Latest / WASD and Beyond / Episode 211: The news...and MARATHON alpha impressions!

Transcript

Episode 211: The news...and MARATHON alpha impressions! · WASD and Beyond

0:26
None. The.
1:03
Let's plan the show 5 seconds before we start recording.
1:07
Just leave it in the recording. Fuck it.
1:09
All right, welcome to the show, everybody.
1:11
My name is Nick, and this is Brody Weir, host of the WASD and
1:14
Beyond podcast. And today, I look like a
1:15
sleeveless suburban mom on the outskirts of town on the wrong
1:20
side of the tracks, smoking a Marlboro Red in the van with her
1:24
children. I feel like that's how I look
1:25
with the cut off sleeve. I look like I'm wearing a Moo
1:28
moo shirt. You know the Walmart people how
1:32
they always go out with those big moo moo shirts.
1:34
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
1:36
Is that not nice to say? I have no idea.
1:40
I don't care. No, fuck them.
1:43
It'll be at Walmart I and I hate Walmart People freak me out
1:48
every time we go every time we go it's just a nightmare.
1:51
Anyways this show is sponsored by Scream box.
1:55
Scream at our movies, not our price is 38 bucks a I almost
1:58
said a month, but it's a year 3838 bucks a month.
2:01
I'd be like 38 bucks a month. I'd be like I'd be like screen
2:04
box buddy. But no, it's $38 a year to get
2:08
endless amounts of horror, all the horror you could want.
2:12
It's all there. Home invasions like encrypted
2:16
found footage, slasher films, it's all there.
2:18
Check screen box out 38 bucks a year, it is yours.
2:22
Check out final boss and Doc Longy.
2:24
Final Boss has the best gaming merch in the game, as is evident
2:28
by the walls behind Brody all over my room.
2:32
This doom blanket, it is everywhere.
2:34
The shirt. The shirt this week I'm not
2:37
wearing a final boss shirt because I am hot.
2:42
It got it got muggy in Michigan. It got muggy here in Indiana as
2:46
well. And I said no.
2:49
I also check out final check out Doc Longy with the Best Hip Hop
2:55
merch in the game as well. From MF Doom to Nas to Tupac to
3:00
Biggie to more current. They like Mac Miller.
3:03
It's there. Check it out.
3:05
Check out the Swan camp community server, come have fun,
3:08
it's free. You know the spiel, come hang
3:10
out with us and if you suck, you're getting booted.
3:13
That's it. Fair enough.
3:19
How was work this week buddy? Oh, it's been a week.
3:23
Yeah, not great. Not off to a strong start this
3:27
week, but a couple more days and we'll be, we'll be all squared
3:30
away almost. I don't work a normal person job
3:33
so I'm only on day two of four right now, but.
3:38
I I'm so sorry. How how's how's your your normal
3:43
human job? I my job right now consists of
3:47
me learning. Yeah, yeah.
3:52
I it's good, though, because a lot of what like what I was
3:55
nervous about when I first got into the job I'm getting better
4:00
AT and a lot of what I wasn't confident with, I'm getting more
4:04
confident with because the team that surrounds me is very
4:08
inspiring. Like they're very like, hey man,
4:11
just do just get you, you got this.
4:13
So you don't ask like if you need help, ask for help.
4:15
But they're like, you do it. We know, you know.
4:18
So it's been very, very confidence inducing.
4:23
So new career, very cool. And it's not a job, it's a
4:26
career. New career.
4:28
Yeah, Hell yeah. But yeah, that's been cool.
4:32
But very mentally training. It's not physically training,
4:36
it's mentally training. That's not something I'm used to
4:38
when it comes to work. It is pick things up.
4:41
I put shit down. Yeah, I went from being in
4:45
maintenance, like actually turning wrenches and such to
4:48
planning maintenance and that kind of thing at one point in
4:52
time. And I came home from work once I
4:57
had gotten the office job and would take a nap everyday
5:00
because it's just, it's a whole different drain, right?
5:02
Like people don't understand there's there's different kinds
5:06
of draining and sometimes the mental draining is worse than
5:08
the the physical draining. My, my wife has like a not it's
5:13
animal welfare, but like still it's physical.
5:15
It's a lot of physical labor. So I go my brain looks as
5:19
smooth, as smooth as it does. So your hands can keep looking
5:21
as dirty as they do. So it's role reversal.
5:25
It's role reversal. That's right.
5:27
Anyways, anyways, we just released our first episode in a
5:31
series we we're calling it came from Screen Box.
5:35
Our first episode was The Frog Man.
5:37
That movie was awesome. Go check out the review.
5:40
That's the last of the plugs. That's the last of how our
5:42
personal lives are. Brody when you're able to be a
5:45
human, what have you been playing?
5:47
Oh, shoot, OK, It's been a bit right, couple weeks now.
5:54
So I have been playing Marvel Rivals is still kind of that
5:58
staple of checking out the new season and everything else
6:01
that's going on there, enjoying Emma Frost, really, really,
6:06
really fun tank to play. But we've talked about Marvel
6:10
Rivals, so I won't spend too much time on that.
6:12
But I've been playing a couple new games, one of which is
6:17
called Blueprints as in like King and Prince not print.
6:24
But it is kind of this puzzle type game.
6:29
Essentially it's trying to think of how to describe it.
6:33
And from my understanding it kind of even changes the further
6:37
you make it into it. But it is a rogue like esque
6:42
experience where you are, you enter into a mansion that your
6:49
great uncle or somebody left you and in order to actually get the
6:57
inheritance to receive the mansion and everything else, you
7:00
have to make it to the end of this house.
7:04
While this house changes every single day, so as you go in, you
7:08
have to unlock essentially like puzzle pieces that let you get
7:13
to further areas within this mansion.
7:16
You only have so many steps and your steps are taken each time
7:20
you walk into a room. So if you make it so far down, I
7:26
want to say it's like, I want to say it's 5 rooms across and
7:29
like, I don't know, 12 or 15 deep.
7:34
And so if you make it down like a corridor, say you go all the
7:39
way to the corner and then go straight up or something like
7:41
that and you hit a dead end, you have to walk all over that back
7:44
down. And it's so it'll take your
7:46
steps away so you can get to a spot where you can actually even
7:49
hard lock yourself into like not being able to progress any
7:52
further. Because you pick the room, you
7:56
get 3 choices and there's some modifiers to that later on, but
8:00
you get like 3 choices each, each time you open up a new room
8:03
and you can choose what that room is.
8:05
Well, it has doors. And you have to plan your kind
8:07
of path through this accordingly and then hope that you get a
8:11
good room from there on out. It's very interesting.
8:16
It is. I like it.
8:19
I haven't gotten to spend that much time with it.
8:21
I probably have a couple hours into it maybe, but it is very
8:28
involved. It is not a game that you can
8:30
just sit down and kind of work your way through.
8:33
This is a game like I have a a full blown like Google doc open
8:38
where I am taking notes and keeping track of things.
8:41
That man. It's kind of crazy, like one of
8:46
the one of the early on things that I ran into and it's I won't
8:50
be I this is a hard game to spoil anyway.
8:54
But anyway, I found a note that essentially said all blue notes
9:00
that you find are true and all red notes are false unless it's
9:06
in handwriting. I was like, what, what are you
9:10
even talking about? At this point I hadn't even seen
9:12
blue notes or red notes really. I was like, OK, so I write that
9:17
down in my little Google Docs. I had listened to Giant Bomb
9:20
actually talk about this and rest in peace and.
9:25
Yeah, right. And they had kind of said like,
9:28
Oh no, you this is a game, you got to take notes.
9:30
So I was like taking notes well beyond what I probably needed
9:35
to. That being said, I am enjoying
9:38
it. It is a game that takes all of
9:40
your attention and you have to pick up on every single little
9:46
thing for the most. Nuances.
9:48
Yeah, So it is not a game to play if you were just wanting to
9:53
sit down and hang out and relax, which is what I've kind of been
9:57
wanting to do recently. So I kind of fell off of it
10:00
momentarily. But I do plan to go go back to
10:03
it. I do like puzzle type games and
10:07
this is a really good one and I I haven't heard anything bad
10:11
about it. I mean, even looking at like
10:13
Steam reviews, it's it's doing quite well.
10:16
So very, very cool game. It's on Game Pass right now.
10:19
So that was an easy way for me to go ahead and hop in because
10:22
I'm already paying for it. I might as well get some use out
10:25
of it. And yeah, fantastic.
10:28
But boy, oh boy, it is involved. The second game that I've been
10:33
playing. I'll I'll mention the one that
10:36
you have not also been playing. So we can kind of come together
10:40
on that one if that makes it. Claire obscure Expedition 33.
10:46
This is another game that's on Game Pass.
10:49
Boy oh boy, I I I would be surprised if this is not my game
10:57
of the year. Damn.
11:00
It is awesome. I love turn based combat to
11:03
begin with, which is but that being said, I understand where
11:07
people are coming from when they find it boring and you know it's
11:11
just somewhat mindless, right? This is not that.
11:15
This is turn based combat, but you have to dodge like QuickTime
11:21
events almost or you can parry and so if you parry while you're
11:26
being attacked, you can do a counter attack and actually do
11:30
damage to them and take none yourself.
11:32
If you dodge perfectly then you don't take any damage.
11:36
So in order to survive and and the mechanics in the combat
11:39
itself is built around utilizing this.
11:42
This is it's not really optional at this point.
11:45
It's like it's somehow finding this perfect blend of like a
11:49
real time combat with turn based elements and it just does it so
11:54
exceptionally well. Everyone that I have run into in
11:59
the world so far has been, I mean their their performances
12:02
have been incredible. I mean, right off the get go,
12:04
you have the voice actress behind Shadow Heart, you have
12:09
Charlie Cox, Daredevil. Daredevil.
12:11
Yeah. I mean, he he does a great job.
12:14
And I don't think he's really done much voice acting before,
12:17
but he fucking kills it. There's a couple other voices of
12:24
a few of which I actually haven't ran into yet.
12:27
But the big Final Fantasy guy that I'm completely Ben Starr.
12:33
Yeah, he's, he's been like a huge Square Enix voice actor
12:38
recently and he's done like their ads and stuff.
12:40
He's incredible. I, I've listened to a few
12:42
interviews with him and he's awesome.
12:44
So I can't wait until he actually comes into the game.
12:47
And then I think the actress who played Lazel is in it at some
12:52
point too. I I believe she is.
12:54
Yeah, but regardless, the voice acting is incredible, the
12:57
music's phenomenal. It's probably one of my favorite
13:01
video game soundtracks in quite some time and I really even
13:05
enjoyed metaphor Reef Antasio that was probably up there on
13:08
one of my favorite soundtracks as well.
13:12
But God damn, this, it's this, this isn't.
13:17
I don't know how much I even want to say about it because it
13:19
is still fairly new, so I don't want to get too spoilery with
13:22
it. But granted, I feel like
13:24
everyone that was paying attention to this game kind of
13:26
knows what it was about and so I'll give a very, very brief
13:30
explanation. So it's like a almost steampunk
13:35
like London area. It is a predominantly French
13:41
like you can hear some of the accents and stuff going on.
13:43
But the the whole idea is essentially they send out these
13:48
expeditions to try to kill the painters.
13:52
And the painters is this deity of sorts that comes out into the
13:57
world once a year and paints a number onto a rock.
14:01
And the number on that rock is essentially how old you are
14:05
allowed to be before you expire. So if you are.
14:09
Yeah, right. So this is expedition 33.
14:12
The the number painted is 33. And so the there's a right off
14:18
the get go. I mean, you're dealing with
14:20
people just disappearing and dying essentially.
14:25
And that is anyone who is over the age of 33.
14:29
And it it most of the people that are going on these
14:32
expeditions are people who are 32 or so, like the the last year
14:36
before you would expire. So if they die on this
14:39
expedition, which most of the time they do, yeah.
14:43
They're like, well, you only had, you know, a year left to
14:46
live anyway. So it's it.
14:48
But the the I mean, that is just scratching the surface of what's
14:52
going on. I am well into act 1 and I still
14:58
am figuring out a ton of different things.
15:01
And from my understanding that goes well through the entire
15:04
game. Like you get a a better
15:07
understanding what's happening right after that initial
15:09
sequence. You go on your expedition and
15:12
that first first moment on the on the, the, the continent is
15:19
wild. Like everything about this game
15:21
is just so well done. The, the visuals are very
15:24
pretty. This is like a, the main studio
15:29
was 30 people, but there was a lot of supporting studios and
15:32
things like that to help make this happen.
15:34
So there is some misconception about this being a very, very
15:37
small team that made it. It's not quite the case, but
15:40
regardless, the combat is very rewarding.
15:42
I'm playing on the medium difficulty and there's still
15:46
fights that are difficult. Some fights I've had to do quite
15:48
a few times, but there's good checkpoints so you can go back
15:51
and do those fights a couple different times and not feel
15:53
like you've lost a ton of progress.
15:56
The best way I've heard it described, and this was actually
16:00
from Evan, was that it's essentially like turn based Dark
16:04
Souls. That's what I've heard.
16:06
And that is probably about spot on everything there.
16:10
I mean, there's even not quite bonfires, but essentially
16:13
bonfires that where you can save your progress and that's where
16:16
you level up and things like that.
16:18
But they are scattered throughout the world rather
16:21
frequently. So it's not it's not the end of
16:24
the world. Like you, you can definitely
16:26
make it to those. That's where you get your, your
16:28
escas flasks and all that shit, right?
16:30
But if you do die in a in a fight, you don't always go back
16:35
to that. Like they even have some
16:37
intermediate checkpoints and stuff that really do make it
16:41
pretty good at frequently auto saving.
16:44
And boy, I, I adore this game, but I there have been a couple
16:50
times I have not played it in the evening just because it's a
16:53
game that I know if I start playing I'll be playing for
16:56
hours and that's just not an option.
16:58
So. But boy, I cannot recommend this
17:01
game enough. This is right now, it is my game
17:04
of the year pretty easily. And that's in a year where there
17:08
was a new Monster Hunter that I enjoyed quite a bit.
17:11
But I mean, there's still a lot of year left and you know,
17:14
there's night rain that's going to be coming out and Doom, Doom
17:18
and I, I mean a bunch of other things.
17:20
So but yeah, check this out, especially if you have Game
17:24
Pass, it's a no brainer to check out on Game Pass if you were a
17:28
little bit on the fence, look up some videos, look at some of the
17:30
combat and get a feel for what it is.
17:32
Because when you say turn base, I know a lot of people kind of
17:35
just shut their brains off and are like, yeah, no, I'm not
17:38
interested. But Evan's been playing this and
17:41
he's not a turn based guy and he seems to be really enjoying it
17:43
as well. So yeah, boy, it's fucking cool.
17:48
Fantastic. What have you been playing now
17:51
that I just talked for like 15 minutes?
17:54
Oh, dude, better this way, I promise.
17:56
So I've been playing in preparation of Doom, been
18:00
playing some of the classic Dooms, SO1264, things like that.
18:04
I don't want to play 2016 right now.
18:06
I don't want to play Eternal. I'm just playing those ones to
18:08
get myself in the mindset. So that's been fun.
18:13
The next two games really, man, are going to be games that we
18:15
both played, so I'm just going to rattle one off right now.
18:18
That was one of the biggest obvious hits in the industry
18:22
right now, which was Oblivion Remake.
18:25
I totally forgot to mention it. Shadow drop of all shadow drops
18:29
that we knew about we we knew it was coming we but but for them
18:35
to actually do it and for it to look that as good as it does, it
18:38
does look good. Now you can't say it doesn't it
18:41
it, it just does it looks. Really very good.
18:45
A lot of that old Bethesda jank is still All of that old
18:49
Bethesda jank is still there, and I'm not mad about it.
18:53
And it sucks that I'm saying that because it's like I don't
18:56
want to give any studio a pass. Right.
19:00
I don't. But when you do encounter those
19:05
moments in this where the voice actors are redoing lines during
19:13
the game and the mouths match up with it in this remake, I go,
19:21
all right, that's funny, but was this AI right there?
19:26
You know, stuff like that. You start to think, but like all
19:28
the old exploits are still in. Yeah.
19:31
I'm about to have the best armor in the game because I I remember
19:34
how to exploit it. I'm about to, I, I'm almost at
19:36
level 100 sneak because I exploited it because it's like,
19:39
I'm not going to grind that. What are you fucking stupid?
19:42
I'm just going to do what I did when I was 14.
19:45
Put yourself in a in a corner with a rubber band wrapped
19:48
around the controller. Buddy, I just, I sit, I go A/B,
19:51
A/B, A/B, A/B, A/B, A/B. That's all I do.
19:53
You just go back to prison. You go down, you tell the
19:55
fucking guard you want to meet a prisoner.
19:57
You fucking walk. You tell him you want to meet
19:58
the prisoner again. He fucking turns around and goes
20:00
back up. You go down, you talk to the
20:02
dude. You just go A/B, A/B, A/B, A/B a
20:04
billion times. So your sneak goes level 100.
20:08
You want to keep the you want to keep the armor or the weapons
20:11
you get from the fucking the fucking.
20:15
The pillar, the stones, OK, go get it damaged, repair it with a
20:19
hammer and drop it. Wait for the timer to go out,
20:22
pick it back up, it's yours. Go play Oblivion remake.
20:29
I literally do feel though, like I am that young teenager again,
20:35
sitting in my bedroom, staying late, staying up late, smoking
20:39
cigarettes all fucking night, just sitting there going, whoa,
20:43
you can do this. It's like it like re sparked
20:46
that imagination in my brain that like, yes, this is a
20:49
remake. I understand that, but there's a
20:52
lot of like it it it's row scented glasses.
20:54
It's it's nostalgia trips. But I'm still sitting there
20:57
going, yeah, this is this is wild, like how I'm playing this
21:01
again, like, and it's just gorgeous now.
21:05
Yeah, well, and. What's funnier is they call it a
21:08
remaster, but I I I feel like they almost undersold it like I
21:12
I think it is it is very much a remake like it.
21:16
It looks so much better. They've re redone quite a bit of
21:20
the the UI and quite a few other things too.
21:23
But yeah, there's absolutely that Bethesda drink to it where
21:27
I mean right off the get go running through the prison.
21:30
I'm like, Oh yeah, yeah, it is a Bethesda game.
21:33
Still you. Have you all you have to get
21:36
Once you get out of prison, it's like, this is the game.
21:41
Yeah, it's immediately you're like, oh, this is my sandbox.
21:48
Ah. Then you've run into that, that
21:51
first like dungeon that's like straight out the gates there and
21:56
remember, like, holy shit, this is an absolute fucking maze from
22:00
hell. And or maybe it's not that one.
22:03
Maybe I wanted a different one. I can.
22:04
It's the one across. It's the one across the water.
22:06
Yeah, it's a shit show of a maze.
22:09
But, well, you're not supposed to go there technically right
22:12
off the bat. I did.
22:14
I did too. I probably did back in the yeah
22:16
every, every time. Why not?
22:18
But yeah, I. Haven't go on.
22:21
I, I was just going to say I, I, it, it definitely is sparking
22:25
that like nostalgia trip, right? And, and that's why I don't
22:29
think I'll stick with it for very long, but I do enjoy it.
22:32
I am enjoying it. For what it is, I haven't become
22:35
a vampire again. I'm learning, we are learning
22:40
every time I've played Oblivion. And to preface, Oblivion is
22:44
better than Skyrim. I'm sorry but every time I've
22:47
played Oblivion I've always become a vampire.
22:50
And in Oblivion it's not so forgiving.
22:52
And I I may be misremembering this, but I never found a cure
22:56
for vampirism. I don't think there is I.
22:59
Can't remember. So I didn't do it this time, but
23:02
yes, that's on Game Pass Go play that.
23:05
If you've never played Oblivion, If you're a young listener and
23:08
you've never played Oblivion, go play Oblivion.
23:11
It's on Game Pass. It's a blast.
23:13
If you like Skyrim, you will love Oblivion.
23:16
Yeah, it's it's way better than Skyrim.
23:19
And the only reason it didn't get the same flowers that Skyrim
23:22
did is because it's older and it was butt fucking ugly when it
23:27
came out and it and up up until now it was butt fucking ugly
23:33
too. And it's just, yeah, this, this
23:36
remaster really just takes it a million notches above Skyrim.
23:42
Future. Well, that it it operates more
23:44
like D&D. Yeah.
23:47
Like the more you do certain actions and the more you
23:51
succeed, the more you gain. And that's, I've always liked
23:54
that about Oblivion. It's like, oh, this, there's
23:57
actual rewards here. It reminds me a lot of like
24:00
Pathfinder. How?
24:02
Pathfinder. Yeah.
24:02
OK, that's yeah, OK. Yeah, I see that.
24:05
But it's great. Go play it.
24:07
It's fun. You'll have a blast.
24:09
It's optimized really well. I haven't had too many problems.
24:11
There's been a few times when, like, these loading screens are
24:13
fucking odd, like wired, like, it's just like, takes a little
24:17
bit to load it. And I'm like, come on, this is
24:20
under the hood. It's still the same.
24:22
It's the same bones with new skin.
24:24
That's all this is with a lot of different skin that looks really
24:29
good. I technically didn't get to play
24:38
marathon, but maybe I played a little bit of marathon.
24:45
For audio listeners, there was a lot of very forced wings during
24:48
that. It's good.
24:49
Marathon's good. They they have a long way.
24:53
This game will be delayed. Oh yeah.
24:57
Absolutely. They shouldn't have.
24:58
They should not have given a release date unless this is that
25:05
far back of a build, which I don't think it is because it's
25:10
being updated like with a ton of shit and there is no urgency in
25:20
this game right now to do anything.
25:23
But it's fun, it's very responsive.
25:26
The sound design is a + 100% for a game like this.
25:30
Sound design is almost everything.
25:32
Not almost everything, but it's like it's huge for a game like
25:34
this and they nailed it Out of the park home run.
25:39
The maps are cool. I like what we've seen so far.
25:42
I can't wait to see with actual like HD texture packs and I
25:47
can't wait to see it get some shape to everything.
25:51
The runners are all cool. They are all cool, even if
25:53
they're not your play style, they are they play very, very
25:56
cool. They're fun to play around with.
25:58
The weapons are really fun to look at.
26:00
They're fun to shoot the which I expect from Bungie.
26:04
The shoot the the gunplay is good.
26:07
This is a good game for what we have seen, but we need more.
26:13
I need, I need, I want marathon Do good.
26:16
I'm not in the camp of old jaded gamers where I'm like, well,
26:20
it's not marathon. This is marathon.
26:23
This is what we got now this is marathon.
26:24
Story continues from here. Right.
26:26
So they've already teased the four.
26:29
They're like, oh, we know people are talking about the aliens,
26:31
but it's like, OK, so they're coming when the game actually
26:35
releases. And it seems like this alpha is
26:39
really good for Bungie though, because people are talking,
26:42
people are giving them suggestions that looks like
26:44
they're listening. It looks like they want to make
26:46
this game good. I think they need this to be
26:51
good because Destiny is so fucking roller coaster with its
26:56
releases that they need something stable.
26:58
And Marathon could be that stable game.
27:01
It's interesting that everything right now is going in a bit of a
27:06
looter shooter extraction wave because obviously we just have
27:09
the news about Titanfall, which like that wasn't a good idea,
27:14
and also Apex. That's fine even though it's in
27:18
a battle Royale. Marathon's cool though.
27:23
It's cool. My critiques are literally that
27:28
the enemy variants are few and far between right now, so that's
27:32
going to get boring during this alpha.
27:36
It's slow if you like your runners don't feel like there's
27:42
no oomph to them going got to have more in the maps.
27:49
I mean, it's just like you could immediately tell what's what the
27:52
map, which is good. But I also need to I need if I'm
27:56
going to like let's say building 2, I need to know that building
27:59
2 is a hub like in Tarkov. You know, apartments, you're
28:03
fucked. Don't go to a part if you don't,
28:05
if you're not looted, you're not going to apartments.
28:08
Like if you are not going in geared up, you're not going
28:10
there. There's and in the beta is
28:14
fresh. I get that or the alpha's fresh,
28:16
but there needs to be things like that where it's like I
28:19
don't want to go there because I know that's where high tier
28:21
players are going to start. Yeah, but that that's more of a
28:25
learned experience from Tarkov, right?
28:27
Like me as somebody who hasn't played a ton of Tarkov would not
28:32
know that necessarily, right. Like there's.
28:35
No. If you're playing with the group
28:36
though, no, but like. Everything.
28:38
Starts to get like a bit of a de facto like that's, that's hotel,
28:44
that's apartments like in Marathon.
28:47
I can go well, that's building 2 cause like the building has a
28:50
giant 2 on it, right. So like, yeah, I'd be like, OK
28:52
building 2. Like we know that how the the
28:55
the the spawn pool, yeah. More unique buildings so you can
28:58
get call outs type of. Thing Yeah, yeah.
29:00
So like, you know, like in building 2, like that's where
29:04
some like purple items usually spawn or that's like where this
29:08
quest is. Like if they can signify a lot
29:11
of that, I think this is going to go very far if they can't
29:15
figure that formula out and it's just like, well, it's a battle
29:19
Royale, but not a battle Royale feel 'cause it's an extraction
29:22
shooter. It's like, well, it just feels
29:23
like teams of three duking it out for no reason right now.
29:27
Yeah, I, yeah, I, I agree wholeheartedly with the the
29:32
statement that there needs to be a little bit more diversity in
29:36
the buildings, which I also understand why that is kind of
29:40
hard, right, Because they are going for such a unique look
29:44
that everything is going to kind of have the same appearance.
29:47
But yeah, there there needs to be something so you can give
29:52
call outs, right? Or something of that identifies
29:55
it a little bit because there are quite a few portions of the
30:00
the few map. I think I only played one, maybe
30:03
2 maps. Dire Marsh and the other one, I
30:08
don't remember it's name. Yeah, but they they do kind of
30:11
feel pretty samey in some spots. It also, as much as I love the
30:18
art style that they're going for that that cyberpunky type. 3D
30:24
printed feeling. Yeah, it it, it's really cool.
30:29
But they also have like, they're going for this almost 80s sci-fi
30:36
type of vibe thing going on to like early days of the Internet
30:41
type of thing in the menus and all that too.
30:45
It is kind of overwhelming. It's it's, it's a vision vomit.
30:51
It, it truly is it, it is very hard to discern what you were
30:55
looking at or what is happening at sometimes.
30:59
But yeah, I I'm not the perfect person to review this because I
31:05
am not a huge fan of extraction shooters by any means.
31:10
And what I did play, I played a singular game with one other
31:15
friend of ours, John. And then after that I played
31:20
solo. And this kind of game sucks to
31:25
play solo. Yeah, they need to have Pve in
31:29
at launch. Pve needs to be in at launch.
31:32
I There is no excuse to not allow players to just play on
31:36
maps. Yeah.
31:38
And like, there's some people who don't want to, there are
31:42
going to be people who want to play marathon because it's
31:45
marathon, right? Yeah.
31:47
But some of them aren't going to want to do the fucking online
31:50
part where you can get griefed, where there are players who've
31:54
been playing all day, where you get home from a 12 hour.
31:59
I worked 40 hours in one day shift and fucking you get home
32:04
and like Jimmy three nut fucking played from fucking sun up to
32:08
sundown. Which like they have a system
32:10
for that though, right? So it's like the system that
32:14
they're talking about isn't matchmaking.
32:16
It's not skill based. It's like, OK, we can see like
32:19
how this player is playing with this like runner.
32:26
So it's level based, which is cool.
32:30
But like also some people are just naturals, man.
32:32
So you're gonna have to, like, figure out a way to be like, OK,
32:34
like, yeah, that guy's a level 2, but he plays, like, level 50.
32:38
Yeah. There's got to be balance here
32:41
and I think they'll get it. It's Bungie.
32:44
You guys are veterans and this is your one of your.
32:46
The second game you guys ever made was Marathon and it helped
32:50
pioneer the FPS genre. So hopefully this comes out and
32:55
knocks everything out of the park because it's Marathon.
32:59
Nobody wanted an extraction shooter.
33:01
We got an extraction shooter and everyone's going, OK, this is
33:05
this is fine. Tell me there's more to this,
33:11
though. Yeah, like.
33:13
It's such a tough one, right, because I do really enjoy the
33:16
gunplay. I think the gunplay feels very
33:19
good. It actually feels pretty
33:20
reminiscent of Destiny, which you could probably expect.
33:25
You know, you brought up the the whole veteran team in this and
33:29
that, but very, very few people, if any from the original Bungie
33:35
are still. No, I'm saying like Bungie has a
33:37
studio though, like being that studio, Like you guys are a
33:41
studio made, you know, not that the old Marathon team is on
33:46
this. I don't very.
33:47
Few No, I was just saying that, yeah, like the the the problem
33:52
is that Bungie is in such a weird place because there's
33:56
people that loved Destiny and love Destiny too and put hours
34:01
upon hours upon hours into it just to get kind of slapped in
34:04
the face. So there's a lot of people that
34:06
are really skeptical about how they're going to handle this
34:10
game, especially with it being a live service game, with it being
34:12
an extraction shooter and all of that.
34:16
I'm very much, I played a lot of Destiny and I also felt the same
34:21
way, but I'm not necessarily holding that again, getting
34:25
spongy. My biggest hang up on this is
34:28
the fact it's an extraction shooter and I just don't really
34:31
care for this genre. It is very micromanaging of
34:35
watch your inventory, this and that.
34:37
You get killed, you lose all your shit.
34:39
It just kind of feels. Bad repeat.
34:41
Yeah, it feels bad to me personally, but I also
34:45
understand the appeal. I'm also not the survival game
34:48
guy because I don't want to have to manage my inventory like
34:51
that. I don't want to have to like,
34:54
find myself in a situation where I die and lose all my shit.
34:57
Like, that just sucks personally.
35:01
But if you're a sadist and, you know, want to do all that
35:05
bullshit, go for it. But yeah, it, it, it feels good.
35:10
It needs a lot of things still. It is like you said, we don't
35:17
know where this build is in the, the, the actual progress that
35:21
they've made. They're adding things still to
35:23
this build currently while people are playing it in the
35:26
alpha. But there's also there there's
35:29
some things missing from launch or from this alpha that are
35:34
supposedly in the game that feels weird to to put this out
35:40
without it there because it it's a glaring, a glaring empty hole.
35:45
And we're putting this out to people and also pulling the NDA
35:49
so people like us can talk about it, which is cool.
35:52
I love that. But also why aren't these
35:56
features here? Why isn't this?
35:59
Because it feels strange to be like, yeah, you guys can talk
36:01
about this. We're super, you know, confident
36:04
it's all going to be good. And from what I've seen, most
36:07
people like, yeah, I mean, it's really cool.
36:12
It is it there's, there's good bones here, but it's missing the
36:16
meat still. And yeah.
36:19
And boy, you know, you were talking about, you know, you're
36:23
not one of the people that is like, you know, thinking that's
36:26
going to fail and this and that. I would almost say that you
36:29
defend it to a fault sometimes, right?
36:31
I I just want marathon. I know, I know, but and and you
36:36
were like rattling off lore and all this stuff in my brain just
36:39
goes man, like shut the fuck down because I had no idea what
36:43
you were talking about. That's a.
36:44
Shame, because like for a game like this, like Marathon prides
36:48
itself in innovation with FPS, right?
36:51
Like, I mean, not just that, obviously, but like with the
36:55
story of rampancy with a is with traveling fucking a Bajulian
37:02
light years away to Tau Ceti four and just for a fucking
37:06
rampant AI to fuck everything up or like ultimate different
37:10
timelines in marathon 3, right, Like it's it's it's it's a game
37:15
with such deep things involved in it.
37:18
So for and it sounds like they want to just be like, yeah, it's
37:22
we're going to give you all of that, but you're going to have
37:25
to it's going to be events and this and that.
37:27
And like it's you trigger this on the map during this raid.
37:30
So it's which is cool. It's just there's something
37:33
about this where I'm like, this could have just been like a
37:37
super cool, like you could have just went the destiny route with
37:42
this and I probably would have been a lot happier.
37:44
Like words, like an open hub on Taoseti.
37:50
Almost like an area of Taoseti. Like I.
37:55
I even think there could be an argument for a salt like yeah
37:58
Destiny style I think would be the ideal way to do this, but I.
38:02
Think you could player? Yeah, a solid single player with
38:05
a good arena shooter in it, like.
38:07
That's what I thought. I think that would have been the
38:11
better I extraction shooters, I know we're kind of popular right
38:15
now, like they're pretty popular I guess, but.
38:18
I I our battle royale's do it nowadays.
38:21
Yeah, right. And, but I, I also feel that
38:23
extraction shooters are still somewhat niche, like to an
38:27
extent, I know they're one of the more popular types of games
38:32
going on outside of your typical Cods and, and such for first
38:36
person shooters, but it, it's still pretty niche.
38:39
Like you got battle royales, you've got your, your typical
38:43
multiplayer shooters like COD or, you know, fucking you.
38:47
You also have siege, stuff like that.
38:49
But extraction shooters are one of those things, like, I know
38:53
there's a lot of other people that feel similar to how I do,
38:55
where it just kind of feels bad. People want to play Tarkov so
38:59
they don't get FOMO when they watch creators online, play
39:02
Tarkov, make a lot of fucking money off the clips that they're
39:06
doing. So they play with their friends.
39:08
They hate every fucking moment of it, but they don't want to
39:10
miss the moments. So that's what that is.
39:13
A lot of that, that's a lot of extraction shooters and it's
39:16
marketed for a younger audience. It's not marketed for an older
39:20
audience. This marathon is marketed for
39:23
not the marathon audience that played it.
39:27
Like it's not for them anymore. And for them to say it's a love
39:30
letter to them, that's a bullshit fucking lie, right?
39:34
Like. Well, yeah.
39:35
But I want this to do good because if it does well, then
39:39
that could tell the industry, it could tell Bungie.
39:41
People want Marathon. OK, so is there anything else we
39:45
can do with this other than just like, it's cool, but Brody said
39:50
it's got good bones. It does, but those bones need
39:53
some fucking braces on them, dude.
39:55
They need some braces. This game will get delayed,
39:58
there is no doubt about it. Or it's going to come out in a
40:04
weird half finished. It's it's going to come out in a
40:07
weird half finished state. It's going to piss everybody
40:09
off. And then the people who were
40:10
sitting there going Concorde, Concorde, Concorde, they're
40:13
going to end up being right because Sony doesn't want to
40:15
deal with that again. But it's Bungie.
40:17
So it's not going to get cancelled.
40:18
It's just going to get kind of like here's your updates, here's
40:23
those things we promised and it's eventually just going to be
40:26
plugged pulled, which would be crazy because of all the
40:29
marketing going in the marathon, the AR GS, the the showcase, the
40:34
this, the that. So it's there's a lot going on.
40:36
They look confident and I'm confident in them, but I just
40:39
don't want to be burned by this. So that's marathon.
40:45
I'm I'm excited still, but very skeptical and nervous.
40:49
So, Brody. Yes.
40:53
Before we hop off. Yes.
40:57
Xbox price hike. Yeah.
41:02
OK, who do we thank for this? Who?
41:09
Who who gets rose? Is it tariffs?
41:12
Is it just Xbox saying? I mean, tariffs are a huge part
41:19
of it. I feel like.
41:21
I don't know if I've actually said it on the show, but video
41:26
games have cost about the same since the 90s and they have not
41:30
really increased in prices and calculating for inflation like
41:38
this was bound to happen and I'm surprised it took this long.
41:42
We wanted. To not that I wanted to.
41:44
For the record, I also do not like to spend more money than I
41:47
have to on things. I know that's weird, but I feel
41:51
like we can also acknowledge that this was going to happen.
41:57
Games cost more to make more now than they ever have and take
42:00
more time back. Back in the 90s we were still
42:03
charging $60.00 for games. Like it's kind of something that
42:09
I'm not too surprised, but the tariffs were definitely the nail
42:13
in the coffin for this and that's why they happened and why
42:16
they were able to get away with it.
42:18
And on top of that, Nintendo bit the bullet fucking first and
42:21
people were pissed off at Nintendo and now Xbox has done
42:24
it and people act like Sony's not going to do it.
42:26
Like Sony's announcement is right around the corner or they
42:29
just won't even announcement, but now it and then just do it.
42:32
Especially being a Japanese company that has to import all
42:36
of their consoles and everything else.
42:38
Like it's just, yeah, no, all of this shit's going to get more
42:42
and more expensive. All the more reason to buy APC.
42:47
Buy it now, by the way, if you want to get a computer, I would
42:51
do it right the fuck now because those at my job, we're watching
42:56
prices of we have to order things for our clients.
43:00
Yeah, it is volatile. I didn't realize, but like
43:04
watching certain devices, laptops, what what you name it,
43:08
go from OK, OK, we can get that boom in a couple hours to a
43:12
couple minutes to a day. It's like how did that jump from
43:17
this to like $300.00 more within a couple minutes or it's it's
43:22
crazy dude. So like if you want to get APCI,
43:26
suggest getting it now. If you want to get a Nintendo
43:28
Switch to I'd suggest getting a pre-order and as soon as you
43:31
can. It's only going to get worse.
43:35
I did not pre-order the switch I could have.
43:37
Either I I am regretting it. I I had that thought that night
43:42
that it went up because I was working nights during that time
43:45
period and I could have gotten one.
43:48
Was not able to or sorry, decided not to because I was
43:52
like, oh, there's not going to be any games out that I really
43:54
am super looking forward to. I was like yeah, some stuff
43:57
that's OK, but just nothing that's really going to get a ton
43:59
of use for me personally. And then Jeff had texted me and
44:06
asked me if I ordered one. I was like no I didn't.
44:09
I thought about it and and that he told me that he was an unable
44:15
to get one through. I went to Walmart's website and
44:18
was able to get one through and bought it for him.
44:21
So I pre-ordered one technically, just not for myself
44:25
like. I am getting one for my wife for
44:29
Mother's Day. Oh, very good.
44:31
It's all sheets. She is Nintendo.
44:36
That is what she is in the gaming sphere.
44:38
She is Nintendo. So OK, fine, that's a huge
44:42
Mother's Day gift, but I'll get you the fucking Switch too soon
44:45
as it gets back on pre-order. Keep your eyes on that.
44:47
Like I said, I'd get anything gaming related I'd buy now.
44:50
Yeah, I would. Honestly, I the the bad part is
44:55
almost everything's going to go up.
44:56
But yeah, as far as video games and hobbies and stuff like that,
45:00
like, like most stuff is not made.
45:04
If you're listening to this, odds are you're probably in the
45:07
States. So most things are not made here
45:09
in the States. I don't know if you knew that.
45:11
Nor do we have the infrastructure or factories to
45:14
supply this currently and won't for years.
45:19
So. Yeah, yeah.
45:24
You know, the the whole bringing jobs to America is it sounds
45:28
great if you don't really think about how that actually
45:31
functions in a global economy. But you know.
45:34
We realize that nobody in this country marathon was cool,
45:41
though. Yeah.
45:44
No, but dude, it sucks. I understand everyone's pissed
45:48
at Xbox right now. It seems so silly to me though.
45:53
I mean I'm just being honest. Like you cannot expect a company
45:57
to pay damn near 100% tariffs on things and not raise their
46:04
prices. Like I I'm sorry that's just
46:06
unfortunately how it is. If you want, Xbox is not the one
46:09
to be mad at in this situation. There's one, there's, there's a
46:13
glaring, yeah, weirdly shaped human with very stupid hair you
46:19
could be mad at for all this. And we're not gonna go there.
46:22
I because I'm not getting deported.
46:24
Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, I don't, I, I don't fully
46:30
understand why people are upset with Xbox at the bull of it,
46:33
because Nintendo just did this and we were mad at Nintendo for.
46:38
Nintendo. Yeah, we were mad at Nintendo
46:40
for two weeks. Now Xbox does it, and we're mad
46:43
at Xbox now. Everybody forgot about the
46:45
Switch stuff. We're past that now.
46:47
We're mad at Xbox now. And then here in two more weeks
46:50
when mysteriously when you go to your local Walmart and the games
46:54
are 80 fucking dollars and you're like, wait, what the fuck
46:56
happened? And we're going to be mad at
46:58
PlayStation. Like I it's just all all of the
47:01
three major companies are going to do this.
47:04
Like it's going to happen. It is inevitable with what is
47:08
currently happening right now. I why do we have surprise when
47:12
it happens? Oh yeah, when they.
47:15
When when they do that if if Rockstar comes out goes 70 bucks
47:20
base price I will. Not a chance it will.
47:24
Not a chance if if they do. Used to be the 80 at least 80.
47:28
$80.00 but that, but that's if they do that, if they, if they
47:32
go $80.00 base price, I will, I will.
47:37
I, I, I don't know what I'll buy you, I'll buy you some good
47:40
booze if they do that, because that's not, it's not going to
47:43
happen. So I don't know everybody buckle
47:47
up. Game gaming is going to get
47:49
rough. But we got a lot of good things
47:51
to look forward to, to play. You know, I'm just ready for
47:57
Doom at this point. I am so ready to hop into the
48:00
dark ages and just let my mind melt in the fucking world of
48:04
Doom. I'm taking, I think I'm taking
48:07
that day off work. They've my boss already has the
48:09
day off for that. It comes out to the day I go
48:13
back from vacation. That's balls.
48:18
It it sucks real bad. Because this, this game is going
48:23
to be phenomenal. Yeah.
48:26
My collector's system shipped collector's edition.
48:30
I recorded audio for our company too.
48:33
And I realized, boy, do I just go through words.
48:37
I don't, I don't pronunciate anything.
48:39
But when I was recording, I was just like blah, blah, blah,
48:42
blah. And I was like, I need to
48:43
enunciate better. I said pronunciate a minute ago.
48:48
I meant to say enunciate. Anyways, whatever.
48:51
Gaming's kind of in the shit. America's not doing great.
48:55
But you know what? We're still here.
48:59
Still here, baby? WAC ain't going nowhere.
49:02
We're here. We're tired, we're old, we're
49:05
older than we were when we first started podcasting together.
49:08
Yeah, yeah, that that do be how time works.
49:13
You got Gray hair in your beard now, old man.
49:16
I someone told me that from across the fucking room the
49:20
other day and I was like OK. That's not.
49:22
Fair. It's that obvious?
49:24
That's not fair. You go up to that man, you slap
49:26
and tell him to shut up. He's like, oh, I just happened
49:30
to walk in. They must have been talking
49:31
about beards or something. They're like, oh, there's a nice
49:33
beard and he's like getting a little grey though.
49:35
I'm like, you are on the other side of a fucking room.
49:39
You, you bitch. Thanks.
49:41
Oh, it hurt. It hurt.
49:42
He's right, but it hurt. Yeah, it's fine.
49:45
Salt and pepper. I'm sure the wife loves it.
49:49
OK, we're we're putting this one in the can, everybody.
49:52
That's a good thing. We're canning it.
49:54
We're we're done. Thank you all for checking out
49:56
the show. Like I said, please check out
49:58
this. Check out the sponsors Scream
50:02
box. Scream at our movies, not our
50:04
prices. Final Boss, the dopest gaming
50:08
merch in the world right now. Get yourself some Final Boss
50:11
merch. The Counter Strike merch comes
50:13
in soon. Brody.
50:16
Stoked on that? Stoked.
50:17
Get that Doc long, He's got the fucking illest gear in the music
50:21
game, so make sure you're getting stuff from him.
50:25
I'll never get tired of saying this, but August 29th The Toxic
50:29
Avenger mops his way in the theaters once again.
50:32
Be sure to go see The Toxic Avenger in theaters.
50:35
It's going to be a fucking fantastic time.
50:37
Go follow Syniverse, the Toxic Avenger screen box For more
50:40
information on that. Bloody Disgusting as well.
50:43
And Nerdist do a lot of stuff on Toxic Avenger, so make sure
50:46
you're keeping your eyes peeled there.
50:48
Thank you Noah Murray for the art that you've created for our
50:52
new series. It came from Screambox.
50:55
This is a series featuring myself, Alex and Noah and or a
50:58
rotating cast of people depends on who wants to watch the movie.
51:02
Our next movie we will be reviewing is called St.
51:05
Trash so get ready for that. Thank you Screambox for
51:09
sponsoring that segment of the WHD and Beyond show.
51:13
Till next week guys, take it easy and be safe.
51:18
Like a 90s thing right there, you know?
51:23
Bye everybody. This is the WASD and Beyond
51:32
podcast.