Alan Wake 2, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, and Assassin's Creed Mirage Impressions # 370 - podcast episode cover

Alan Wake 2, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, and Assassin's Creed Mirage Impressions # 370

Oct 28, 20231 hr 18 min
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Episode description

On this episode of Video Games 2 the MAX, Sean is joined by Marc again after he missed the last three weeks. Sean's been playing the newly released Alan Wake II and has some early impressions of the game (Spoiler Free), also, he has thoughts on the new character Saga, if the game reaches the heights of Survival Horror, and how her gameplay differs from Alan's. Sean also has more thoughts on Super Mario Bros. Wonder as well.

Marc's been playing Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and Assassin's Creed Mirage. Does the new AC game do the right thing by returning to its roots? Or is it a case of too much in the other direction? And does the dynamic duo in Spider-Man 2 truly deliver?

There's also been some big changes at Microsoft as some promotions have occurred to help improve Xbox's future. Not to mention, their first-ever Xbox Partner Preview happened on Wednesday as well. Should it be compared to a Sony State of Play? Speaking of Sony, the major departure of Connie Booth has led to a lot of conversation about PlayStation's future and if the "Games as Service" direction truly is the correct one.

Plus thoughts on the detachable PS5 disc drive requiring an internet connection to pair it, Ubisoft possibly delaying Star Wars Outlaws, and more!

You can also watch this episode in video form on the W2M Network Youtube Channel, please give us a like, comment on the episode, and give the channel a subscribe and follow as well: https://youtube.com/live/Z7COccphYZA

Run of Show:

START & Housekeeping

----------------------- Games We Are Playing -----------------------

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 (Marc)
Assassin's Creed Mirage (Marc)
Saints Row (2022) (Marc)
Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Sean)
Alan Wake 2 (Sean)

-------------------------------- What's in the News -------------------

Connie Booth Fired at Sony (PlayStation) according to David Jaffe And Also Unrest at several PlayStation studios regarding the pivot to Live Service Games

Media Molecule & Sony Visual Arts Suffer Layoffs

Detachable Disc Drive for PS5 Slim Digital Requires Internet Connection for One-Time Pairing

Discussing the first-ever Xbox Partner Preview

Starfield Brings in Most One Day Xbox Game Pass Subs in History

Sarah Bond & Matt Booty Get Promoted, Can Xbox Really Help Blizzard Achieve Their Dreams?

Metal Gear Solid Collection Volume 1 Has hints to MGS 4, MGS 5, and Peacewalker

Ubisoft Most Likely Delays Star Wars Outlaws

------------------------------ The End -----------------------------

Games Coming Out This Week: Alan Wake 2, Thirsty Suitors, Jusant & More!

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Transcript

You are listening to Video Games to the Max. Hello, and welcome to another edition of Video Games to the Max. I am your host, Shauna gar right here with most of the time. Mark Morrison, good to finally have you back here. Haven't missed the last few weeks. Hopefully you can be good for a while there. Yeah, well, we got a lot to talk about today. Is I've been playing Allen a Wake two, so we'll have thoughts on that. Markston playing Spider Man two, Nsster Cree Mirage,

and I've also been playing so much Super Mario Brothers. Wonder getting to cover the big games that have come out fairly recently or recently, that's always good. And then big changes going on at Xbox and so I expect the change is happening at PlayStation that have led to some uncomfortable situations already, and somewhere news about delays and layoffs that's been rather typical of this year. So we'll get into all that and more. All right, Well, let's go

ahead and get the housekeeping stuff out of the way here. Just you know, I'd have to deal with that after this. Just if this is your hundred time listening, your first time listening, we do appreciate you, and you can go and subscribe, follow like on the YouTube channel or Twitch where you can watch us live when we do the show, which is either Thursday

or Friday around twelve thirty. We're starting a little bit later today because and I is not in school today the teacher planning day, you know those things, so we're going to start a little bit later. Let me play a little bit more out of Wake too, and I'll talk about that in just

a sec. But yeah, the the Routs folks of course doing their usual reviews of the latest things that have come out all the time and the movie and TV sphere, so you really should be checking them out if that is your thing you want to be. You watch the latest movies, you stay up with the TV shows. They pretty much do all that, follow the House of Usher. They had the review there that show is awesome if you

haven't watched yet, that's just my two cents. And they did the Killers of the Flower Moon review as well, so good stuff for y'all to check out there. Along with Star Trek New Worlds. You got to talk to Kiki doing their thing as well, keeping up with the new anime. So whether you like anime, video games, movies, TV. It's all there for you. So I appreciate y'all the if y'all check all that stuff out or not. And of course you can also listen with your ears as well

on podcast side. Anytime there's podcasts available, just go subscribe on the podcast that you want to listen to, whether it's us or the other guys, and you can find this there. Anytime we do a show, it's there for you. So with that being said, let's get started here. I guess let's start with uh, make him wait for a little bit for for the newest one. What do you you know? I had Randy had just barely started Spider Man two when I had him on last week. So where

are you at in the game right now? I'm about halfway through it. I think, oh, well, I've done like most, if not all, the Tide stuff I can do at the moment to defend an issue, to kind of mop it up as I go along. What did he say on it or his I mean, well, I mean he had really just gotten through like the editorial stuff, so he's super early. Yeah, it was. So. My my view is it's a very well made game,

but it's kind of a regression in a few steps. And it's also oddly buggy in spots, which I wasn't really expecting because I don't remember having any issue with the first game or the first two games really, so that's been weird. Well what I mean, like buggy. They crashed on me once.

I mean, that's kind of fine, I guess, okay. And then a very early fight like this is like the first hour or so, I had just stopped this museum or stopped this bank commuting robbed, and the bunch of these sand piles on the ground and guys were with guns were like around it, and I somehow managed to knock a guy into the sandpile, which we weren't supposed to be able to do, so it was kind of clipping out of it or clipping into it, and like the game wouldn't progress

until I beat him, and I said, I can't get to him because he's in this fucking in the sand pile. And I eventually, like after like about a minute of this kind of randomly punching the sandpile enough hits connected where he just went down. But it's like this is all this is weird. Oh wow, And there's a pretty infamous bug apparently had this happened more

than more than me. There's a few Reddit starts about it, like you go to Coding Island with Harry Osborne and Mary Jane Watson as a kind of a friend date or like a friend meet up, and there are a few benches on the around where you can like sit down with one of them talk to them. Only I sat down with Mary Jane, but the talking didn't

happen. So the game is kind of like soft lock. Or it was like I can look around, but that's all I can do, Like I can't get up from the bench or I can't do anything else, And I was like, am I being dumb? Like yeah, I like the cussing. Yeah, but other than that, it's fine. But the regression stuff is more about like, Okay, you have all these different suits. You know that they're like, oh, we got sixty Spider Man suits or whatever.

It's like, Okay, they don't do anything. It's all this visual or you know, the last game had the suit power for the suit tech, so it's like, oh, and you could like when you bought a new suit, you got a new suit power, So it's like, oh, you like this one Ghost Riders suit but you like the Spider Man twenty ninety nine suit tech, you can like marry them together. This is just no suit power at all, and they dramatically scaled back the amount of gadgets

or like the amount of combat options you have. The skill trees I find are very lackluster. It's like you can increase your you know, Venom ten drolls by three up from three to six. It's like, okay, I guess, but it's not like super impactful or you know, super great, I guess. And there's also like no traversal mini games at all in this game or that I found, like no like race, you know, race

to the city. You ta get to this point, you know. I mean, did you miss those particularly like you wanted it was something to do? I mean, I guess, sure, I mean a lot of it's a lot of it's just combat focused, and it's say, okay, combat is good, but it's you know, it's getting kind of weary fighting fucking hunters constantly, just doing the same things over and over. So overall I like it, but I'm out. I out. I gave a Spider Man

the originally like a ten probably like a nine. I think it's just like an eight. Also, it's really weird that, like, have you ever played many Spider Man games? Yes, I've played quite a few. Yeah, play Spider Man webshat, I'm the three sixty or PS three. Yeah, when it first came, yeah, I decade ago if not. But that game was cool because you could alternate between like Red Suit Spider Man and like the Venom Suit, and they were like dramatical gameplay differences between the two.

And this game the Venom Suit can do like one or two unique things, but it's still the same kind of crap that you know, the the Regular Suit can do. It sounds great, yeah, but I mean it's well acted, looks looks beautiful. Obviously, the writing is really good. Like the story, like the you know, this main mainten story is good, but also like the side stories are really good also, so I'm enjoying

it. I was happy to get rid of Asassine screened and rash you get it, So that doesn't it's done well that you got rid of one of the games you're talking about here, uh to get the other one. Just it's the side quest, Like you said, the side stories are good to the side quest stuff. Is that pretty much the same as No, they're like side like they're like friendly neighborhood side missions. I think because they got like some stupid name. Those are more like curated or like we wrote,

we wrote dialogue, or you got to do some stuff for this. That's fine, but those are those are good parts. But like the random random crimes or like, oh, go take out this hunter, blind to go, you know, do this stupid mini game experiment when you fly around and destroy you know, bees or whatever, like yeah, who cares. I mean, it's it's you do it once, It's all right, I guess, and then you do it a few more times. All right, I'm now it's over. Some happy I mean, the game's not littered with this

stuff. Does that helped most of us just kind of you know, pattying it out. I did a venom heavy house, the venom powers that they feel different, then, No, that's what I was saying, Like, No, they don't. Like you get like this kind of cool alternate or like ultimate move where you can like really kind of like hulk out and you look a lot of damage. But that's about it. You know, you're

still kind of the same stuff. The male stuff is pretty good. Also, he's a lot better, Like you can infiltrate these hunter bases and take out like a whole bunch of guys, and he is dramatically better at that because of his like cloaking technology or cloaking ability, and yeah, that helps quite a bit. Well, that's kind of disappointing to hear that. It's not like this big it is. It's it's good. I actually say it's great. But yeah, and just like a few smaller spots, it's like

a weird step back from the last Spider Man game. I'm sure they did it for like simplicity's sake, or like you don't want to get too bogged down, but it's like some of those options in the last game are kind of fun, like calling in like holographic Spider Man to help you out or stuff like that. You know, I love that move in the first time.

Yeah, that seems like I think that's exactly what they said that they wanted to streamline the game and remove some of the stuff that kind of cluttered it up a little bit, and it's much more easier to get into combat and everything. So it feels like they accomplished what they wanted on that end, So does that make you feel less than ever with the Apostle Venom spin off? Or I mean, it depends on how they do. If they actually have a separate move move set for like fan disabilities, that'd be fine.

But how it is right now, I'll be like, Oh, I mean, it's just kind of a skin for Spider Man and he has like one alternate move that's about it. Yeah, I mean you think he won't change at all in the parts of the game you haven't played yet, Or well, I haven't gotten to like actual Venom yet because I'm still a Spider Man wearing the Venom suit. Oh okay, maybe it will change a bit there. Yeah, well, so we'll see. I'll keep playing it.

I'll playly finish it by the time we do this next week. Well, you mentioned in the SASA screen Maraz having already turned the game in, doesn't Yeah, I got that. You have great thoughts on it. No, I got it. I played it, I beat it, and nine hundred percent of it and then it's like, okay, is that quick? Huh? I finished it in about onto thirty hours. It's a dramatically scaled back Assassin's Creed game, it is like not even as fully featured as Assassin's Creed

too. Wow, they really went back to the beginning there. Huh Yeah, Like there's no even like sense or like a system of like improving the city or like economy, Like there's no like, oh you can invest in this art dealer and now you can you know, you get you get money back now from it or anything like that. It's fine, I guess. I mean, I've read a review of it. I think it gave it a five out of ten because I was like, you know, it's not

even broken technically. There's a yanky spots here and there. It's like,

if you're going at this from a new game, it's perfectly serviceable. But if you're going at this from like an Assassin's Creed fan, or you know, if you're a fan of the franchise, like you're gonna go to quit the whole happened, or like, you know, why is this so dialed down or you know just so bare owns so like I guess for people that have only played the let's say you've gotten into Assassa's Creed because of the the RPG ones, necessarily the old Assassa's creed, So like is it a detriment

that it goes back at all, or as somebody that started with the old ones, did you welcome? No, it's mine that it goes back. But there's just not enough content there, Like there are only three enemy types total, maybe four, and the fourth one is like only when he like really puts out the guards and this like elite soldier guy comes out and he's hard to deal with. But you know, the other three are like like normal soldier, like armored soldier, and like flame bagpipe soldier. He has

this weird flamethrower thing. It's like I don't know if this existed in the ninth century, but okay, and like doing the assassinations are still fine, but there's no like hidden crip or no side mission like there are I think there's like four what they call tales of bag Dad. It's kind of like typepider Man two act where it's like these more like bespoke or more like we

wrote some dialogue for this mission type of thing. And then there's like fifteen or so assassin's creed or like assassination missions or it's like hey, go go here and kill this guy, or go here and rescue this person, but that's it. They're not like infinitely respond or anything, and you do it. There is like a leveling system in the game, but it's all just tied to like you don't get experience from like just killing people or you know,

just fighting. You just you get experienced when it's tween missions. So by the time you one hundred percent the game, where you do all the missions, you'll be at max level because it's like, yeah, nothing else to do. Yeah. So if someone let's say they're playing this because they like the other ones, and they go, oh, let me see how this goes, would you say, is it what would be difficult for them? Is it harder to know? Is it easy to piss off the guards

or no? Because it's just like they're like three pips on the notoriety system and then if you get one, you can just run around and fill post responds and then tear town back to zero. Yeah. It's a lot like Brotherhood or I mean it's great too, but it's just not enough there at all, and it really doesn't help. The main character is like insufferable or unlikeable protagonists ever, because he's like the bad guy in Valhalla and it's like,

Okay, now it's just like weird origin story. But about this guy, I don't give a shit about uh okay, like kind of ye ride on your hopes from this guy and it's like he's like he reminds me like a bootleg Aladdin or something like that. It's a man's Yeah, that's like

it's a perfectly fine game or like this said, serviceable. But I think for like the new players, they are going to go like this is really easy because not it's like one big city and it's about it and there's like a few like outlying towns, but not not anywhere near the scope of like

Valhalla or Origenser Odyssey. And then I think for like old returning players, they're just gonna go like what happened or like why did they scale it down this like this much like that's a way to do it correctly, like but

they didn't do it. And there's also this like weird and like past games you could just like hire mercenaries or hire courtisans or whatever to like screw with the guards or fight for you like with this cash, and this game is like this weird token system where you got like a crew tokens and there's like three types of tokens, and it's like, oh, you need a scholar

token to use the musicians you can distract the guards. It's like, why can't I use cash or you know, like I guess because there's no economy, you really don't get a lot of money in the game. It's like that's kind of a failing on you. Then not me, right, I mean, I guess they're trying to be a little bit authentic there. I mean, I just think I don't know if it's like, actually it's sparkly accurate or not. It felt like pretty gamely to me. I'm gonna say,

but yeah, who knows. But I got the trophy and then out like the next day, I'm like, all right, I kind of sell this piece of crap because I think they said there's no DLC for it, and even if there was, I don't care. Yeah, they're probably just moving on to the next one, whether it's the this or I mean, I know there were rumors, but this really did feel like it was supposed to be like some like planned DLC or like basically like top gap measure for

like the next big one. Mm hmm. Yeah, they did say they wanted to make a smaller Assassin's Creed. They did that, they went back

to that, maybe went back too far. I mean I would say I would actually say Brotherhood is exactly the right scope of of like one of these games as far as like Rome, like it's going Rome and stuff, but also just like the gameplay systems, like you had the whole Assassin's Creed like Brotherhood system where you could like you know, recruit people to fight for you or some amon missions, or they had a more more of an economy, and like, yeah, this game has none of that. You're just gonna

do kind of do the missions over, you know. That's about it. Kind of had a few like AI scripting problems where like you get this a blow dart which can cause enemies to berserk and like kill other they you know, they start fighting one another, and like half the time that they didn't actually work, and it's like I remember this working in better in a task game, So what's going on here? At least, like you said, they lived up to the point of you can beat it quick and move on

to something else. Yeah, if I just mainlined it, I probably could have finished it in twenty hours or maybe twenty two or something, but I wanted to get that platinum trophy. And it's like, all right, I guess i'll do. I'll find all the stupid hidden books or whatever crap you know you want me to find. He is there one of them that you're excited? I guess that's coming up soon that I don't know which one is the one that's the of the sixteen Assassin's Creed games. Yeah, no,

I I can't keep up with that franchise like that anymore. I don't care about next. Uh. If they do actually make that Asian one, that might be cool. We'll see. Yeah. I think I think Ghoes to Tushima kind of really damp into that enthusiasm. Uh, like rightfully so, because they actually gave people what they wanted. Like, I don't know who's clamoring for this game at all. That's like the weird thing. It's like, who wanted a ninth century game about a character no one likes? Said

in that Baghdad if you raise your hand, you're fired. You know, well enough people did that they made it. But yes, I get what you mean. I don't worry. Just has to be firing them eventually anyway. So we'll see, we'll talk about you. You saw it a little bit later, as well as one of their other big games. Yep's going through something, So I get anything else that you have that you want to talk about for a moment. I played the Sky seven. It's more to

sky They they said that they simplified it, but they were lying. I don't. I just don't like to like the structure those games, with the whole item world system. It's like, oh, improve your improve your item by going into it and facing enemies. It's like, now I just want to use a blacksmith or you know, I just do something like that got remnant to I played it for like two hours. It's hard. I can't beat like the first level, and I think I just rubbed the ends into

buying it. So that'll be interesting speaking. Yeah, well he went like this one more. It is a little different. He had a lot of specific problems the last one. This might do a little do a little better for him. Speaking of him, though, we finished Saints Row. That is a miserable game, like surprise, played it all the way miserable. He was, well, he did it. I did it to humor him,

and it's because it was free. He did it because he looked at it as like the historical last game of Volition or you know, Keepsake or whatever. And he's like, oh, I also did the same thing for Duke Nukem Forever. It's like, yeah, stop doing that. I don't want to play bad games, you know. You know. It's like, yeah, he was fell for a reason, He's gonna put up ship like this. Yeah, yeah, Saints were always miserable. The story like makes

zero sense in that game whatsoever. It's it's really impressive. The last mission bugged out on it's pretty bad where we did. We're doing the last mission, and he got dropped or maybe the game kicked him or something out of my game, and I couldn't reinvite him because the game has like a this is like the point of no return, like once you start this mission, it's iran, right, And because we were in that mission, I couldn't get back to my city. I couldn't go back to like a neutral like

a neutral place, uh place in the game. So I'd like to restart like like an hour with the progress or get like do like another like revert back to an earlier save, and then do like a one or two missions and then say all right, well, no, I can reinvite you, but we lost some progress because we did. Of course we did, and they starts have to do in that game, like we didn't a hundred percent

or anything. There's a lot of crap in that game, but so much of it is garbage, especially these hidden history things where it's like, oh, you're in this yellow circle, go find these five podiums to get history of this town. It's like, and they're all like some of them are kind of easy to find, a lot of them are just like really like they make it intentionally hard to find, and it's so maddening. I bet, well, there you go. That's why you, you know, try

not to. I mean, I get a you're big fan of the franchise, and I get why Yen's wanted to write. At least I've been able to say that it's not good. I think he wanted I think he wanted

it to be good. I kind of knew going in a Head is gonna be fucked up, but like it's beyond the pale, and especially like just the writing of like there's no good reason why these characters are friends and if actually funny in one of the missions, YenS actually got really indignant and pissed off because it's like the bad company in the game, Like your character works for him in the start of the game, but then quits informs the Saints,

and like the bad company like sues the scenes to get the company, or it's like, oh, you're in an NBA, so now we own you, and Young is like furiously pissed about that. You think it's not a company's work. God damn it, Like you can't be a private security company. And also like own a street gang, like I mean they could, but the street gang would be unofficially part of them, right, Yeah that's funny, But yeah, that is funny. How's Alan wake too?

Uh well, let me talk about Supermyer Brothers Wonder really quick. Just I guess give a little bit more thoughts on that. I've gotten to world like two and a half, I played some with Anaya, so the co op is a little bit. They still haven't really fixed the co op from the new Supermara Brothers games that much. It's not as chaotic if you don't have

the four player, to be honest, but they have this. I hope they patch us out pretty quickly, but they have this really stupid somebody as the player one after a while, like if you die too many times. I mean, it's understandable if your character just completely dies, right yeah, but if you die a couple of times and you're trying to get the other character back, which you can do because they show up as like a ghost or whatever, you have like five seconds to hover over them so they can

come back. If they don't have a lot of lives, Like Yoshi is one of those that like the character never goes away, but I was playing as Luigi, who's my normal character that I play as. He does eventually went out of lives and go away, so you know, it's times where and I was left by herself. And then when I came back or we restarted the level, it still had her as the auto for one, and she's she's not very game averse, so she's not really understanding, you know,

what to do and like buttons to press and things like that. And then what stucks is that she's learning, so she's not I'm having the kind of teacher, Okay, hey you got to press the button down hard, you get a press? Why all that stuff? And it makes me have to like auto follow her after a while, so it's annoying. I really hope they take that out because it makes playing with people unnecessarily difficult. It

really shouldn't be that. Other than that, playing by myself. The getting to the next world, which is like a snow world or whatever that you go to, is really fun. I've gotten I feel like people that are kind of hating on the bubble power are not sort of understanding what it's for. And I kind of like the fact that it exists, like you can easily take on enemies and then you get coins every time you use it,

so it's actually pretty cool. I haven't gotten to the I don't know when you get to drill power thing, but yeah, the vowel power is school because then you can jump on bubbles and get to little areas that you haven't been to yet and things like that, and just and I love the way the world looks. It looks so it's very pretty. The colors bounce off on the switch supposed to when you play on TV. I played a little

bit as Peach as well. It's fun to use her because she kind of does that thing when she floats in the air and things like that, So yeah, I mean, and the Elephant power is obviously as I talked about last week, it's just awesome love just hitting things with his trunk and then just squash getting watching the enemies get squashed. And then the things to make you go back to all the levels is the Wonder powers because the wonder effect

things because they're different in every level. There's times where I completely missed it because I could I didn't hit some secret that you have to find, and I wouldn't say that the game is necessarily hard. There's one where I just couldn't beat it. It was like a four star level. Thankfully, it was like option. You don't have to beat every level to get enough Wonder

Seeds to progress, so that's another thing too. If you get stuck, it's not like you can't just go and find another level to go beat and get the two Wonder Seas and go on. And then they have the stuff with the badges where you get different powers and things like that too, which make it fun. So yeah, I really enjoyed the game. It's great for like those moments where you just need something to do really quick, or

if you you don't have to spend hours and hours with it. You can like I was, I had to take my girlfriend's dog to the vet because she had an accident. I ended up with a little toe fracture because she got decided to go out in the street and get have her foot run over by a car. So I was at the vet for like five hours. So that's largely what I did with Slay Super Mario Wonder while I was in there, you know, because they don't let you go in there with the

dog after you do the initial talk to the doctor thing. So yeah, it's like I said, you can play a cough, you can hit by yourself, but some of the co op is still really chaotic. I wouldn't play with the four people, and you could play online too if you don't have people at home to play with. But I'd still suggest maybe like keep it to two maybe three if it's like a mom and dad and their their kid. But the four is just too crazy for me. That's I did

that once online and I was like, Okay, never again. So and the online actually works me. Well, it's not as buggy as some of the other online games are. Yeah, the other game I was I've played about, like I want to say, the first four hours of the game. I played like an hour last night, and then I played like three or three and a half ish hours today. Alan Wake two and of course that came out today. If you are listening to this and didn't know that

for some reason, so you can go pick it up. I got it on Xbox just because when I think of Alan Wake, because the original was an Xbox only game, I kind of just wanted to have something to be playing on my Xbox for a while. There is some game Pass games I'm going to be probably be on there pretty soon, like Thirsty Shooters that comes out like next week. But I you know, it is just a thing.

I could have got it on PlayStation easily as well. But also my Xbox is a little bit easier to do with the remote play things, so because sometimes the dual sense doesn't always work with everything, you have to have a certain power of Android, whereas the Xbox doesn't require that necessarily. So for times where I do need to play it like remotely, like yesterday, I had to play the first hour on my laptop because my daughter wanted to go to sleep. So but yeah, I did get to play on the

TV today. It looks great. The atmosphere of it is absolutely just fantastic. You feel the eerie like you feel like the little It's not like let's say, like hell Blade where you hear voices or whatever, but it kind of feels like you're hearing voices, like, yeah, you're hearing things in the in the you know, most of it's in the woods, so you're

gonna get that sense of it too. Like you find this, I've just gotten to the where you fight the first there's a tutorial boss that you fight that kind of starts the story, and then there's a first boss that you fight that you've probably seen the trailer where the deer comes out. That first boss, yeah, uh that you fight there. He was particularly difficult,

but because you're in a store, you're kind of an enclosed area. The game does have a dodge button, so it's a little bit easy to kind of tell, Okay, he swings his axe, let you hit dodgs.

When he does that, it's I can get out of the way. And you do still have to do the same mechanic that you do in the original Allen Wake where you have to do the flashlight first and then do the where it actually shows like a weak spot for them, so you can either shoot him in the head or you're shoot in a little like bright Red, you know weak spot that shows up. And like I said, it's it's fun. It's the first one. There's probably gonna be ones that are more challenging

later on, but I've already enjoyed playing a saga. I think she adds a lot to the to the game because her gameplay component is different than Alan's. So hers is more like the murder mystery, the detective part of the game, like you're an FBI agent. Yeah, I've read that. Like she has a case like file, like a you know, big so she has like this mind palace that you go back to constantly, and she will make you go through case files and then you get to like put it on

the board like you're watching like True Detective or something like that. And I love that part. I love games like that. I love series like that, so that that part is interesting to me. Obviously, Yes, they're doing some of this stuff for you, so you're not really playing the detective and figuring out stuff. You're kind of just putting stuff on a board and then she tells you like, oh, this is the connection to this, and this is the connection to that, and then you kind of go and

play out the next part of it. So I'm sure that that will probably upset some people that want to actually be able to do the whole detective part. I trust me. There's enough ridiculous just in the four hours that I've played already, there's enough crazy ridiculous stuff that you're sitting there going, Okay, I'm ready for this. Like if you love the Twin Peaks odes and all that stuff about Alan Way, that's here for you. They definitely have

that already at the beginning. So definitely I would tell you go ahead. Well, I was gonna say, it's funny, you know, original Alan Wake was was to be like a big open world or you know for the city and stuff like that, but that fizzled out, you know, that reality kind of crunched that. Well, they did that more of this game,

because there's a lot more of the woods that you can explore. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say, is like, it's this is kind of the game they wanted to make back then, but they couldn't get end the money too. Oh yeah, definitely, I feel like they've accomplished that like you can move. There's obviously parts where it eventually will make you, uh turn around and she can't go any further. But you can explore pretty much a lot, and there's like hidden items that you find and little odes

to other things. And obviously Sam Lake is in the game. He's your partner. He plays the uh, the the actual like detective that Alan Wake is making a story of in the first game, and then he's also in both He's in Alan Wake's part, and then he's also in the Saga's part as well, but a different character in alan Wakes part, and they have those different gameplays. Alan is stuck in the mind and the Dark Place, so he's like trying to do more of like solving puzzles and trying to get

out of the dark place. There is still combat of both of them. Saga's doing more of the detective stuff. So yeah, I'm really enjoying it. I'm think I'm about to get to the part where you start playing as Allen. Yeah, man, this is this was well worth the wait. It's already getting a game in the year contender, Buzz add another one to the list. This is gonna be nuts. How to do this? We'll be able to place twenty five games, but figuring out where they should all

go. It's gonna be interesting because so many of these games could be Game of the Year. But I love that. I love that we have that choice. It's gonna be interesting for Jeff Keely when he does it Game Awards, which ones is he gonna select for that too? Yeah? But yeah,

I'm loving it. Like there's parts of manuscripts that you collect here and then you have Alan in the background like reading it as she's kind of reading through it as well, and like how they blend like the live action stuff with this as well as like so good, Like it's just they really could make a TV show out of this if they really wanted to, and it would work wonderfully. So yeah, just I'm loving it so far early on, so I probably I have a lot more thoughts next week, but yeah,

definitely. You know, everybody that's been waiting on this game, it's well worth it. Go spend the sixty bucks or if you want to get it out PC fifty bucks. And even though you know, the thing is that, remember that this is using high specs, you they really wanted it to make it feel like next ghin so probably most a lot of people's PCs are not going to run it, but that's why they have consoles, and it looks great on there too, And that's kind of the only two games

I've been playing. I play a little bit more ever Crisis, but that thing is kind of the same. So I think we can move on from the games we've been playing and talk about the news here. There's kind of been I guess let's start with Sony's part. David Jaffee kind of came on

earlier in the week hinted at this thing. Obviously you put it behind his paywall because you know, whatever do make money, and he he alluded to the fact that Sony wouldn't be the same And this is a big deal because this is one of the Sony the PlayStation people that have been around for a long time. And it turns out that Connie Booth, Sony's head of internal production, has been let go from the company. Sony has confirmed that now,

so it's that's that part is no longer rumors. That has been confirmed by Sony. But David Jeffey also kind of alludes that there's a lot of the studios that are uncomfortable with the whole games and service pivot that they did with jim Ryan, and that factions not working out or having to get delayed again or whatever's going to happen with that, and some of the other things that have been happening because of that. She's gotten blamed for it, and

so she's been let go due to that. Again, Sony is probably never going to confirm that, and we don't really know if that's what happened. It's what Jeffie says. According to sources that he still has within the company. Anti Smet's of Gorilla is going to be taking over. She'll be the head development strategy of Puationing Studios. I mean, she's great, so I'm sure they will be fine there. But there were other reports that came out kind of alluding to this as well, that there's a lot of kind of

inner discussion on went into the Wan direction. And now you know, jim Mine is the longer going to be the CEO. So it looks like they're trying to change. It feels like a lot of gamers can now say we told you so, right. I Mean, they haven't even put out like one of their own games as a service, you know, really I mean aside from like multiplayer crap and I'm Charted or Last Pus or something, but

it's not like a dedicated game. And after the failure of some Microsoft stuff like Halo, which you know, ten years ago was bulletproof and now is like a shambling corpse, you look at that and go like, why would we make games as a service like? It hits so infrequently? When it when it does hit, you know, yeah, no, you're right about

that. It does. They'll keep desking you two around, or they'll make it desking you through at some point probably, but that's that never quite I don't think that ever, like was like as big as they wanted it to be, obviously. I mean that's why Activating got rid of the studio.

Yeah, I mean never, our Activision just wanted to keep making new destinies every time after they got through a couple of expansions, and that kind of got tiresome because you're discharging people for stuff and they never truly got to actually take the time to fix what was wrong. That's the thing I think that's worrying them also is that like, Okay, we got this, uh they do Destiny Bungee should know they're the ones that are that have the successful games

with service. So if we get them, then they can turn all these studios into these games with service hubs or whatever. And I think, what, you know, Jim Yan didn't really think about it, is like, that's a lot of resources that you got to put towards all these games. Like you got to have all these employees that are now switching from one type of game that they know how to make really really well to this other game that they may have no experience with at all, and it's not the same

thing. And they're looking at it kind of from the respectful of like, well, what if half but these don't hit at all? Right? You know what if by the time you know who whatever the games are that that are like about to come out or soon to come out, By the time these games come out, what if we've hit another part of the games of service where it's gone even further down and there's not that many people playing.

And I think, because as Randy was talking about last year when we kind of talked about this a little bit, is there's some people that already have their game that they play like they're not gonna change from Apex or Fortnite or whatever. Right they're playing that game. I mean as smart as Sega ultimately

to cancel that Hyenas game. Yeah, but would have been smarter though for Sega five years ago or four years ago and Togo, let's not make it at all, like let's no make another Accusa or you know, a good Sonic game or then like not waste the money. No, I mean you

know a lot about that because they they wasted resources on that. But yeah, something thats it, Like you know, Apex kind of came out of nowhere and you know it's still doing well, but you know, for every Apex, there's s fifty million battle Borns out there, or you know, fifty other Marbles Avengers and stuff like that or Anthem, yeah, or the one that screenix is released last year that they then ended in the same year.

Like so yeah, that's the thing is like just because you're a big company with big resources doesn't mean that you are able to whether the store you might be were able to weather the storem better than some of these like indies that come out or like double A ones that come out that they're just hoping they catch slightning in a bottle, but still you're gonna run into the same

problem. You already have this issue with Destruction All Stars, you know, so like you have games there to show that this protectularly is just such a volatile part of the industry, Like you have, you're gonna get way more misses that hits. And I get it that you're trying to make twelve so that maybe you can get to one or two that hit, But like, what do you do in all those studios, man, like they could be making something else. Yeah, I's say two out of twelve. I mean,

it's what I want out of six odds. It's like, okay, but it's the one success gonna outweigh the five failures. No, like do the math, but no, So why don't you just make six more Ghosts of Tsushima or Intimacies or whatever that Sony wants that Sony you can sell well

and go from there. I mean, like, I'm all for expanding your portfolio, right, they definitely need to do that, Like you have way too many games that are very similar, But do that in other genres, not a genre that it'll be we don't know what it's going to be like in five years, and not like other genres where you can kind of like, let's say, okay, like roguelikes, right, those are kind of big in the indie space. A lot of games are going that route.

You could make other games off that genre, like games of service. Yes, you can make different kinds of games and service games, but they're all it's all the same inherent games as a service, so people don't play them. Doesn't matter how cool you make it. You're gonna get tired of that whole feeling like I gotta constantly play. I've got to constantly be doing something

in the game, and it gets tiring for people. You know, a lot of people prefer the I'm not saying that they don't like multiplayer games, but sports games and multipler games that I can turn off. I can play with my friends a couple of rounds or a couple of games, do a league or whatever, play like five games in a row, and then that's it. And then whenever I want to go back to it, it's there, like it's just it's too much of a too much problems to PlayStation.

But the thing is that now whoever this new CEO is going to be, got to deal with what's happening and what ends up occurring and how they're gonna pivot, because I mean, I don't know if they can cancel all these titles. That's why you always hear about some of them getting delayed and stuff, because they might be starting to realize it's not But I mean, if we're gonna talk about the person that left, right, Connie Bousch. She

was a huge part of PlayStation from the beginning. Almost She was involved in the production of over one hundred games, including the original Crash Bandicoot. She was a senior producer. She worked on in some form of production on Spirro, Watching Klank, So Calm, even Destreating GHEs to Tsushima. So, I mean, she's also part of the Academy of Interactive ARTSEN and Science Hall of Fame. I mean, that's that's a big person to lose there. I guess my point is, like, do you feel like it's a more

of a I know, she got technically, I guess let go. But do you feel like at that point maybe it's more of like a retirement and not a yeah, like you could see like the writing end of the wall, or like you know, if Jim's leaving now, it's kind of a good chance for me to go possibly, and you have to imagine she's probably

at least fifty, maybe sixty. And I don't know her age, but if she's been at the job thirty years, I mean, let's say above thirty one, so she might just want to kind of step back from it all. She is eighty two, yeah, that'd be a good reason to retire then, I mean, yeah, I know you're right about that beat about that she was actually married to John Cleats for a while. I think. So it's like, I think this is something that we don't need to make a little, you know, a whole big deal about it. I

think it is big for losing someone that's important. Yeah, but it's not like Miamoto leaving Nintendo or you know, yeah, it's not. At some point the old guard is going to go. Like at some point we may we may not hear about it, right, Like we may not hear about Miliamoto leaving Nintendo or whatever, but at some point that's gonna happen. And like, you know, I think people need to start because of the whole

console word nonsense. We've got to try to make this the thing about, oh my god, Xbox is promoting people and Sony's like letting people go and whatever, and it's like, yeah, go ahead. My question would be to them is how many of those original ass Xbox people are still at Microsoft? And then and so it would be approaching one maybe two, yeah, and then not to mention the amount of Microsoft people that have stepped down just

in general and Sony. I mean, you can make you could probably make the same case for Sony, but at least it got like Mark Serni is still around, but there's a few other people. I'm assuming that it's still there also. And then looking Nintendo, like me and Mino is never gonna leave. He's chained to the desk. He'll just die there someday those prop them up like right, but like Nintendo's obviously much more of a well Japanese company, but much more of like you know, you're here for life,

whether you want to be or not. Yeah, but not necessarily always that more of also the the fact that you know, you have people that have just wanted to stay there, right the way that the company is is made. But again the fact that she's been there for twenty five years, thirty years, that is a huge amount of time to be there. Same thing with Jim Ryan, Like maybe his is more about because he had to do transcontinental flights constantly or whatever and that was wearing on him and his family and

all that. But he'd also been there a long time, like you know, let him, let him do his thing. Sony will find people that they will pick the right people to replace her, and yeah, right, yeah, that would be interesting, Like right, like what if you did

join Sony, Well, how would Nintendo pill about that? Just yeah, you have uh, you've gone to the other side, Yeah, I mean the the other to me, the the interesting more interesting things is Sony having to suffer layoffs at some of their studios and a medium moleca got hit. Yeah, Media Molecule. That's not usually surprising, right uh. Any of the other big ones I think their visual Arts studio also that had been helping with various games lost some devs as well, included some senior level people.

The Minion molecule ones not necessarily surprising, like you said, because of the whole they banked their their whole thing on dreams and it did well. Yeah, it hit for like a small subgroup of people, and hey, it lasted longer than like Project Spark. Remember that Xbox thing. Yeah, but no one in the mainstream mainstream cares about it or has even heard of it. Oh yeah, but it's more of a dev thing, right, Like it's more people that want to create levels and make things, and not everybody

is that, right. Most gamers just want the game. They want it made for you, they want it made it well and that's it, you know, And it didn't. It also didn't decide like a little Big Planet, where a little Big Planet had this story mode that's also included in there along with that. This doesn't have that. So, I mean, it has a story mode, but it's like two hours and it's really a tutorial on that kind of shows you some of the things you can do with dreams.

Yep, and dreams. Cool concept thing, but it's not something that was going to sell a bunch for them, right, Hopefully it was only twenty of one hundred and something employees. But that's another good example of why did you okay this or you know, did you expect to do well or not? You know? Well, remember that game had been involvement for like a while a long time. Didn't they show off the PS four with that

game? Or was it the PS three yes, Yeah, and then it took a long time for that game to come out, and I think they got to the point where they found were like, think, we just need to release this thing, right, And yeah, kudos to Sonny for letting them make something they wanted to make. But again, like that was one of those things where you have to kind of make the decision of money over art or art over money, and I guess that's what they did there for

quite a while. So yeah, that's true. And it's again it's not like the whole studio. It's twenty people out of one hundred and ten. Look, one loss is one loss. One person losing their job. That's not good. Hopefully that you get to go on and make their next project and it does become a I sell there for them and Medium Molecule can keep on doing their thing. There's been Look, this is a non controversy. Also, I just want to bring it up because it is news. But

did you have any thoughts on the whole the detachable disk drive. If you buy a PS five Slim Digital that you have to pair it with the console the first time you use it, it's not a big deal, right, Like it's a big it's a big deal fifteen years down the road. But you know who cares, Like, I assume the full thing. If you buy the disc version, it'll be already like prepaired. Oh yeah, that's so many people. Yeah, and by the time like that archivists will care

about this nonsense. There'll be plenty of PS five's clogging up good wills and game shops just all around for forty bucks that you can get the disc for. Like the old disc version problem, I view it as more as of a DRM issue of anything, like oh yeah, you know, Xbox had to do that with the original DVD player software. I think the PS three did it also, like go online for the Blu ray Drive to like play movies. So kind of a weird, but you know, it's one time,

it's not all the time or anything. And I'm sure they're doing this to like prevent piracy or prevent you know, some scandaloushit from going on to Oh that's definitely what it's for. I mean, yeah, they don't want people picking up a used optical, you know, a used drive, or third parties will eventually start making these and I out that actually, well, but like okay, let's say somebody else makes some kind of illegal third party.

Yeah. Right, it's like, uh, it's not actually a discrive, it's just a terribyte hard fu terabyte hard drive and it's five in thinking you have, you know, a destrive. Yeah, exactly, So that's that's what they're trying to avoid. They don't want people pirating and using that to be able to let's say, I don't know, bring in older games or whatever their reasoning is for doing that. And I'm sure that at some point whenever the digital whenever we get to the point where PS five stuff is

starting to go down, I'm sure they will probably remove this. Yeah, some like last update, it's like okay, if you're a discrive plug Dan, we know, we don't care. That's like yeah or something like that. Yeah, when they're no longer making any money out the PSI, they're

not going to care at that point. Like I think people need to just kind of when the ps TEX announced and yeah, it's just sometimes we make too much of a big deal about Look, I get it that we have digital stores going down and things of this nature, and so it makes you weary, right of oh man, more trying to take out the physical games. Look, I don't Wake isn't even available physically at all. Yeah, I don't like to you. I'm sorry you have to go and buy digitally.

So do you think it will be released physically at some point? Yeah? Maybe once they they are doing a lot of dlc are they doing two DLD packs and they DU's a gonna be a new game plus mode as well for the games, so maybe release everything. They'll do a disc version. Yeah, it would be like the complete complete edition, or maybe you're in

like a limited limited run lest put something out there. You go right and there putting out physical copies of Persona three and Portable and four of Golden Yeah. Yeah, So I don't see when there will be plenty of people that are gonna want to buy that, that really care about having the physical stuff.

Just you know. Uh, this is one of those times where like, I think we need to let it be around for a bit before we start freaking out about the detestable dis drive or whether it's gonna work ten years in the future or not, or hey, if you actually are concerned by the disc one, they're like here you go, yeah that too, because

you're having to pay more to get the one with the disk drive. Well, I mean, yeah, take at the count or you know, the disc on, let's one, it's four point fifty, but like the disk drive is like eighty bucks. So it's like, why did you spend the extra thirty buying to drive separately when you just buy the disc one for five hundred? Yeah, exactly. It kind of makes less sense at that point, But it's there people that aren't planning on getting any disks and they're just

wanting to do that. I guess it's good to have a choice. Yeah, but those people don't care about preservation either, so yeah, that too. So on the other side of things, Xbox had their first Partner preview, like the first time where they show like non indie I guess, like non super indie third party stuff. Right. They did show Alan Wake two there because it came out, you know it it aired two days before this

game came out. So they showed off some other games, probably the two biggest ones I guess we're talking about, like sort of Triple A Ish, Mittiger Sawa three Delta got some gameplay. They kind of showed you how it's gonna look, not necessarily so much the gameplay or the story stuff, and then I like a Dragon Infinite Wealth is going to have an animal crossing type mode where you can just have a whole island to yourself and and build things.

Yeah, franchise, Right, what do you think about that? Does that, you know, make you want to play the game war at all or no? But I'm sure there'll be some dumb way to earn money, so yes, that'll be fine. This replaces that business game or whatever from

lack of Dragon Yeah. They always have like a mini games that do that, like you, Cusation had like a farming mini game that was really bad, but it's like it's pointless and it's automatic enough, kind of like do it for five minutes and earn a bunch of cash and then move on. Yeah, that's what I would imagine. It's there for you to earn extra money if you want. It's also a good distraction from the original store from the main story as well. It's not required, so right, that is

something to take in. And there will be a demo of the game included with lack of Dragon guide In. I'm not sure if they're going to make that digital because lack of Dragon guide In is going to be on game Pass, so I wonder if they're going to put that digitally at some point as well. Dungeon of Hinterberg, which is one of the games that I've been excited about is it showed it off at the Summer showcase, got a new

trailer. We kind of get to see that they have like social aspects and things that help you gain abilities, which at school you gain things from talking to people, different gameplay elements as well in there. There is some combat also, so I'm madium more excited for the game. Was there anything in here? I don't know if you watched it, but I watched a little that city building game that kind of interesting, like that old timey one ah oh the manor Lords. Yeah, and they showed more ARC two so yeah,

there's that. Oh. Also that Ikaru Will Not Die looked awesome as well. The Yeah action game. I've heard that like that R two thing or or Survival or whatever the fuck is called is like a massive clusterfuck right now, right, yeah, because it's going to completely replace the original all yeah, Like yeah, it's just like a huge weird mess. It's like a lot of games like that type of typically are. Yeah, It's it's

funny to me that you know. That's uh, that's what they decided to do instead of just allowing people to have the original as well, Like you think that that was just gonna be easy to do replace all that. What are you gonna do? You're gonna give everybody a free copy? Well, I mean, I guess what they said. They made it free, but it's a savement a word, right, Yeah, that's that's a lot to

uh to deal with. I think they do it honestly because I think they teach secretly know that, Like if they put out Contract two but people don't like it, they'd so rather play just play Contract go and or the best examples Overwatch. You know, I would much rather play Overwatch one than Overwatch two. Yeah, that's why I think a lot of people would have that same settiment with either. So they're like, oh, well, this is the only way you can right now, go fuck yourself, all right,

I could just not play the name at all. That can be into this relationship not so much. And they kind of said that it wouldn't do that, and then it kind of did. Yeah, that's not not great either, said a lot of an Overwatch too that didn't actually happen. So but I mean, that was a good partner preview. I feel like for being

a first one, it had some interesting stuff in there. You had, you know, the two big games that kind of bookended it, and then you had some some of the smaller stuff that they've already announced giving you updates. If they do these kind of like a state of play, you know, three four times a year, that wouldn't be bad. Yeah, you know, so I think maybe you do kind of need a voice at some point, like some kind of narration or Yeah. I always think about like

they need they always need hosts. Yeah, right, they need good hosts. That's the thing. M hm. A good host does matter unless you're a Nintendo and maybe it doesn't, but the good host is snapping fingers on effect. Yeah. Well I have to see if they keep that going with whatever, if it's going to be called the switch to or not it become like a hand clap. Well. There was more good news for Xbox.

Starfield brought in the most one day game Pass subs in Xbox Game Pass history that you know, hey, this is what your your first party games are supposed to do. This is finally proves not only that but also the fact that they were the most the best selling game of last month in the US, even though they were on game Pass. Two things that proved that if you make a landmark, big time first party game helps that they were from a known studio, right, Like, but that's in Todd Howard's team.

But people will go and buy your game and play it and get game Pass as a result. Hey man, it's number one now, but you know, you know what it displays is red Fall. That's well, it's not the number one game, but yes, it does give them some good news after Red Fall. But I mean again, this is the stuff that you need to hear. If your Microsoft, that's good that you you got what you wanted from Starfield, you got the notoriety, you got it feel.

You know. There's there's kind of varying opinions on the game, but it's mostly positive and that's what you need. You need more things like that. I think you're not getting a lot of people talking about Fords though, because that version, of course is just very niche like that is a very particular crowd technical. Yeah, it's not like the biggest horizon. It's like, now you're gonna run their nerve burggering twenty times and like a goddammit. All

right, So they've also had promotions. Sarah Bond got promoted and we had Matt Booty also get promoted. So Sarah Bond is now the president of Xbox. She's going to be basically bringing everything together, the devices, player and creative experiences, platform engineering, strategy, business and all that stuff. Matt Booty is now the head of Xbox Game Studios and also will oversee Zenmax of Bethesda because of Pete Heines leaving. This is why they did that move.

Bethesda and Xbox are still going to be separate companies for the most part within Microsoft, but they are going to have an Xbox person overseeing them now because of behinds leaving. So it'll be kind of like what's going to happen when Bobby Kotik leads for Activism Wizards. Phil Spencer will be overseeing what happens there, which he did go with Sarabon and visit the Blizzard campus and that.

You know, they pretty much call them the Pixar of gaming, although that term probably isn't as endearing as perhaps it used to be considering all the Pixars. You know, that's so great. The thing about Pixar is they were all they were actually also creative, like in Mister Lyon three Franchises Forever. Yeah, it sucks for them because those movies actually are good. It's just they don't like I watch Elemental with my daughter. I liked it. I

enjoyed it. It just for the movie crowd. It's apparently going to the theater. It's not doing Elemental. He had a lot of strong feelings on it. Uh, but yeah, he he wants Blizzard to be able to accomplish their dreams as a publisher, uh, and do whatever you know they they they want to do basically. I guess Activision at certain you know, and that last kind of year or two they were kind of telling them what

to do more so than they were at the beginning. And I guess Xbox is kind of letting them know, we're gonna go back to the hole, letting you guys kind of dictate more of what you want to do. Think we'll see how long that lasts. I think as long as they produce hits and things like that, it will all go well. They start running into

trouble, then you know, we'll see how that goes. I mean, do you feel like as somebody that lacks a lot of Blizzard stuff, do you are you excited to see that perhaps maybe they're going to do different things now or it'd be nice, But I don't have a lot of faith in them anymore, you know, Like I would say the real kind of ends for me is like when they put out StarCraft two, it's like two separate

games. It's like, what kind of nonsense is this? Like StarCraft one had all three races or you know, was a complete game, and I was playing some of the three games like three like parts of one game, like what? And then their remakes were terrible, like StarCraft Remaster was okay, but like that Worker was terrible, and their expansions don't hit well anymore. Over Watch two is a mess. Don't care. I mean, I think like Hurston is bottoming out, So it's like, what what do they

want to do? You know, if it's like making new rock and roll racing, sure, or go for it. But this is there's another lot expansion. This is really good. It's gonna save the game, It's I doubt it. Yeah, I wonder if maybe somebody I heard some some podcasts talking about like what if they dis reboot well, like what if we just start with something totally different and reboot the story? And yeah, like because I mean it's starting to run to the point where, you know, how

many more stories can you tell? With the way all this lore is set up? Can you even comprehend the lore anymore? Like you know? No, I'm mean especially this last expansion was okay, but the one before that was like you were literally going to the afterlife and like facing death or you know, facing the jailer, who's like where do you go from here? But it's the same problem with like dragon Ball, like z It's like, yeah, the power creep is so slow of a gradual that's like yeah,

at some point in that series you're like literally facing down gods. And also, hey, Goku's a god as well. And that's why that Diima thing looks kind of halfway interesting because like that's basically I was about to ask you that, Yeah you think about that. I mean it looks goofy and it looks like the Muppet babies and dragon Ball, but it's kind of needed because it's like, yeah, like what what obstacles are there for Goku with this? Yeah, I mean it's also a nice like throw back to the original

dragon Ball. Yeah right, my friend. My friend actually doesn't like she likes dragon Ball Z. Okay, she didn't really like Super that much, but she loved dragon Ball the original show. Uh, so's okay, here's a show that looks just like that kind of but everyone's not a kid. Yeah. I actually I love Dragon Ball as well, the show more so than Z. I like Super a lot, but just so I it drew me in and I like Dragon Ball GT as well. So like having those

and then you know you're announced that you're gonna have Dima. That's that's pretty cool when they look like that. So I'm totally down for whenever this finally comes out. But yes, Blizzard does kind of need to go back to the drawing board a bit and see what they look at any of their franchises. Does somebody feel like they could do something? Hey, you know what, maybe Toys Sir Bob could work on a Lost Vikings sequel or something.

You know, maybe somebody, maybe the Playground team could go and take rock and roll racing and do something with that and then let Blizzard kind of do something totally new. And I'm very interested to see what happens with that game that they have in development, right, yeah, and what they're going to do with that, and how does that get changed at all by the fact

that now Microsoft you know owns them or anything. So yeah, Blizzard as a company, they're very slow to make makeing new ideas, right, Like the last one is Overwatch and that was twenty sixteen, and that was nine years ago. Like, yeah, sorry, if you're hearing people in the background, they have a house full of folks and they all have to get

loud every now and then. Yeah, it's gonna be Yeah. I just want to see what Blizzard does if they make anything new, or if they're just going to keep good, you know, doing what they do and and that's kind of it or whatever. But either way, better for their work structure and employees that they're h and it have different overlords. I guess now that this is officially working together. Solid Collection is also a game that came out, the volume one that came out this week. Any interest in that

at all for you? I would play it if I had it, But it has pretty mixed opinions by like just some uber nerds about like, oh, it's not sixty fraint per a second, it's like who cares? You know, Yeah, this is so tiring, or like if that's the only criteria basic game on, like go play crime Killer for the PS one and leave me that all alone, right, you know it seems fine? Or I play it. I really like NA one and two. I less like three, but maybe that new one will be good. Well, how do

you feel about four or five and peace Walk? Because there's allusions to that in volume one, which I'd imagine if you're making calling something volume one, that means you have a volume two. Right, the big one is Muderga Salt four. I really want that, right, Five already got, so I don't care. Peacewalk would be cool, but like why not? Do

also like portable ops and met your Acid? Yeah? I feel like you got to add those in them, right if you're going to make this the whole collection, you know, And also like those games aren't there's already like a decent Vita or psp EM Leader out there, so it's saying, okay, touch you to graphics a little, but they aren't like the full But I think that Medica Solid four is obviously the one that will need the most work, right, So it's okay, get that running first, and if

you've got time, you can do Acid too, I guess too. Yeah, I do hope we see those for sure, especially Minigar Solid four from a preservation perspective, because it's stuck on the PS three, right, So it would be good for that game to be more available for people. You know, I don't know. I was guessing that would be a switch to thing. I don't know that it would work how well it would four and five would work on switch But will be the Scream versions, the cloud versions?

Yeah? Those, thanks on that. But hey, hopefully this happens at some point, I imagine. So again, you're not going to start with volume one and then not have a volume two. Right. That's good that that has happened before, so it wouldn't surprise me either way. Yes, Well, something that's also not surprising Ubisoft has most likely delayed Star Wars Outlaws. This wouldn't be like the first of many games that you be sawt has delayed. They delayed Xified, they delayed Skull and Bones for the million

times. But this was actually kind of for a good reason. They're saying that they made enough income from their quarterly reports here that they feel that they are good with what they have coming out, I guess, including Mirage that just came out and Cream Motorfest or whatever. Also, they just came out that they can delay this game. They don't have to rush it out. I guess always better that they don't do that, because this is a Star

Wars game. You really don't want to screw that up. So now instead of coming in fiscal March Study first twenty twenty four, it may come fiscal twenty twenty five, instead giving it another actually year development and all that. Is this mostly good? Or are you worried about it that they deleted already? It's probably fine, but they have a we saw that in particular, has a nasty habit of announcing shit and then it being years before it comes

out. You know, yeah, for sure, hopefully that's not the case for this because this is a game that I really want to play. I know a lot of people really want to play this game, so Holly, we see it at some point, But I also don't want them to rush it out, and you know, it's not as good as it could be. Yeah, because of that, So don't worry when all the millions they make from the Avatar game come rolling and they'll all it'll be said for life.

Yeah, exactly, that's what will be the uh the trigger there. I think that's it for all of our news items. There are I mean I just mentioned one, but there are several games uh coming out today or this week. Of course, I don't Wake two again. If you uh don't know or have been waiting for this game, I like Too is out right now, you can go get it. Do you have c e A sports you f C five is out today as well on Xbox series of PS five. I know some people that have been wanting to play this game.

I don't know that. It's like I feel like every since you know, EA got the license or whatever, it's kind of becoming like every other EA game where there's less and less ant for this because it's just to feel the same. Yep. So there's that. Uh, there's the Terminator game. Terminator Resistance is coming today as well. Residuable Village is coming to iPhone Pro or whatnot. So if you haven't played that yet for some reason you want to play on your phone, go ahead. Two games coming to game Pass.

The head Banger's Rhythm Royale is also coming. Everything else it's basically a rhythm game that is a battle royale with pigeons. So that looks It's looked fun ever since I've seen it, so I decited to try it out. And that Juice Saw game is the one where he's like mountain climbing and has this really cool like art style whatever. That's coming to PlayStation five and PC as well. And then Ascension is also coming out on Halloween. So are

you excited for that? Never cared about No, friend, I don't know about you, but I've cared about it. So I moved. That first movie was fine? That was it? Yeah, I agree with you on the first Nivvy that was actually better than expected there. But yeah, uh, not something that I'm totally looking forward to. But uh. The Dead Island two DLC is coming the House on Thursday, and Song of New New

and other League of Lessonds game is also coming. This one kind of like a buddy story between a looks like a mountain ice troll or something and one of the characters. And then a game I've been waiting on for a while, Thirsty Shooters is also coming, and that's coming to Game Pass and Star Ocean. The second story are also coming the same day and the Rogo cop Rogue City game also coming that same day too. I wanted to play that demo, but it's only on PC, so I forget it. Well you're

are you're kind of interested in it or no? Oh yeah, I'm really interested in Never Lookout game. I actually have the reviews for the I'm over really positive, like surprisingly, so yeah, and you know what about Tallas Principal too, that's coming to I don't like that. I didn't play. I played the first one. I didn't beat it. I mean I just got too hard. I played I headed on console because then it gives had the PC up running YouTube this is we got to do to beat this puzzle

videos. Oh, and that first w r C game from EA Sports, that's going well. I excited for having another review of Don't Get Anymore. So yeah, oh adam, I still get a code though, be like, hey, I want to review this. Here you go. So yeah. But that being said, that's it for this week. Hopefully enjoy a

lot of games to go play right now. So hopefully you have one that you're you're playing and getting through and I as we get towards the end of the year, because it feels like everything released in like October and now November is kind of I think after you get past Call of Duty, November has my possible game of the year. What is that Mario RPG. Oh, that's right, Marvig. It's after Mario RPG that things start to slow down.

But yes, I'm I'm hoping I can get through some of this stuff where we get to Mario RPG and I we'll both be playing that and talking about it. But well, until next time, everybody, subscribe, follow on the YouTube channel on twitch less than what you think about some of the things we talked about in the comments, Go listen on podcasts and give us a review there, or just subscribe through there and we'll see you next week. Everyone Later, later,

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