. I played like two minutes, was like

Nope. This is like I know all of my like quick keys and like where everything is and with my mouse and keyboard. This is not like it's Steam Deck. compatible air quotes. It gave me a warning that some of the text might be too small or might be, you know, hard to read. But uh yeah, I was like, as soon as I got in there, I was like, nope.

I am not gonna learn how to play Frostpunk 2 basically on a controller. Um, so yeah, I I have started to to play around with the Steam Deck. I think probably Hades is gonna be my first. Steam Deck play it at work thing, but Ryan, I am open to recommendations if you have ideas of what I should play on the Steam Deck in like handheld mode.

Um, it does have a really cool feature where like it will go through your library and be like, these are all the things that will play really well. These are all the things that'll probably be fine. These are all the things that you shouldn't even try. So What are your Steam Deck game recommendations for me? What should I prioritize? Obviously not Frostbone 2. No. I I really feel like with the Steam Deck, especially in handheld mode, you're best to play games that are gonna run uh run

Amazing on the system. And there are a lot of them. Like this is a lower powered system, but a lot of games can run sort of flawlessly on the Steam Deck. Hades, Hades 2 are both really great examples of games that are Really satisfying to play m um handheld and really cool to like just do a quick run, then put the system to sleep. I've really enjoyed games like that where it They're tuned really well for the Steam Deck. They don't push the hardware

very much so that the battery can last quite a while. And I think that's where I've really enjoyed my time with it. Um and there are a lot of games that would uh that would fit that sort of category. Like I think even Uh the game you had talked about a couple weeks ago, uh uh Wonder Wonder Stop was that what the one? I think that one runs well. Yeah, Wonder Stop. Yeah. Yeah, so games like that, like similar sort of low key titles, but I know the Steam Deck can sort of handle like a huge

sort of um range of games and and and performance. It really just it really just depends on what you're looking for. But I really feel like if you're trying to find the thing that's gonna convince you to to use a Steam Deck that's like really going for those games that are like Fun to play mobile. Um I'm I'm even thinking like do I have a

to have a recent sort of list. Like there are and there are games that will that look like they'll play well on the Steam Deck and and just need some more time. I think Moonlighter Two was one we we had talked about previously. um that looked like it would be a really good Steam Deck game but but needed some more work. So it it depends. If the game's pretty complex it might need like some patches to work, but for the most part any game released last year has pretty much been given the

the badge of verified playable or not supported. So, um and and you know, the excuse to test it out and play portably is a is a really good reason to s revisit some old favorites that maybe you you know, couldn't finish or or or didn't finish. Yeah, that's true. Maybe that's what I should do. I should go back and see what I've got in my unfinished list. Yeah, um what's that one, the island like Coral Coral Island?

Coral Island, yeah. Yeah. It that one I I hear runs pretty well on Steam Deck and and you could go Get some more coffee for your islanders, wasn't that the thing that you were doing? I uh yeah, unfortunately played that one over on uh Game Pass. So I don't know if my start over I'll have to figure out how to well, I could start over or I could figure out how to move my save over. Cause I think when I played that and I think Coral Island has had its one point oh release now.

Um, but when I was playing it it was still in beta, so the it wasn't fully uh it wasn't fully complete. I don't think I've played since you were able to romance the mermaids. Oh there you go. You've got a goal, romance some mermaids. Yeah, go and romance some Maybe you should go and romance some mermaids, Ryan, considering your host special coming up in the next few weeks.

Uh but yeah, that is a reminder to everybody that if you do like what we're doing here, head on over to patreon.com slash thegamers in, like our February patron did Korath. Thank you so much for supporting the show. Um, like I mentioned, my host special is now out. Ryan's is coming up. It's gonna be all about romance. So excited to hear that one. Uh we also have our game night scheduled for uh Friday, February 20th at 8 30 p.m. Eastern. We're gonna get a poll up on Patreon as we do every month.

and see what we should play. Also, if you want to join the conversation, head on over to tiny.cc slash tgi discord. That's where we uh we take a lot of polls. That's where we play our games on game night. Uh, we have gotten some game night feedback and uh I'm gonna look into some stuff and try to figure out if we can find a way for you guys to uh Watch VODs, maybe do some recordings. I might do, I don't know, like

I think privately streaming to to Twitch might be an option. I don't know. I'm gonna look into some stuff because you guys had some thoughts about game night. But uh we do hope to see you there on Friday, February twentieth. The way it's gonna work this month is still gonna be the same as it has been in previous months, where we're gonna go into the gamers in Discord and hang out in there.

I do like the, you know, the ability to hang out with you guys and for you guys to pop in and out whenever you want to and ask us questions and hop on mic and jump in the games and stuff. So we don't necessarily want to lose that, but we're open to ideas.

for ways to make game night better. So um a lot of that feedback did come in through Discord. So again, that's tiny.cc slash TGI Discord. Um otherwise you can also make uh any kind of comments on our posts over at patreon.com slash the gamers in. That brings us to the news this week. Uh there was there was a big Xbox developer direct with a lot of information about Fable. I am still team fuck Microsoft. But goddamn. Ha ha.

I wanna b oh man. I I hate myself for Even just letting them back in a little bit. Well, this is where you can have your cake and eat it too. You buy it on Playstation and then and I think I think you still get to flip half a bird, maybe. I don't know. Yeah. I see that's the thing. Like I just Oh, I'm so mad at them and I'm mad at Microsoft for shutting down Lion Head because this should be their thing and

Uh I just yeah. I know I know that it's not exclusive to Xbox and I can buy it in other places, including the PlayStation. Um, but yeah, I just It still makes me a little bit a lot mad because I don't want to support Microsoft. And even if I'm now buying it on their platform, I would still be buying their game. And I hate that I want to play it. And I'm having so many feelings right now. It's like I need hat to tell me it's okay. Well, let me we try to channel hat.

It's okay. It's all gonna be okay. Nailed it. Nailed it. Cards, you know. That's as far as I can I should have stopped. I don't know anything about card Queen's blood, it's pretty good. It's a pretty pretty good game. So uh Did you just go back in the Discord to find his latest comment and then read it out? I don't know. I I I did not um

I could have done that. That would've that would have been probably the better idea. Uh but no, I I we we quickly touched on Fable being getting our first look last week and we we didn't go into details'cause I did want to talk about it with you'cause I know you're a huge

Fable fan. Um, actually, you know, when we started the show, I knew you were a huge Fable fan, and I had mentioned I had not finished Fable Three, I'd fallen off of it and I actually went back and played it and then we discussed it on the show. So I and I've always been looking forward to more Fable after Fable Three, and it's just a franchise that feels like it's been kinda cursed uh since Well honestly, since it's its first one, it it's it's a game franchise that's always

had some sort of struggle attached to it. Uh, whether it was the expectations based on Peter Molyneux interviews or just lack of support from from Microsoft. But this game really feels like they let Playground games kind of run with it, you know, the fact that they have a thousand voiced

NPCs and I know before people at home say like, Oh, that sounds like a thousand Starfield planets. Like, okay, fair enough. We can wait and see what happens at launch. But, you know, uh to me, a thousand voiced NPCs doesn't necessarily mean like

you know, th uh uh hundreds of thousands of lines for each character. I think it it could be as simple as like the NPC could be a very simple store clerk and have like a page of lines, but there are gonna probably be some pretty advanced, you know, and and involved NPCs as well. It just seems like they've taken the sort of the morality aspect of the originals where it's like good you know, good and evil on a slider and changed it to like, well what if what if we represented like

everybody, you know, and and had opi y everybody had an opinion of you. And yes, you're gonna have like large groups of people still falling into that like evil to good slider, but then you're gonna have other people who you know, like rich folks be happy that you're rich and you know, it I I think it's interesting. It's an interesting look at like when you have a franchise that's been dormant for a while and you're like, how do we bring it up to speed?

from two, three generations previous. And I think this is kinda what I wanna see them go for, is like, okay, let's let's take that that one unique piece of fable and let's like let's extrapolate it and make it, you know, more Four, I guess, you know. Yeah. It'll be interesting. Yeah, and I mean the game, it looks really good. I think there's there's some moments of the combat where I was like, okay, this isn't necessarily where I want my graphics to be. Um

But I think like the the melee stuff looks fine. I think it was some of the spell effects that I was kind of like, Oh, is that it? Yeah. I think the the melee stuff looks good. Um, they like the environments look pretty good. I'm

This is the thing. Like I'm I'm happy with this direction. I mean, and they also haven't lost their sense of humor, which is something that I was a little bit worried about because like Fable has always had that kind of like British humorness to it where like it's a little bit crass, but also not just a bunch of fart jokes at the same time. And like one of the one of the like relationship things and I don't know I they'cause they said you can basically like

interact with NPCs in ways and like you can like become a landlord and then have them be your tenants and have them, you know, work farms for you and do like uh work in your businesses and things like that. So like you can There's a lot of different ways to live in the world, which I found was interesting. And one at one point you're interacting with someone, town the some townsfolk.

And in like the dialogue thing, it shows like what they think of you. And it's like, they think you're a rich twat. And I'm like, perfect. Like th that is that is the kind of like humor that I'm looking for out of fable. Like it's like it's believable. It's not like just stupid. Like there's gonna be some stupid in there, but there's some smart too, I guess. And it's a hard balance, I think, to hit. But it seems like they're on par. Um, like I again cautiously optimistic.

This looks better than I thought it was gonna look, uh, to be honest. Like I was a little bit worried, like delay, delay, delay. But um Yeah, I think that this does look better than I thought it was going to, and I'm glad that I can buy it on PlayStation. There's a like there's a lot of like

interesting bits here. Like even the the part where he's like shooting that like floating enemy with like the lantern for a head almost. Like that looked really cool. Just the idea of the character design of the enemy is interesting. Uh yeah, like I hate that I like this. Fuck Microsoft. They kinda I I really feel like they they did a good job hitting that like fable feel. both in look and humor and writing.

And to me, that was gonna be the biggest hurdle of like don't immediately turn off fans of the franchise by doing a non fable fable game. And I I think they They walk that line really well. They even mention Lion Head and Peter Molyneux by name in the in the the showcase and Um look I I'm not not as you know on the I'm I'm not I'm not happy with Microsoft and I haven't played uh uh I haven't had Game Pass in a while and I've I've actually just Game we're gonna talk about

Uh next week I've been I've been playing the Life is Strange game on the Xbox'cause that's that's the platform I got it for Christmas. It's not my fault. Uh well I guess it is partially my fault. It was cheaper on the Xbox. Uh but I uh I like I mean it's kinda neat that you're gonna be able to play it's kinda neat and also weird that you're gonna be able to play it on PlayStation. Yeah and looking at this year coming up, I'm I'm like actively like thinking of trolling

Microsoft by playing Halo on PlayStation. Like it's like, wait a minute, I can get Halo on Playstation? This is about the equivalent of getting Mario on an Xbox. And I mean why the morbid curiosity of like why wouldn't I play it on the PlayStation just to like I don't know something about hidden uh

different X button to do things in a Halo game, like it'cause it's a different placement and I don't know. It's just it's gonna be weird and it might be cool. I don't know. Instead of an achievement pop I'll get a trophy. If it'll be It's gonna be wild. Wild times. Yeah, but I mean overall, like I like the the design, the art direction looks really good, and yeah, I'm still kind of going to

like wait and see until we get closer, until some of the reviews start to come out. Um, this definitely isn't gonna be the like insta pre-order again, just because like I want to punish Microsoft in as many ways as I possibly can. And it turns out maybe even short just short of pla like not playing this game, I don't know. I just I'm so I'm very, very torn. I'm very torn'cause like they're an awful, awful company, but

I really love this franchise. So I don't know. I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to figure out my shit before Before autumn twenty twenty six, it looks like. Yes. Well, if you really want to stick it to them, you'll have to uninstall Windows and install Linux. That's Right. And I mean you're almost there. You're you're you're testing the waters with the Steam Deck. That's Linux. So Yeah. Yeah, we'll have to see. But uh I do think uh like

Microsoft stuff aside, I think that they seem to be heading in the right direction. And I'm happy with how it looks from a purely fable perspective. So we'll see when we get closer to fall what actually happens. But Uh, we also got more information about the casting for the God of War show. So this is over on this is on Amazon, right?

Yes. This is Amazon Prime. Yes, upcoming Prime video. Yeah. Um, which we're also I don't know, Ryan, if you've watched it all, but we are currently watching season two of Fallout. So I don't know if you've if you've kept up with that or not, but I think I mean.

Amazon's doing pretty well, I think, with Fallout. So still have quite a lot of episodes to go through. We've only, I think, watched the first two episodes. But um yeah, I think that the they've been doing a decent job with that adaptation. So I think that uh especially after seeing the cast for the God of War TV show, I'm pretty much on board.

Yeah, it seems like it's gonna be a uh like a very stacked cast with uh and and a lot of pulling a lot from the games too. Like Ryan Hearst as Kratos, he was um He was I think he was Thor. He was yeah, I think he was Thor in in God of War Ragnarok. So it's it's interesting that they're pulling some of the voice actors and and bringing them in for similar roles. Um, the big news lately was Mamir Um the a voice actor from the games, Alistair Duncan, is gonna be voicing Mir again, which

Makes sense. Like that's your Cortana of the franchise, right? Yeah. A hundred percent. You might as well bring him in and and and record those lines, but I agree with you. I've been I'm mostly caught up with Fallout season two. Um I think the I'm in I'm on the second last episode and there's some

Some stuff. We'll have to uh I know we I can't remember like was the first fallout season like kind of dropped in two chunks?'Cause I don't think it was week to week when it first hit. I thought it was week to week. But we kinda talked about it in well then maybe maybe we did talk about it in chunks then, because I I we I remember talking about it twice.

And like with this season I've kind of been like, we'll wait till it's all out and then we'll we'll and w once we both watched it we'll talk about it. But uh the the season finale I think is just hitting as we're recording this. I think it's yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, I think it's today or tomorrow, but Yeah, we should uh we can we can definitely talk about it.

Um, but yeah, but to back to sorry, back to God of War though. I also wanna point out Mandy Petikin is going to be playing Odin and I love him. So I will watch any of his stuff ever. I just really hope like He is almost like cursed in the world of TV because so often he will get involved in a project. He will be fucking brilliant in it because he is who he is.

And then it's like he feels the call of the stage and never makes it past the second season of a show and he just like bails even if he's a main character. So yeah, I have I mean, he's been in some of my absolute favorite stuff, but Yeah, like dead like me. Love that show. Main central character. It stopped after two seasons because he bailed. Criminal Minds. He was great in the first two seasons of that. Then he bailed.

So yeah. I don't know how long'cause he was in Homeland too, but I don't know how long he stuck that out. Uh I believe he was in Homeland for a good chunk of it. Oh, was he? Okay, so maybe maybe that was early two thousands Mandy Petikin who was like, Nah I'm out. I need to go back to the stage I seem to remember some news about him. He was struggling with like uh just getting

getting along with the cast and crew on some of his projects and I and and I and I think that was in the core like criminal minds days. And then and then he he I think he had stated that he had sort of uh figured it out. Uh and that's why he was on Homeland for for six seasons. I don't know. I I seem to recall some stories about that. So he'll be playing it him as Odin, I mean that that's out that I could already see it. Yeah, he's gonna be a great Odin. Yeah, this is gonna be a

I I think when you think of Prime Video if you rewind like five years and you think, oh Prime Video, like it's Amazon. It's It's a cash in. But uh they've been doing some really solid adaptations and you know, Fallout and uh Uh Fallout's been a great example of what they're doing. And if and if they can apply that success to it's funny, the article I have here with all the casting, if they can apply that success to this God of War show

And the Tomb Raider show and then I saw here that they're actually making a Life is Strange television series. Oh my god. Amazon, you've gone too far. Yeah, I I don't know. I I'll have some thoughts on Life is Strange next week that that we'll talk about. I I won't I won't go into detail. I am interested. I had seen Discord had been telling on you, so I had seen that you were you'd been playing that. So Yeah, the return of Max

Clofield? Caulfield? I don't know. Who cares? Max. Max Max is in the game. She's the main character, and uh that first chapter was. it was rough and I'm like, there's no way I I could recommend this to Jocelyn, but but then you get your then it gets into the powers and that's always the best part about Life is Strange and and I and yeah you know that

If they adapt the first game, I feel like that could be an interesting T V show. Just, you know, tone down the the angst, I guess. But they won't down Yeah, no, they won't. That's that's their brand. Yeah. All right. Finally tonight, uh, I feel like we should say, um, Ryan and I are real people. These are our real voices, and we are not AI generated because Sony has patented that now.

AI generated podcasts voiced by its game characters so that you can have a personalized podcast when you log in. The It's gonna be so bad. This seems So here here's the thing about this is like okay, AI generated podcasts voiced by characters from its games, those characters are voiced by by real voice actors that are in unions that are fighting against

Uh maybe not exactly this, like AI generated podcasts. Close this. Close for sure, you know? And I think that's the struggle I have with this is like, okay, which which video game characters are you gonna be able to do? Because Nolan North ain't signing off on this for an un you know, Nathan Drake podcast about

What's the latest scoop in Fortnite? Well then that might be the thing that like they have to if they want to voice a PlayStation character going forward, then they have to sign off for allowing their voice to be used in these Generative podcasts. Um, yeah, I don't know. I mean, so the basically the patent. Talks about how Right now, video game platforms lack the ability to provide unique and targeted content to gamers to update them about things that are happening on the platform.

And it talks about taking, um, let's see, um, recent gameplay, friends list and other console level events to inform the player about what's going on through this like podcast format and it shows like their their image of what that's gonna look like the is from the patent is like Two fake people sitting at a fake news desk talking about how your friend just won a trophy in this game. And it's like

That's the kind of shit that has been an annoying pop-up on my console. Now you're telling me it's not only gonna be an annoying pop-up, but you're gonna like steal someone's voice to act it. At me? Like I don't does anyone want this? Does anyone want this? This is probably the biggest question. No. Like is anyone gonna sit down at their PlayStation and instead of playing a fucking game, watch a fake podcast about what their friends are doing. When they're playing their games like

I don't know. This just seems like who wants this? No one wants this No, you're right. But does this not sound riveting? One example they have here near the end of the article is First Host says in other news there's a software update for Gen X. So update now. Uh

And then the coast adds, also try a spin move on the boss next time. It's like what? But yeah, you're right, like the Playstation dashboard has gotten better over over the years, but still has these like pop-ups that will tell you what your friends are doing or there's various stories or news bits.

And you can engage with it if you want, but honestly you can just leave it to the side. This if we wanted to give Sony credit, you almost wonder if they're like patenting it so that other people can't feed their characters into AI generation and And have them host a podcast? Like is this like I P protection? Like I don't think so, because their IP would already be like their characters are already protected, right? Like True.

This patent is for AI generated podcasts. Like this is their next big thing idea. I don't know. It just seems Ugh I don't know. Like something uh do you know what it reminds me of? Do you remember when you would boot up Splatoon? And you would get that. You would get that ridiculous like banter between the hosts every single time. And it looked exactly like this.

Where there were the two squid kid hosts or whatever sitting behind a desk and they'd do this stupid banter and you'd want to skip it every time, but they were like, Oh, don't forget. In multiplayer this week, the map is bloody blah. Like, if anything, if I was Nintendo, I'd be like, hey, this is our idea. Like the only thing is it's not AI generated. Like somebody wrote that shit, but still, like, it's the same thing. And that was annoying when it was just in one game and it was like pre.

Written by a person content. Like, I don't want AI slop podcasts popping up in my face when I log into my PlayStation. Like Sony, you just had to not be Microsoft. Why, why? Like the only thing I can hope is that this is a patent. This is not an announcement. Maybe they're just putting the patent in. So if anyone else thinks of this bullshit, they can be like, oh, we got the patent. So maybe this will actually prevent it.

from being on any platform because I hate this idea, not just as a podcaster, but like as a gamer. I don't want this in my face. I don't want anyone to do this. I don't want anyone to waste time on this. This is a garbage idea for garbage companies. Enjoy your patent, Sony. Congratulations. Enjoy the maintenance cost on that patent. I assume there's some fee associated with that. There's gotta be, right? But yeah, no, I don't think um

I don't think people actually want this and this isn't a scenario of like we're figuring out what people want before they know they want it. This is not some Steve Jobs Apple thing where you can invent the iPod and people will call you crazy, but no, you just we're giving them what they what they don't know they want yet. This is not this. And um Yeah, like I I see what is happening in sort of the industry of like

uh you know, building it and we've talked a lot about AI over the last couple of years and it is weird to think that like, you know, two years ago a lot of this stuff would have been considered somewhat science fiction and now it's like it's making it into patents. It's This can be done right now. Like you y you know

outside of pulling from the metadata of the stuff that is captured. Like Playstation and Xbox for the most part has this data of like your gameplay achievements through the trophies. and through, you know, gameplay captures and like metadata like that. It's that's already happening. And you know, pulling from that in an interesting way, sure, that sounds great. But AI generated podcasts voiced by video game characters is

But if you're gonna give me like fun facts that like pop up of like, Hey, did you know like I kinda like it. Like it's funny'cause I s I always see when someone gets a platinum trophy because it says, Hey, this person just got a platinum trophy and it's like it's usually Travis or Whirlwind.

I was gonna say so it just pops up when Whirlwind gets a platinum trophy. Yeah. I mean I know what I know what they're you know I know what they're they're platinuming, you know, because the PlayStation tells me. I do appreciate those little like

Unobtrusive little pop-ups. They're not even pop-ups. They're the dashboard that launches when you launch the PlayStation. But this is uh as you said, I have limited time. If I'm sitting down to play a video game, I want to hit the X button and make it go. And I don't want to oh, let me check in with my PlayStation AI podcast to see what updates I'm missing. Oh, okay. Uh I should do a spin move.

If there's an update for my game, just fucking update the game. Why are you telling me about it? Do the download. Auto update. Why are you bothering me? And like same thing, like you say it's really interesting to see like what my friends are playing, what achievements that they're getting. When I want that information, I go into my achievement list and I'm like, how badly am I beating Ryan in this game? Fantastic. Yep. Like that's that's I'm like achievement comparison. That's all I want. And

That's it. And then yeah, I don't need yeah, I don't need this. I don't need this. Just update my games and let me play. And stop AI generating crap. You're killing the planet and wasting everything. Yeah. You just think this would go against everything like they're fighting for. I don't know how Sony's gonna get around this, like unless they're like I say, anyone who is a voice actor in a Sony game going forward signs over the rights to their voice, which like

Who's gonna do that? But I don't know. Somebody must, I guess. Like but again, yeah, like if you're if they're gonna be part of the union, like that that's what you're right, the union is fighting for is to, you know more controls around how

voices and talent and performances are used. So yeah, it'll be it'll be interesting to see. But like I say, yeah, I don't think it has um I don't think that's the purpose of this patent. I think this patent is basically just to say, hey We're the first ones to think of this. Nobody else can have it. Fine. But again, as long as they don't do it, yeah, like exactly. Yeah. It's that's a thing. Yeah. Like I said.

This isn't an announcement. This is just a patent. So they may not ever even build it. They're just making sure that, you know. they're on record as having the shitty idea first. Congratulations. And, you know, a lot of patents that get filed. Unique. Yeah, just unique ideas. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We've seen a lot of that. Um, I feel like there's been quite a few in the last few years around like

monetization ideas and things that like we've never actually seen implemented onto any platforms and any games. It's just that like people have had the idea, so they better patent it before somebody else has the idea and then it becomes unavailable to them. So

I'm sure that's all this is, but we will keep you up to date if this becomes an actual announcement from Sony and Nathan Drake will tell you every time Whirlwind gets a platinum platinum trophy. We'll we'll see if that's what happens. But yeah. Um Feel free to join in the conversation at tiny.cc slash TGI Discord. And if you do completely disagree with me and really, really want an AI generated podcast. on your PlayStation 5, popping up in space when you launch it.

Please, please let me know because I can't be the only one that thinks this is terrible. Uh again, head on over to tiny.cc slash TGI Discord. You can also visit us on the web at gamersimpodcast.com. Or follow us over on Blue Sky. You can find me, Jocelyn, at josplays.com, Ryan is at Ryan Murphy.ca and be sure to check out our TGI Community Starter Pack at tiny.cc slash TGI Starter Pack. Thanks for staying at the gamers inner. Remember, tune in next week. Bye everybody.