Latest / Respec: Video Game Ramblings / Halo and Splatoon reviewed, Xbox classics hit PC, and is Super Circuit the worst Mario Kart? | The Respec Ramblings Podcast

Transcript

Halo and Splatoon reviewed, Xbox classics hit PC, and is Super Circuit the worst Mario Kart? | The Respec Ramblings Podcast · Respec: Video Game Ramblings

• 0:03
  Hello there, sir, madame. Can I interest you
• 0:06
  in some video game with your advertising? It
• 0:09
  is time for this week's edition of the Respec
• 0:12
  Ramblings podcast with me, Alex Donaldson, Tom
• 0:15
  Ory, Mikhail Madnani, and James Galizio. So,
• 0:20
  how you doing, fellas? Had a very busy week this
• 0:24
  week. I know you can't talk about some of that,
• 0:27
  but yeah. Yeah, yeah. Can't talk about any, but
• 0:31
  yeah, just... you know let's just say uh was
• 0:35
  a bit of uh it was a lot well you will yeah people
• 0:44
  will i'm sure um maybe you come back on and talk
• 0:47
  about some of the stuff you've uh you've seen
• 0:48
  and done uh when embargoes have lifted but um
• 0:53
  yeah it's a weird time right now right because
• 0:54
  like i'm finding it's really not very busy um
• 1:00
  for for us in what we're putting out like the
• 1:06
  website quite quiet there's not a huge amount
• 1:08
  of news going on and stuff like that but behind
• 1:11
  the scenes there's quite a lot going on in terms
• 1:14
  of we're obviously on the run up now to both
• 1:17
  Gamescom and Tokyo Game Show maybe we'll talk
• 1:20
  a little bit about that in the in the Patreon
• 1:23
  off topic get into some inside baseball on that
• 1:26
  Tom how's your week been? It's alright been mostly
• 1:31
  doing reviews Which I kind of forgot how much
• 1:34
  time they take. I've always had, I've had minions
• 1:37
  to do reviews for a long time. And now it's like,
• 1:41
  oh, got to find 40 hours to play these things.
• 1:45
  And then also write about them. Yeah. Yeah. It's
• 1:50
  a young man's game. Young person's game. It is
• 1:53
  a young person's game. It is. Well, we'll talk
• 1:56
  about your reviews in a moment. Mikhail, who,
• 1:58
  if you're watching the video person, is currently
• 2:00
  represented by some lovely Xenoblade. Xenoblade?
• 2:04
  I say Xenoblade because I'm British. I think
• 2:08
  we can see his reflection in that little metallic
• 2:13
  face. In that stupid vertical stand sold separately
• 2:17
  PlayStation 5 thing. Yeah, 40. Is that 40 quid,
• 2:22
  right? uh i think i paid like 25 when i got it
• 2:26
  uh and this this stuff isn't even available easily
• 2:29
  over here so i have to like get it through an
• 2:31
  import store or something because uh yeah it's
• 2:34
  it's it's annoying you can't set it up normally
• 2:36
  and the you know the things they give you with
• 2:38
  the console it's like they've 3d printed these
• 2:40
  stupid toothpicks or something so yeah i got
• 2:43
  i got this and yeah week's been really busy like
• 2:47
  a shitload of stuff on rpg site some stuff on
• 2:51
  respec some stuff probably going up on respect
• 2:54
  today and tomorrow maybe i don't know a lot a
• 2:56
  lot of stuff happening like like how tom said
• 2:59
  uh i i don't want to do reviews or whatever anymore
• 3:02
  but i thought doing comparisons would be less
• 3:04
  work but yeah absolutely not like been drowning
• 3:07
  in that stuff so and on halo today as well which
• 3:10
  we'll talk about yes yes well to be fair maybe
• 3:13
  maybe that's what we we jump right into so tom
• 3:16
  you had two big reviews this week they are sometimes
• 3:20
  like buses where there aren't any and then several
• 3:22
  come along at once and you reviewed both um halo
• 3:25
  campaign evolved and splatoon raiders i don't
• 3:29
  know which you want to talk about first let's
• 3:32
  start with halo as that is the one that's more
• 3:34
  recent in terms of it went live more recently
• 3:36
  um so halo is like i mean i loved halo right
• 3:44
  i think if you play most i mean that obviously
• 3:47
  some people Played it back on release 25 years
• 3:50
  ago and were like, now I've got a PC, I've played
• 3:53
  games like this before, whatever. I was big into
• 3:57
  PC gaming back then, but also I loved Halo, right?
• 4:00
  I loved it. To me, it felt different to what
• 4:05
  we were getting on PCs at the time. Brilliant
• 4:08
  co -op, used to play co -op a lot with friends
• 4:11
  at uni and stuff. And it just felt like a real,
• 4:15
  like... maybe one of the last mega huge launch
• 4:21
  games of any like it felt like a big deal right
• 4:24
  this was like a system we used to call system
• 4:26
  sellers right um and it was a big deal and it
• 4:31
  was great to play felt like bigger in scope than
• 4:35
  what we'd had previously um it had issues obviously
• 4:40
  and over time those issues were sort of talked
• 4:44
  about more and more but it still despite those
• 4:47
  was an incredible launch game for the xbox right
• 4:50
  um now halo and i've seen people have been moaning
• 4:56
  that just judge the game etc but halo is launched
• 4:59
  at a time when it is a very it feels completely
• 5:05
  different like halo was a like a showpiece game
• 5:09
  right it was the thing that xbox built its entire
• 5:12
  console business around pretty much right um
• 5:15
  and now it kind of is coming out almost it's
• 5:19
  like a remember we do this stuff that you liked
• 5:23
  kind of stuff it doesn't feel the same it doesn't
• 5:25
  feel like a exciting moment like it possibly
• 5:28
  should do it feels like a kind of oh i realize
• 5:32
  the people that made this put a lot of time and
• 5:34
  effort into it and they've done a good job mostly
• 5:36
  but it it doesn't feel like it it feels almost
• 5:39
  like a desperation kind of thing right they're
• 5:41
  like How can we make Halo relevant again? Can
• 5:44
  we make it popular again? And that is possibly
• 5:47
  just timing, right? Things have happened over
• 5:49
  the last few years that have put Xbox in a position
• 5:53
  where they're not doing that great, right? Various
• 5:56
  things have happened. Layoffs is kind of the,
• 5:59
  even got the layoff side, it maybe isn't even
• 6:02
  the worst thing that they've been involved with
• 6:05
  as a wider Microsoft business. But the game itself,
• 6:10
  like, i like it like i like what they've done
• 6:14
  here i think it is a a fairly authentic remake
• 6:19
  in that if you haven't like i've played halo
• 6:23
  a lot but i haven't replayed it as much like
• 6:26
  in the last five years or so that i had previously
• 6:29
  i used to play it quite often uh played the master
• 6:32
  chief collection um and it feels and looks like
• 6:36
  i remember halo feeling and looking despite although
• 6:39
  it looks significantly better like it looks at
• 6:42
  points really quite amazing to look at right
• 6:44
  you've done a really good job remaking it it's
• 6:47
  got a lot of tweaks that people will be i have
• 6:51
  fairly different views about right so you've
• 6:53
  got stuff like uh weapons that you couldn't previously
• 6:57
  use like the energy sword um which you may think
• 7:01
  you could use the energy sword inhaler you couldn't
• 7:03
  use it in in the campaign for sure um but now
• 7:07
  you can and it doesn't feel out of place to me
• 7:09
  because you could use it later on right so it
• 7:11
  became a thing you could use and i don't it didn't
• 7:14
  feel out of out of place because my memory was
• 7:18
  kind of i guess mixed between loads of halo games
• 7:21
  over the years you can aim down sights and with
• 7:24
  all the weapons right that's something you couldn't
• 7:25
  do before you can run which again like it doesn't
• 7:29
  it didn't feel it doesn't feel out of place to
• 7:31
  me having that in there and i think actually
• 7:34
  helps quite a few of the levels where you've
• 7:35
  got a lot of wandering around to be fair and
• 7:38
  sometimes it was a bit ponderous kind of making
• 7:41
  your way back through levels and stuff and now
• 7:43
  you can run um it doesn't it feels like it was
• 7:46
  there all along to me it doesn't feel out of
• 7:48
  place at all um and they've made some tweaks
• 7:50
  to certain bits of the game like the library
• 7:53
  is tweaked i would say um i never hated it to
• 7:58
  be fair like i was not one of these people that
• 8:00
  hated playing that if it's it's a lot more without
• 8:05
  going back and judging it exactly like room by
• 8:09
  room it feels more streamlined i'd say but yeah
• 8:14
  like overall it's a very nicely done remake which
• 8:19
  makes you bring makes you think oh this is how
• 8:21
  i remember halo despite it being like significantly
• 8:24
  more visually impressive they've added a load
• 8:27
  of like replayability stuff while the skulls
• 8:30
  skulls obviously are a big part of halo they
• 8:32
  add modifiers to the game so you can do sort
• 8:35
  of reruns that change a lot of stuff and it's
• 8:38
  really quite cool you can lock from the exact
• 8:40
  number it's like 40 odd different skulls that
• 8:43
  modify the game so you can some of those are
• 8:45
  simple things like you can disable some of the
• 8:48
  stuff they've added to make it more authentic
• 8:50
  you've got a third person mode you've got various
• 8:53
  other things that kind of mix up what weapons
• 8:54
  are dropped to various places where enemies are
• 8:56
  in locations so you get a different feel to those
• 9:01
  levels than you had before there's three new
• 9:05
  missions which i don't dislike but also they're
• 9:10
  kind of just there like there's nothing particularly
• 9:13
  memorable about memorable about them they throw
• 9:15
  in some enemies that aren't in uh the original
• 9:19
  game but they are in later games so it feels
• 9:22
  a bit like oh yeah like those things that you
• 9:24
  know already are there um and it's kind of like
• 9:29
  uh a fine like it's fine but you won't be like
• 9:33
  whoa those three missions were incredible um
• 9:36
  but i like them enough and i think considering
• 9:38
  halo isn't the longest campaign those three levels
• 9:42
  aren't bad like i don't object from being there
• 9:45
  by any means the main thing i dislike about this
• 9:48
  and i'm a bit confused about why it hasn't been
• 9:50
  more of a thing is how badly it runs like on
• 9:53
  it i played on ps5 pro which i assumed would
• 9:57
  be the best way to play on a console at least
• 9:59
  right outside of a a good pc i figured that would
• 10:03
  be the way to play it particularly this is unreal
• 10:05
  engine 5 which doesn't run amazingly on consoles
• 10:09
  generally when they push it um figured that would
• 10:12
  be a good way to play it started off in it's
• 10:14
  got quality mode performance mode quality mode
• 10:16
  immediately was just like i played it and my
• 10:19
  son was watching and he's like he's 12 he's not
• 10:22
  like the most uh experienced of of gamers so
• 10:27
  to speak and he was like is this broken like
• 10:29
  he looked at it and it was just so it was so
• 10:32
  sluggish and like the the motion blur was like
• 10:35
  almost like dragging as you looked around it
• 10:37
  just looked bad i mean like um at that age like
• 10:42
  with this console generation 60 fps has been
• 10:45
  the norm so yeah yeah i mean he yeah i mean he
• 10:48
  plays like he mostly plays like fortnite and
• 10:50
  stuff so he's used to it being fairly quick and
• 10:53
  smooth and he noticed that i noticed it looked
• 10:56
  it didn't look right like it didn't look like
• 10:58
  a sometimes 30 is sort of acceptable like it
• 11:02
  it feels okay when done well this doesn't at
• 11:05
  least what i played on the pro we switched it
• 11:07
  performance mode and now it looks rougher but
• 11:11
  it was significantly smoother but still a lot
• 11:14
  of the time it just bogged down pretty badly
• 11:18
  to the point where i thought this is gonna like
• 11:20
  is this whole thing gonna just crash because
• 11:22
  it was chugging so badly it felt like enemies
• 11:26
  were like losing frames of animation and stuff
• 11:28
  it was pretty bad is that just like brute forcing
• 11:32
  like native 4k on the ps5 pro quality mode i
• 11:34
  don't think i don't think it is because this
• 11:36
  is performance mode so it definitely looked rougher
• 11:38
  like it wasn't running at the same resolution
• 11:41
  as quality mode so i i don't know like something
• 11:45
  is bothering it which i i expect they may well
• 11:48
  fix it looks like the kind of thing that something's
• 11:51
  been triggered some kind of issue and it's just
• 11:54
  It's mostly PlayStation, these issues, right?
• 11:57
  It sounds like Xbox is pretty good. I mean, it
• 11:59
  may be. I think, like, wasn't this done by Virtuos,
• 12:03
  who also did the Oblivion remaster? Don't know,
• 12:07
  to be honest. I think they assisted on something.
• 12:10
  They assist. Because I was going to say, because
• 12:12
  the way I look at this is, this is Halo Studios,
• 12:16
  formerly, the artist formerly known as 343, trying
• 12:19
  to get their feet under the table, which is why
• 12:22
  you have that weird thing of like, They've built
• 12:25
  all the weapons from Halo 2 and 3 and Brutes
• 12:28
  and things like that that aren't in this game
• 12:30
  and put them in as like, oh, we've got this stuff
• 12:34
  so now we can do the other games if we want to,
• 12:37
  which I'm sure that's the plan, right? But it
• 12:43
  wouldn't surprise me, yeah, because Oblivion
• 12:44
  had all manner of problems on PlayStation, didn't
• 12:46
  it? okay yeah so i checked this so yeah it is
• 12:49
  co -developed by virtuos and like the reason
• 12:51
  i bring that up is because oblivion had similar
• 12:54
  issues on everything like that's notoriously
• 12:57
  bad it's it's a game which will run worse the
• 13:00
  more you play it i don't think that would be
• 13:02
  a problem here but oblivion never got fixed and
• 13:05
  when they announced the switch to port i'm like
• 13:07
  are you serious like how are you it runs like
• 13:09
  shit on ps5 pro unless you like tweak it and
• 13:12
  stuff and like keep rebooting so i haven't played
• 13:15
  it much yet on ps5 pro like i got code as soon
• 13:18
  as i think an hour after your review went up
• 13:20
  so i'll be working on that soon but this is unreal
• 13:24
  engine 5 game pushing visuals on console is gonna
• 13:27
  be running at a low resolution like that's just
• 13:29
  the thing my only hope was because they are using
• 13:32
  the good upscaling on ps5 pro that it would look
• 13:35
  nice but uh i i wouldn't play this at 30 fps
• 13:38
  like oblivion i could deal with because i've
• 13:40
  always played skyrim at 30 so that's just how
• 13:43
  i'm used to it but with with this i can't play
• 13:46
  a first person shooter at 30 like i think the
• 13:49
  one time i made the exception was when like remember
• 13:51
  when doom came to switch in 2017 and everyone
• 13:53
  was like oh it's on a portable for the first
• 13:56
  time and all that so i mean even i did that like
• 13:58
  it was fine i tolerated it but i'm not doing
• 14:00
  that now especially not on ps5 pro but the one
• 14:03
  thing i can say is i've played this on steam
• 14:05
  deck a bit i'll probably write something about
• 14:07
  that today it's a steam deck verified game and
• 14:09
  it should not be verified Because you literally
• 14:15
  cannot get it to run well, whatever you do. And
• 14:19
  the default settings are just awful. It honestly
• 14:21
  feels like Pokemon on Switch 1. It's that bad.
• 14:24
  I would not call it verified. By default, to
• 14:28
  be clear. You can tweak it and stuff, which I'm
• 14:31
  working on how to get it to an acceptable place.
• 14:33
  But yeah, this is a 20 to 30. experience over
• 14:37
  there unless you really make it look awful and
• 14:40
  it should not be verified this is one of those
• 14:42
  valve marked a big game coming out as verified
• 14:45
  for marketing reasons type thing it's not like
• 14:48
  you know tom's issues on like the most powerful
• 14:50
  console like there was no chance it was gonna
• 14:52
  run well on steam deck but when they said verified
• 14:54
  i thought you know maybe it's like elden ring
• 14:56
  where valve does some work to make it run because
• 14:59
  like elden ring is still best on steam deck on
• 15:01
  pc you cannot get it to run without stuttering
• 15:03
  on windows at all so i was hoping this might
• 15:06
  be one of those things but it's not looking great
• 15:08
  so far and i have not played halo campaign uh
• 15:11
  combat evolved since i think since i got an xbox
• 15:15
  one x when i bought the master chief collection
• 15:16
  i never played the original or anything so that
• 15:19
  was my first time playing it and i never finished
• 15:20
  it so i'm looking forward to doing that this
• 15:23
  weekend just not it's not good on low -end systems
• 15:26
  i don't even know how it's going to be on i have
• 15:28
  it on xbox as well i'm downloading it there so
• 15:30
  we'll see have you seen alex you've seen what
• 15:34
  it's like on series s or not i have not so i
• 15:37
  literally got code like an hour before we started
• 15:40
  recording so i started downloading it um and
• 15:45
  i'm not at home as people are watching the video
• 15:47
  version and watch every week might be able to
• 15:49
  tell so i only have a series s here so i'm about
• 15:52
  to find out no um so um because i won't be home
• 15:57
  for another few days so um yeah i will i will
• 16:01
  check that out the one thing that obviously we
• 16:03
  haven't mentioned the elephant in the room obviously
• 16:04
  it's it's it's in the title right that it's campaign
• 16:08
  evolved and there is no more element and the
• 16:10
  one thing i would say just i mean anecdotal right
• 16:12
  but i think it's telling where the day because
• 16:16
  because it's not been a game that's had a tremendously
• 16:18
  big hype cycle and then the day that this was
• 16:22
  coming out my boys group chat which i will often
• 16:26
  refer to this group chat probably the first time
• 16:28
  i've referred to it on this podcast but i have
• 16:30
  referred to it on places like vgc and things
• 16:33
  like that um in the past and basically this is
• 16:36
  my group chat of all my my core mates the 17
• 16:39
  lads in there and i love this group chat for
• 16:42
  video game stuff because these are just all the
• 16:45
  guys that i go to the pub with and stuff like
• 16:47
  that whatever gone holiday with all my oldest
• 16:51
  friends but um we've all been together a very
• 16:54
  long time so among that 17 people it runs along
• 16:57
  it runs the gamut of like what sort of jobs people
• 17:01
  are in what sort of class background people are
• 17:03
  from so we've got mechanics and builders and
• 17:06
  plumbers and accountants and teachers and you
• 17:09
  know it really runs the gamut um and It also
• 17:13
  runs the gamut in terms of how much we play games.
• 17:15
  Some of the lads, we all played them growing
• 17:17
  up, but some of them have just completely stopped.
• 17:19
  Some of them have not owned a current gen console.
• 17:21
  Some of them are like, they've got high end PCs,
• 17:24
  but they don't buy that many games. They buy
• 17:28
  the big games. Some of them are high end PCs,
• 17:31
  but they've fallen into the indie game hole and
• 17:32
  they only play like indie games and a load of
• 17:34
  big map strategy games and paradox and stuff.
• 17:39
  anyway i digress the point is i think it's a
• 17:41
  pretty good cross -section of gamers in their
• 17:43
  in their 30s and this chat uh noticed that halo
• 17:49
  was coming out and people started talking about
• 17:51
  it and very quickly people started talking about
• 17:54
  oh remember when remember this remember that
• 17:56
  it was all multiplayer memories and then someone
• 18:00
  said oh this doesn't have multiplayer and instantly
• 18:03
  all the interest evaporated But I found it interesting
• 18:07
  because it shows the power of something like
• 18:09
  Halo, where a load of lads who don't necessarily
• 18:12
  run to the latest release, who aren't buying
• 18:15
  Call of Duty every year, for instance, have fallen
• 18:17
  off that train. Oh, yeah, I'll go back to a remake
• 18:20
  of one of the Halo games I loved. And then when
• 18:22
  they realized it was only the campaign, they
• 18:23
  were like, actually, I'll give it a miss. I think
• 18:28
  it's a shame. I mean, it does have four -player
• 18:29
  co -op online, which is... good like it is particularly
• 18:35
  with the skull stuff you could make some fairly
• 18:37
  cool different feeling playthroughs but yeah
• 18:41
  like the no multiplayer stuff i guess they didn't
• 18:45
  want to have to support another multiplayer game
• 18:48
  and they were probably working on something else
• 18:50
  which may or may not have yeah i will say sorry
• 18:56
  I will say like Microsoft's been weird about
• 18:58
  Halo multiplayer for a while now because I remember
• 19:01
  when Infinite came out. Like, I don't know if
• 19:04
  anyone else here. Well, no, Mikhail, I'm sure
• 19:06
  you have seen like a physical Halo Infinite box
• 19:10
  for like Xbox Series. I own one. I own one. If
• 19:13
  you went to buy a physical copy of Halo Infinite,
• 19:17
  if you picked it up, looked on the back of the
• 19:20
  box, it would advertise our free multiplayer
• 19:23
  mode. So if you were just in it for the multiplayer
• 19:27
  and you were going to spend $60, $70 on this,
• 19:31
  Microsoft was like, you can put that right back.
• 19:35
  Yeah, this is one of the issues which I also
• 19:38
  noticed. I mean, not an issue, it's just how
• 19:40
  they brand it or whatever. When GTA 5 got its
• 19:44
  PS5 and Xbox Series version, on PS5 it just showed
• 19:48
  up as GTA, but on Xbox it shows up as GTA Online
• 19:50
  with the campaign as DLC. And that's kind of
• 19:54
  how the Halo Infinite is also. So if you put
• 19:56
  the disc in, it's multiplayer with the campaign
• 19:59
  as DLC. I believe that's how it is on Steam as
• 20:01
  well. Like you add Infinite to your account for
• 20:04
  free and the campaign is DLC. So it's a bizarre
• 20:07
  thing. I haven't inserted that disc into the
• 20:09
  console because like you said, it's free, right?
• 20:11
  And I have the campaign on Game Pass, but yeah.
• 20:14
  They were, it was weird at that time anyway,
• 20:16
  because Master Chief Collection split the games
• 20:19
  the same way, right? And I think some of that
• 20:21
  was, I don't know. Maybe some of that was about
• 20:24
  weird goals they had, but I think doubtless also,
• 20:26
  some of it was just about managing install space.
• 20:34
  Because the whole thing was, if you got all of
• 20:36
  Master Chief Collection, it was like 500 gig.
• 20:40
  And that was like half of your average Xbox One.
• 20:45
  Not even that, more. How much was the Xbox One
• 20:48
  hard drive? Some of them only had 500. So obviously
• 20:52
  by letting you manage it and go, I want ODST,
• 20:54
  I want Halo 3 multiplayer, but I don't need the
• 20:57
  campaign at this stage. It let you manage it
• 20:59
  more. So I think some of it was about that. It
• 21:01
  was also just, it was such a weird time for multiplayer
• 21:03
  games, right? I think of Halo 5 and Infinite
• 21:07
  as such weird beasts. 5 had that multiplayer
• 21:11
  that was really COD thinking. The cards and stuff
• 21:16
  like that, yeah. Yeah, and I really liked, I
• 21:19
  actually like... I actually really liked Infinite.
• 21:21
  The only thing I didn't really like about it
• 21:23
  is the story just sort of stops because obviously
• 21:26
  that whole idea was, oh, it's going to be Infinite.
• 21:27
  We're going to do seasons and there'll be updates.
• 21:29
  I'd argue the story for Infinite doesn't even
• 21:31
  really start to begin with. It kind of just spins
• 21:34
  its wheels the entire time. I don't know. I liked
• 21:36
  New Cortana and things like that. Like I liked
• 21:39
  the idea behind that character being reborn.
• 21:40
  I wish they properly explained how he got from
• 21:43
  the ending of Halo 5 where it's like, oh, she's
• 21:45
  the big... But I digress. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 21:49
  yeah. But you know, the one thing about the multiplayer
• 21:51
  that I'm confused about is they put in all this
• 21:53
  effort to do cross progression, cross save. Like
• 21:56
  you can literally play someone on Steam, someone
• 21:59
  on Xbox Series S, someone on PS5 Pro, someone
• 22:01
  on the cloud. You can all play together and stuff.
• 22:04
  They put in this effort. You can even get your
• 22:06
  saves across. Like that's my favorite thing.
• 22:08
  It's going to save me time for sure today. But
• 22:11
  I just feel like they put in all this effort.
• 22:13
  There has to be something coming. to like build
• 22:15
  on it you can't just have this be like your budget
• 22:18
  campaign thing like you have to do more with
• 22:20
  it is what i don't think there'll be dlc though
• 22:22
  i think what's coming is this is a foundation
• 22:24
  for what they want to do next but i think it
• 22:29
  does speak to and tom touched on this xbox in
• 22:32
  a weird place at the moment and so this is a
• 22:34
  perfectly good game but the nature of it sort
• 22:36
  of speaks to where xbox is at so their good thing
• 22:41
  is sort of a a victory not a victory lap sort
• 22:45
  of a a reliving of a past victory lap except
• 22:48
  because of the nature of it because they're just
• 22:50
  releasing the campaign with no multiplayer and
• 22:52
  stuff like that it's also a weirdly diminished
• 22:54
  version of what they did well in the past which
• 22:57
  don't get me wrong i'm sure we won't we all will
• 23:00
  not be complaining if next year they go we've
• 23:02
  used the tech and tools from this and here's
• 23:04
  a free to play halo multiplayer experience that
• 23:07
  absolutely slaps um what happened i don't know
• 23:11
  but um It feels weirdly a microcosm of the whole
• 23:18
  Xbox thing, where there are resources and there's
• 23:21
  good ideas, but the execution ends up feeling
• 23:24
  weird and lacking in some ways. And the performance
• 23:29
  thing is strange. It feels weird because you
• 23:31
  mentioning, oh, well, if they have a free -to
• 23:35
  -play Halo multiplayer game that absolutely slaps
• 23:38
  next year, they could just go back to supporting
• 23:40
  Infinite. That slaps now. I feel like they feel...
• 23:44
  I feel like they have decided that that is a
• 23:49
  lost cause. And also, obviously, part of the
• 23:51
  thing was they didn't want to deal with slipstream
• 23:52
  anymore, the engine. So, you know, they'd have
• 23:55
  to... And then you're at a point where you're
• 23:57
  going, are we going to port infinite or are we
• 23:59
  going to start from scratch? And I think at that
• 24:04
  stage, you may as well start from scratch. And
• 24:06
  that's clearly what this is, right? That's why
• 24:07
  you are... I don't know. I haven't played it,
• 24:10
  but I know that there's weapons that you don't
• 24:12
  get. So that's why you're like putting the brutes
• 24:14
  in, putting the brute weapons in. I don't know.
• 24:16
  Is there a Spartan laser in the levels? I bet
• 24:18
  there is in the new levels. There are laser guns.
• 24:24
  I can't remember if it's that particular. There's
• 24:26
  a lot of stuff that isn't in the original campaign.
• 24:29
  Most of the laser guns were the four runner weapons
• 24:33
  from four and five. A lot of those were laser.
• 24:37
  I don't remember a laser gun. there is i think
• 24:39
  you can pick up some other like there's definitely
• 24:41
  stuff that some stuff that feels almost a bit
• 24:44
  op in the camp in the new in the new stuff you
• 24:47
  can kind of like cheat your way through some
• 24:49
  of it because it's so powerful but yeah like
• 24:54
  this is to like sum up i think this is a good
• 24:58
  remake but if without the performance issues
• 25:01
  i'd be very happy with it um and i'd be pleased
• 25:04
  if they continue this with the other Halo games
• 25:07
  for sure, which I think they could hopefully
• 25:09
  do alongside some new stuff. Like I think if
• 25:13
  they spend the next 10 years just remaking Halo
• 25:16
  games, I feel a bit of a disappointment probably,
• 25:19
  but they could do that. Like I'd still be fairly
• 25:22
  happy to play through them and see what they
• 25:24
  do to them. But something new at some point would
• 25:28
  be good. Honestly, I think you, if you're those
• 25:31
  guys, you, as sorry as it sounds. you give the
• 25:36
  same treatment to two into three. And if you've
• 25:38
  already built the weapons and the AI routines
• 25:42
  for the brutes, which is different to the elites
• 25:44
  and all that sort of stuff, if you've already
• 25:46
  built half that stuff, you've probably done a
• 25:49
  lot of the legwork on redoing those campaigns.
• 25:51
  So you could easily do two more campaign evolved
• 25:54
  titles. And Microsoft's whole thing is meant
• 25:57
  to be now, under Sharma's leadership, is meant
• 26:00
  to be, we've cancelled a load of games. We've
• 26:03
  got rid of studios. We've slimmed down teams.
• 26:07
  But we're going to spend the same amount of money
• 26:09
  and we want to spend that money in narrower places.
• 26:13
  So rather than funding, you know, 10 games, maybe
• 26:17
  they're only funding three, but those three happen
• 26:18
  quicker. And if that's viable is another question.
• 26:22
  But I think two would be even stranger in a way
• 26:25
  because two for me was the multiplayer one. Two
• 26:28
  was the one that had the Xbox Live. like in the
• 26:31
  big push for xbox live it felt like that was
• 26:34
  the game for xbox live for a long time um obviously
• 26:37
  two was the one that they got running on the
• 26:41
  360 at launch right because it was still popular
• 26:43
  the online was still a big deal um so if that
• 26:46
  launched just campaign i'm sure they would do
• 26:48
  stuff like they had the restored stuff on pc
• 26:51
  right you could get some restored stuff that
• 26:53
  was cut i think already um two i think they'd
• 26:56
  have to do something with a campaign to make
• 26:58
  if they were just campaign only and selling it
• 27:01
  for a solo release. They'd have to either add
• 27:04
  some significant stuff or... Or is it two and
• 27:06
  three campaign involved together because it's
• 27:09
  a game with a cliffhanger so you just delete
• 27:10
  the cliffhanger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't
• 27:15
  know. It's strange. I'm looking forward to playing
• 27:17
  it. I like a bit of Halo. And I will report back
• 27:21
  on how it runs on another platform. But I...
• 27:26
  On Series S, rather. And also, I'm going to check
• 27:28
  it out on the Rogue Ally, which I imagine Mikau's
• 27:32
  going to check it out on the non -Xbox version
• 27:34
  of that. But I have been wrestling with that
• 27:37
  bloody thing all week. Trying to make it. When
• 27:42
  it works, when it works, I like that. When it
• 27:44
  works, it's amazing. It's like getting outdated
• 27:47
  is the right thing. It does, it does. I did a
• 27:52
  post on Blue Sky about this where it's like,
• 27:54
  I was going to save, I'll talk more about this
• 27:56
  on the Patreon pod, but I did a Blue Sky post
• 28:02
  that was like, everything is an Xbox experience
• 28:05
  in a nutshell is me taking the ROG Ally X out
• 28:08
  of a cupboard having not played it in a few months.
• 28:11
  And, you know, I fully expect there to be updates.
• 28:13
  That'll be true of anything. A Switch, you know,
• 28:16
  I booted my 3DS the other day and it prompted
• 28:18
  me with updates. But because it's just a Windows
• 28:24
  PC, the nature of those updates coming down was
• 28:27
  an absolute nightmare. It soft locked on me like
• 28:30
  two or three times, had to like hard reboot it.
• 28:33
  It was a nightmare. But when it works, it's amazing.
• 28:37
  And now I've sort of got it working again and
• 28:39
  I will probably play quite a bit of Halo on it
• 28:41
  and I'm going to play a bit of First Light on
• 28:42
  it as well. But there we go. Anyway, that's Halo.
• 28:47
  I'm sure Microsoft would hate to hear this said
• 28:53
  about the Xbox Alloy X, but honestly, just put
• 28:56
  SteamOS on it, dude. It works. To be honest,
• 28:59
  part of the reason why I got it out of the cupboard
• 29:04
  is obviously Valve's whole push about we're going
• 29:06
  to let anything be a Steam machine. I was sat
• 29:10
  there and I was like, the ROG Alloy X would probably
• 29:12
  be a pretty good Steam machine. portable Steam
• 29:16
  machine. It turned out to be better than my Steam
• 29:17
  deck. Indeed it is on compatible games. Anyway,
• 29:23
  so speaking of handheld machines, hybrid machines,
• 29:28
  you also spent a lot of time playing the Switch
• 29:30
  2 over the last few weeks, so I'm playing Splatoon
• 29:34
  Raiders. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
• 29:38
  Yeah, well, even, like, I'm very positive about
• 29:43
  this. Like, I think, um spittoon i know it's
• 29:48
  pretty massive in japan right i think it's like
• 29:52
  one of the biggest sellers on switch um it never
• 29:56
  felt like it's quite as big deal elsewhere but
• 29:59
  it's always been popular in my house because
• 30:01
  my son loved it like he was like proper obsessed
• 30:04
  with the multiplayer in particularly the second
• 30:06
  one three he didn't quite get into as much but
• 30:09
  two he loved paid it a lot So I've been exposed
• 30:13
  to it, but I've never done much outside of when
• 30:15
  he was trying to get through the campaign bits
• 30:17
  in those games, just helping out now and again.
• 30:21
  So I know it, but I don't know it like I've played
• 30:25
  lots of it. So I played this kind of... First
• 30:29
  of all, I haven't followed it massively, so I
• 30:31
  didn't really know it was a looter shooter particularly.
• 30:34
  I knew it was like they build it as this... sort
• 30:38
  of single player experience which it is and isn't
• 30:41
  like it certainly is single player but also equally
• 30:44
  a co -op game i'd say um and it's a kind of like
• 30:48
  you go off and do these fairly short missions
• 30:53
  to get get loot basically um and then as you
• 30:58
  progress you can kind of build up your base and
• 31:00
  that adds new abilities and things you can build
• 31:04
  and craft everything else um but it's just kind
• 31:06
  of like a guess if you've maybe felt overwhelmed
• 31:12
  by something like say borderlands which is i
• 31:16
  guess like sorry so much loot so much stuff and
• 31:20
  also like sprawling sort of campaign particularly
• 31:23
  the newer one more open and everything else it
• 31:26
  feels this is a much more accessible version
• 31:30
  of that um and for me it fits my life a lot better
• 31:35
  than something where you have to spend a lot
• 31:36
  of time going off and maybe organizing groups
• 31:40
  and playing together and stuff and everything
• 31:41
  else like if you hear the word raid which this
• 31:43
  uses like it raid is what they call most the
• 31:47
  missions you think oh god i've got to get a crew
• 31:50
  together i've got a dedicated hour and a half
• 31:52
  to go on this this thing it's not like that at
• 31:54
  all like most of the levels you can beat in i'm
• 31:58
  gonna say five to ten minutes probably like they're
• 32:00
  quite short but then there's a lot of replayability
• 32:05
  to those you unlock new stuff like there's a
• 32:09
  lot of these little levels to play um bosses
• 32:12
  to fight etc and it just feels really good it's
• 32:18
  got that kind of like i've done that and i'm
• 32:20
  quickly going to do the next one i'm going to
• 32:21
  replay the other one at a harder harder difficulty
• 32:23
  and get more stuff did not difficulty as such
• 32:25
  but you unlock harder versions of the earlier
• 32:29
  the earlier missions rather than just upping
• 32:31
  the difficulty and they they tweak them a bit
• 32:33
  um And it just feels like a kind of game that
• 32:37
  you're getting that feedback, the loop of I'm
• 32:39
  doing this thing, I'm getting some new cool stuff.
• 32:42
  I'm going to see how those new weapons feel.
• 32:44
  I'm going to upgrade those weapons. I'm going
• 32:46
  to upgrade my base. I'm going to do all this
• 32:47
  cool stuff. I'm going to see what new gadgets
• 32:50
  I've got for my tanks. So you've got this feeling
• 32:53
  of you're constantly making progress towards
• 32:55
  the next thing. And it has that kind of like,
• 33:01
  it just feels very Nintendo in that like, it's
• 33:05
  not if you look if you kind of look at it it's
• 33:07
  not really doing much that hasn't been done before
• 33:10
  but it's just done it really well everything
• 33:13
  works as you think it should it feels like there's
• 33:17
  this level of like progress that just it's fairly
• 33:20
  like frictionless in a way like there's there
• 33:23
  was one bit that i went back and felt i had to
• 33:25
  i guess grind a bit to get a level up enough
• 33:29
  to tackle some stuff but mostly you can work
• 33:32
  through and it feels like you're always getting
• 33:35
  somewhere rather than being stuck, which I think
• 33:37
  does happen in other games where you have to
• 33:38
  really grind to get anywhere. And it's just a
• 33:43
  very streamlined, well -made looter shooter.
• 33:47
  But I did play mostly on my own. I've seen people
• 33:50
  say that it doesn't really work solo. I think
• 33:52
  it does. It definitely does. It feels a bit different
• 33:55
  when you're playing with other people and you
• 33:57
  can kind of... hop into like people can say i
• 33:59
  need someone to help me you can hop in to help
• 34:01
  them or you can do the same and people would
• 34:03
  hop in to help you um and it feels a bit more
• 34:06
  like maybe you might think a traditional sort
• 34:10
  of raid based looter shooter would feel like
• 34:12
  a destiny or something but i played it fine on
• 34:17
  my own it didn't feel like i was missing anything
• 34:19
  as such um runs really nicely like you talk about
• 34:23
  just talked about halo this runs perfectly as
• 34:26
  far as i can see like there's a lot of stuff
• 34:27
  going on it never feels like it's struggling
• 34:29
  um it's fairly basic to look at i would say like
• 34:33
  you've got fairly um minimalist levels like it
• 34:38
  doesn't feel like there's a lot of stuff going
• 34:40
  on you've got the bit you're walking along some
• 34:43
  platforms some enemies and that's kind of it
• 34:45
  but it's fine like it works it looks it's got
• 34:49
  character which i think like splatoon has made
• 34:51
  this look for itself and you know that's splatoon
• 34:53
  because they've got this this look um but yeah
• 34:57
  i really like it i think it's also i think released
• 35:00
  fair like cheaper than the average game i'm not
• 35:03
  sure how much it's like 42 pounds or something
• 35:05
  maybe which does doesn't sound cheap but it's
• 35:07
  cheaper than the average yeah that is right yeah
• 35:10
  yeah it's 50 dollars yeah it's 50 dollars compared
• 35:14
  to like everything now which is 70 for them i
• 35:17
  have a question for you though like you since
• 35:19
  you played this mostly solo did you play the
• 35:21
  splatoon 3 dlc side order i didn't i didn't know
• 35:26
  okay because from what i've heard everyone seems
• 35:28
  to be uh saying this is similar to splatoon 2's
• 35:31
  dlc with some bits of splatoon 3's dlc so i like
• 35:35
  both of those a lot like like you said right
• 35:37
  your son didn't get on much with splatoon 3 that
• 35:40
  was similar to me like it just felt like i was
• 35:42
  playing more of the same thing they didn't fix
• 35:43
  the connection issues you still had like some
• 35:46
  of the bullshit to play with friends like remember
• 35:48
  with splatoon 2 they had that ubisoft tier chart
• 35:51
  for how to play with friends with like oh connect
• 35:53
  this wire here use the app over here and then
• 35:56
  slap yourself and shit over anyway so with I
• 35:58
  with this I'm just hoping I can just get in and
• 36:02
  play with someone like on my friends list with
• 36:04
  an invite or something that's my main hope yes
• 36:06
  yes okay so I've been playing this all today
• 36:09
  I was playing well all of yesterday I was playing
• 36:13
  with a buddy of mine literally just like a few
• 36:16
  minutes before i hopped in for the podcast i
• 36:18
  was in a discord server with a with a friend
• 36:20
  and we were in a we were just playing splatoon
• 36:25
  raiders for like four or five hours and it's
• 36:28
  literally as simple as once you've done the tutorial
• 36:30
  you go to the multiplayer antenna thing you can
• 36:34
  create a room or join a room off of someone on
• 36:38
  your friends list and then you can do anything
• 36:41
  you can join them on their story you can do the
• 36:44
  story together there's no friction there and
• 36:47
  if you if you're like a little bit stronger than
• 36:49
  them then you you will have enemies sync up to
• 36:52
  you on your end but it won't impact them so the
• 36:56
  loot you'll get and the amount of damage you're
• 36:58
  going to take and how much hp the end it's very
• 37:01
  similar to how like a eye level scaling in a
• 37:03
  world of warcraft dungeons works where it's kind
• 37:07
  of more local to your character. That's very
• 37:11
  friendly. Yeah. I have absolutely no complaints
• 37:15
  with the multiplayer. It's very seamless. It's
• 37:17
  very easy to get into. And there's very, very
• 37:20
  little restrictions. It even has these nice little
• 37:24
  quality of life features where if the host has
• 37:27
  selected the mission that they want to go on,
• 37:30
  if you're currently in... If someone's currently
• 37:33
  in a menu, the countdown before the mission goes
• 37:36
  out, assuming not everyone has confirmed, the
• 37:40
  countdown won't start until everyone has gotten
• 37:43
  out of a menu so they can actually see, oh, a
• 37:45
  mission has been picked. Stuff like that. It
• 37:50
  feels like they're getting better at that sort
• 37:52
  of stuff. This definitely feels like another
• 37:54
  one of those switch. two games we've got a few
• 37:59
  of them that feels like it could have been a
• 38:01
  switch one game really um i think it could i
• 38:04
  think i think yes possibly but there is a lot
• 38:07
  going on at times like there's a lot of enemies
• 38:10
  and it still runs well like they probably could
• 38:12
  have got it on switch but i think they'd have
• 38:14
  had to scale it back a bit probably or it looked
• 38:17
  horrendously like low res um but yeah like it
• 38:22
  is On the face of it, it just looks like Splatoon
• 38:25
  again, right? It doesn't look like anything much,
• 38:27
  but there was a lot going on, but it does run
• 38:29
  really well. It's super smooth. And there is
• 38:33
  like, some of the bosses look pretty impressive.
• 38:36
  Like it's not a showpiece game, but it just runs.
• 38:40
  I've got nothing bad to say about it. Like it
• 38:42
  just is good. Like it runs well. It's sharp.
• 38:45
  The only negative I have really is that I noticed
• 38:48
  that because it's a giant, I play it. I think
• 38:52
  you could probably turn off the gyro aiming,
• 38:53
  but I didn't. I think it's very much built though
• 38:56
  to be played. Because oftentimes you get shooters
• 38:59
  or it's like when they grafted gyro controls
• 39:02
  onto the bow in Ocarina of Time on 3DS. It felt
• 39:07
  like something that had been grafted on. But
• 39:09
  Splatoon was always the game where it's like,
• 39:11
  this is built to be played like that. Yeah, I
• 39:15
  just, the only thing, the only negative I have
• 39:17
  is that the Switch 2 is quite heavy compared
• 39:19
  to the Switch. And I've definitely felt like
• 39:22
  it's just over time, like I could feel that heaviness
• 39:26
  a bit. Not that, I mean, maybe I should work
• 39:28
  out more, but it's just like, I could see it
• 39:32
  feeling easier to play for longer periods on
• 39:36
  the original Switch because it's just lighter.
• 39:38
  But yeah, like that's a minor criticism and like
• 39:42
  I got used to it. I think initially I was like,
• 39:43
  this is not as easy to play as it was previously
• 39:48
  because of the weight. um particularly in handheld
• 39:50
  mode um obviously if you're playing on a tv that's
• 39:53
  a non -issue but yeah like i think i'd i definitely
• 39:56
  recommend this game like it's good fun like certainly
• 40:00
  like switch to i've kind of like since mario
• 40:04
  kart and i guess since donkey kong which is like
• 40:08
  a year old now unbelievably i can't quite believe
• 40:11
  it is a year old i haven't really played the
• 40:13
  switch to that much And this definitely got me
• 40:16
  back on. It's that classic thing where you use
• 40:19
  something again and suddenly it's like back in
• 40:21
  rotation. I'm playing some other stuff that I
• 40:23
  didn't play much before. Like I've gone back
• 40:25
  and played a bit more America and stuff because
• 40:28
  I was just using the Switch more. But yeah, like
• 40:31
  definitely a good game. I mean, if you're a tool,
• 40:35
  if it sounds like something you're into, you'll
• 40:37
  probably like it. Like there's not much to dislike
• 40:39
  about it in my mind. It's just a fun game. I
• 40:41
  think if you have got someone who wants to play
• 40:43
  it as well, you probably get even more out of
• 40:44
  it because you've got that co -op friend aspect
• 40:47
  too. I'm going to pick that up. Actually, a funny
• 40:52
  thing about me, I really enjoy Splatoon, but
• 40:55
  I have limited bandwidth for multiplayer games
• 40:59
  and if it's eating into Street Fighter time or
• 41:02
  whatever, it's got to be something that really
• 41:05
  grabs me. And Splatoon knocks into the first
• 41:09
  one. hasn't really in that way but the idea of
• 41:11
  a splatoon that i can now you've said it's mostly
• 41:13
  solarable and i could just could just solo it
• 41:16
  that's interesting to me um you know what i okay
• 41:19
  one thing one thing which uh in remember in splatoon
• 41:22
  2 the one of the modes you could play as a pve
• 41:26
  thing had that stupid time thing where you could
• 41:28
  only play it for like a few hours a day yeah
• 41:30
  all that that dog shit was still in place back
• 41:32
  then i was just thinking that imagine if splatoon
• 41:35
  raiders you bought the game you put it in and
• 41:37
  it says come back in three hours to play because
• 41:39
  that's they made the whole game based around
• 41:40
  those kinds of modes right imagine if they did
• 41:42
  that but yeah i was just thinking that remember
• 41:45
  how they just patched splatoon 3 randomly on
• 41:48
  switch 2 with 4k support and they like up the
• 41:51
  frame rate in the hub and all it just got me
• 41:53
  thinking that was this gonna be planned as that
• 41:55
  20 dollar dlc which they've done for like Kirby
• 41:58
  and Mario Party, which they initially were going
• 42:00
  to tack on to that, but they decided to just
• 42:03
  go ham with it and build it into its own thing.
• 42:05
  And they released it as a budget game in the
• 42:07
  end. That's what, it gives me that vibe, not
• 42:09
  in a bad way, but it just like, it's good to
• 42:12
  like have smaller games, standalone. It would
• 42:15
  not surprise me. Nintendo has been surprisingly
• 42:18
  nimble about this. I mean, I'll pull something
• 42:21
  up that we're going to do that I was going to
• 42:22
  discuss later into this discussion. There's an
• 42:26
  interesting interview with Miyamoto this week
• 42:28
  where he talked about various things, Japanese
• 42:34
  language interview. But in that interview, he
• 42:37
  said that Nintendo is now considering movies
• 42:42
  when deciding what to make. So it's like Yoshi
• 42:45
  and the Mysterious Book. in part went in production
• 42:48
  because they were looking at the script for Mario
• 42:50
  2 and going, okay, Yoshi's got a big role. And
• 42:53
  similarly, he confirmed what people had suspected,
• 42:56
  which was that Star Fox went into production
• 42:59
  after Illumination said we'd like to use Fox
• 43:03
  in the movie. But what that shows also is we
• 43:07
  know the timelines on those films. And so what
• 43:10
  that tells us is the timeline on that Star Fox
• 43:12
  development was probably quite tight. quite short
• 43:15
  and it shows that you've got perhaps more than
• 43:17
  most of us nintendo clearly is quite nimble and
• 43:20
  is making decisions like that going let's have
• 43:24
  a starfox game how can we get a starfox game
• 43:25
  out quick it's with a third party development
• 43:28
  partner in fact two first part third party development
• 43:30
  partners and remaking something that already
• 43:33
  exists you're not going for all the iteration
• 43:34
  and similarly i do think sometimes you're getting
• 43:37
  oh you know here's a dlc that wasn't quite working
• 43:40
  can we beef it out flesh it out and make it into
• 43:48
  a standalone thing. And so it would not surprise
• 43:51
  me if this perhaps had its genesis as a DLC.
• 43:54
  And I don't know, I'm sure someone on the Discord
• 43:57
  or in the comments or whatever will correct me
• 43:58
  if I'm wrong, but I'm sure at some point or another,
• 44:02
  they said that initially with Tears of the Kingdom,
• 44:06
  they were like, should this be DLC? And then
• 44:08
  as it grew, they were like, no, this is a sequel.
• 44:14
  Yeah, yeah. We're already running long, so let's
• 44:21
  very, very quickly... I just want to touch on
• 44:23
  two Xbox stories. The first one is more just
• 44:27
  a note, because I've played it, but only for
• 44:29
  like an hour, and I need to play some more, so
• 44:32
  maybe we'll discuss it a bit more next week.
• 44:33
  But the program has now launched where Xbox backwards
• 44:38
  compatibility on PC. So there are four... OG
• 44:42
  Xbox games now able to run on PC and on other
• 44:45
  devices like the ROG Ally and things like that.
• 44:47
  So that's Blinks, the Time Sweeper, Conker Live
• 44:51
  and Reloaded, Crimson Skies, and Bill Gates'
• 44:54
  favorite game, Fusion Frenzy. You can buy those
• 44:57
  on PC attached to your Xbox account or they're
• 45:01
  in Game Pass if you're in any tier of Game Pass.
• 45:04
  Pretty interesting because the four times resolution
• 45:07
  scaling, V -Sync, anti -aliasing, there's actually
• 45:10
  a settings menu. It doesn't have them at the
• 45:12
  minute, but there are plans to add achievements
• 45:14
  back to these games. So you'll be able to get
• 45:16
  achievements on original Xbox games, both on
• 45:18
  PC and on Xbox. And the most interesting thing
• 45:22
  is that fans very quickly after this launch,
• 45:25
  within 24 hours of it launching, fans discovered
• 45:27
  that this is actually an Xbox 360 emulator that
• 45:32
  is basically emulating the 360, emulating the
• 45:35
  original Xbox, which is a crazy sort of, you
• 45:38
  know, snake eating its tail sort of thing burst.
• 45:41
  What that does tell us, as well as making us
• 45:45
  go cross -eyed, is it tells us that this program
• 45:48
  presumably will also be a pathway to getting
• 45:52
  Xbox 360 games on PC. And obviously there's quite
• 45:56
  a lot of stuff, Fable 2, Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey,
• 46:00
  games of that stripe. I don't know how much people
• 46:05
  work on Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey because
• 46:07
  both of those have like... either decons or recons
• 46:11
  they're pretty far along at this point so i mean
• 46:14
  yeah but they're not quite at that just download
• 46:16
  and go right yeah so um i don't know i think
• 46:22
  you know i mean tom is on this call pgr3 and
• 46:26
  4 project gotham they are games that you could
• 46:29
  be able to buy on a pc soon it depends it depends
• 46:31
  if they let that happen right because obviously
• 46:32
  those games weren't on i mean they aren't on
• 46:36
  xbox they aren't on xbox back at all Yeah, because
• 46:40
  I get licensing issues and stuff because of the
• 46:42
  way the whole thing worked. But yeah, I mean,
• 46:45
  if you could put in a disc and place one of these,
• 46:50
  great. I mean, I'd like them to add a few. Obviously,
• 46:52
  the Mac Compact stuff was great. They've done
• 46:55
  a good job with it, right? But there's some games
• 46:57
  that never made it across, and for various reasons,
• 46:59
  if they could add some more, that'd be great.
• 47:01
  I think it's much as like, yes, there are emulators
• 47:04
  on PC that let you play all this stuff, a lot
• 47:07
  of these things. I think it depends who you are,
• 47:10
  right? Like if us, for example, that's probably
• 47:14
  doable, but maybe if you don't, you know, you
• 47:17
  don't know what an emulator is, you don't care,
• 47:20
  you buy stuff officially and that's it. Having
• 47:24
  it there is a good thing for the broader gaming
• 47:29
  population, I guess. And I guess it's just like
• 47:33
  if you are, you have an Xbox library. like can
• 47:38
  i take this with me outside of xbox this is that
• 47:41
  option right like long term probably um but yeah
• 47:45
  like i can see it like isn't for everyone but
• 47:47
  i think it's existing is positive i'd say yeah
• 47:52
  it's i mean to what to what you said there and
• 47:54
  what james has said that the the thing about
• 47:57
  it's that old game newer thing that old valve
• 48:00
  adage that gabe said He was like, we're not worried
• 48:04
  about piracy because we think piracy is as much
• 48:08
  a consequence of putting up barriers and making
• 48:12
  things difficult. If it's a pain in the ass to
• 48:15
  buy a game because of really intrusive DRM and
• 48:18
  stuff like that, you think more willingly about
• 48:21
  pirating it. So if you've got an easy legal way
• 48:26
  to do something, a lot of people would. So I'll
• 48:28
  give you an example of like a game that they
• 48:30
  could. get app through this which is um perfect
• 48:33
  dark you can take either one of them you can
• 48:34
  take the n64 original with the 360 xbla port
• 48:37
  which is great or you can take the uh take zero
• 48:42
  in either case well in the case of perfect dark
• 48:45
  64 in particular there is a decom but the decom
• 48:48
  you've got to go to github you've got to download
• 48:50
  the d the decom then you've got to source a rom
• 48:54
  then you've got to inject the rom into the thing
• 48:56
  And it becomes this massive pain in the ass to
• 48:59
  do it. If they're in a position where they can
• 49:01
  put that into my Windows library and I can literally
• 49:04
  just download it and run it, I will literally
• 49:06
  just download it and run it. And there is another
• 49:10
  element of this, which I don't know if they'd
• 49:12
  want to do this, but this totally opens up an
• 49:14
  angle to sell these old games on Steam as well,
• 49:16
  if they want to. Which I would if I was them.
• 49:20
  I'd be like, let's put Conker on Steam for 15
• 49:23
  quid. Let's put... Well, admittedly, Viva Pinata
• 49:27
  did have a PC port back in the day, but Viva
• 49:29
  Pinata Trouble in Paradise, the second one, let's
• 49:32
  put that on Steam for 20 quid, whatever. So I
• 49:35
  see it, Pam. I think it's a cool thing. I think
• 49:37
  it's cool it exists. I think it's slightly crazy
• 49:40
  that this got announced days after they let the
• 49:44
  guy who was in charge of a lot of the engineering
• 49:48
  on this project go. The problem they have is
• 49:54
  that everything they announce for a while is
• 49:57
  going to come with the, they're doing this to
• 50:00
  cover up the fact that they've laid off or will
• 50:04
  lay off 3 ,000 whatever people, right? So it's
• 50:07
  all off. Some of this stuff was going to happen
• 50:11
  anyway, right? It isn't all reactionary, but
• 50:14
  it does, they can't get away from it. Like it's
• 50:16
  going to be there and probably should be for
• 50:19
  a while, right? Well, the nature of Xbox is rough,
• 50:22
  smooth, rough, smooth. And so that brings us
• 50:24
  right on round to, they had an announcement about
• 50:28
  ad -supported game streaming. I don't want to
• 50:32
  put words in their mouth, so I'm going to quote
• 50:33
  them directly here. So, quote, today we're starting
• 50:37
  to test an ad -supported way to stream select
• 50:39
  games from your library for a limited time available
• 50:42
  to Xbox Insiders, which, unquote, Xbox Insiders
• 50:46
  is the program that you can sign up for to test
• 50:48
  beta stuff. quote during this test period xbox
• 50:51
  insiders with an xbox account will be able to
• 50:54
  stream games they own for free with ads players
• 50:57
  will have one hour session limits across supported
• 50:59
  device and regions ads will play before sessions
• 51:03
  begin the core game experience is unchanged and
• 51:06
  this is optional players can choose other ways
• 51:07
  to play at any time i mean the logic is basically
• 51:11
  if you don't want to pay for the x cloud streaming
• 51:15
  stuff um you can watch an ad before you. It's
• 51:18
  the same stuff. People have been outraged about
• 51:21
  this, but I've got to be honest, I struggle to
• 51:23
  get any fire in my belly for this because it
• 51:26
  is the same stuff that NVIDIA do with GeForce
• 51:29
  Now. You either pay the money, and GeForce Now
• 51:34
  is the best game streaming service, by the way.
• 51:36
  You either pay the money and you don't have any
• 51:38
  ads or you pay less or pay nothing and have some
• 51:41
  ads. I don't know how you guys feel about it,
• 51:43
  but I struggle to get much. i i kind of feel
• 51:46
  the same way as you with the ad thing the only
• 51:49
  thing i dislike about microsoft and ads is they
• 51:52
  like how they do it on the console dashboard
• 51:54
  it just pisses me off because you could argue
• 51:57
  that you could argue that you know someone's
• 51:58
  paying for that spot fair enough but i like when
• 52:01
  doom the dark ages was releasing uh I had bought
• 52:05
  that game, the premium edition on Xbox on the
• 52:07
  actual, like I had the Xbox console digital version,
• 52:10
  the premium edition. I had two ads on my dashboard
• 52:13
  for it. One was that it's coming out soon. And
• 52:15
  one was upgrade to play early. I literally have
• 52:17
  the license on the same console. Why is it showing
• 52:20
  me these ads? That was, that's like my only issue
• 52:22
  with Xbox and ad stuff. Like every console except
• 52:25
  for Nintendo, although Nintendo does it on the,
• 52:28
  you know, like when you just. wake up your switch
• 52:30
  to from sleep mode it has like saying yeah yeah
• 52:33
  the news section has like some oh this sale is
• 52:35
  on for like any publisher which is whatever and
• 52:38
  sony does it as well like when you switch on
• 52:40
  your console there'll be a thing like pre -order
• 52:42
  something now sometimes or whatever so all these
• 52:44
  guys are gonna do it i understand that it's annoying
• 52:46
  but yeah i just wish they'd fix that as for streaming
• 52:50
  like yeah this stuff is not free you have to
• 52:52
  pay for it somehow like you could argue that
• 52:54
  owning the game is enough but you still need
• 52:57
  to pay for the servers and stuff. So like it
• 52:59
  being a value add on Xbox, Game Pass is fine.
• 53:02
  Like I've not had too many issues with it when
• 53:04
  it works, but the initial launch, sometimes just
• 53:07
  it fails or it says like you need to wait in
• 53:09
  a queue and stuff. That annoys me. Like I've
• 53:11
  paid for, you know, you have a paid subscription
• 53:14
  for Game Pass since a few years. I still have
• 53:16
  that. It's still going on because I've had Game
• 53:19
  Pass for a long time or whatever. So like having
• 53:21
  a queue over there is kind of like they need
• 53:23
  to fix those things, I'd say. But then like,
• 53:25
  yeah, they're going to try and do too many things
• 53:27
  with whatever. I don't have a problem with them
• 53:30
  having a free tier for this. I have a, like,
• 53:32
  I worry about how it might affect the people
• 53:35
  who are actually paying the highest tier on Game
• 53:37
  Pass. Like, is it going to start being a thing
• 53:39
  over there? Like, you know, when Call of Duty
• 53:41
  last year, it came out when you turned on your
• 53:43
  console, you got a big splash saying pre -order
• 53:45
  Call of Duty now. And I'm sure this happened
• 53:48
  even for people who own Call of Duty on the same
• 53:50
  console. So like, this is the kind of stuff they
• 53:52
  need to iron out, I think, before. For me, the
• 53:56
  dashboard ad thing is a problem in general. It's
• 53:59
  like when Sony put that giant GTA thing on the
• 54:03
  front of every PlayStation console at boot. And
• 54:06
  the big issue that I had with that is lots of
• 54:09
  children whose parents don't want them playing
• 54:11
  GTA on PlayStations. And I don't think those
• 54:14
  kids should necessarily be delivered a full -page
• 54:17
  splash ad for an 18 -rated game without any...
• 54:22
  I mean, I don't know. i'm sure there are ways
• 54:25
  they could see the age on the sony account or
• 54:27
  whatever but stuff like that is yeah the xbox
• 54:31
  dash has loads of ads but it's funny i mentioned
• 54:33
  earlier rebooting my 3ds we can't act like this
• 54:36
  is uh that we haven't had worse because i booted
• 54:39
  my 3ds that i hadn't booted for ages and um it
• 54:44
  had one of those pre -download demo things So
• 54:48
  it's like, here's a new Kirby game, and it puts
• 54:49
  the icon on your home screen. I forgot that they
• 54:53
  started doing that. And then when you click the
• 54:55
  icon, it obviously takes you to the eShop, except
• 54:56
  the eShop is now closed. But nevertheless, I
• 54:58
  looked at that, and I was like, man, Nintendo
• 55:01
  used to inject demos directly onto your home
• 55:04
  screen. Oh, I mean, they still do that, right?
• 55:06
  Don't they do that for when there's like a free
• 55:08
  week for trying out something on Nintendo Switch
• 55:10
  Online? No, no, they don't. No, I don't think
• 55:13
  they inject it straight onto your dash. I think
• 55:15
  you have to open the NSO. Okay, I think what
• 55:17
  happens is... They've got a little notification
• 55:18
  center. Okay, I think what happens is I usually
• 55:21
  own the game which they're doing this with. So
• 55:22
  it just pops up onto the front of the thing.
• 55:25
  And I'm like, why did this game show up here?
• 55:27
  I think it might be that actually. Yeah, it might
• 55:29
  be that actually. No, they don't do anything
• 55:31
  as egregious as they did on the 3DS. So I guess...
• 55:34
  This is a path we've been on for a while. And
• 55:36
  I definitely, that's a debate that I want to
• 55:39
  be opened up more about what is acceptable on
• 55:42
  the dashboards and stuff like that. But in terms
• 55:44
  of doing a pre -roll ad where you watch a minute
• 55:47
  ad before getting an hour of free game streaming,
• 55:50
  like I'm sort of like, that's fine. I think the
• 55:55
  issue, I've seen some people argue that maybe
• 55:58
  this is going to lead to ads appearing. elsewhere
• 56:03
  like you press pause and there's an ad and you
• 56:05
  you're not streaming but you're still getting
• 56:08
  ads because they might they've seen it works
• 56:10
  for the streaming test or whatever i mean we
• 56:13
  don't know right i mean maybe i think that would
• 56:15
  be a brave move to start putting ads in games
• 56:17
  that you've like outside of like we talked about
• 56:20
  in -game advertising last week right you know
• 56:22
  what it is you know what it is the whole reason
• 56:25
  why people have gotten upset about this and to
• 56:27
  their credit i understand why but it's like literally
• 56:29
  downstream from the whole original xbox one with
• 56:33
  the connect and everything where it's like the
• 56:34
  verification can meme where it's like you need
• 56:38
  to be on the camera so you know that you're being
• 56:40
  properly advertised to that's not what actually
• 56:44
  happened though did it that didn't actually happen
• 56:46
  that was actually in fairness the the famous
• 56:49
  pattern the the mcdonald's i agree yeah that
• 56:52
  was a sony pattern yes so that's the funny thing
• 56:55
  like they're all i'm not Yeah, I'm not disagreeing
• 56:57
  with you. I'm just saying I am sure that the
• 56:59
  main reason why people are upset about this utterly
• 57:01
  benign thing is because of the history there.
• 57:05
  I think having an option that is, I mean, broadly,
• 57:09
  this is, I guess, see, like, from my view anyway,
• 57:12
  like another way to play games, if you don't
• 57:14
  want to spend, I don't know how much an Xbox
• 57:17
  is now, $500, $600, I don't know how much a Series
• 57:20
  X is. Too much. They're all too much now. But
• 57:22
  this is like, I guess, another attempt to...
• 57:25
  making things more accessible i know there's
• 57:28
  catches with this like you need decent internet
• 57:30
  and that costs money wherever else but everyone
• 57:32
  if you're if you're listening to this you've
• 57:35
  got internet you're paying for it in some form
• 57:36
  probably but you need a decent connection you
• 57:39
  need to like probably not on wi -fi ideally and
• 57:42
  all that kind of stuff but i mean friend of the
• 57:46
  show gal gun connor pointed out that um to me
• 57:50
  that obviously xbox or microsoft is one of the
• 57:56
  reasons why things have become so expensive.
• 57:58
  So it's kind of like they're doing a thing to
• 58:02
  make it maybe more accessible, but possibly we
• 58:05
  would have needed this without all the other
• 58:06
  stuff being more expensive. So it's a kind of
• 58:09
  like good on them, but also, well, like it's
• 58:13
  the man in the hot dog costume, right? Yeah,
• 58:16
  we're all trying to find the guy who did this.
• 58:18
  That is like every time Matthew Ball comes out
• 58:21
  and speaks to... to, you know, Dringo or whoever,
• 58:24
  when they're talking about AI and the component
• 58:29
  prices. It's like, yeah, the parent company is
• 58:32
  top three spenders in the AI, top five spenders
• 58:35
  in the AI space. I think, yeah, Pete mentioned
• 58:40
  earlier the idea of this is a harbinger of ads
• 58:42
  appearing everywhere. that's a bit scary, the
• 58:47
  idea of ads in poor screens and stuff. Although
• 58:48
  I do have hope in the sense that, speaking of
• 58:51
  Dringo, so the game business, a couple of months
• 58:55
  ago, Chris Dring had a great interview with Strauss
• 58:58
  Zelnick, the 2K boss. And they talked about this
• 59:02
  in -game advertising thing. And this is Strauss,
• 59:05
  right? Who is a hardcore businessman. And famously,
• 59:08
  he's one of the big CEOs in the business who
• 59:10
  is the inverse of a Phil Spencer figure. He is
• 59:13
  resolutely a non -gamer. He does not give a shit
• 59:16
  about playing games. He just cares about working
• 59:20
  the business well. Clearly, he's been quite good
• 59:23
  at it. And he was asked about this and he was
• 59:27
  like, look, injecting in -game ads into a sports
• 59:32
  game makes sense because you want your sports
• 59:35
  game to resemble a real -life sports cast as
• 59:38
  closely as possible. But he was like... interrupting
• 59:42
  someone's experience i don't think flies and
• 59:45
  so hopefully that is the opinion of more people
• 59:48
  but i do think you're gonna see more it's that
• 59:52
  funny thing right of like we as an industry have
• 59:56
  put so much time and effort and thought into
• 59:58
  how we eliminate loading screens whether that's
• 1:00:01
  with super fast hard drive setups and io presentation
• 1:00:04
  on you know mark cerny figuring out the quickest
• 1:00:07
  io imaginable or whether that's you know squeezing
• 1:00:09
  through gaps Maybe this is the way, maybe SSDs
• 1:00:14
  are expensive now. It's back to old hard drives
• 1:00:17
  that we have loading screens. Those are getting
• 1:00:19
  expensive too. They are. One of my backup hard
• 1:00:23
  drives died. Like I have a backup of a backup
• 1:00:26
  because I'm mental. One of those died and I was
• 1:00:28
  looking at how much it costs to replace it. And
• 1:00:30
  it literally was three times what I paid for
• 1:00:32
  it two years ago. So like, yeah, it's not, that's
• 1:00:34
  not safe from this. Yeah. Well, you know, it'd
• 1:00:38
  still be cheaper than SSDs. Mikhail, you're...
• 1:00:40
  Yeah, speaking of SSDs, I saw the wind change
• 1:00:43
  like right after when RAM started shooting up.
• 1:00:46
  I was like, uh -oh, I'm good on RAM, but if I'm
• 1:00:49
  going to get another SSD, get it now. I got one
• 1:00:52
  in October last year. It was a Gen 5 NVMe because
• 1:00:56
  those prices hadn't risen yet, even though Gen
• 1:00:58
  3 and 4 had. Top of the line, it just released
• 1:01:02
  like that week. It was like, I think, a Corsair
• 1:01:05
  MP700 XT something. A good... Pretty much the
• 1:01:11
  best Gen 5 NVMe you could get. It was like $250
• 1:01:13
  for two terabytes. Now you can't even buy it
• 1:01:18
  anywhere except Corsair's official shop. And
• 1:01:21
  you know how much it's going for? $1 ,400. $1
• 1:01:24
  ,400. Holy shit. Wow. Well, as I've said to some
• 1:01:30
  of my mates who don't keep quite as high a track
• 1:01:33
  of the ongoing nightmare, the best time to...
• 1:01:39
  by the components needed to upgrade your pc if
• 1:01:41
  you need an upgrade was yesterday and the second
• 1:01:44
  best time is today because it's only getting
• 1:01:46
  worse at least for the next nine to twelve months
• 1:01:49
  anyway we are we just motoring on because we've
• 1:01:53
  got a we've already got a lot of time on the
• 1:01:55
  clock very very briefly just want to touch on
• 1:01:57
  some updates on some stories from last week so
• 1:02:00
  the lego donkey kong set has been revealed now
• 1:02:03
  it's got um steve weeby the famous Donkey Kong
• 1:02:07
  record setting player from the movie The King
• 1:02:09
  of Kong in the ad. That's 250 quid. I can't remember.
• 1:02:16
  150 quid and $200, I think. I think I saw it
• 1:02:18
  for 135 today. Oh, that's somewhere. That's somewhere.
• 1:02:22
  Is that cheaper than the Batman one? Yeah, the
• 1:02:25
  Pac -Man one was like 180, I want to say. But
• 1:02:27
  the Pac -Man one seemed more functional. But
• 1:02:30
  it is cool. You can press a button and the barrel
• 1:02:33
  goes down and then you can press up to make Mario
• 1:02:35
  jump over the barrel. It's cute. It's cute. So
• 1:02:40
  yeah, you can check that out. That's on Lego's
• 1:02:42
  site. We mentioned last week the Dustbloods beta.
• 1:02:45
  You can apply for that now on the official Dustbloods
• 1:02:48
  site. So if you want to be in that, you need
• 1:02:51
  to apply. You do need a Nintendo Switch Online
• 1:02:53
  account as well. And Mikhail, you wanted to talk
• 1:02:57
  briefly about Marvel Tocon and Xenoblade. Yeah,
• 1:03:01
  so just quickly. So the Marvel Tocon open beta
• 1:03:04
  is up right now. And unlike the last closed stuff,
• 1:03:07
  which they did, this one's also on PC. I actually
• 1:03:10
  was waiting for this to see if it runs on Steam
• 1:03:13
  Deck so I can pre -order it because I play a
• 1:03:15
  lot of my fighting games there or on Xbox and
• 1:03:18
  PS5. And it just does not let me get into the
• 1:03:21
  game. Like it says anti -cheat not found. And
• 1:03:23
  then when you check online, it's just affecting
• 1:03:26
  a lot of people on Linux in general. So they
• 1:03:29
  could have made it work because Elden Ring has
• 1:03:32
  easy anti -cheat as well. And that works on Steam
• 1:03:34
  Deck. Like that's one of the best ways you can
• 1:03:35
  play it. So it seems like at least the open beta
• 1:03:38
  is not functional for people who have Linux or
• 1:03:40
  Steam Deck. Kind of a bummer. I did play it on
• 1:03:43
  PS5. it's probably like one of the best looking
• 1:03:46
  fighting games i've seen in my life so i would
• 1:03:48
  recommend trying it over there but it's it's
• 1:03:50
  a bummer i wanted to play this portably that's
• 1:03:52
  just not happening now uh and for the xenoblade
• 1:03:56
  thing uh they They have the thing coming out
• 1:04:00
  next week, the Switch 2 edition, and it's coming
• 1:04:02
  out physically in October. The digital thing
• 1:04:05
  is early, so for everyone who has it can buy
• 1:04:07
  it. Just one quick thing I want to bring up.
• 1:04:10
  The trailer they uploaded, it got me hyped up
• 1:04:12
  and all because I love Xenoblade 2. But it kind
• 1:04:15
  of scares me a bit because I think they might
• 1:04:18
  be doing the same thing they did with X and with
• 1:04:20
  1, which has this weird upscaling thing. I will
• 1:04:24
  be covering it for sure. I'm going to buy it,
• 1:04:26
  in fact, from another region so I get to play
• 1:04:28
  it like a day and a half early. I'm not waiting
• 1:04:30
  for the US unlock. So yeah, I will have some
• 1:04:32
  stuff on RPG side for that. But yeah, it's a
• 1:04:35
  big download. It's like 35 gigs or something
• 1:04:38
  just for the upgrade pack. It's I think is how
• 1:04:42
  much are these in the UK? I paid like it's like
• 1:04:44
  10 US. I think it's like seven or five or something.
• 1:04:50
  I don't know. They're all quite cheap. They're
• 1:04:52
  a tenner. They're a tenner. Okay, so it's the
• 1:04:54
  same as the US. Yeah, so it's just, if you are
• 1:04:57
  planning on getting that, it's a huge download
• 1:05:00
  and you can preload it right now. So, yeah. There's
• 1:05:04
  some great guides if you end up playing this
• 1:05:05
  game. Just some great guides on RPG site for
• 1:05:08
  those. Looking at that comparison screenshot
• 1:05:10
  you sent me, Mikhail, I think you fixated on
• 1:05:13
  one aspect, but I think... The hat is the one
• 1:05:17
  that's way more egregious looking at how they
• 1:05:19
  adapt those shaggies. They're 100 % using the
• 1:05:22
  same exact upscaling. I mean, it's all the same
• 1:05:25
  tech stack, right? So it makes sense that they
• 1:05:27
  would just blanket apply across all three games.
• 1:05:30
  But this one was like the one that looked the
• 1:05:33
  worst out of all like in resolution and stuff.
• 1:05:35
  So it would probably push the Switch to even
• 1:05:37
  more if they use the same thing. I guess we'll
• 1:05:40
  find out next week when it comes out. But yeah,
• 1:05:42
  like I am excited to play it. I'm not surprised
• 1:05:45
  because I'm pretty sure the first Monolith Soft
• 1:05:47
  game that actually used TAA was Xenoblade 3.
• 1:05:51
  So I'd be willing to bet anything Xenoblade 3
• 1:05:54
  will use DLSS in some form, but not surprising
• 1:05:58
  that Xenoblade 1, 2, and Cross use the Spatial
• 1:06:02
  Upscaler. That's just bad. Yeah. Yeah. And just
• 1:06:08
  a quick note, obviously... please do check out
• 1:06:10
  respect .net. There's some lovely content on
• 1:06:13
  the site this week. Late last week, obviously
• 1:06:17
  Rebecca did talk about it on the pod, but there's
• 1:06:18
  her brilliant report on Love in Deep Space, which
• 1:06:21
  is sort of a bit of an explainer on all the drama
• 1:06:24
  that's been going on around that game. There's
• 1:06:27
  also Tom's lovely reviews of Halo and Splatoon.
• 1:06:32
  I've got at least one death threat in the comments.
• 1:06:36
  You know, that would be the... the the xbox fans
• 1:06:41
  from your score actually i will say never said
• 1:06:43
  it in the halo bit but um there was an interesting
• 1:06:46
  dichotomy that emerged that the playstation specific
• 1:06:50
  websites where the writers are less likely to
• 1:06:53
  have any nostalgia for halo scored it on average
• 1:06:56
  way lower than the general sites in the xbox
• 1:06:59
  specific websites anyway i digress um there's
• 1:07:02
  also a great uh guilty gear interview from james
• 1:07:05
  uh chatting to the guys behind that about that
• 1:07:08
  game entering its fifth year and keeping it going
• 1:07:10
  and netcode and all sorts of stuff now let's
• 1:07:16
  have a quick little trip down memory lane and
• 1:07:19
  have a look at what happened this week and the
• 1:07:25
  way this section works guys James and Mikhail
• 1:07:29
  is just you know if you want to say something
• 1:07:30
  about one of these games have at it but so one
• 1:07:36
  that I saw and i was like ah what a great game
• 1:07:38
  that i haven't thought about in 20 years black
• 1:07:40
  belt was out on the master system uh this week
• 1:07:45
  40 years ago black belt i just love those master
• 1:07:49
  system games where they all had the same uniform
• 1:07:51
  box and all the games were called like driver
• 1:07:54
  black belt shooter man cop or whatever um and
• 1:08:01
  then occasionally you got an arcade port like
• 1:08:03
  hang on but um black belt don't be wrong none
• 1:08:06
  of these master system games are particularly
• 1:08:07
  good but uh i have i have nostalgia for it bastion
• 1:08:11
  15 years old this week which feels insane um
• 1:08:16
  that was their first game right yeah on xbox
• 1:08:21
  live arcade it had that big thing with warner
• 1:08:23
  pushing it and yeah like that was the that was
• 1:08:26
  that super meat boy and like i think was it spelunky
• 1:08:29
  or was it fez which came first limbo yeah it
• 1:08:33
  was limbo at the same time like uh yeah like
• 1:08:35
  what a what a friend and and they topped it like
• 1:08:38
  by 10 times with transistor like one of my favorite
• 1:08:41
  games yeah you can make a nice interview with
• 1:08:44
  super giant games on rpg site yes quite recently
• 1:08:48
  yeah i mean it's it's funny isn't it that i guess
• 1:08:51
  15 years ago must have been roughly around that
• 1:08:53
  time then 15 16 years ago something like that
• 1:08:57
  that we were in the grip of that god remember
• 1:08:58
  when summer of arcade was a really big thing
• 1:09:02
  and you would have eight weeks, ten weeks, where
• 1:09:05
  there were two or three absolute fucking indie
• 1:09:08
  bangers every week. I remember going on, was
• 1:09:11
  it PartnerNet on the Xbox? Yeah. I was there
• 1:09:13
  early. We should talk about PartnerNet on the
• 1:09:17
  Patreon pod, because that's like a good tangent,
• 1:09:20
  because I can tell some PartnerNet stories that,
• 1:09:23
  you know, back in the day would have got me in
• 1:09:27
  loads of trouble, but no one cares anymore. chris
• 1:09:31
  tales five years old 25 five years old yeah is
• 1:09:36
  that right that can't be right chris tales yeah
• 1:09:38
  yeah when we're gonna get an update on that fall
• 1:09:42
  because i know that they uh i forget what it
• 1:09:45
  was called there's like a multiversal like all
• 1:09:47
  like a party like of all the same character but
• 1:09:51
  different versions i'm trying to remember what
• 1:09:53
  it was called i i wrote about like the news story
• 1:09:55
  for that an rpg so i'm trying to remember what
• 1:09:58
  the follow -up was actually called i just can't
• 1:10:00
  believe that's been five years i thought that
• 1:10:02
  was like two years old i made these notes and
• 1:10:04
  when i saw it i was like i've made a mistake
• 1:10:05
  there um that's uh that's bonkers um mario kart
• 1:10:13
  super circuit 25 years old um for my money one
• 1:10:19
  of the weaker mario kart games is that the gba
• 1:10:23
  one that is the gba one yeah I don't remember
• 1:10:27
  it particularly. I think I was not a big GBA
• 1:10:31
  fan, particularly the original version, which
• 1:10:34
  was almost impossible to see the screen. My reason
• 1:10:39
  is there was a really good racing game on GBA
• 1:10:43
  at launch, at least the European launch or thereabouts,
• 1:10:47
  which is called Crazy Racers. Crazy with a K.
• 1:10:50
  And it was a Konami racing game. So like the
• 1:10:53
  characters was like, mystical ninja going on
• 1:10:57
  and um and uh uh like i think dracula from castlevania
• 1:11:03
  and things like that although weirdly i don't
• 1:11:05
  think solid snake was in it such a such a weird
• 1:11:07
  uh thing but i just remember crazy racers being
• 1:11:12
  so good as sort of a mario kart um clone that
• 1:11:19
  and a gray fox from metal gear was in it okay
• 1:11:21
  but they didn't put snake in it for some reason
• 1:11:23
  um But I just remember that being so good that
• 1:11:27
  sort of by the time Mario Kart came out, which
• 1:11:28
  was sometime later, I was like, I've sort of
• 1:11:30
  experienced the SNES style racing game. So I
• 1:11:36
  would say, yeah, I would say it probably is one
• 1:11:38
  of the weaker Mario Karts. But yeah, and the
• 1:11:41
  original GBA was not a good experience. I remember
• 1:11:46
  Golden Sun being the game that pushed me over
• 1:11:49
  the edge on that front with the screen and the
• 1:11:50
  sun glare and stuff like that. Turns out that
• 1:11:54
  is not the best way to play a game where you've
• 1:11:56
  got to read loads and loads of text. Yeah. Rhythm
• 1:12:01
  Heaven Fever, 15 years old. Great game. Still
• 1:12:06
  the best one. The new one is good. But the funny
• 1:12:08
  thing about Rhythm Heaven is they're all sort
• 1:12:10
  of, it's the most 8 out of 10 series ever. Every
• 1:12:15
  one of them is just like a solid 8. I'd say that
• 1:12:18
  Rhythm Heaven Fever is the closest it's gotten
• 1:12:21
  to a 9. Yeah, I can see that. Was Fever the Wii
• 1:12:24
  one? Yes, it's the Wii one. Oh, that's the only
• 1:12:27
  one I haven't played. Yeah, I haven't played
• 1:12:29
  that. Oh, it's the best one. I just cannot be
• 1:12:32
  bothered with that Wii nunchuck shit. Like, I'm
• 1:12:34
  not doing that. Well, here's the thing. It doesn't
• 1:12:36
  use any motion controls. It literally just uses
• 1:12:38
  the aim. I think when I had a Wii U, when I borrowed
• 1:12:43
  one for a bit, you had to set up that stupid
• 1:12:45
  sensor and shit. I was like, I'm just not playing
• 1:12:47
  these games. But you do have to have the sensor
• 1:12:48
  set up to even boot a game. Yeah, I'm not doing
• 1:12:50
  that. I'm not doing that. Well, actually, no,
• 1:12:52
  you don't have to do that anymore. They did an
• 1:12:54
  update like a decade ago where you could literally
• 1:12:56
  just set up the gamepad and it can be the sensor
• 1:12:59
  bar for you. I think now I'll just wait for them
• 1:13:02
  to put your gamepad in front of the TV. Yeah,
• 1:13:05
  because the camera can actually work as the IR
• 1:13:07
  sensor. You mean the Wii U gamepad? Yes. Oh,
• 1:13:12
  yeah, we're talking about base Wii though, right?
• 1:13:14
  Yeah. Anyway, I mean, this game gave us the Wrestling
• 1:13:19
  Interview Girl, which is the best rhythm heaven
• 1:13:21
  minigame. Like, that is the all -time great.
• 1:13:25
  It's always the one that I think of when I think
• 1:13:28
  of that series. I think of... Is that true? Well,
• 1:13:32
  you're a big guy. Yeah, 15 years. Max Payne,
• 1:13:36
  25. I wonder how long it will be until that remake
• 1:13:42
  we hear about. I was wondering, actually, we've
• 1:13:45
  been 25 years. So that was yesterday from when
• 1:13:48
  this podcast will be released. That turned 25.
• 1:13:50
  And I did think when I was putting the anniversaries
• 1:13:53
  together for this episode, I was like, will they
• 1:13:54
  maybe drop a little screenshot or something on
• 1:13:57
  the anniversary? But no, but also I guess if
• 1:14:00
  you're a rock star, you aren't talking about...
• 1:14:03
  any damn thing until after november yeah yeah
• 1:14:08
  which is fair enough maybe a cinematic teaser
• 1:14:11
  at the game awards yeah that would that would
• 1:14:16
  work to be fair although i just don't know do
• 1:14:17
  rockstar pay do rockstar care about paying for
• 1:14:22
  that sort of placement would they be charged
• 1:14:24
  for that sort of placement who knows or would
• 1:14:26
  they be giving it for as a freebie uh not one
• 1:14:29
  that i particularly uh bothered about but clonoa
• 1:14:33
  2 25 um this week i uh first played the played
• 1:14:39
  through clonoa 1 and 2 with the uh remaster uh
• 1:14:43
  pack and i actually came away thinking that clonoa
• 1:14:46
  2 is a better game than clonoa 1 markedly so
• 1:14:49
  and uh it feels kind of surprising that i feel
• 1:14:53
  like most people only talk about the first one
• 1:14:56
  it's sort of i feel like that's often the case
• 1:15:00
  with those those mascot games that aren't Mario
• 1:15:05
  or Sonic. I feel like people mainly talk about
• 1:15:07
  Spyro 1. They mainly talk about Crash 1. They
• 1:15:10
  mainly... Yeah, yeah. They mainly talk about
• 1:15:14
  Banjo -Kazooie and not Banjo -Tooie, even though
• 1:15:16
  Banjo -Kazooie is a really good game. And actually,
• 1:15:18
  Banjo -Kazooie is probably a better game than
• 1:15:19
  Tooie, but Tooie is so impressive. Like, it's
• 1:15:22
  wildly impressive, but no one talks about it.
• 1:15:26
  Bit of a weird thing about that. I guess people
• 1:15:28
  remember these games where the... where the characters
• 1:15:32
  emerge. But then it's weird because in the 90s,
• 1:15:34
  as soon as Sonic 2 came out, no one wanted to
• 1:15:37
  talk about Sonic 1 at all. That's because Sonic
• 1:15:40
  2 is one of the best sequels of all time, I suppose.
• 1:15:44
  That will be an unpopular opinion. I can guarantee
• 1:15:46
  you that. And then a couple more. Catherine is
• 1:15:49
  15 years old, which when I realized that, I mainly
• 1:15:52
  just thought, I miss when those guys were doing
• 1:15:55
  weird little offshoots. And then I remembered
• 1:15:58
  Metaphor exists. But I guess what I'm saying
• 1:16:02
  is Metaphor is just Persona in a different setting
• 1:16:05
  in many ways. Whereas Catherine was truly something
• 1:16:08
  weird. I also really love that Catherine is in
• 1:16:10
  the same messed up universe as Persona, more
• 1:16:13
  or less. Obviously Vincent is in Persona 3 Portable.
• 1:16:17
  You get the collector's edition for Catherine.
• 1:16:19
  It had those boxers and some pillow and some
• 1:16:22
  shit. I remember that. Yeah. I don't remember
• 1:16:24
  that. I remember there was some weird press kit.
• 1:16:26
  Yeah, probably. I remember there was a weird
• 1:16:30
  press kit. I don't know if you had that video
• 1:16:32
  game. I don't remember what was in it, Tom, but
• 1:16:34
  I just remember that it was strange. I think
• 1:16:38
  so. It was, well, I remember they had a weird
• 1:16:42
  review event or preview event as well. I think
• 1:16:46
  they had, you know, girls dressed up as the characters
• 1:16:49
  in the games acting in ways that would not be
• 1:16:52
  appreciated now. but the past is another country.
• 1:16:56
  And finally, I think a poignant one, just in
• 1:17:03
  the regards of stuff that has recently happened,
• 1:17:06
  but We Happy Few turned 10 years old this week,
• 1:17:10
  which obviously that was the second game from
• 1:17:15
  Compulsion. And obviously Compulsion now is in
• 1:17:18
  the... unpleasant situation of they've been spun
• 1:17:22
  out of Xbox and they don't really know what their
• 1:17:25
  fate is going to be and it's sad and it sucks
• 1:17:32
  they released three really quite good games Contrast
• 1:17:36
  We Happy Few South of Midnight however you look
• 1:17:41
  at it there's a long time 2013 for Contrast 2018
• 1:17:45
  for We Happy Is it 10? Oh, have I made an error?
• 1:17:54
  Fuck's sake. Some time ago for that one. And
• 1:18:00
  then recently. Yeah, they've made, we happy few.
• 1:18:05
  I think I remember it because he got the, he
• 1:18:07
  had like an early access release, right? And
• 1:18:09
  it was like a little bit of the game. I never
• 1:18:12
  got into it much. I think that. Colored what
• 1:18:15
  I thought of the whole game, because I think
• 1:18:17
  obviously when it finally got. It was a much
• 1:18:19
  bigger thing. But I just remember the kind of
• 1:18:23
  what I felt was a fairly ropey early access version.
• 1:18:26
  Well, I think I made a horrendous error there.
• 1:18:31
  It launched in early access in 2016. Right. So
• 1:18:35
  we're talking about the early access release.
• 1:18:39
  That makes more sense. And then it finally released
• 1:18:42
  in 2018. But I guess what I was saying was...
• 1:18:48
  the pace at which that studio was able to put
• 1:18:51
  games together, which is about resources as much
• 1:18:53
  as anything, right, was part of, I think, probably
• 1:18:55
  what ended up being a problem for them then when
• 1:18:57
  they were owned by Microsoft. There's this whole
• 1:19:03
  axis emerging of these companies want games fast,
• 1:19:06
  but it's impossible to make these big AAA games
• 1:19:09
  fast. But yeah, it was definitely a mood, 2016,
• 1:19:15
  2018, when that game came out, though. There
• 1:19:18
  were a lot of those Bioshock -esque games, and
• 1:19:23
  We Happy Few was one of the best of them, I think.
• 1:19:28
  Yeah, I played it. I finished it. Maybe it was
• 1:19:31
  the Early Access you played, Tom, which is what
• 1:19:33
  turns 10 years off. I definitely only played
• 1:19:35
  the Early Access one. It put me off a bit. I
• 1:19:38
  never really went back properly to see what they
• 1:19:40
  did. Yeah. Yeah, it's a funny one. Anyway, I
• 1:19:45
  mean, goodness me, you know. Always end up writing
• 1:19:49
  stuff and writing topics for us to talk about
• 1:19:50
  and then skipping over some because stuff takes
• 1:19:53
  time. And we had a couple of really interesting
• 1:19:55
  new games to talk about, which I don't think
• 1:19:58
  will be the case next week. I think it's a bit
• 1:19:59
  of a quieter week. But that will probably about
• 1:20:04
  do it for this week, unless anyone has anything
• 1:20:07
  further to add. We should all check out my newsletter,
• 1:20:15
  lowpolymess .com. Where this week, I write about
• 1:20:20
  the film Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow.
• 1:20:24
  That makes it sound like you wrote it with her
• 1:20:27
  rather than you're writing about the film. Yeah,
• 1:20:29
  I mean, she was there. And no, it's not really
• 1:20:33
  about the film as such either. It's just about
• 1:20:35
  how they got rid of the main song from the film.
• 1:20:39
  It's just gone. Which I found quite odd. Well,
• 1:20:43
  that's, you know, that's a bit like video games,
• 1:20:44
  deleting stuff, you know, losing songs from GTA,
• 1:20:47
  whatever, whatever. Obviously, don't forget,
• 1:20:51
  you can visit respect .net for the website and
• 1:20:56
  there's content on there, stuff to read with
• 1:20:58
  your eyes and your brain. You can also click
• 1:21:02
  through from that website or head to patreon
• 1:21:05
  .com forward slash respect net R -E -S -P -E
• 1:21:09
  -C -N -E -T. And you can support us on Patreon
• 1:21:13
  and you will get a warm, fuzzy feeling inside
• 1:21:16
  knowing that you're helping to keep independent
• 1:21:18
  games media alive. But also there'll be some
• 1:21:21
  nice bonus content, including a bonus podcast
• 1:21:24
  every single week where we waffle on off -topic
• 1:21:27
  conversations. And of course, you can also join
• 1:21:31
  us on Discord to hang out. Again, there is a
• 1:21:33
  link on the Respec site to that. Please come
• 1:21:36
  hang out. You can chat to us and indeed you can
• 1:21:38
  help us to shape what future episodes of this.
• 1:21:41
  and the patron stuff looks like and of course
• 1:21:45
  james and mikhail you can read them both on respect
• 1:21:48
  but also you can read a lot of stuff from them
• 1:21:50
  over on our sister site of rpg site so feel free
• 1:21:54
  to check that out um which is much more in -depth
• 1:21:57
  nerdy coverage specifically obviously of the
• 1:22:00
  role -playing genre and it's going to be a relatively
• 1:22:02
  busy couple of months in that wheelhouse i think
• 1:22:04
  so um it should be interesting i am not looking
• 1:22:09
  forward to september It's going to be hard work,
• 1:22:12
  I think. Yes, there's been conversations about
• 1:22:15
  some of that starting to happen this week and
• 1:22:18
  it's already given me a headache, but there we
• 1:22:20
  go. Anyhow, that's it from us for this week.
• 1:22:25
  We're going to go and have a little bit of a
• 1:22:27
  record of an after hours. Yeah. So until next
• 1:22:31
  week, everyone, say goodbye, Mikhail. Goodbye,
• 1:22:34
  Mikhail. Say goodbye, James. Goodbye. And Mr.
• 1:22:40
  Ori. See ya. See ya. Tommy's always poetic. Until
• 1:22:46
  next time, everyone. See ya.