Latest / Respec: Video Game Ramblings / Wolverine is just OK, Love and Deepspace community IRL, and Diablo 4 hits Switch 2 | Respec Ramblings

Transcript

Wolverine is just OK, Love and Deepspace community IRL, and Diablo 4 hits Switch 2 | Respec Ramblings · Respec: Video Game Ramblings

0:04
Hey everyone, it's time for this week's Respec
0:07
Ramblings podcast. Alex is once again missing.
0:11
He's in Japan for the Togo game show, so it's
0:13
me again, I'm afraid. Good news for my one fan.
0:16
Hello. Not so good for the rest of you. I'm joined
0:20
this week once again by Rebecca and Mikhail.
0:23
How are you doing? You have two fans now. I should
0:27
tell you, my mum started reading your blog. She
0:29
really likes it. Good. Is she a paying member?
0:32
I don't think so. Shall I go and tell her off?
0:35
Put some pressure on. Just a little bit. Yeah.
0:39
All right. How you doing, Mikhail? I'm doing
0:42
good. Just a very busy week. Looking forward
0:45
to the weekend. Yeah. I did watch another movie,
0:48
though. So that kept me sane this month. This
0:51
week, I should say. We'll talk about that in
0:53
the extra patron podcast, The Lock -In, which
0:58
you can get if you become a patron member. But
1:01
anyway. Busy day, as Mikhail's mentioned, so
1:04
we're going to jump right in. Big game this week,
1:07
biggest game, I think probably is Marvel's Wolverine,
1:10
which released on PS5 yesterday, day before.
1:17
And I reviewed that, actually, so I've played
1:20
the whole game, written the review. And, yeah,
1:24
it's one of those games that you're like, this
1:30
isn't a bad game. But I really am struggling
1:33
to be too excited about it. Like, it's from Insomniac,
1:39
who I'm a big fan of. Like, they made Ratchet
1:42
and Clank, which I love. I really like. I think
1:44
Rift Apart's probably my favorite PS5 game, I
1:48
think, overall. And they made the Spider -Man
1:52
games, which people love. I like them enough,
1:56
but I don't love them. And Wolverine is definitely
2:00
Sony's big, game for this year like i think they've
2:03
got a lot riding on this this game i assume it's
2:06
got a lot of marketing um but it's surprisingly
2:10
simple as a game like for if you're expecting
2:14
like sony first party single player focused action
2:19
game it definitely feels a few steps below what
2:24
you might be thinking it's going to be like it's
2:27
it's very linear like um you get thrown into
2:30
these worlds that are environments that look
2:32
open um and there's a few that are based around
2:35
towns and cities but you're kind of funneled
2:38
around and there's not much point going off anywhere
2:40
apart from where you're going unless you want
2:42
to pick up some collectibles that are just like
2:44
if you go right that's the normal path go left
2:47
there's a collectible there kind of thing um
2:49
the action is fine the combat is fine if a bit
2:53
basic There's a lot of parrying. The one thing
2:57
the game, I think, does quite well is it makes
3:01
it feel like the enemies are aggressive, like
3:04
they really go for you. But the result of that
3:07
is that you can spend quite a while literally
3:09
just parrying constantly because you're just
3:11
spotting the next attack coming in from someone
3:15
with a glowing blue sword or whatever, and you
3:19
just have to parry it. And if it's red, you dodge
3:21
it. And if it's yellow, you... do another parry
3:24
and do a special attack and stuff um it just
3:28
became a little bit tiring by the end like it's
3:30
a surprisingly long game for something that's
3:32
quite simple it's at least 15 hours or so which
3:36
i know some people might think isn't long but
3:38
i think for a game like this it felt too much
3:41
um super violent i don't know if anyone cares
3:45
about that anymore but it is a very violent game
3:47
which uh i turned some of it off because i was
3:51
playing a lot of it when my kids kids were in
3:53
the room so i was like let's not have all the
3:55
uh wolverine's innards showing or whatever when
3:59
as he gets hacked to pieces um and you can just
4:03
disable all that stuff which is quite good like
4:05
in the settings turn it all off and it blur certain
4:08
bits that are in cut scenes i guess they couldn't
4:10
do anything about like if it's a moment that
4:13
isn't just an effect or whatever um yeah i like
4:17
it enough like it's not it's not a grand enough
4:22
game i don't think for what people i expected
4:25
anyway i guess maybe that's my problem but this
4:27
is a game that they showed off like five years
4:30
ago and said here's it it's coming and it's coming
4:33
off the back of these big sprawling spider -man
4:36
games where you kind of like this felt like it
4:39
was going to be like another big deal and you
4:42
can see where some of the money's gone but it
4:44
doesn't feel as exciting as some of the other
4:47
first party stuff is either of you two interested
4:50
in this at all i am i i'm i'm still marvel pilled
4:54
enough that i will probably get around to it
4:56
um it's kind of been on my radar as like maybe
4:58
a good christmas game for this year so it's been
5:01
kind of interesting to see it be the discourse
5:04
this week uh before it even came out it was kind
5:07
of the the thing that everyone on social media
5:09
was talking about yeah um it's Kind of surprising,
5:13
honestly. I mean, I got the sense throughout
5:14
the marketing that it was a little bit scaled
5:17
down from the Spider -Man games, but I don't
5:20
know if you're going to be able to answer this,
5:21
but did you get a sense of it maybe being something
5:24
that was scaled down budget -wise while it was
5:27
in production, or do you just feel like it was
5:28
always meant to be smaller and we just don't
5:30
have a space for that kind of smaller AAA game
5:34
at the moment? I don't know. Some of the environments
5:38
are quite large. But you don't really do anything
5:42
in them apart from go through a set path to the
5:45
next bit you're meant to get to. And like I said,
5:48
like you might wander off and around a corner,
5:50
there's this whole bit, like a room that only
5:53
exists to have a box or crate in it that you
5:55
open and stuff. So I don't know. Like the problem,
6:01
the issue is that this is still a, if you buy
6:04
it on PSN or whatever, 70 quid, right? Yeah.
6:07
And it doesn't. because my expectations have
6:10
been raised by like god of war and like the the
6:13
ghost of games and stuff that they feel even
6:17
though they're not perfect they feel bigger they
6:21
feel like bigger things somehow and this is like
6:24
it's a it's a it does feel a bit like a throwback
6:26
but at the same time those kind of more simplistic
6:30
sort of i mean ps2 era it's kind of a lazy thing
6:34
to say with that kind of game you could used
6:36
to be able to pick those up for like in shops
6:39
for like two for 30 quid or whatever right there's
6:41
a different time um and i don't know if this
6:44
it doesn't it just i think expectations are a
6:48
big issue with this in terms of what people are
6:50
getting but then classically like i've been reading
6:53
what people are saying about it uh the actual
6:56
gamers um and they're like this is brilliant
6:59
journalists stupid etc um but i think that was
7:03
inevitable because it's a big deal it's a big
7:05
exclusive on a platform you're going to get that
7:08
kind of pushback and people convincing themselves
7:10
it's good and it's not a bad game like certainly
7:13
like i enjoyed it for the most part i could have
7:15
done with ending like maybe three hours earlier
7:17
than it did because it just got a bit too much
7:20
um but yeah it's it's a fine game that i think
7:27
struggles to find its place within like where
7:29
does it fit as this big AAA PlayStation exclusive
7:33
whereas if it had been like to be frank Wolverine
7:36
from THQ or whatever probably would have been
7:40
a kind of expectations wouldn't have been as
7:43
high and it probably would have been received
7:45
maybe not differently in terms of scores but
7:47
people might have been overall sounding more
7:48
positive about it but yeah i think i uh my friend
7:55
got me the game because like he just texted me
7:57
and said do you want to play wolverine and i
7:59
was like sure when i have time but i haven't
8:01
had time to play it because of like all the embargoes
8:04
this week but what i wanted to ask you about
8:06
is so when i played spider -man 2 uh i thought
8:10
that game was too long as well i feel like maybe
8:12
uh like the original 2018 game i thought was
8:16
fine except for the dog shit stealth 4 stuff
8:19
which was there Then in Miles Morales, I thought
8:22
was even like, I liked it even more because you
8:24
just like, you know, it felt tighter. And I think,
8:27
and I played that on PS4 as well because I didn't
8:29
have a PS5 at that time, even though it was like
8:31
this showcase game. But when I played Spider
8:33
-Man 2, I just thought that, you know, it felt
8:36
like they had so many expectations on them that
8:38
this has to be this big PS5 tentpole thing that
8:41
they, and because it was 70 quid, right? So it
8:44
had to be like extended or whatever. So that
8:46
felt too long as well. Like there were three
8:48
boss fights. Or like 2, not 3. Which I just felt
8:51
like they were just padding completely. And in
8:54
fact, one of them bugged out for me pre -release
8:55
as well in Spider -Man 2. So I already had this
8:58
kind of feeling that it might not be so polished
9:02
at launch. But I don't know. I feel like every...
9:05
You know, when Returnal came out, I thought Sony
9:08
might have learned the lesson that you can't
9:10
just price everything 70 quid. Like you need
9:12
to... like grow an audience for specific kinds
9:15
of games like nintendo learned this the hard
9:17
way with tennis right that game came out earlier
9:19
this year no one gives a shit about it right
9:21
now and after that they just like drop prices
9:23
on everything like you can get splatoon for like
9:25
45 or whatever i think if tennis did well everything
9:29
would have just been that price and and just
9:31
going back to your point about it doesn't feel
9:33
like it's worth that like i i don't like doing
9:35
this thing about you know is a game worth whatever
9:38
but i kind of agree with you because in this
9:41
week if someone has like you know multiple platforms
9:43
and they have like a limited budget on games
9:45
i don't know if i'd recommend wolverine over
9:48
fire emblem and they cost the same in most places
9:51
so like it's funny it's funny because i'm yeah
9:54
i'm saying it's not worth the money but also
9:56
it's too long it's kind of a it's a weird like
9:59
i know that is a kind of clash but it's more
10:02
about like i don't mind spending money on things
10:05
that are high quality right but i think this
10:07
could have been a much tighter more exciting
10:10
game if they trim some stuff like there's a lot
10:13
of this i don't one thing like all this stuff
10:17
kind of pre -release about how it hand holds
10:19
and all there's all these markers and blue lines
10:23
and stuff that guide you everywhere that was
10:24
blown way out of proportion i think like most
10:27
of it is it's a linear game it doesn't matter
10:30
that there's a guy telling you anything because
10:32
you're only going mostly through to the same
10:34
places anyway and the blue the blue lines are
10:37
all about his He picks up the scent of stuff,
10:39
right? It's a gameplay mechanic because that's
10:40
something he could do as a character. And it's
10:43
more for finding little things that are like
10:45
part of A, the story or B, pickups and things
10:49
that you collect. But then there's these whole
10:51
sections where you're just wandering around slowly
10:55
looking at stuff. And it really, those bits kill
10:59
the kind of sense of like excitement and the
11:03
momentum of the game because you're like, you've
11:06
just been in this like. fairly intense battle
11:08
and there's all this stuff happening and then
11:10
oh you're in a room clicking on a laptop or listening
11:12
to a dictaphone recording and looking at some
11:15
documents on a wall and it's like this does anyone
11:18
want this from a wolverine game that they could
11:20
have trimmed it a lot i think and made it a much
11:23
more exciting eight hour game probably um and
11:28
it would just i think it would have you'd come
11:30
off it feeling better about it even though you
11:33
had less time in the game And it has some like
11:36
New Game Plus stuff as well. And I might have
11:39
been more into having another go through it had
11:41
I not felt that the end portion was a big slog
11:44
to get through. But yeah, it's an odd game and
11:50
it's more odd by the fact that it is this big
11:54
AAA mega release, which you kind of, you do judge
11:59
them slightly differently because you're just
12:01
expecting things to be. bigger and this doesn't
12:06
feel like it is yeah it occupies an odd space
12:10
that kind of doesn't exist at the moment between
12:12
tiny tiny indie game and massive AAA blowout
12:17
is kind of my understanding and when I see something
12:19
like this as well I can't help but think that
12:21
like was it just cut our losses get it out before
12:25
GTA 6 and move on kind of I don't know I mean
12:30
they may well be like in like a few months down
12:32
the line this big expose about what the game
12:35
was and what it could have been and what was
12:37
cut whatever it's hard to know because i don't
12:39
we haven't heard anything about that i don't
12:40
get the sense that this was ever meant to be
12:43
more than what it is um but yeah maybe i mean
12:48
that thing that what your point about that there's
12:50
like maybe no space for this interestingly the
12:53
the team behind is it van on mortis um it's again
12:58
coming out in a couple of weeks and they come
13:00
out and said we're pricing this at like 40 quid
13:03
Even though we believe it's like as good as a
13:05
AAA game, it's 40 quid because we want it to
13:09
sit in this position of like... Well, indeed.
13:12
Maybe I misspoke. What I meant was there's no
13:13
space for this in Sony, for sure. Like Sony are
13:17
never going to say, actually, this is kind of
13:19
a AA, like... interim game you're like you make
13:22
a good point it's one of their linchpins for
13:24
the year they're not gonna say oh actually it's
13:26
probably only worth 40 50 so we're gonna drop
13:28
the price they're not gonna do that like yeah
13:30
absolutely not i think that that that's another
13:32
issue right like if if they were like nintendo
13:36
and they had like something coming out every
13:37
month doing this as like a smaller scale project
13:41
no one would complain about it like you know
13:43
pikmin 4 has this whatever they're doing that
13:45
patch or upgrade next month or whenever If that
13:49
was like one of their five releases this year,
13:51
I would have been super pissed off and said like,
13:52
what are you doing? But then that's one of like
13:54
12 things they're releasing this year. So it's
13:57
not something you, it doesn't matter in that
13:59
sense to them. But with Sony, like I said, right,
14:03
they need to realize and do this dynamic thing.
14:05
Like the expectation is set when you're charging
14:08
70 for a game with that much marketing and stuff
14:11
like. But then I don't know, like maybe they
14:14
had to do this because they like. like remember
14:18
that Insomniac leak or whatever I don't remember
14:20
the exact details but there was like supposed
14:22
to be some multiplayer Spider -Man thing I was
14:24
reading about I don't know if that's true or
14:26
not but maybe all that just got canned or whatever
14:29
and they just had to get this out but then it
14:31
feels like I don't know like I'm not opposed
14:37
to short games or anything in fact if you would
14:39
have told me this is 10 hours long and that's
14:41
what everyone's complaining about it wouldn't
14:42
have bothered me at all I would have just played
14:44
it this weekend but i don't know like it's i've
14:48
i've seen a lot of like bugs which i ran into
14:50
in spider -man 2 pre -release so maybe i should
14:52
just wait for like the you know what they're
14:54
gonna do right we've heard your feedback here's
14:56
a big patch maybe i should just wait for one
14:58
of those before playing it yeah i doubt they're
15:01
gonna i doubt they're gonna completely change
15:02
the core game like like if you've got issues
15:07
with say the combat being quite grounded like
15:10
it's not a if you compare this to something like
15:12
ninja guide before for example It's so under
15:17
that in terms of like what you're able to do
15:20
during combat and stuff and the feel of the combat.
15:22
Like it's definitely a level below that. But
15:26
then for the audience, a Marvel game is going
15:29
for, maybe it's fine. Like it is a very accessible
15:32
game in terms of like getting into it and feeling
15:35
like you're doing some cool stuff. Like I'm not
15:37
down on the game as like being terrible. It's
15:39
a fun game. It's just my... I guess I wanted
15:46
it to be more than what it is. And that's maybe
15:47
as much of me issue as it is the game's issue.
15:50
But that's a tricky thing for, I think, to get
15:53
over because we've been conditioned to see these
15:56
Sony releases as these big game of the year type
15:59
experiences. And this just doesn't feel like
16:01
that. But yeah. Right. Next thing, Tokyo Game
16:07
Show is this week. Alex is there now. Tokyo Game
16:11
Show. in the past has been a very big deal like
16:15
i remember staying up or just getting info on
16:21
the on the early internet uh of things coming
16:25
out of the tokyo game show like early sort of
16:27
dreamcast games and stuff being super excited
16:30
seeing like images load slowly as the super slow
16:34
dial -up internet brought them onto my screen
16:36
and my friend's dad's laptop um but these days
16:40
it's just i mean unless you're over there experiencing
16:42
it a bit like gamescom in some respects like
16:45
if you're there it's quite cool if you're not
16:47
it's just the thing happening that not much news
16:50
comes out of um we did have the xbox showcase
16:54
um which it's like it's the only of only of the
17:01
three big platform holders to do anything really
17:05
directly related to tgs i know sony did it some
17:08
state of play with the japan section japanese
17:11
section uh on the end the other week but this
17:14
is the only one tied to tgs and it was as expected
17:17
mostly quite dull from my point of view um do
17:22
either of you watch this or see anything come
17:24
out of it that you actually like the look of
17:26
i did uh i think xbox had to do it because like
17:29
sony and nintendo did their presentations like
17:32
a week ago right so xbox had to have something
17:35
and i feel like xbox has this uphill battle in
17:38
japan because like almost none of their games
17:40
sell like they don't chart physically most of
17:42
them don't get physical releases so because of
17:44
that you have less mind share and just in general
17:47
like the xbox ecosystem over there you don't
17:50
really hear much about it so they have this kind
17:52
of uphill battle in that sense and they have
17:54
to probably like you know do these shows to show
17:57
that they are there in the past they've usually
17:59
had like Square Enix stuff shadow dropping like
18:03
late ports and stuff over there that's why I
18:05
actually was paying attention to the showcase
18:07
to see if they announce any of that but I think
18:10
in general the TGS like you said right Gamescom
18:13
it's like one of those things where for the people
18:15
who are there they're there for work interviews
18:17
and stuff like a lot of my friends are there
18:19
like just going off a small tangent what's changed
18:24
on TGS is like it also happened at gamescom square
18:27
enix used to sell a lot of their music and merch
18:30
and they had these big booths over there but
18:33
they've been scaling that down and now they don't
18:35
even do that at gamescom and what's happened
18:37
at tgs is every time james like who who does
18:40
stuff for us and for rpg side every time he goes
18:42
there i ask him to get me one of the square enix
18:45
like final fantasy soundtracks which they sell
18:47
autographed But the thing is, they've chained
18:49
that to this stupid lottery system so no one
18:52
can get it except for people in Japan and stuff.
18:54
So my interest has kind of dwindled, not from
18:57
a work perspective, but from a fan perspective,
19:00
I'd say, over there. But otherwise, it's just
19:04
like one of these other showcases where you get
19:06
new trailers for stuff which have already been
19:08
announced. There's not much new which is happening.
19:13
you know like Capcom had their own showcase as
19:15
well like they did this in the middle of the
19:16
night my time where they had like Pragmata DLC
19:19
they had some new trailer for Monster Hunter
19:21
and like Street Fighter Street Fighter they had
19:24
this big trailer and it was for just the costume
19:26
like I feel like we this is parody at this point
19:29
that they're promoting a costume as if it's a
19:32
new character or something but I don't know like
19:34
it's been like a blur this week with every day
19:37
there's like an embargo or there's an event and
19:39
something and it does not feel like it's as big
19:42
as it should be but I know there's a lot of stuff
19:46
happening behind the scenes which like Alex and
19:49
James will talk about when they're back when
19:50
embargoes lift because there are a lot of hands
19:53
-on things happening which I'm very curious about
19:55
and interviews but as like for watching it like
19:58
you covered the thing right you saw every single
20:00
trailer Xbox showed and there was there were
20:03
a few surprises like you know the Atelier game
20:06
from Koei Tecmo I didn't expect them to show
20:08
something at the Xbox presentation so that was
20:11
nice to see surprising character reveal i know
20:13
like most people like i know tom you don't care
20:15
about atelier but that was like a quite a surprising
20:18
trailer they might care about it i don't but
20:22
i could have done anyway so like just it it feels
20:27
like it's like you said right it's smaller than
20:29
it should be but i feel like every single event
20:30
unless it's unless it's like a nintendo direct
20:33
or like a big sony state of play or even like
20:37
xbox's june showcase I think besides Jeff, we
20:40
don't really have any of those. These are usually
20:42
just like in -person and update style events
20:44
now. That's just where we're at now. Rebecca,
20:48
did you say anything you liked during this? I
20:50
was interested in the Kojima Productions update.
20:54
It wasn't a huge amount of stuff, to be honest.
20:56
It's mainly just the confirmation that ODNOK
20:58
is still very slowly going through its production.
21:01
I mean, the reason that I'm interested is mainly
21:03
because back in the day, because I'm old enough
21:05
to remember when FMV games were... the big thing
21:09
and it's kind of interesting to see hideo kojima
21:11
being kind of at the like it's a lot of indie
21:15
games are doing that and then kojima productions
21:17
are also really into like what can we do with
21:19
a lot of sort of like live action actors and
21:21
um i guess we haven't really seen anything much
21:24
come out of that yet but the uh the the fizzint
21:27
isn't i didn't watch the show i only read the
21:30
roundup later so i hope i'm pronouncing that
21:31
right um the bill scars guard reveal is pretty
21:35
cool um I think to be honest that just kind of
21:38
like got me got me up in my feelings a little
21:40
bit because um obviously with the recent like
21:43
death of Tim Curry we've seen a lot of stuff
21:45
about like his role in a lot of video games and
21:47
with Bill Skarsgård being like cast as Pennywise
21:51
in the new It films and bearing this kind of
21:53
uncanny resemblance to Tim Curry and then getting
21:54
into this new video game thing with Kojima it
21:58
kind of like felt kind of like a sort of interesting
22:00
natural progression of like you know i i'm feeling
22:04
this 90s throwback thing at the same time as
22:06
i'm seeing like this all this very new stuff
22:08
coming out um and that's interesting but there's
22:11
not there's not much there it has got to be said
22:13
it's just kind of like these are the actors that
22:15
kojima wants to work with which is always kind
22:16
of yeah it felt a bit like let's just put this
22:20
on the end to get some interest in this whole
22:22
thing but then also like if you've got to think
22:27
like od in particular which i guess some people
22:30
thought was maybe reasonably close to being something
22:33
because it got announced a long time ago it's
22:36
been years right i mean still like all we got
22:38
there was an update on the yeah cast doing some
22:41
recording and stuff um it feels like yeah it
22:45
was just a little bit of like a reminder that
22:47
yeah xbox has got this stuff that you probably
22:50
should care about um yeah the rest of the show
22:53
was yeah like they they peppered in some indie
22:57
games and stuff which is quite cool to see although
23:00
some of them looked quite ropey if i'm being
23:02
honest um there was i don't know if you're a
23:05
um nino cooney fan rebecca but they had a much
23:10
spin -off that looks like a cozy farming game
23:14
well i probably will get into nino and it looks
23:17
like the kind of thing i mean i'm i'm kind of
23:20
um stereotyping so it looked like your kind of
23:24
game for sure it's okay to stereotype me based
23:25
on my own behaviors and interests yes yes but
23:29
that looks like your i think it's called bloom
23:31
bloom something um but that look yes that looks
23:35
quite quite cool if you're into that kind of
23:38
stuff um but yeah a lot of it was like they showed
23:41
this thing and then i looked and it was like
23:43
they showed the same thing last year and it actually
23:45
last time they had showed more of it kind of
23:47
thing so the whole show is a little bit weak
23:49
probably with the kojima stuff on the end i thought
23:52
they'd show which they didn't forza horizon 6's
23:55
ps5 date like i thought yeah i think xbox is
23:59
very much not doing that anymore during its own
24:02
stuff it's like let's not it's one of the things
24:05
they're trying to get away from to appease the
24:07
hardcore xbox fan is to not mention other stuff
24:11
like during this whole thing they didn't mention
24:13
any other platforms apart from xbox which last
24:15
year i don't know if they did or not i can't
24:17
remember but definitely they had been pointing
24:19
out other platforms and this time it was just
24:22
like sony does it's just this is a place xbox
24:24
playstation game until you get the press release
24:26
later on where it says it's coming to everything
24:29
else um right other stuff so on the site now
24:35
we have an article from rebecca from gamescom
24:37
about love and deep space but not so much anything
24:42
new but more what it was like sort of being in
24:46
that community in real life compared to seeing
24:49
what the community is like online yes um you
24:52
can read that now on respect .net but rebecca
24:54
for people that aren't aware of what's going
24:58
on here i think we touched it briefly before
25:00
but yeah why why was it interesting to see what
25:03
was going on at gamescom So the game is still
25:06
in a very odd place because about three months
25:09
ago, they had a massive PR blow up. There's not
25:12
really a better way to describe it. By announcing
25:16
and then cancelling a new character within a
25:17
span of a week. Most gacha games would not cancel
25:20
an announced character under any circumstances.
25:23
This was a character whose introduction to the
25:26
game had been built up from the start. So like
25:28
two and a half years at that point. So I kind
25:32
of understand why. They maybe thought that was
25:36
a good idea at the time because there was a lot
25:38
of like very high level political threats flying
25:40
around. I don't entirely blame them for sort
25:44
of taking the scorched earth approach, but it
25:46
was still quite surprising. Like nobody really
25:49
knew how to react to that because this is just
25:51
like a thing that does not happen in live service
25:53
games. You don't do a big showcase, be like,
25:55
we're finally bringing out this character that
25:57
you've been hearing about for two and a half
25:59
years. And then a week later go, no, we've canceled
26:00
it, canceled the whole thing. you know so i'm
26:04
not going to go into all of it because i've got
26:05
two articles out on respect but i i hope uh sort
26:08
of like go into the situation in quite a bit
26:10
of detail and and um give you a bit more of the
26:13
background but this is how that happens in late
26:15
june early july um and so the thing is right
26:20
big game fandoms if you go on like reddit or
26:22
whatever it's never like a great place to be
26:25
it's usually just people snarking and inviting
26:27
when a game gets big enough and this game is
26:29
slash wars huge um So yeah, at the moment, if
26:33
you go on any sort of forum or anything about
26:36
this game, it's just a conversation about whether
26:40
this character should have come back, whether
26:41
he should have been cancelled in the first place,
26:42
what infold the developers of London Deep Space
26:44
kind of owe to the fandom, because pretty much
26:47
everyone's upset about something about how this
26:50
was handled, right? A lot of fans are boycotting
26:52
for various reasons. I'm not sure, to be honest,
26:54
right? I have feelings about calling this a boycott,
26:58
because we were just talking about Xbox, right?
27:00
I'm like, boycotting Xbox? Yeah. There's a lot
27:03
of good questions about where their money's going
27:05
right now. Boycotting EA? Same. This game has
27:09
disappointed you. Like, I don't know. You don't
27:12
have to play a game that you don't want to play,
27:14
but I feel like it's sort of like putting a lot
27:15
of pressure on the system to, like, organize
27:18
a boycott. Two simultaneous boycotts asking for
27:21
two opposite things. Yeah. I do have quite a
27:24
lot of sympathy for the developers trying to...
27:26
Trying to navigate that one in the wake of having
27:28
had like a month long CCP investigation into
27:32
their studio as well, which fortunately seems
27:34
to have mostly cleared them of wrongdoing. Although
27:37
there are a couple of notes, my understanding
27:39
is there are a couple of points they got back
27:40
that were like, nix this in the future in the
27:43
game, but it was mainly minor things. So yeah,
27:47
on the back of all that, I went to Gamescom to
27:49
see what was going on with their... display booths
27:52
because they had they didn't have a business
27:54
end presence but they had a very big public side
27:56
presence for love and deep space and infinity
27:58
nikki which is the other sort of major game they've
28:00
got going on at the moment um and yeah it was
28:03
like it was actually a really nice atmosphere
28:06
i mean it was hell because it was gamescom and
28:09
the public floor of gamescom once it's open is
28:12
pretty much hell on earth just from a like physical
28:16
standpoint it's a very very very very sweaty
28:20
and uh like physically uncomfortable place to
28:23
be but it was nice to kind of like be among the
28:26
community and also like some of the events team
28:28
from infold although none of the dev team from
28:30
infold were there um it was it was a pleasant
28:33
experience i think it was interesting to me because
28:36
you know as someone who kind of lurks in fandom
28:39
rather than being very involved in fandom spaces
28:42
the difference between how people behave online
28:44
and how people behave in person is really stark
28:47
I did mention in my article, this is probably
28:49
a survivor bias. Don't want to fall into the
28:51
Gumball fallacy here. There are people who are
28:53
very online and there are people who will show
28:55
up in person and there's not necessarily a huge
28:57
amount of overlap there. But it was generally,
29:00
it was a really nice experience to meet other
29:03
fans of this game in person and chat and be collaborative.
29:07
Because I wrote a lot in my article, there was
29:09
a merch giveaway that was basically you got merch
29:13
of a randomized character. Which is like, I understand
29:17
why you would say it's going to be random. That's
29:19
also going to be quite difficult because the
29:24
whole point of this game is that people have
29:26
favorites. But that does result in this really
29:28
collaborative thing between fans where everyone's
29:30
really working very hard to make sure that everyone
29:32
then gets what they wanted in the end result,
29:35
regardless of what you got in the random giveaway.
29:37
And that was really nice. And it was like a very...
29:39
sort of wholesome community moment so it just
29:41
did get me thinking and it's like i i'm a big
29:44
i'm a big proponent for we're all probably a
29:46
bit too comfortable being our worst selves online
29:48
uh whereas if you meet people in person they're
29:51
generally really nice so yeah plenty of people
29:53
i am aware of being awful online but i don't
29:57
mind them in real life when i meet them they're
29:59
perfectly fine i feel like i know who that's
30:02
targeting it's quite a lot there's quite a few
30:04
of them um but yeah so this game When do you
30:10
think you're going to see something to move on
30:13
from what is currently this drama? Is there a
30:16
point where it's going to be, that's the past
30:19
now, there's a new thing? I think because they
30:21
do twice yearly major updates. So the new character
30:24
who was cancelled was meant to be introduced
30:26
in the July update, which was version 6 .0. In
30:29
January, version 7 .0, I think probably if they
30:33
don't reintroduce him, then it's not happening,
30:35
at least not any time. soon so I think that's
30:39
the point at which certainly I as someone who
30:41
does enjoy this game will be like well I guess
30:43
we draw a line under that and see what they do
30:46
with a new plan because obviously this is like
30:49
disrupted the the ongoing plan quite a lot there
30:52
is you know the way that they've scheduled the
30:54
story as I say things that have been kind of
30:57
concepts that have been introduced since the
30:58
start will then have to be rewritten or reshuffled
31:00
and I have really mixed feelings about that generally
31:04
because I'm like as a live service game I do
31:07
think it makes sense to be listening to fans,
31:09
maybe not when they, you know, send razor blades
31:11
to your office, but when they do things like
31:12
fill in feedback forms about what they would
31:15
like to see. I think if you're selling something
31:17
as a live service product, it does make sense
31:19
to listen to that feedback and to try and incorporate
31:21
that feedback into the sort of broad plan that
31:23
you already have. But at the same time, it is
31:26
like a narrative based game. It's a very character
31:29
focused game, obviously, and it would be nice
31:31
to see the developers get to. enact the plan
31:34
that they've had in place since I mean like production
31:37
on this game obviously the game came out in early
31:39
2024 most of the promo materials of 2023 I guess
31:43
production had to be at least a couple of years
31:45
before that so it's like been a long time in
31:46
the working to see it just scrapped because people
31:50
really kicked off online which is just unusual
31:52
as well because like people in live service fandoms
31:56
kick off online all the time But obviously this
31:59
was quite a big escalation. So again, I understand
32:02
why you would feel quite legitimately threatened
32:05
at that point. And I think it's the threat more
32:07
than the we disapprove that kind of had the effect
32:11
of sort of putting everyone in crisis. I do think
32:13
they're still kind of in crisis mode, but there's
32:16
not a lot that can be done about it at this point.
32:18
Because as I mentioned in the article, it's like
32:21
production on this game, they're always five,
32:23
six months in advance. You're not going to see
32:25
any changes because they've had to move on for
32:27
the time being. Yeah, I don't know what's going
32:30
to happen. But it was, as I say, it was sort
32:33
of nice to see because I did turn up to an in
32:35
-person event. Like, given how much people are
32:38
kicking off online, are they actually going to
32:39
kick off to, you know, like, is there going to
32:41
be some sort of protest at the booth? Which,
32:44
you know, there wasn't. There were obviously
32:46
people who were cosplaying as the cancelled character.
32:48
There were people who were passionate about the
32:49
cancelled character, but they weren't sort of
32:51
causing trouble. And it's nice to see that. Yeah.
32:56
Yeah, it's... It's easy to assume that everyone
32:59
is always negative about stuff because of the
33:02
online experience, but it's always like that
33:04
when you meet people. Other stuff on the website
33:08
this week. So we'll have a Control Resonant review
33:10
from Breen's regular podcast, Contributor Breen's,
33:15
but he isn't able to talk about this week because
33:18
he's writing the review. So we'll talk about
33:19
that more next week. I know Mikhail's been playing
33:21
it a bit as well. So we'll have more on that
33:23
next week. Something Mikhail can talk about today.
33:27
is diablo 4 on switch 2 and fire emblem on switch
33:31
2 which you've played a bit of you didn't review
33:34
them but you you looked at them what are your
33:36
kind of thoughts on those two yeah so i'll start
33:39
with diablo uh my experience with diablo like
33:43
i my first played diablo at all through the ps4
33:47
version of diablo 3 which was like after years
33:50
of updates and fixes and i basically played like
33:53
what people consider a completely different game
33:55
so i don't know about the you know like when
33:57
it launched it had all those server issues and
33:59
i think it's still on pc it doesn't have controller
34:01
support so i've i've never played it on pc because
34:04
of that but i played diablo 3 with all its dlc
34:08
and stuff and i loved it like it was a good that
34:10
was like my first top down action rpg i think
34:14
i ever played same for me i played diablo 3 on
34:16
the ps4 a lot like i'd it's one of those games
34:21
that like if you ask me what i was doing i'm
34:23
not sure i could tell you but i was playing a
34:26
lot and getting a lot of stuff and equipping
34:29
stuff and leveling up for a long time like i
34:34
must have played that for quite a few hours i
34:36
think it was around the time my son was born
34:39
so it's like a lot of kind of down time of just
34:43
like everyone's asleep be quiet but just play
34:46
this in the background kind of thing um but yeah
34:49
So it had a lot to live up to, I think. Generally,
34:52
Diablo 4 had a lot to live up to because people
34:53
really liked, I think, what Diablo 3 became.
34:57
Yeah, Mikhail, how does this version of 4 compare
35:03
to what you've seen on the other platforms? So
35:05
the thing about Diablo 4 itself is when it launched,
35:08
it had a lot going up against it because it was
35:11
an online -only thing. So people were already
35:13
skeptical because the Diablo 3 launch was messed
35:17
up. Then they had this whole thing where they
35:19
changed it to be more of an MMO. So you have
35:22
like other people roaming around you while you're
35:24
playing and they had these world events and stuff,
35:27
which like literally like an MMO, which a lot
35:30
of people did not like. But the advantage of
35:33
this, you know, like how they've made it is it
35:36
has like full cross progression and full cross
35:38
play. So everyone can play together. You can
35:40
pick up your save on anything. It's just automatic
35:43
and stuff. So when Diablo 4 launched, they also
35:47
like, took a lot of the feedback to heart because
35:49
if you remember diablo 3 had this very colorful
35:52
aesthetic so while the ui and all was this dark
35:55
and you know like some of the character designs
35:57
were dark it still was very colorful it kind
36:00
of had like the civilization 6 issue in a way
36:02
where the classic fans or the older fans just
36:06
wrote it off because they called it a quote -unquote
36:08
mobile game or whatever when it just had a different
36:11
aesthetic so with diablo 4 they went back to
36:14
the diablo 2 style thing so It had like some
36:17
things going for it and some going against it
36:20
in the community. This was the first Diablo I
36:23
played like pre -release and leading into launch.
36:25
So I was there from the start. I enjoyed it a
36:28
lot. Like the campaign ended with like this kind
36:30
of DLC bait thing, but I enjoyed my time with
36:33
it a lot. It was quite easy though. And you know,
36:36
like just going back to Wolverine a bit, it felt
36:38
like because it was a 70 quid game, they had
36:41
to justify. The length in the campaign. So they
36:44
had these sections where you had to just walk
36:46
from long stretches of land until you got a mount.
36:50
And then when you got a mount, which is also
36:51
new to this game compared to the last one, everything
36:54
felt fast. So the pacing was a bit off. The first
36:58
DLC for Diablo 4, which was Vessel of Hated,
37:01
was kind of shit, to be honest. It got me thinking
37:05
that... there's no hope for Diablo 4 if this
37:07
is the path they're going to take like and I'm
37:09
not I'm not one to do the you know the FOMO seasonal
37:12
stuff like with Forza Horizon 6 I do not care
37:15
about it just let me do the campaign and let
37:17
me drive with friends I don't want to log in
37:19
every week to claim a car and shit so so I thought
37:23
at this point like I don't know what's going
37:24
to happen with Diablo 4 because the story was
37:26
not I was not enjoying the story the class they
37:29
added and all was fun but it just did not seem
37:32
like it was worth it so then earlier this year
37:35
when they did like lord of hatred which was like
37:38
the final dlc or expansion like i enjoyed it
37:41
so much it's still in my top five games of the
37:44
year so far like the dlc was so good the soundtrack
37:47
was so good and it genuinely felt like they threw
37:49
everything they had at it to like bring it back
37:52
to what people want out of diablo and the end
37:55
game stuff they added it just generally was like
37:57
i'd say it went from like an 8 out of 10 at launch
38:01
or like 7 .5 if you do that to maybe a 5 .5 or
38:04
6 with the first DLC, but it's back to like a
38:06
9 right now. So with this perspective, the Switch
38:13
2, I wasn't sure what to expect because, you
38:16
know, did you play Diablo 3 on Switch 1? It was
38:19
kind of amazing what they did. Did you play it,
38:22
Rebecca? I don't know if you're a Diablo fan.
38:23
My only Diablo experience is with Immortal, I'm
38:26
afraid. So I have to sit this one out a little
38:28
bit. I've not played much of that. But yeah,
38:30
so Diablo 3, when they brought that to Switch,
38:32
I honestly did not think it would be a good port,
38:35
but they, like Iron Galaxy did it and they did
38:37
a fantastic job to the point where I ended up
38:40
replaying it again over there because, you know,
38:42
this was like, back then we didn't have Steam
38:43
Decks and PC handles. So this was like playing
38:46
Diablo on a portable for the first time. I already
38:50
had that experience at launch because I played
38:52
Diablo 4 on Steam Deck. So there was a lot of
38:54
stuff working against the Switch 2 port in my
38:56
head. But when I got it and I played it for like
38:59
six hours, I texted a friend of mine in Canada
39:02
and we were just playing it. I was enjoying it.
39:04
It's a really, really good port. It's not as
39:07
good as it is on PS5, obviously, but I think
39:10
they did a fantastic job with the port so far
39:12
for handheld play. uh i i wrote up some impressions
39:16
and comparisons on rpg site because like i literally
39:18
did this after getting the game like a few days
39:21
prior so i am enjoying it to the point where
39:24
i will keep it installed and keep playing it
39:26
but i think if you've not played diablo before
39:28
like diablo 4 at all it's not bad for what you're
39:32
getting like with both expansions and all updates
39:34
right now so like it's worth considering i'd
39:37
say uh I don't know if they're going to allow
39:40
you to skip the second expansion because I genuinely
39:42
dislike it. But Lord of Hated is still like,
39:45
I cannot see it getting out of my top five games
39:47
of this year. Like the expansion was that good,
39:49
the story stuff. So yeah, I'm very happy with
39:52
Diablo 4. With Fire Emblem, like Fire Emblem
39:56
and Diablo kind of like messed up my sleep schedule
39:59
those two days because like both of them kind
40:01
of dropped on each other. Fire Emblem, I was...
40:05
I also like some background. Three Houses is
40:07
like the best -selling Fire Emblem on Switch
40:09
One. Everyone loves the game. It was a bit too
40:12
long, but everyone loves it. I played like, I
40:15
think 250 hours of it on Switch One. So I genuinely
40:18
enjoyed that a ton. With this one, again, I was
40:22
just wondering what they're going to do with
40:24
it. Are they going to stretch things out, make
40:26
it too long? Is it going to be like, is it going
40:28
to just be like Mario Tennis where they just
40:30
ship something which is incomplete? I don't know
40:32
what. I've played five hours of it so far, but
40:36
my initial, I would say initial impressions,
40:39
because some of my colleagues have put in 150
40:41
hours just to finish the main story, so it's
40:43
too long in that regard. I don't know if I'll
40:46
have time to play a non -work game for 150 hours,
40:49
but Fire Emblem is, I think it's the most polished
40:53
Nintendo game I've played on Switch 2 so far,
40:55
even above Mario Kart and Donkey Kong, because
40:58
everything just looks nice, it runs nicely, it
41:02
has like... I'm a big fan of like dual sense
41:04
haptics and like switch rumble and stuff. Like
41:06
if a game has that, I will play it on those platforms
41:08
over playing it on others. Like I love that stuff.
41:11
So it has so much good stuff with that. Like
41:14
when you're playing a tactical game, if you move
41:16
the cursor to like move your character, they
41:18
have this rumble, which is different if you're
41:20
in a danger area versus if you're in a normal
41:22
area. And they did all these cool things over
41:24
there. As for the story, I'm not sure where it's
41:28
going yet because I'm still literally in like...
41:30
the initial part of the game but i can say that
41:33
if i had more time i would probably like just
41:35
take a week off and spend 12 hours a day on fire
41:39
emblem so far i'm enjoying it that much so far
41:41
so yeah i think people are very pulse about rebecca
41:45
is this one of your games you're into or not
41:48
no no sorry it's so overwhelmingly like huge
41:52
as another big franchise that it's not even on
41:54
the massive list of franchises at the moment
41:56
to be honest it should be yeah i'm aware that
41:58
it should be but I'm only going to live so long,
42:01
you know. I know, I was reading, I think a former
42:05
colleague of ours, Dom, reviewed it for Eurogamer
42:08
and he was saying it's like 200 hours. Yeah.
42:11
I do love reading Dom's reviews of stuff like
42:14
Fire Emblem. They do a very, very good, very
42:19
thorough review on stuff and I'm always like,
42:21
I'd love to play that, but... Yeah, I mean, I
42:25
thought Wolverine was long. And that's 15 hours.
42:28
15 hours, that's music to my ears as a game length.
42:31
It's like, yeah, I mean, if I was playing that
42:34
outside of work, that'd probably take me two
42:36
weeks to get through. So there's no chance I'm
42:39
doing anything with Fire Emblem. We may well
42:41
get more talk about that next week when other
42:43
people are around who might have played more
42:44
of it. So we might come back to Fire Emblem.
42:48
If we move on to retrospective, so this is all
42:52
the anniversaries and stuff. It was a... Big
42:56
week for GameCube. GameCube turned 25. And obviously
43:01
that means you get the launch games. One of those
43:03
is Luigi's Mansion, which I got a launch. I had
43:07
imported a Japanese GameCube and bought Luigi's
43:10
Mansion with it. I loved it. Luigi's Mansion
43:12
was a great launch game. Everyone was a bit down
43:14
at the time because it launched. That was the
43:16
big Mario, I guess, game at launch. And people
43:20
expected, I guess, an actual Mario game. We got
43:24
this. Luigi game which isn't about platforming
43:27
or jumping on anything um actually I think it's
43:30
one of Nintendo's best spin -off games they've
43:33
produced in terms of that whole series is excellent
43:35
um anyone else big Luigi's Mansion fan I'm an
43:39
enjoyer of Luigi's Mansion I'm just generally
43:42
a Luigi defender I think he's one of my favorite
43:44
characters in the sort of Mario verse um and
43:47
yeah I enjoy I I've been working my way back
43:51
through the series because I started with three
43:52
on the Switch and then I sort of went back and
43:54
got the ports to the DS for the original two.
43:58
And I was really annoyed when stuff started getting
43:59
ported to the Switch as well, but that's not
44:01
the point. Yeah, it's got that sort of like...
44:03
I mean, obviously, you and I both enjoy our horror,
44:07
so that's probably a big part of why we like
44:09
this spin -off series anyway. But also, it's
44:11
got that kind of like... I don't know, it has
44:14
the... the genuinely kind of like child appropriate
44:17
spookiness to it which i think is a really like
44:20
you can you can sort of pitch horror to a family
44:22
audience in this way yes it's very good it's
44:25
excellent that kind of stuff um i really want
44:28
them to do a switch to enhanced version let me
44:32
just mention three because it looks great on
44:33
the switch yeah but it could really benefit from
44:36
like just 4k or whatever um other stuff so god
44:40
hand is 20 god hand is the I guess, infamously
44:44
low reviewed game on IGN, which everyone loves,
44:48
God Hand, but I think it got like a three or
44:50
something on IGN. We won't dwell on that too
44:52
much, but it's considered by people that know
44:56
what they're talking about in terms of like this
44:58
kind of game, like a third person action game
45:01
to be excellent Capcom action game. Tech and
45:04
Tag Tournament 2 is 15. Deathloop is five. Deathloop
45:09
came out and everyone loved it. that reviews
45:12
i played it i was like i don't get it i don't
45:16
get why people love this so much rebecca you're
45:19
laughing one of the people who loved it so you
45:21
loved it sorry what what is it about death loop
45:23
that is so great um so for me i'm a big fan of
45:27
the dishonored series and of arcane um as well
45:31
in general like prey their 2017 prey i think
45:33
is an excellent game um it just had that kind
45:35
of like arcane magic to it as well um i think
45:38
that like in terms i think the statute of limitations
45:41
is over on the spoiler that it's part of the
45:44
Dishonored universe, which is obviously like
45:45
really special to me as well. But I did enjoy,
45:47
I'm not usually a big fan of stealthy gameplay,
45:51
but I like the way Arcane do it or did it, I
45:54
guess, because they're pretty much not a thing
45:56
anymore in the state that they were five years
45:58
ago. I like that it sort of encourages like these
46:01
sort of like try it and see what happens kind
46:06
of approach to stealth rather than like just,
46:09
you know, auto fail you and do it again till
46:12
you're good i think it's just it's my kind of
46:14
stealth um i liked the the humor of the world
46:17
as well and just the kicking the kicking was
46:20
good i think we had an article on rps by brendy
46:22
at the time where it's like you can just line
46:24
up a good kick and punt someone off a cliff that
46:26
was quite satisfying um a good kick can cover
46:30
a multitude of sins he can do a kick one of his
46:32
moves is a kick well i look forward to trying
46:34
that at christmas yeah yeah but yeah it's one
46:37
of those guys reading about because it other
46:39
people talking about online because it is five
46:41
this this week and a lot of people saying that
46:44
they change a lot from the review period to the
46:46
actual release i don't know how much that is
46:48
true or what happened with it but it's interesting
46:50
that does happen with games like um i think elden
46:55
ring even became significantly easier after the
46:58
review period um like the game that everyone
47:02
reviewed is quite different to the game that
47:04
actually came out and that does happen more and
47:06
more these days when things get patched on day
47:09
one or a couple of days later um crimson desert
47:12
i guess is a good example of a game that is nothing
47:15
like what it actually was uh at review um persona
47:19
5 is 10 which i struggled to believe to be true
47:22
because it feels like that game was just out
47:24
two years ago i mean it keeps getting re -released
47:27
right so probably one of the re -releases was
47:29
a couple of years ago No, but I remember this
47:32
because I, I actually imported this from Japan
47:34
without knowing Japanese because the hype cycle
47:37
for like this game before I like started writing
47:40
and stuff was just insane because everyone played
47:43
Persona 4 Golden on beta. That was like the main
47:45
game everyone played back then. And they were
47:47
just building up to this marketing delays and
47:50
like this, we didn't know much about it when
47:52
they kept showing it and stuff. So when it actually
47:55
was supposed to release, it came out and like,
47:57
yeah, we're 10 years ago, right? September 20.
48:00
16 in Japan and it came out everywhere else in
48:02
like I think March or February 2017 but yeah
48:06
I bought the collector's edition I still have
48:08
it on my shelf the Japanese one and I played
48:11
like I don't remember if it was 25 or 30 hours
48:14
without knowing anything I was using Google Translate
48:17
on my phone to understand like the UI and stuff
48:19
so it was a it was a one of the first big games
48:23
I did that with And like, I won't forget that
48:25
experience. And I think everyone's played like
48:27
at least some aspect of Persona 5 now because
48:30
it's on everything and stuff. I haven't played
48:32
it. Not at all. Refuse. I don't have any Persona
48:36
game. I appreciate Persona 5 and I think it's
48:39
the exam answers for guide traffic. It's good.
48:44
But that's it really. And it's another one of
48:46
those games that is like, oh yeah, I finished
48:48
it at 150 hours. I'm like, no, I'm not. I haven't
48:52
got the time for that. there's a solution to
48:54
your problem. You can just watch the movies for
48:57
Persona 3 because those are actually pretty good.
49:00
Not like how you have other animes which just
49:02
try to like make money off the thing. I thought
49:04
those movies were actually really good. So those
49:07
are like 4 movies so it's only like 8 or 9 hours
49:10
in total I think. It's better than 100 hours
49:12
for you at least. Yeah. We should get you to
49:15
watch one of them. But yeah, like Persona 5 at
49:18
10 and we're getting Persona 6 presumably soon
49:21
because like Steam achievements. leaked and stuff
49:24
so we might have something to say about that
49:26
we've got the remake of four in february is it
49:30
yeah yeah february so it'd be some maybe it'd
49:33
be like another six months after that or something
49:35
i don't know um other anniversaries outrun is
49:39
40 obviously quite an influential racing game
49:43
kirby superstar is 13 north america gears of
49:46
war 3 is 15 i mean i have a soft spot for gears
49:50
because I think it kind of represents that generation
49:53
in terms of 360 in particular. I enjoyed all
49:57
the Gears games really, even 4, which people
50:00
don't seem to like much, and Judgment. I thought
50:02
people liked 4. 4 is the one that people don't...
50:05
5 people got back on board with. 4 was the one
50:07
they were like, nah, we don't like 4 as much,
50:10
but I thought it was fine. That was the first
50:11
one I played because I didn't own an Xbox before
50:16
that and I think I borrowed one. for like Gears
50:18
of War 4 and the horde mode was pretty good and
50:21
I think that was like the first game I played
50:23
with had active reload which was something which
50:26
they put in every game but it was new for me
50:27
yeah yeah it was a it's one of those things whenever
50:32
there's a new mechanic that actually feels good
50:34
you're like wow someone's got something new incredible
50:36
um most games don't these days it's very hard
50:39
um right so that's all the anniversaries we're
50:43
about done I think which is good because I've
50:45
got a lot on today Anyone else got anything else
50:47
going on before we wrap up? Any shout outs, anything
50:52
cool going on, anything you want to point towards
50:55
and go look at this? Necessary plug for my other
50:58
podcast. We released a new episode yesterday
51:00
with another Gamescom roundup from me. So as
51:03
always, please check out indieventurepodcast
51:05
.co .uk for that. Yeah. Cool. McCartney, what
51:10
are you working on this week? Anything exciting
51:11
going on? Too many games. But I am going to watch
51:16
two movies this weekend. I need some time off.
51:19
So we'll talk about that in the podcast after
51:21
this. But yeah, just looking forward to sleeping.
51:25
Yeah, always good. I like sleeping. Me too. If
51:29
you like listening to me talk, which you hopefully
51:32
do as you're 50 minutes into this, you might
51:35
like reading what I say on my blog, lowpodms
51:38
.com. This week I wrote about... terrible headlines
51:43
on internet articles which i finally had enough
51:46
of and i will might talk about that briefly in
51:49
the patreon podcast in a minute um other than
51:52
that uh reminder we have a discord you can go
51:55
and hang out with us and other people who like
51:57
respect .net um that's links all over the website
52:01
for that we have a patreon where you can get
52:03
the uh lock -in podcast also various other bits
52:06
and pieces um exclusive to patreon members um
52:11
And that is it, really. We'll see you all next
52:13
week. Stick around for the lock -in if you are
52:17
a patron. Otherwise, have a good week and see
52:20
you next time. Bye. Bye.