¶ Intro
🎵 Music
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 me as always is my co-host Ryan. Hello, Ryan.
Hello.
🎵 Music
Hi.
You always like I I never actually like call you out on it, but your hello is so the Hello So funny. Every episode it's exactly the same.
Now I'm gonna be self conscious and and on six ninety one I'm gonna be able to do. Hi No that's still not great.
It's weirder? Okay. Yeah.
Hello. No, I just did this that's what I usually do.
Yep.
Fellow podcaster.
Hello. My my name is Jocelyn. What is yours? Oh.
Ryan.
Super robotic. There you go.
I mean, yeah, I'm not, look, we're not going to talk about it. Just it's it's it's not happening. But this is a real two real people talking about video games eventually. This is not AI, okay? Folks at home?
Yeah, no.
M dash, M dash. What?
After six hundred and ninety episodes, I'm pretty sure that they know what we sound like. And we are nowhere near polished enough to be AI.
Yeah.
No, I know what I said.
Uh
Okay. There are some there are some weeks in the last few episodes where I've just been like, what did we even talk about? What did I say? Did I even finish my sentences? Like, so get little peek behind the curtain, guys. I am exhausted. I ha or my I don't think I've ever really mentioned where I work and I'm still not going to, but um my work right now is going through Reform, and I don't think that my job is going to exist the way that it does. So I have been putting together.
so many applications for so many jobs and I have been going through so many um call them robust interview processes. Which require me to do things like presentations, write reports, do written tests, do the actual like interview parts. And every single one that I do, I've been coming like second. So I've been like so close to just doing the thing. But each one of these, like the prep time that goes into them is like twenty five to forty hours on top of my normal job. So
I'm exhausted. I've had no time or energy for my family or for video games. I've played nothing. I hate it. I'm like in such a bad like mental health place right now and just so tired. So Apologies for the last few weeks. Like your content is coming. You we're doing game night this Friday. We're doing the uh host special. I'm gonna be recording this weekend. Like I'm doing my best to stay on top of it, but I have played Nothing and I'm so sorry. I've just been so overwhelmed and so stressed.
It's all good. I mean i i it is I'd say it's the time of year, but I I find right now like it's it's always that time of year. Like there's always something going on and I and I know pre show you and I will talk. Pre show uh uh uh Croft and I will talk because we We we both we all have similar sort of situations and we're dealing with uh all kinds of fun stuff. And then on top of that, y you know, you you have you have kids in the mix. You have uh, you know Just a whole lot of stuff going on and
Yeah, my kid got sent home from daycare sick yesterday. Like it just it's it feels never ending. And I've been going through this like interview treadmill since um March. It's the almost the end of May. Like that's how long that like and that's how much it's been building up. And I don't wanna like I don't wanna take too much time here. I don't wanna like go into all of those tangents and stuff. I just wanted to let everybody know I am aware.
Yeah.
The quality of my content has gone down. I still love you. I hope you still love me. I promise I will be back. I just have like Three more to get through. But I shouldn't you know, maybe maybe one of those I'll be successful and I won't have to do the other two. Who knows? Who knows? But uh in the meantime, I'm sorry I have been
so overwhelmed, exhausted, and have had like less than zero free time. I've had negative free time. So uh yeah I'm doing travel guys. I don't even know how that see, this is what I mean. I am incoherent.
No, I think it's great that you've invented time travel. I mean
Yeah, no big deal.
What did they say? Like, oh man, I wish wish uh instead of twenty four hours a day we had thirty, I could get everything done. It's like, Well you Chauclin figured it out.
Yeah. Yeah, it's called never sleeping.
Oh, yes.
Oh my god, my Fitbit just sends me like weekly um like summaries of what I've done. And it's like Your your cardio zone or whatever. Like you've been in, you've exceeded your targets. And I'm like, I'm not working out. I'm just that stressed. And then it's like, you should probably take a look though at the amount of sleep because you're about three hours below your target of eight on average. I'm like, so I'm averaging like
Four and a half to five hours of sleep a night. That is where that's where the time is coming from, is from my sleep. So yeah, I I apologize for the the lack of coherent comments. I do still love gaming. I do still love you guys. I want to prioritize this as much as I can, but it has been a struggle over the past few months as I try to
navigate this new reality and provide for my family and all the rest of it. So thank you guys for sticking with it. It will get better, I promise. Hopefully sooner rather than later. But uh you have been playing things. So tell me why I should lose, you know, one of my four hours of sleep a night to play Saros.
Right. Well, before we talk about Sarah's, I should mention that like Jocelyn, you're here. We're we're we're recording the podcast. Like You uh while you say you haven't had a lot of time to play video games, you're still we're still gonna chat about video games. We've got some news stories, we got some I played some Saros, I played a lot more uh Saros, it's it's uh it's it's really got its teeth in me. Uh but I think that's im that's that's kinda half the battle of podcasting is is
Yeah.
Being there to to have a chat. Like uh I think that we've proven anytime we say, Oh, I think this is gonna be a short show, guess what?
That's when you get your two hour episodes.
Yeah. I don't uh look, I will I don't wanna curse this further and say I don't think we're gonna hit two hours tonight.
No, no. I I think we're probably looking at a solid forty-five minutes.
Yeah. Uh you know, we'll uh we'll see how this goes. Uh but I think that uh uh i in in the what ten plus years of podcasting, that's the critical thing is is is being there behind the mic.
It's been fifteen, Ryan. It's twenty twenty-six. We started in like twenty eleven. It's been so, so many years.
Uh but isn't that like when, you know, you hit thirty and then you're like, Oh, I'm I'm I've turned thirty again. It's like podcast I've been I've been podcasting.
Okay, I've been podcasting for a decade and it's just that that decade spans, you know, five. Yeah.
Exactly. Like oh I've been podcasting for over a decade. It's like yep.
'Cause you know we're still gonna do gamers in from like the old folks home that we're gonna live in together. That's gonna happen.
I hope the internet's good.
We're just gonna like sit around like the lunch table doing like episode six thousand nine hundred of the gamers in and yeah.
Not even recorded.
Exactly. We're just gonna do it for whoever's in the old folks home to listen to us.
Like Caden will come visit and and he'll be he'll be talking to Olivia like in the hallway, just like I just I just bring the mic but I don't plug it in. They think they're recording a pod I think it helps. And and she'll be like, Yeah, you know, I I mean they do seem livelier but uh just you know, just don't show'em the the feed or whatever, yeah, you know, something like that.
That's
We're gonna both sound like decorative. I played Zero Six, it's amazing, on my PlayStation 10. I was killed by a butterfly in a video game once. And Diablo six with its eighteenth expansion. Anyways, uh
Oh god. Thank you for making me laugh.
Well well, that's why we're here. Uh but yeah, let's talk about Seros. I have been playing um a good chunk of it. It's it's been my sole focus from a video game perspective.
¶ Saros
And I'm still working my way through the game. I think where I struggle with um these types of experiences, Hades 2 is is similar. I didn't struggle with Hades 2 because I think Hades 2 had that That roguelike storytelling where every time you had a run fail. or succeed, you would come back to the main base and and there'd be something for you to uh someone to have a chat with. There'd be dialogue, there'd be forward momentum.
Yeah. And I always felt like in Hades too, and not that we're gonna talk too much about Hades too, obviously, but one thing I noticed about Hades too is it always felt like meaningful dialogue. Like it didn't necessarily feel like throwaway dialogue. It was like you would fail. And depending what you failed against, like you go talk to, say, like Odysseus, and he'd be like, Oh, I remember like once on my travels, I came up against a
a thing like the thing you just lost to and either this was the trick or this was what I learned or this, you know, whatever. But the the conversation felt really meaningful. And I I think we talked about this in our Hades to specific show. I don't remember repeated dialogue.
Like uh there were some times like you'd get repeated dialogue when they had nothing more to say to you, but like if there was an exclamation mark and there always like you say, there always was every time you came back, somebody had something to say to you. Um, anytime that those like conversations were flagged, they were always new content and it was, you know, like I say, meaningful. So
you would get more context about who the character was. Even if it didn't necessarily feed into like the grander story arc, you still understood more of like who they were, why they were there, what their backstory was. And you didn't have to talk to them, but you know, you still you always were getting more information about the world and it was kind of like filling in those gaps.
and kept everything, like kept every time that you were sent back to base meaningful and interesting, right? Yeah. So it's un it's unfortunate if they haven't like fleshed out the the world and the game in that way in Saros.
Yeah.
Hades two bar is just too high. Maybe my expectations are just through the roof now. Yeah.
I think with Saros y you Look, it's not a it's not a it's not a defense of what they've done. Like gameplay is is king in these games, right? It's all about the action and the combat and and story is is There and and sometimes but sometimes it's secondary. Um we talked last week about Seros and I was in Act One.
And I was like, oh I uh I'm I'm really enjoying the vibe of the story, the mystery and and s slowly pulling back the layers to figure out what's going on. And then I got to act two And the struggle, if you hit a wall from a gameplay perspective and you're struggling um with the combat or you're just you're failing to kind of like break past that boss.
In Hades too, you had those conversations, there was always something going on. But in Seros I did hit this like sort of uh gap where in the story um the supporting characters kind of fade to the sidelines. And you're solo ish uh to a certain degree. And because I was failing to push through that boss. I wasn't getting any story.
I would come back to the base and I would literally like just walk, like nothing nothing, no one to talk to, no extra dialogue. Um Arjun's not saying anything to himself and it's just silence and you you just Go again, you know, and um uh that that felt like uh a lot of the momentum fell.
That almost feels like um what's missing is almost like a quality of life piece where it's like You've died. Do you want to start over? And it's just like a yes or no. And it just like sends you back to the beginning without having to like go through another area. Like, do you want to restart your run or something like that? Do you know what I mean? Like
Yeah.
could be a a skip it option that maybe fits here when there's no more dialogue. So you go like from Like death, like you've died, but you jump right back into the action again, right?
Yeah, like some some sort of uh, you know, ability to load the portal screen because i s the The start of a run is um there's your upgrade that you do with the primary, which is the computer, before you either exit or pick a place to warp to. And What I would say to folks who are playing this and like hit that lull in act two is the game will present to you like, hey, like you can you've unlocked this warp point, you need to go to this biome, which is like
three or four down, um, you can just warp to it. And like that's that's a nice quality of life thing. That's something we asked we asked for af uh af you know, with these games to be able to Yeah, I just wanna get back to where I was and that's such a cool thing.
But there's the d there's the other side of it too, where it's the third biome, it's more difficult, the enemies are a little more aggressive, you don't have the built up power that you get, because even though you get permanent upgrades, you are slowly building your character up as you go and um gaining stats and powerful weapons and stuff.
So there's that balancing and you know, we do have a game discussion chat in our Discord and a lot of the feedback was like, Oh, if you're struggling, just jumping back in. Start from the first or second biome and go from there, build up your power. Takes a little longer to get back. But
You're more likely to get through it. Yeah.
Yeah. And that was that was super helpful. It allowed me to actually, funny enough, where I was stuck. Um actually maybe it was the second time I got stuck. I I did the both times I did the start from not necessarily the start, but I found like, okay, I've got all the collectibles in this area. I'll do the next area. And then find more audio logs and text to get that like story drip.
which honestly has every time there's there's additional story, like I do find it like very captivating. Like it's interesting. It's building out the world. And that's what that's what I'm looking for as well as the gameplay. And I was able to actually, I think on the second time I got stuck, like I pushed through I beat one boss that I was struggling with first or not struggling with first time coming across it, beat the boss. Because I was struggling with the biome, not the boss.
And then I went through an additional biome and beat the boss there. And I was like, Okay, like there is something to be said about, you know, if you're unable to just like get good and jump right back into the action.
like you can
Start back a little further, build up your power, and uh just be a little more prepared. It takes longer. I think a full run takes about an hour and a half. uh start to finish but uh if you jump right in like it you can be right where you left off So, but there is that trade-off there. Um But luckily the gameplay is like super fun. So honestly, sometimes when I was struggling with a biome's like
It's a cool new biome. I wanna see it, but I'm not seeing it. I'm just dying. Uh so I'll start from scratch and Uh like you get into a sort of a groove and you've you've got the timing down and you're you're selecting your power ups that you want and your weapons and And then you get a good run. Similar in Hades 2, like you you just you get that groove and you're you're off to the races, right? I that's where I've had the most fun with Saros, where I have struggled. It li the story
That's where I've been struggling. Like there was that gap in the story. And then right after that gap, I hit um Like the ends uh the ends of the axe have been less of uh like I I think I literally said out loud one time when I was playing, I was like, can't you just answer some questions? Like
Give me some information as to what's happening. And I think end of act two, it felt like there was like a fake ending. Like it's like, oh man, are they gonna go the artistic route and roll credits here? And it's like, no, no, it was It was just uh it was just the end of the act. But then the end of act three, it was like
Like that's the ending? Like they literally rolled credits too. I was like, no, like that's that's a bad ending. Uh sure enough, there was still more, but it it it sends a message when you roll the credits, right? Like I think when you hit credit. The thing that comes before credits is the ending. The stuff that happens after the credits is like bonus, but in Seros it seems like I haven't finished it yet, but it seems like after you roll credit, The real story keeps going.
So you're telling me it's blueprints then?
Sure. I demand I never hit credits on
You never rolled credits on blueprints either, but
understand the the sentiment. I I just I don't know, like from a story perspective, I f I I question the placement of the credits. Because sometimes the credits can be like now you're gonna sit with what happened and you're and you're gonna be reeling and I wasn't necessarily reeling, but I was because again you come back to the game the gameplay is super fun.
And the story doesn't necessarily need to win an Oscar or anything, but like I like when my story makes sense and there is definitely some missing
Yeah.
Um Maybe not missing, but it's also a story where it rewards your ability to kind of like piece piece it together. And I've never really been I one could say very good at it or the other could say just not very interested in in trying to do that. Like I don't necessarily need like a straightforward A B C story, but
I like it when I'm given the pieces. They don't even have to be put together, but like I don't know. There's there's some parts of Saros from like, okay, I I'm really enjoying the story. And there are other parts of like I think I'm kinda getting what's going on, but there's some There's some weirdness happening on this planet. And um
You mean other than you constantly dying and returning to life?
Yeah, and they they uh they do explain that and Uh uh but they it's it's um it's like hand wavy. It's like, oh, you know, we did this thing.
And no one can actually die, so you know, go explore, have fun, explode.
No like two specific people, I guess. Like
Ah, okay. So it's not everybody.
No. That he's he's dying, the main character's dying and coming back. And he tells people, he's like
That's why he's so grumpy.
H he's pretty grumpy in the game, not gonna lie. Like
I had her that was the one thing like I I didn't see too too many reviews, but that's the one thing that I kept seeing was people just talking about how grumpy he is.
He's grumpy. Although, you know, uh it's it's interesting because if you if you watch
Uh
Rao Rao Cooley, like i you know, w with his e either his social media presence, he seems like a genuinely happy person. But he plays sort of grumpy quite well. Like I think Midnight Mass had him being a little bit more gruff and grumpy. Um uh Saros is definitely like sort of a uh a much rumpier version.
Uh
And Yeah, he's just generally like I mean it's a shitty situation what's happened. They're stranded on this planet, people have died, like so I I get it. But there's some underlying stuff that's going on with the character that isn't fully explained. And I I wonder, okay, am I missing something? Because they're like presenting the story. Like there's these moments where you get these like flashback scenes.
Uh, and you're experiencing them. And clearly, like our main character went through something quite dramatic and and traumatic. And it and they they tell it in this like weirdly like sort of artistic way. Uh where he's like walking through like an alleyway and and he's hearing voices and he's talking to characters and he's like He's he's sort of working through his past trauma and then when it ends, I'm like, wait, is like that supposed to answer some questions?
Yeah.
It's like it helps. It like it yes and yellow.
To listen and pay attention?
I did maybe look, I feel like I was listening and paying attention. I feel like I was. And if I'm wrong. The Saros game discussion will certainly correct this and then I'll come back and then I'm wondering like, okay, like uh I finished it and it's like I rolled credits and I didn't really like the ending.
And and they're like, No, no, no, there's more, there's more And I'm like, Okay, okay. And I did the same thing after Act Two. I was like, Man, if that was the ending, I would have been the ultimate troll and and they're like, No, no, no, there's more. It just keeps going. And I think I I had said like, Oh, I was worried That it was gonna be over soon. Like when I was'cause I felt like act one was quite long. And like, no, no, there's a lot more game to go.
At this stage I do know that I'm I I'm uh I've um getting close to to finishing it. I have to I have to beat the final boss, I guess, one more time. So that's kinda where where I'm at. Uh but yeah, I just maybe I'm not maybe I am missing pieces of it, but I sometimes I th they're being so cryptic and we're at the end of the game. And they're still being cryptic. Uh not about everything. They are like definitely revealing some stuff and Piecing things together. Uh
laugh so hard if like you beat this boss fight one more time and then it's like a three hour cinematic.
I mean the cinematics are really good. Like with there's only there's there's there's a few of them. But I I think I did just hit one which was like fully pre-rendered and and uh it was fantastic. It looked great. Um so I mean we'll see. Like I do I at this stage is like I have to f I I am going to finish it. I do want to see it through. I am enjoying it. I just
the story is i is requiring a lot of thinking and remembering and kind of piecing it together. And I feel like whatever I play next has to be like It doesn't necessarily have to be video game junk food, but and I'm fine if it has a story, but it's gotta be it's gotta be like I yeah, I guess video game junk foods you know.
Yeah, straightforward, like easy peasy, no mystery. Just tell me what's going on.
Yes. So for folks who thought, Oh, you know, were saying, Oh, Ryan should go play Returnal next it's like, I don't think I'm gonna play Returnal next and it's not Saros' fault, it's just I need a break from
You should go play like the South Park video game or something. Like something that is just stupid and like childish and straightforward and whatever. Like. Yeah, that's that's what you need to do.
W that wasn't the newest one, was it? Or was that a multiplayer thing? I can't remember
I don't remember now.
I thought there was one recently. Uh folks want me to play the Trails remake, so like that one could could work. I again like when I say video game junk food, I'm not trying to be like reductive I th I think uh it just it doesn't need to be like a uh I wouldn't even call cirros a a think piece. It's just it's a mystery.
It's an enigma. We don't know what's going on. That's part of the allure of of of trying to follow this trying to follow the story, get more answers. And I do want those answers. I know what's going Okay, I don't know what's going on, but I
Ha ha.
I know I know a good portion of what's happening. And there's clearly like you know, I don't and and why I'm being cagey is I don't want to spoil it because like I think that's part of the fun of these games is to kind of Figure everything out as you're going. And there's clearly some stuff that's been laid out that has been very interesting in what happened to the previous.
uh Echelon, the the team sent to the planet to to sort of colonize it and and mine for uh Lucinite the this resource, this magical resource that will help power Earth or whatever. Um there's been some there's been a lot of developments there and I think that's part of the mystery is like figuring out what a what happened to your
teams that came before you and then B figure out what the hell is happening on this planet. And I don't have all the answers yet. And I think by next week I'll be able to say the game gave me all the answers. The real question will be, did I understand all those answers. I hope I will.
I don't have high hopes.
There's nothing worse than like experiencing a story. And this has happened before. It's not necessarily the story's fault. It's like I didn't get it. It's like, well, it's the metaphor.
Right.
You know this and that and did you not? Maybe. It's you know what it is? It's years of Nintendo video games because it's like Sam is the one.
More than a grunt is is too much of a story for you to follow.
Yeah, it might not even be Nintendo's fault. Might be Halo's fault, honestly.
Mm. You should maybe just do like, I don't know, a Mario Kart session or something, try to clear out all of your stars in Mario Kart world or go back and play more DO Play more Donkey Kong. You just smash shit. So satisfying.
There's a deep story there too. Like who's behind uh who's being hinted at the as is behind this notorious uh uh banana stealing.
Who could it be?
Who could it be? You'll never know. You'll never guess. Yeah.
This is why Nintendo needs to put out more content. Like they have been slacking so hard that you're having to try to expand your mind and it's not working. And they need to just put out the next Mario already so that you have something on your level.
Look, there's a reason I stopped playing Blue Prince. It was too much.
I know.
Ha ha
Oh, it was funny. I we had uh friends over this weekend and we were all we had all the four of us had put all played blueprints all the way forever to the end. And like At one point, I think it was Manny who said, I wish I could just wipe my brain and experience that game all over again and like replay start to finish of that masterpiece. And Brian, you missed out so much. There's hundreds.
plus hours of amazingness. Yeah, but you won't and we all know you won't. Fair, fair. Yeah. So it's it's funny that that game has come up so much in the last week, but uh yeah. I'm I'm glad that you're enjoying it and that you're pushing through and I'm sure that like I tease, but I I'm sure that the story will Kinda finish in a in a satisfying place that you'll be able to understand. I have full faith in your ability to understand the story of a video game more complicated than Nintendo.
I am really enjoying the video game. Saros is is is great. Like the gameplay is superb. It's always fun. I have my preferred weapons. Like there are weapons that uh I'm not as uh proficient at in the game. I was saying in the chat, like, oh I'm not a big fan of the shotguns, because I like to be far away from the enemies. And oftentimes the enemies are always farther away and their bullets kind of just go. Whereas the shotgun has like a wider spread and doesn't go as far.
But then they were saying like, oh, well, once you eventually get your shotgun to be more powerful, you can stagger the enemy and then you kind of warp around. And when you stagger them, you can kind of like warp to them and do a melee move. And that completely changed things, right? So from a gameplay perspective, like they've really nailed all those layers of like giving you additional powers, giving you new weapons that you'll find.
uh the power-up system, the trade-offs of getting better power-ups, but having a negative effect during the eclipse that you you enact. But that's all great. And I think um it's just with Hades too, like the the story was very present and uh it was always evolving. And I I I was hoping Saros has more of that with the audio logs and the extra characters and
And the text, and very early on, there's like a lot of extra characters there that you can engage with uh after each run. But You're not gonna experience the Hades II story drip. In Seros. Like there's gonna be lulls and it's just gonna be focus on the gameplay, focus on the run.
And it just doesn't have that same balance, which is unfortunate, uh, because it really does feel like when they do give you information, it's very spread out and uh there's just a lot of There's a lot of mystery, you know, and it's all mystery and it's like, okay, like I've I've listened to this person talk about this other place so many times it's like it's like, but what is it?
Even even when they s you know, your character eventually asks like what is this place? And then they give like a cryptic answer of like it's it's your wants and needs of like no like geographically, like where are we? So
Yeah, that would be infuriating.
It's that type of thing, you know? So you just kinda have to like I uh i it just not let it bug you and um as long as you're enjoying the gameplay, which I am, like that's uh that's what's been bringing me back. Like uh I do want to see it through obviously to see what the story
Well yeah, you only have one one more boss fight to do.
Yeah, I'm so close. It'd be silly to to stop. Although I know sa like like Scott says, uh when he talks about Resident Evil two on core where um He play Oh, I hit credits, I I experienced the game, Resident Evil 2, like but you only played one campaign. It's like, well, I hit credits, so the game is done.
The game is over.
Saros, you have to keep playing. The the game is not done when the credits roll. I d again, I question why
Yeah, why there are credits where there are. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting choice.
It's it's a weird it's a weird placement, but You know, maybe they they did it so we would talk about it. I don't know. Specifically out.
¶ News
You know what else we need to talk about is patreon.com slash thegamers in. So uh Ryan's host special is up now. Yay, Ryan, you did it.
I did, yes. Yeah. uh video game resurrections. It's all It's been resurrected. Uh if you thought April was quiet, well, May will have uh a couple of specials. So um yeah, I I had a lot of fun.
I'm hoping to get mine, as I mentioned earlier, hoping to get mine recorded this weekend and then uh have it out to you guys. I think I'm probably gonna push it a little bit later in the month just to not come too close to Ryan's uh Ryan special, but um yeah, it it is coming. It is expected in May. I've got uh the topic and everything else. I'm just working on the script, so
It's it's coming and I'm excited about it. I hope you guys like it too. Although given some of the news this week, like, damn it, Sony, you had one job is just don't be shit. You failed. Uh, and also we have game night coming up this Friday. It's at 8 30 p.m. Eastern. We're playing played up because that's what was chosen by the patrons. So again, we live stream over at patreon.com slash the gamers in. You do not have to be a subscriber.
All you have to do is be a follower in order to uh view and chat in the stream. So uh you don't have to give us any money. Anyone can come in and hang out and join. Uh again, patreon.com slash the gamers in for the live stream. The VOD afterwards is available to patrons only, but the live stream at starting at 8 30 p.m. Eastern and usually we go until about eleven o'clock. So um that is available to anyone. Again, patreon.com slash the gamers in.
Uh, if you wanna join the conversation, do head over to tiny.cc slash TGI Discord. That's where we post everything, when we're doing things, when things get put up on Patreon, everything else. And we have a really great community over there as well. If you wanna join the conversation and, you know, talk about things like
Saros and give Ryan hints as he's going through and telling Ryan that credits are not enough, then uh yeah, that is over at tiny.cc slash TGI Discord. That brings us to the news this week and Sony Ugh, Sony being ridiculous. Like this okay.
I understand you want to charge people more. That's capitalism. Don't blame digital goods on ongoing market conditions. Come on. Like, oh, this made me so mad. So Uh they have announced PlayStation Plus prices are increasing for is it just the one in three month subscriptions, or is it everybody across the board?
It's it's just the one month and and the three months. I think one month is going up a dollar and three months is going up three dollars. So it's uh even across the board there. But yeah, uh yearly plan staying the same.
Yeah. So but they are blaming uh continued pressures in the global economic landscape. Like, come on, it's a digital, it's basically you're buying access to the multiplayer part of the games that you've also bought. It just Oh, makes me so mad. Like just say that you're greedy and you want your profits to go up and you're losing money and you're not selling as much as you wanted to and whatever. Like, don't blame it on global economic landscape.
Just say you want more money. Be upfront about it. This made me so mad. Like I get that well, because I get that excuse when we're talking about hardware, right? When we're talking about things that are You have to buy from other people. They need to get mined out of the earth. They need to get built. You know, whatever the case is. I understand that, especially when we have this giant AI push going on right now, eating up a lot of those hardware pieces.
I get it.
I do not understand charging me to play multiplayer and then saying that the global economy is making you raise the prices. Like, oh my God, Sony, why?
Yeah, and it'd be different if this hadn't happened recently'cause I think it was just to increase maybe just over a year ago. Like this is uh This is not the first time it's happened. I know Nintendo online subscriptions went up last year, but
Like at first I thought that this was them hiking the consoles and I was like, I thought they already did that and it's like, oh no, it's them hik it's them hiking their PlayStation Plus subscriptions. It's just like, man, oh man, like hike, hike, hike. And again, like I say, I can understand the hardware side of it, but like you say, we're a year out from an increase previously. And oh man, it still feels So expensive because this is again a a subscription stacking on top of
All of your other subscriptions and all of your other subscriptions are going up by, you know, a dollar, two dollars, three dollars, four dollars, whatever. Like, man, this sucks. Just stop already. Cause this is just gonna like I've been canceling so many things. Well, show I canceled my Discord like live on recording. Like I am at the point where I am canceling subscriptions and people who are asking me for money for subscriptions, I'm just going elsewhere.
There's only so much room in a budget for subscriptions and and this is something that happened with streaming platforms where they all kept increasing and it's like I like I can't subscribe to Netflix. Crave, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime.
Yeah.
Paramount plus. Apple. I there's so many that had price increases that I can't even remember to name them all because I just don't I don't subscribe to them. Like I I I haven't been subscribed to Playstation Plus in quite a while. This price increase doesn't affect me currently, but I will subscribe here and there when there is a game that requires it and I want to play with friends. Like this is primarily subscribing for online play. I do not subscribe anymore for the
quote unquote free games that they give you access to because it's it's not worth it. And the price going up on a digital subscription is profits. Like, you know, in this Like in the same breath, like Sony has said, they've lost money based on the price increases that they had to do for real ongoing market issues with the price of RAM and storage and chips and all that. So
This is to make up for that. And GTA six is launching later this year, and that's online component will require PlayStation Plus, so
Yeah.
It's not um It's not difficult to make this leap. And I think by increasing it by a dollar or three dollar like a dollar per month essentially. you it's like, oh, it's I guess it's only an extra dollar, right? Uh that's kind of what what what they're hoping people think. But I think there is eventually there's there's a threshold of like, okay, maybe you had someone who was
you know, paying monthly or paying three month chunks and now they're like, Well, I'm gonna probably cut back and maybe not subscribe as much. You're still gonna ha yeah it's good that they didn't affect the yearly plan'cause like They probably look at the numbers and decide like okay, like if we keep the yearly plan the same we won't upset a large portion.
Well but yeah, but the yearly plan was increased the last time because I just went to go and double check. I too have canceled PlayStation Plus. And the PlayStation my PlayStation Plus expiry was actually just uh like a month or two ago. And I remembered when I canceled it, it was because the price was going up and the like I didn't want to renew for another 12 months. So like the the 12 month subscribers have already been hit. And I wonder if that's like part of it, if they saw.
a big drop off'cause they were just like, Oh, well, you know, there's nothing really that I wanna play multiplayer on Playstation right now so it's not worth this price hike. So Yeah, I went and double checked. I have cancelled my subscription, so huzzah. I did the thing!
Yeah. Yeah. No, I I think it's important to To cancel or or strategically sub if you do need it here and there. And I think PlayStation Plus made changes not last year but three or four years ago where I was subscribing yearly or subscribing more often and it just it didn't make sense financially. I wasn't using it as much and I find sometimes like You know, when we talk about strategically subbing to stuff when we need it, sometimes you realize like
I
really don't need it. You know? Seros, I'm able to play perfectly fine without PlayStation Plus. I don't need the little yellow plus beside my name.
Don't let them hear you say that. They'll start to say that you need PlayStation Plus to be on the platform and then they'll just call it PlayStation. They won't even be Plus anymore. It'll just be like this is how you enter your console. You put it out in the universe, Ryan. Thanks.
They would not do that. I don't think that would happen, but uh
You never know, man. You never know. It's creeping in in more and more places.
Yeah, I mean I don't have a problem with subscriptions, uh but I think that changing well, one could argue like online multiplayer being paid for would have been considered like a a a super deal breaker, but for some reason it has it has stuck around with consoles.
Um
That's what I'm saying. They just erode it a little bit at a time and before you know it, it'll be, you know, PlayStation seven being sold with twelve months of
Thank you.
Access included, it's fucking gross, but
Well at that point you're just renting the hardware, are you not? Exactly.
Yes, that's what I'm saying.
We should stop talking.
big trace up front and that yeah that I'm just saying that you know like Awareness is important. It may sound like doom saying, but they're getting to a point where they're gonna have to find their profit somewhere, right? Like they need growth year over year and They're going to have to keep pushing that envelope because that is how businesses work these days.
That just being profitable is not good enough. You have to have growth every single year. And eventually you're gonna hit a limit because you cannot grow infinitely. So Yeah. Yeah. We I I would bet that within the next ten years we will see moves like that just because it's you're going to have to. They have to try stuff like that because Goal, however misguided that may be. So, anyways, that's a whole other conversation for a whole other night.
They've also said that uh single player games aren't coming to PC going forward, which was rumored I think a few months ago. But uh they've now uh confirmed, I guess it would the uh PlayStation boss confirm or somebody boss confirmed it to internal staff only, right?
Yeah, it was internal uh it was a town hall that happened Monday morning where CEO Herman Hulse uh had said, hey. No more of our narrative single player games will be will be coming to PC. PlayStation exclusive.
Which like again, like we I feel like we kinda talked this possibly to death when um the original rumor came out a couple of months ago. But I mean, uh, I was really hoping that there would be an exception for games. that were like Horizon where the first two installments were already available on PC. There's it's gonna be a trilogy like narratively, nar narratively, narratively.
Uh that they would continue that on across all the platforms where it had been released so that you don't leave your PC players hanging. Because I I don't know, I think it's a really big ask for someone to go buy a console just to play one game to see the end of it. So I was hoping there would be an exception for stuff they've already released over on PC, but that does not seem to be the case.
Um, they've talked about, I think uh well, Saros was was one example. They absolutely confirmed it's not uh coming to PC. They're I guess that also counts Marvel's Wolverine. Um what are some other ones? Um Horizon, obviously. Oh Spider Man. Spider Man, yeah. Yeah. Um, I wouldn't say like I don't think we're expecting any more Last of Us games, but that's another one that's uh Sony exclusive that they had brought over to PC. So anything else in that franchise will be a nope.
Yeah.
But yeah, this is they s they did say that they're still going to release their multiplayer stuff on multiple platforms, but anything single player, nobody knows.
Yeah. I I I I think that with the decision to move your your games to PC, there's obviously like There's a lot of thoughts and feelings uh you know, around these decisions because you do have folks, like you said, that wanna maybe finish off a trilogy like Horizon's a great example. We know a part three is coming eventually, uh, but People who played that series on PC will have to buy or buy
So I don't know.
go to someone's house who has a console to play the next title. And that sucks. Like I a hundred percent agree with that. But there's also the other side of it is like, well, like releasing our games on Playstation Or releasing our games on PC can hurt the console business because you you do have folks like, oh I'll wait the six months or I'll wait the year, I'll play it on PC. I don't need to buy a PlayStation. We saw this with Xbox.
Our last story was about, you know, profits hurting and when we look at and and we're not supposed to care about these companies' profits. Like I think that's the biggest thing talking about with the subscriptions, like cancel it. It's not our job to worry about whether Sony is doing well financially. That is their problem. And This decision, I think, is a business dis decision on their end because they think it will sell more hardware because their hardware business is
is is suffering because of these price increases. So they figure, hey, if we remove this option for people to waffle and delay and wait for PC ports, then maybe we'll make some of that up.
Well, and it decreases dev time too, right? But again, like you say, I don't think it's gonna be enough because you're not gonna have to worry about using up dev time and resources to port over to PC. So I mean there there is that part of the calculation as well, but I'm with you. I don't think that either either one of those things is really gonna be that impactful or that meaningful. But uh we don't have the the back end numbers, right? I'm sure PlayStation made the decision for a reason.
But uh we've talked about this with with like you say, Xbox too very recently where it's like yeah, i it was so bad at some at one point where Xbox was saying that everything was just gonna be PC two that it g got to the point where I at least was convinced that they were moving out of hardware completely because like, why would you ever buy an Xbox? So
There is definitely something to s something to be said for exclusive selling your console. Like that's kind of always been the case. And I think exposing different audiences to your like to your games, to your IP is important, especially when you have things like Horizon. um, where it's a little bit out of the box and you know, it's one of your flagship things. They I actually saw a story last week where it was like
Was it forty forty million copies or something of Horizon Sold? Like it's it's one of their like flagship Easy. And uh so I can see how exposing people to the stuff that you do and the stories that you tell can bring new audiences over to PlayStation. But then you gotta have something on the back end too where it's like, look how good we are, PC players.
There's more behind the paywall that is the console, right? Like you've gotta have that that carrot on the other side that makes people wanna buy the console. So I get some exclusivity. I'm just sad for People who aren't going to get to experience the end of stories that have been released on PC and and won't be in the future.
Yeah. Yeah. I I understand that folks are gonna be disappointed by this news, but um we talk about Nintendo And Nintendo, even though they haven't put their their games on their platforms, there was an era where, you know, Nintendo putting anything on another platform, especially their their main IPs, like on when they did their phone games. Like that would be considered Like this is a wild shift and and it was and Nintendo was
uh pretty forward about this. They they had said, like, we're doing this to reach new audiences. And they have kind of moved away from phones, uh, to a certain degree and moved towards more multimedia with movies and TV sh uh not T V shows, but movies. Um and I think that's been very successful for uh with the Mario movies. We'll see what happens with Zelda.
Oh man, I watched the Galaxy movie this weekend. That thing is and granted I wasn't paying a hundred percent attention. But like that felt like an Easter egg clip show. It was unhinged. I was like, I don't, I can't even follow this plot. It is ridiculous. And I, you know, I have a two year old who was getting distracted by her, but Still, I like I can't I feel like I kept looking back at the screen and going, Who is that? What is happening? Where does Art?
Stop. It just keeps going. Like if you're not it's not even requiring you to pay attention. Like if you look away, you're like, wait, where are we now? And what's happening?
Yeah, that movie was unhinged. I was not impressed.
I mean it's uh as much as I enjoyed that film, um It it it the issue is is that it is it's a roller coaster. You know, and if you uh if you check out or look away or aren't paying attention, it it's not because it's a deep story, it's because it just move it's just always
All over the place. It's all over the place. Yeah. Anyways, uh yeah, I didn't mean to sidetrack us too much, but we are we do have a story about Nintendo. Uh Ryan, I mean maybe maybe this is a a thing that your kids will love. I don't know, but uh they announced a game for mobile called uh Pic Pictanico. Pictonico? Pictonico? Anyways, it's...
Yeah.
It looks like you basically like take photos with your phone and then use the likeness of your friends to and like filters and overlays and stuff to like play little mini games. The little mini games don't even look fun. I was like, this is really stupid. And maybe I'm just not the target audience, but I'm not sure who the target audience is.
Like maybe 18 year olds are just really fucking weird now and they don't have an attention span longer than three seconds. So this is why this game or who this game may appeal to. Like it looked to me like too dumb for my two-year-old.
Uh it's like a WarriorWare style sort of micro game. So as soon as I saw this trailer, I was like, Oh, this is WarriorWare and it's actually uh been co developed by Intelligence Systems which which are the folks um behind the WarriorWare series and Fire Emblem as well, surprisingly. They they seem to be the only team at Nintendo that are like still making these these phone games or at least assisting with them.
And yeah, it's like a it's a it's a micro game collection where you're you're playing these games with with photos and Yeah, it's a it looks very it looks to be like a very sort of shallow experience just for fun and for the lulls, like uh you know, so
Oh, so it's it's made for you and those that can't keep up with Saros and the story there. So this is just made for Ryan.
I don't know if I'm going to play this one. I I think Nintendo's mobile offerings have been quite lackluster lately. Like they like launched another Fire Emblem game and I'm like, what this does not Very appealing.
Always so diplomatic.
Yeah, no, well d that's true. I think with this one, um, it just it doesn't look deep enough. So I need something like I need something in the middle. Uh but hey, make another WarriorWare game. That sounds great. Don't put it on phones. I mean, you you know, you can put it on phones if you want, but uh
I but this this right here, as soon as I saw it, I was like, oh man, my kids would get a kick out of this. They would love it. So I think the audience is uh i is like, you know, it's it's a kid's game, I think.
Yes, yeah. I mean this obviously is not something for me, and not everything has to be for me, and I get that, but this looked like not well done and also kinda dumb, but I don't have I never played Wario Wear. I don't have that like any nostalgia or anything else. Like it just looks weird and off and like why that was pretty much my reaction to the trailer. Ugh why?
Yeah, yeah. I I wanna I wanna I haven't showed it to the kids. I haven't showed them the trailer. I need to look into it a little bit more, but I think that this would be they would get such a kick out of this. Like they would have so much fun.
Yeah, one thing Nintendo did say, which I think is worth mentioning if you do have kids or you think that you might be interested in this is that they don't they're not actually like it's not online. They're not um you can't like share pictures and there's no uh storage.
Like so you're not like sending your pictures to Nintendo. They they still just live on your phone and get used by the app, but there's no um like online connection required to Nintendo. It's like a one time verification and then you can just play with the app. So
There's like that is a good thing, especially in this day and age with like privacy concerns. And especially if you've got kids that are playing this, it is, it is one good thing to note is that you're not actually like storing your photos external to your device. At least with Nintendo, you're probably storing them external if you've got Any kind of other phone that synks to the cloud, but that's not important from Nintendo standpoint. It's not an additional security concern.
Exactly. Like if this was a game made by Meta, I'd be like this is a trap. It's made by Nintendo's like they're not interested in our photos. They just wanna have you play this fun game that uh uh allows you to Um it like one of the games is like you controlling a mouth and uh and chomping food. There's uh there's other mini games where, you know, you're you're plucking nose hairs. This is warrior wear to a T.
And uh this is gonna launch uh May twenty eighth. It's free to start, has like a demo type version, but then there are uh the mini game packages that you will buy. So there are in app purchases, but it's not like uh free to play title where you're buying energy or earning potions. It's uh you buy the
Just to give you variety, right? Of of stupid things to do for three seconds.
Yeah. Exactly. Stupid things. Look, there's there could be you could be doing worse things.
100%
three seconds on your phone. Like you could be on TikTok scrolling. You could be reading the news. Yeah. Don't do that.
Okay, yeah, you've sold me. I'm gonna get this uh May twenty-eighth, a hundred percent. Just to put something between me and the news.
Yeah, fair enough. I mean, you could just like not look at your phone, but I'm I'm
No no, I don't have that kind of self control.
Neither do I.
Something between me and the news. You've you've sold me. That's it. Adults who don't want the news.
Hey, whatever helps.
Oh man. Yeah. Finally tonight, uh the Kingdom Come deliverance people are making uh Lord of the Rings RPG. How do we feel about that?
Uh you know, honestly, I don't know. Like I feel like if I had played one of the Kingdom Come Deliverance games uh I would I would have like stronger feelings about it because I don't have like a a a large attachment to Lord of the Rings either. Like I like the movies. I I I've liked some of their previous video games like um uh Shadow of War was probably one of my favorite video games of that era, especially like from a Lord of the Rings perspective. So Yeah yeah, I I think that
If you can get a big budget Lord of the Rings game, it's been a while since we've had one of those. Well
As one of the ten people who actually played Gollum. Oh I can tell you that I am uh very hesitant about anything with the middle earth like uh IP attached to it because column was so bad.
Yeah.
I'm like, I see this and I'm like, Okay. Kingdom come deliverance? Very good, very highly regarded. I have a lot of faith in these devs. But oh man, have I been burned by Lord of the Rings titles over the years because I am a big Lord of the Rings fan. I love the source material. I love the movies. I even like the Hobbit movies, you guys. So I mean, like I am just such a huge fan of this IP, but like you say, like the shadow games were really good.
Um, it's been like one of my favorites of all time was the Battle for Middle Earth, which was like the strategy game. Uh like the the RTS and like I really, really, really, really, really love the franchise, but it's been so long since they've had a really good hit. It seems to come around once every like 10 years. It's been like, oh, when did the Shadow games come out? They were like mid 2010s, right?
Yeah, I think there was a th three sixty in Xbox One era, if do I have that right?'Cause there hasn't been one this generation.
No, no. Um, I feel maybe it was like in the 2017, 2018-ish times. Anyways. Point is we're we're maybe if if we get one good Lord of the Rings title every decade, then I feel like we're like we're due. We're due. If we're ta shadows were the last ones that were good. W it's been about ten years, so it's time for somebody else to make a good Lord of the Rings game. So It's probably the Kingdom Come deliverance people.
I really, really, really hope this is good. I'm gonna be so sad if it's not. I'm also very interested to see, like. 'Cause it's an open world middle earth RPG. So I'm excited to see what they do with that and kind of what era they pick and how you can you know, you would think it's gonna be very like skyroomy in that way where you're gonna be able to pick any one of the races to play and
You know, I I just hope they go like super high fantasy with it and and do something really interesting and tell an interesting story in a very fleshed out universe. Cause again, the the IP, like the source material for Lord of the Rings is like So well built. So I mean they have a lot to work with. They have a universe that's already fleshed out that they can tell a story in. So I hope it's interesting and compelling.
Uh yeah. A lot of people really like Kingdom Come Deliverance. I have it. I bought it um recently because it was one of the ones I think last year that um
Got a little bit.
I don't wanna say snubbed, but maybe overshadowed by the juggernaut that was clear obscure, so I I did pick it up on a sale a couple months ago and I just haven't had a chance to actually play it yet. But Matt played it and he really liked it. So I'm gonna uh yeah, I'm gonna give it a shot. But I think this is a this is a good fit. This is a good match. I just hope that they can deliver, but we're due up, so let's go. Good Lord of the Rings game. No more Gollum
Yeah. Well I think Gollum is a is a situation for, you know, handing out your license to uh non s n not being selective about it. And I think what Embracer Group is doing with their fellowship studios spin off here is they are selecting they're doing the Marvel approach where Marvel did this not with all their games, but they
around the era of Spider Man they were like, Okay, like we want we want to make a Spider Man game. Who can we go to to uh to build this game out? And and they were approached by Insomniac and they were able to build out that Spider Man universe and
I think this is what Embracer wants to do, whether they'll be successful, who knows. But you do have different approaches with with different sets of IP. Like I think Warhammer is a good example where I don't think they're as selective, but they're they I don't think I don't think they have any golem levels of bad on their hands.
I mean it's hard to have a golem level of bad. So Yeah. That was like record setting, literally. Probably still is the lowest rated game on Metacritic.
Yeah. Wow. Y and I think that uh we'll have to see what what comes of this, but I think this is an example of them going to a developer or working with a developer to be like, Hey, you are a good fit. Would you be of interest in building this game with this IP? And I mean it's Lord of the Rings, you know, so I feel like
You'd be hard-pressed to not find someone on that team passionate about that IP and passionate about building something in the Lord of the Rings universe. It's similar to Star Wars.
Or
uh Marvel, DC. It's such a big franchise that you're gonna go to a developer that you feel is a good fit and they're gonna be on board because uh they're just such a fan of of the property. So This isn't surprising. I do have I do have faith that they'll do a good job because um again I've heard, as you said, really good things about uh both Kingdom Come Deliverance one and two.
Uh I think the the struggle that a lot of people have put forward is that I think those games put a lot of effort into the mechanics and the realism of the setting of uh Kingdom Come being medieval it's not medieval fantasy, it's just medieval. Um and putting a lot of effort into like sort of red dead redemption levels of like making it feel real.
But Lord of the Rings is is a fantasy property. So I think you c you don't I I hope we don't have to worry about that because just by the sheer fact that there is magic in the world, they can You know, you don't have to it doesn't have to be realistic. It just has to be Lord of the Rings so they can have fun with it. So hopefully that's the case.
I think they will. I'm I'm I'm cautiously optimistic. But uh yeah, we'll see. We'll uh have more information when when we get it. But uh do go over to tiny dot cc slash TGI Discord to continue on the conversation. 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, and Ryan is at RyanMurphy.ca.
Also be sure to check out our TGI Community Starter Pack at tiny.cc slash TGI Starter Pack. Thanks for staying at the Gamers Inn and remember, tune in next week. Bye everybody.
Bye everyone.
🎵 Music
You also say bye everyone exactly the same every week Which is fine'cause I'm sure my intro and outro sound the same every single week too, but it's just so funny. That's
Podcasting, isn't it? Consistency.