Texas Tales & Gaming Trails: A Week with Triple S, BBQ Obsessions, and Upcoming Hits

Ever wondered what a week in Texas with a quirky pastor and an unexpected rescue mission looks like? Join us as Triple S returns to share his tumultuous yet hilarious adventure, complete with cult-like scenarios and a dash of Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce obsession. Alongside his personal story of overcoming a recent layoff, we welcome him back with humor and heart, setting the stage for a fantastic episode that spans both gaming news and heartfelt discussions.

This episode dives into the contrasting worlds of TV and video games, celebrating standout series like "House of the Dragon" and "The Boys," while pondering why 2024 has felt like a lull for gamers. We build anticipation for heavy hitters like "GTA 6" and "Star Wars Outlaws," and explore the evolving landscapes of next-gen expectations. Whether you’re nostalgic for Indiana Jones or intrigued by simulation games like "Blockbuster Inc.," we’ve got you covered with engaging insights and lively debate.

We also turn our attention to the unique mechanics of "V Rising," chatting about our love-hate relationship with multiplayer games, and the critical importance of captivating game intros. From our excitement over the new Astro Bot game for PS5 to feedback on the Xbox Game Showcase, there’s something for every gamer. Our whimsical wrap-up features a humorous slip-up, fond gaming memories, and a reminder of the true value in embracing the unofficial controller in our gaming adventures. Tune in, laugh a little, and happy gaming!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:21

Hello and welcome to the Unofficial Controller Podcast, your weekly gaming podcast, Episode 223, with me, George, and this week joined by RGT and he's back. Pop the Pyros, it's Triple S said these men are Lennon and McCartney. To my failed audition for the Quarrymen. Gentlemen, how's it going?

Speaker 2: 0:43

Very, very well, very well.

Speaker 3: 0:45

It's going good. Good, gentlemen, can you feel it? Can you feel it? Hear your voice again? It's lovely. There's a buzz in the air. There's electricity that's going through the air. It's going all the way from texas, all the way across the atlantic, all the way to the uk and everyone. You can hear the. It's a bit of a buzz and then it turns into a rumble and that rumble sounds like the people, the people are chanting. They are glad. All the millions and millions of Sam's fans are rejoicing because, finally, triple S has rejoined, rejoined and took his rightful place amongst you lads in the UCP podcast. Gentlemen, thank you for having me back.

Speaker 1: 1:30

Listen, let's get caught up because PAX big games event over there. You went there as our roving reporter and then things went quiet. I employed Mouse, the Bounty Hunter, to go over and try and find out what's going on and I heard back that you'd kind of fell in with a tearaway Texan pastor with a checkered past and it transpired that he had sort of co-opted you into joining a cult. But Mouse mounted up, he got his little sidearm and he is a, a mouse, so it's a very small sidearm, probably, you know, unrecognisable to the human eye. He went in there and got you out. He bust you out. I do believe Ray was the getaway mobile. You're back with us now, safe in Mumsy's bosom. All I can say is you've been missed, not only here in the Discord and everywhere else. Welcome back on a genuine note. You've been missed not only here in the Discord and everywhere else. Welcome back On a genuine note, breaking the fourth wall. Sir, are you well?

Speaker 3: 2:34

I am absolutely fantastic. Yeah, this year's been just on a crazy note for me. So full transparency here. Like I was lured in, you know, I was lured in by the I guess you could say the lure of a Texan pastor who basically said you know what? We're going to pay you more, absolutely more money than the Furkay Corporation. And you know me, money, money talks in all facets of life. So I said sir, said sir, I'm gonna jump on that horse and I'm gonna ride with you, I'm gonna ride with you. And he took me to this little strange place called el paso, texas, and not a whole lot there, there's a whole like a couple movie theaters. You can see the tumbleweeds. It's the. It's very stereotypical what you think of of texas and such like that.

Speaker 3: 3:20

And you know everything was going well, they, we had a meeting, we sat down and you know it was about five hours into the meeting and such like that that I realized I was at a combine man. And the crazy thing is, you know, they wouldn't let me out for a little while. And next thing, you know, I got hooked on this thing called Sweet Baby Ray's. Have you heard about it? It's a barbecue sauce really popular in the States. Anyways, got hooked on this thing called Sweet Baby Ray's. Have you heard about it? It's a barbecue sauce really popular in the States. Anyways, got hooked on the Sweet Baby Ray's. They barbecued the heck out of some meat to briskets all the way around and everything like that Gained 10 pounds while I was there.

Speaker 3: 3:54

And then this little mouse came, jumped over the wall, started slapping people left and right and said we got to get you out of here, we got to get you back to civilization. And I looked at that mouse and I said fivo. And he said no, that's my cousin. And I said all right, it doesn't matter, it really doesn't matter. Um, so me and him, I tilted out of here and I'm back. Guys, I am officially back in civilization. Left el paso behind, still took, took a bottle of sweet baby rays on the go and everything like that, plan on doing a nice little barbecue this weekend for Father's Day.

Speaker 3: 4:26

But I digress, it's been a little bit of a up and down struggle and outside of that, you know, to break the fourth wall to let everyone in for a little bit In real life, outside of the Colts and all that kind of stuff I got laid off earlier this year of stuff like I. I got laid off this, this like earlier this year, and I was trying to figure out what what life looks like next. And you know what I was going to do. I had to put things on pause a little bit and try to reconfigure my life around and and such like that. And then you know, everything sort of aligned recently to where I got this, a lot of momentum back in in life and such like that. So we all fall down. I got back up and it's great being here with y'all guys, sir, it's been a while you don't need to apologize either.

Speaker 1: 5:11

Within the story lore of the show which, if you're a new listener, you're probably thinking what the hell is going on here? Well, there's 222 episodes to go dig through. It's a good law say it's good, it's above average, to be fair.

Speaker 1: 5:26

I'm probably only selling it it's okay, alright, but what other podcaster's got law like this? Yeah, breaking the fourth wall. It's good to have you back. Let's, let's not dwell on it. Let's, let's feast on the positives here. Dog got you out. You're back with us. To anyone wondering if this is a video game news show, it is, so let's just give people a heads up of what's going down. We've got some news coming up, which is the very hottest news. As always, we've got Ray. No other show's got a Ray. We've got a Stingray. Wait till the end of the episode to find out what he's looking like this week. But before all that starts, what we like to do is dig in and let you know what we've been playing. And because I'm all ears, I don't know whether he's been playing the tiger electronics game in that cult locked up on his bunk bed or what, but uh, triple s said what, sir, have you been playing?

Speaker 3: 6:24

can I, before I dive into what I've been playing, can I ask you a question, like I just want to. I want to get your opinions? Um, yeah, like yeah, for sure, for sure. Um, I know we have the news going on in search of that and I know we have the video game releases, but I I want to bring a topic to your y'all's attention because I want your opinion. Last year I touted that it was probably one of the best years ever as far as video game releases. I felt like, especially on the AAA level, it had a lot of stuff for a lot of people. You know there was a lot of variety there. I want your opinions, like how do you feel about this year so far in video games? Do you feel like it's a slow year? Do you, in video games, do you feel like it's a slow year? Do you feel like it's very specialized? Do you feel like this year has been like you've been feasting because a lot of games have come out for you?

Speaker 1: 7:11

I'm like I'm curious on how y'all feel about this year. Me personally, I feel like I've been scratching deeper and deeper into my backlog, which is no bad thing. I'm I'm struggling to kind of find a game that I've gravitated towards this year. You know, know, things are a little bit and this is no disrespect but you know, things are a little bit dicey when Georgie Boy is playing online games and Georgie Boy is playing Helldivers 2. I mean, if you'd have took me back in time and said, oh, you're going to really start enjoying this online game, I'd have said no, absolutely not. But to be fair, I've had a really good grip on with that.

Speaker 1: 7:46

In terms of this year, I do feel it's been a bit barren. Our own Stingray has turned up with barely a morsel in the boot from one week to the next. In terms of there's Indy kicking about, don't get me wrong. There always is, but wading through that sometimes is quite hard. Breaking the meniscus of that that there's not really been any. To say there's been no triple eight is completely wrong. To say there's been no sort of second party studio developments is also wrong, because we've seen stellar blade, we've seen lots of other games of that caliber come out but just haven't really hit for me. I think it'd be wrong to say in June. This year's a bit of a bust, but I'm just excited to see what comes out the back of it. Obviously we had the Xbox showcase and that had some things in there that kind of whet my appetite for things that are interesting. We'll get into that in the news, but I think they I'll be honest, I think they absolutely delivered.

Speaker 1: 8:46

We've been saying for some time they need to turn up and show us something. They did. I mean it was a bit lacking in terms of, you know, nailed on release dates for some of the things that I saw which would have. That would have put the hype train through the roof if they'd done some, you know, like they did with Hi-Fi Rush, if they'd done a stealth drop on us, if they'd done something along those lines of a game of that calibre. We kind of know, on the edge of the industry, what has been going on and what games have got coming out, but you know, to have stealth drop for the masses, something of you know, of a good calibre, I think would have just put that whole thing into it.

Speaker 1: 9:27

Chef's kiss yeah, I mean it was a chef's kiss. Chef Ramsay's not going to come along and tip the pan on the floor, is he? And start swearing profanities at Xbox. That's a fact. But yeah, I was very happy with what I saw there. I think this year's probably going to be, you know something, where it's a bit more traditional, where we start grinding into the games so quarter three, quarter four, ready for that sort of holiday release season. I see that getting quite busy and congested there. I think we've probably quite rightly had a little bit of breathing space, I think, at the beginning, which has been good. It's allowed us all to kind of break the backs of our backlogs and hopefully arrive at the back end of the year with a slightly less embarrassing six foot high stack of games I still haven't played and a little bit of a hunger for more. I've I've totally dominated that whole conversation, so I want to spin it over to RGT.

Speaker 3: 10:30

Do you feel the same way? Rgt.

Speaker 2: 10:33

I'm glad you brought this up, because I was going to speak about this on the show. Actually, I think a word for me this year so far is deflated. Ah, this week, especially the current gen, we've got the switch. We've got the PS five. We've got the switch. Yeah, well, it is for that is for Nintendo.

Speaker 1: 10:55

But yeah, hang on, hang on. I just want to need to pause you there, cause we just need to get said caught up. The, the, the switch is dead. Baby, it's not dead, it's on ice.

Speaker 3: 11:52

I think you know I would probably call it life support. You know, like we know it's dead.

Speaker 1: 12:00

It's just like no one wants to say it, RGT. What were you saying? We?

Speaker 3: 12:04

just don't want to say it out loud my, my current three.

Speaker 2: 12:08

You know, current gen consoles as such are the switch, ps5 and I've got a series x um. This week especially, I have got no passion to play those three whatsoever. I have played them but I seem to have lost. The only thing that's piqued me a bit was the xbox showcase. Um, watching that really got me a bit excited for some games coming out, um, especially, you know, first party ones for microsoft. But I just don't know.

Speaker 2: 12:39

This year I think it's a combination of we knew this year was probably going to be a bit of a downer anyway. Last year we were exceptionally spoiled and I think the two of those collided is really, and I just find myself and I know it's probably not your thing, seb, but for me I've been more excited going back through back catalogues of PS3, xbox 360, been loving them and that's what I've been sort of more excited to play. And we had this conversation last, not last week, before cruising through PlayStation Premium Games Pass and it's just end up playing nothing. You're so spoilt for choice and I know this sounds a really stupid thing to moan about. There's too many things on there, but you just need that. That big bang and game you know is coming, you know, to get you excited for it, and especially with playstation at the moment, that isn't there, um, and then, even though the xbox showcase is really good, don't forget there's quite a few of these are 2025. So I and I just don't know, I just feel really drained of current gen at the moment and I, I just, you know, I'm looking elsewhere to play games at the moment to get excited for.

Speaker 2: 13:54

And I just find, especially, like I say, with the ps3, even ps4, you've got massive libraries there. You pick the games up for next to nothing and I could dive into series that I've never experienced before and I've really been sort of swaying that. Well, I've actually been forcing myself to turn on the ps5 and xbox series x, um, and I've gone two or three weeks sometimes without even turning them on, you know. So it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's a struggle this year, I'll put it that way and I do. I don't, like I say, I don't know whether it is because of last year, I've had a bit of burnout from having so many games I don't know, um, but yeah, I think, like I say, going back to what I said, deflated I feel a bit this year with the whole situation and because it's been all the drama as well the xbox and the closing the studios and yes, it was a.

Speaker 2: 14:42

You know it's not a nice thing, but that's all you hear on the internet. It's all you see. It's not a nice thing, but that's all you hear on the internet. It's all you see. And everything seems quite negative at the moment. Even the state of play was okay, it was all right. I wouldn't say it was inspirational, but I think just to get me back on board a little bit, I think the Xbox showcase dragged me back up a little bit, but we just need some positive things, I think this year.

Speaker 1: 15:08

The fact that they've addressed every issue I ever had with Flight Simulator and they've added in those jobs has suddenly made it the SnowRunner of the skies, and I'm salivating like a starving pig just to lick its earlobe.

Speaker 3: 15:23

See, I'm glad you said that.

Speaker 1: 15:29

You asked a question, so what's your take fresh out of the cult? What? What are you seeing here?

Speaker 3: 15:32

because you've got fresh eyes on this. You know, um, I've been thinking, I've been thinking about this all year because I've I too feel like this year has been lacking, but I I couldn't put my finger on it until I start analyzing things outside of the medium and I thought to myself I'm like, okay, last year, I think, was one of the best, if not the best, video game release years ever, and I think this year so far, tv shows is kind of having that same kind of like oomph there and whereas video games just kind of slid off. But because, like tv shows, you got house of the dragon, you got um the bear, all sorts of different oh, it feels like every oh, fallout was really good.

Speaker 3: 16:12

Um, you got that. Um, the boys is coming back this week. As of this recording, I'm like it feels like every single week we are getting a banger, um, a banger of high quality on tv shows and I looked at that and I analyzed okay, right now in video games it feels like netflix. It feels like we have a lot of choices but none of those choices feel high premium choices. You know like, yeah, it's either.

Speaker 3: 16:39

It's either like very much a acquired taste sort of thing to where, like a lot of the games that have come out so far, and whether it be stiller blade, whether it be yakuza, like a dragon and I love the first like like a dragon. But infinite wealth is the same game with just a little bit of a different spin to it. Um, final fantasy 7, part 2 um, there's a lot of um, oh, um, grand blue fantasy, persona 3 all those games have a very anime like way of storytelling. If you're really not, you have to be in the mood for that and you also have to be like a fan of that style of storytelling if you're looking for something different besides prince of persia and dragon's dogma, which dragon's dogma really doesn't tell a very cohesive story at all. It's more about, like it's a very much a ps3 rpg.

Speaker 2: 17:28

So unless you're into those sort of things, you're very much starved on the triple a side of the fence and yeah, I think what I found as well and, like I said, I know I'm saying I'm complaining because there is, if you've got the subscription packages, there's thousands of games to play. But I feel like there's thousands of games to play but I feel like there's loads of games being thrown at me but nothing is sticking and I just can't find that game that grabs me. And I don't know whether that is because of last year, because of all the AAA goodness we had, or whether it's just me. I'm just in a bit of a funk at the moment with the games.

Speaker 1: 18:03

I think this far into this current gen, we're just expecting that game that sits us on our backsides. I was also doing some sort of timeline research and if we go back to the ps4's launch, if we map that to the ps5, we wouldn't even have had red dead 2 yet. You, you know, and that although Xbox and Sony claim we're halfway through the life cycle of this machine, I say, hmm well, there's lots of good things to come yet. Obviously, you know we've got some big games out there on the horizon that we're just waiting to sort of solidify and come down the pipe. But I just feel like we're maybe calling it a bit too early. The PS4 had sort of cross-gen games and Xbox was the same, and I really feel like now we're starting to enter its stride and although we feel like we're probably not seeing everything this gen's got to offer, I think by the time the holidays come around and we start pumping into 2025, I think we're going to have some really exciting stories.

Speaker 1: 19:07

I think the news thread is quiet as well, which is also kind of it brings people's spirits down a little bit the whole industry's kind of one cog back on the gearbox, because they're just kind of waiting. I see a lot of the same news stories being regurgitated. I see a lot of rumors getting spanned into stuff with no credibility behind them and I see lots of sort of narratives about game design and production length and budgets and other bits and bobs and that seems to kind of be not making excuses for the industry but certainly has paved the way for the place we find ourselves in at the moment, which is just this kind of window of nothingness. Last year was so good and I should imagine a lot of games that maybe were going to come out last year took a look at the release cycle and went, oh crikey, call it, give it 12 months under the incubation and we'll come out Christmas next year.

Speaker 1: 20:05

Because we just can't compete with some of these. And I don't blame them, yeah for sure not. Hopefully. That means that they'll be leaving that sort of cross-gen thing behind. I think the user install base the PS5 and Series X is kind of there or thereabouts. I think the Switch 2 probably can't come quick enough. We've all talked about the Series S holding things back and the kind of Switch being the powerhouse of sales machine. It is as well. It's probably had an impact on the sort of games that we're seeing.

Speaker 3: 20:34

it's got to be scalable so I want to follow up on something you just said, and I think that's a very intriguing thought. I do think a lot of games got out of the way of 2023, especially and uh, in 20. But like, this is their window, man, because next year, like nintendo's coming back full scale with that switch to and with their large lineup, and then even more so I nintendo's gonna sell what they're gonna sell, but gta 5 I mean gta 6 is a monster. That, yeah, that game is gonna suck up three months of of that year and that's just minimum. And then the holiday season it's going to have that same reoccurring effect again, where the people who didn't buy it at the beginning of the year, in march well, it's looking like march are probably going to buy that game towards the end of the year as well.

Speaker 1: 21:25

So I'm like I can see that game. That game is going to be phenomenal, no questions about it. We've been waiting long enough to see what a true next gen, because GTA five, as great as it is to be able to play on PS4, and PS5 and series X or whatever, and the fridge, the gen before that you 11 years old.

Speaker 2: 21:45

11 years ago it came out.

Speaker 1: 21:46

All we've had is a shined up penny from that all the way forward. So to think the lessons they've learned from Red Dead, the lessons that they've learned from the online space, what that means in terms of what they can bring, and we never saw them actually max out. I mean, we kind of did with Red Dead 2. We saw them kind of push that current gen, but this gen, um, I feel like our red dead will be gta6 and that's coming early part of next year, quarter one or two, or h1, if, depending on how you look at it.

Speaker 1: 22:15

Um, and I think that's literally gonna absolutely kill the industry, stone dead because no one's going to be able to compete with that it. It's going to be for sure, not absolute juggernaut and it's going to take some big scalps along the way, um, which I think is a shame. So next year is going to be interesting for sure. We'll see who dare poke the periscope up in the world that GTA six dominates. Um, you're going to be bright, you've got to be brave, but you've got to be coming with something a little bit different. So that's going to be super exciting as well.

Speaker 3: 22:50

But to answer your initial question, though I do think it is, I think it's very much an acquired taste here so far this year. I do think the later half of the year we will get those what I would call the HBO quality shows and video games that we're missing in Star Wars Outlaws, for instance. I think this AC Shadows is the first time I've been really excited, or at least decently excited, about Assassin's Creed in a very long time. Those two look like they're going to be really good.

Speaker 1: 23:20

Let me just say about that, though I was pumped for that. When I kind of saw that CGI reveal trailer trailer I was like wow is this the gameplay and then I saw the gameplay and I was like, oh god, it's foul hallow with it. It's foul hallow with it. Oh god, it's foul hallow with the ghost of shishima skin. This is not why.

Speaker 3: 23:38

That's exactly. That's exactly how most people felt about it. Um, I felt very similar to where I was just like, oh, I'm excited to see what they do with this new setting. And then I saw the gameplay and I'm like, oh, I know exactly what this game is. I'm like I know how most people are going to spend that 40 to 80 hours in that game.

Speaker 3: 23:57

Just more, come on, yeah, by the two minutes that we saw in the gameplay trailer, I feel the opposite kind of happened with dragon age. Um, was it vanguard? I think that's what it was. Yeah, you see the veil guard or vanguard, but um, I feel the opposite happened to where, like a lot of dragon age fans saw the first trailer, where it was very much like a goofy, almost dungeon dragons type trailer, and people were like, oh no, that's not dragon age at all. And then they saw the gameplay and they were like, oh, this is actually exciting. Yeah, so I feel like it is going to be a tale of two halves for the rest of this year. Of course, you have, um, you have what? Um? Flight simulator, flight simulator, which looks like it'll be up your alley, at least the previous one.

Speaker 1: 24:42

That's the thing about flight sim. I had them on a real cranky old pentium or something like that, like microsoft flight simulator 98, and I I liked it. I played the wheels off of it, to be fair, I mean, obviously I didn't have a lot else going on. Um, but last year's it was, and I kind of said I predicted this online. Everyone's going to go crazy for it. There's an episode where I say this everyone's going to go crazy for it. There's an episode where I say this Everyone's going to go crazy for it. They're going to get all over it. They're going to fly a plane over their house. They're going to crash into their house. They're going to crash into their mate's house. Then they're going to delete it and it's a shame because there's actually a grip of a game there.

Speaker 1: 25:18

But to bring Microsoft Flight Simulator to console, there needed to be a little bit more tickle under the chin for the console gamer. Those jobs that we saw in there means that it's right up rgt and mine street in terms of the games that we like to nerd out to a little bit. We talk snow runner, farming simulator to see the kind of agricultural flying, to see the sort of delivery flying to see the coast guard rescue flying, to see the sort of tourist, vip, uh, private jet flying. I was like, yeah, do you know what? Even the hot air balloon flying, there's enough in it now right to grip in a casual and make them go. Hmm, I've had. I've flown my plane into my friend's house hilarious, what's next? And then take on like an oil rig delivery mission again and again and again and really enjoy that.

Speaker 1: 26:10

I thought that what they'd done. Considering the scale of that game as well, I was absolutely blown away by the fidelity graphically of what we saw, those hot airs. It was close to or beyond photorealistic at times in that trailer Now, whether that's running on a Series X or HAL 9000 at Microsoft HQ and it'd been ramped up to 11 on the graphic settings and everything. I was pleased to see that and, as I said earlier, I'm pleased to see that they've opened the gamut a little bit so it's more enjoyable for a kid. As an example, that's got Games Pass. Who's bored of playing Fortnite or Grounded or Sea of Thieves? They've got a little bit of something to get into now. Hopefully it's not an absolutely killer install.

Speaker 3: 27:30

We're going to talk about the Xbox Showcase a little later, right?

Speaker 1: 27:34

No, this is the Xbox Showcase talk. We had a solo episode last week from the Mighty Bobby. He's not with us this week. He'll be back with us next week, so we kind of missed it. There was a discussion in the Discord and we've kind of probably glanced around the main points. I would say you know, it's old news.

Speaker 3: 27:53

At this point I want to ask you all a question. Rgc, this is your first xbox since the 360 right, or did you have a one um?

Speaker 2: 28:06

I had one for a little while, but I sold it on um because I was I understand there was nothing on it there's nothing on it. I was predominantly ps4 because it was just, you know, just to be so many games on the ps4, um, but yeah, 360 and I've got a series x this time around okay.

Speaker 3: 28:23

So, george, you have an xbox series x. Yeah, I'm the next. Bizarrely, I I actually have both too. I don't, I don't know why, but um little piggies oh yeah, for sure the gamer piggies for sure. Um, my question is it's like I. The reason why I asked is like that xbox showcase does that? Did it feel like it validated your purchase yet or do you feel like you still need to see the?

Speaker 1: 28:49

game. I'm out. I see the quality I finally felt after that showcase, like it it's, it's almost ready to be deserved some respect. This gen, it's kind of like, hmm, there's a stuff in there that I kind of wanted to get into. We joked before about Indiana Jones only being bought by people over 40. You're not wrong, you're absolutely right. I did say that, didn't I? You did, and that's probably one of the best quotes you've ever said, because it nailed it on. For a while I was thinking, oh yeah, they've done well to get this franchise. But I'll be honest with you the Indiana Jones franchise has been killed, oh for sure. Any prevailing interest in that is from people that got into Star Wars in the early 80s at best, who were looking for supplementary media from LucasArts, and stumbled across Indiana Jones and went, yeah, this is flipping brilliant. I know that's what I did, but no young kids getting hyped up for Indiana Jones.

Speaker 2: 29:48

No, absolutely not.

Speaker 1: 29:49

I didn't think the last movie was as bad as I thought it was going to be. When I actually got to it I actually liked it. It's just nobody watched it. Nobody watched it and I'll be honest with you. The thing is, with it it was like drinking water. You sat down wanting to satiate your Indiana Jones thirst. You picked up this glass of this gorgeous-looking stuff. You gulped it all down. It tasted of nothing. Nothing happened in that film, really. And the whole sort of spoilers for a goodness knows how old film now a year, that whole time travel element.

Speaker 1: 30:27

I know we've had some fantastical stuff in Indiana Jones, but hoo-wee, that was just an extra level of turd to swallow and chug down. I balked it up a couple of times. I managed to keep it down in the end and I came out feeling like I'd seen an Indiana Jones film. But pivot back to the game. I'm quite excited to see it. It's nice. It's been well put together. It's been put together by people that have a very keen eye for indiana jones, lore and machine games does a really good job as well, with wolfenstein and all that so exactly, and the voice acting is actually good.

Speaker 1: 31:10

Um, in the latest trailer I felt like indy's likeness kind of had skewed off a little bit from the original trailers that I saw. It kind of looked like Harrison Ford Light or they'd just got the stunt double in or something for some facial capture. I don't really know, but I don't want to sort of stomp all over it. I'm still hoping for good things from that. So, yeah, fingers crossed. Listen, I'm curious. Oh, before the episode gets away from us said I've gotta know, because this is actually more important. Okay, what?

Speaker 3: 31:46

you've been playing, oh, again. Um, I I'm on this, I'm on a simulator kick right now.

Speaker 1: 31:53

Um, whoa, yeah you laughed, you laughed, you say sorry. Now you naughty little boy.

Speaker 3: 32:02

I am sorry simulators when they hit they really hit um they really hit.

Speaker 1: 32:07

So the thing is, this is why you tell me that the simulator that really hit for you is dave the freaking diver, and I'm sorry, but that's not what I call a sim. So what's this? No, no that's roguelike.

Speaker 3: 32:16

That's more of a roguelike, but um, I will. So there's this game called blockbuster inc. And basically you are a you're a head of a production studio from the ground. You're starting it from the ground up and you are in task with making a movie studio that is the best movie studio in the world so we saw that at wsSD Live, did we not?

Speaker 2: 32:38

RGT. Yes, we did, yeah, yeah, we got a preview hands-on, didn't we? Yeah, because I think they had the developers on a lot of voice chat, didn't they? That's right, Seb? Let me ask you this question, though.

Speaker 1: 32:50

You've been playing this game, which I'm actually quite excited to find out about, because I was a massive fan of lionhead or bullfrogs the movies. Were you aware of that on the periphery before you got into this? No, not even. Wow, okay, well it's. I'm just being honest. This is its spiritual successor, so I'm quite hyped to hear what you've got to say about it I feel like it is a really cool concept.

Speaker 3: 33:18

I didn't know it was already like a spiritual successor or something else, so I I gave it credit for being an original concept, but I digress. I think the I think on the surface level, this is a very fun game. Now when you get into the minutiae of like some of the crafting elements, I think that needs a little bit of work, such as like being able to put like desk flushly against the wall so that you can craft things like more efficiently and effectively. I feel like that needs a little bit more, but I feel like the concept of you hiring directors, writers, um actors, etc. Etc. Is really well done. I like that. They there's a system management where you have to manage everyone's happiness levels. I I like the fact that they expect certain things to be catered to them, such as when they get bigger, such as like housing, um are like food and such like that. So there's different, there's different ways you can keep them happy.

Speaker 3: 34:12

I do think, like some of the, I feel like this feels like a 0.5 release as opposed, so it almost feels like a beta release as opposed to a 1.0.

Speaker 3: 34:23

Again, because of some quality of life issues, I do think if you, if maybe the housing market that you're able to like rent for your, your talent doesn't grow and expand. So when you, as you grow and expand your roster, eventually you're going to have to let people you've trained or like had for a very long time go, because there's no way of keeping everyone happy, because there's only so much, there's only so much housing in this game and I feel like that that part kind of needs to be a little reworked a little bit and also feel like there needs to be more of an end game, because there's only six studios that you're really competing against. And I started my, I started my franchise in the 1920s, um, and I went through that whole decade into the 30s and by 1937 I was the number one studio and I also had bought 90 of all the other five studios, which allowed me to basically rake in all the cash that they were raking in, and you can completely own them, by the way, which completely kills all the.

Speaker 2: 35:24

I guess this is like my anno playthrough you've become very similar, yeah I have, I really have it, it's like power does to people I really have. I bought like all the other studios and I owned everything.

Speaker 3: 35:34

I feel like I feel like walmart, low-key, where I just bought all the small businesses out. Have I bought like all the other studios and I owned everything. I felt like I felt like walmart, low-key, where I just bought all the small businesses out and I was like I am the king. Now if you want to watch movies, you go through me and and yeah, it's like, uh, and by the 1920s I'd unlocked what was it? Crime films, cop films, romance, um, drama. So I uh basic basic genres like westerns as well. So I unlocked all the like, all those basic dramas I hadn't even got to, like the superheroes or the supernatural, or horror or anything like that, and I already had like 300 million dollars over the next studio. And so I feel like if you have to ratchet that difficulty up to the highest to even get a challenge for this game, do you produce a movie in that game that you can watch, or or not?

Speaker 3: 36:29

you, you can, it's just you're not gonna want to watch it because it's like it's almost. It's almost like early choppy stop motion that you can watch the movie again. But it's like you're watching the. You're watching characters that don't have dialogue. You're also like, so the stunts that you do are very basic, so you can do like, oh, you can make people fall down at certain scenes so you can actually direct a whole film. You can make them like fight each other and there's a injury factor that may or may not be involved, and then so, like, you have different things that you can like fully watch after you produce the movie. It's just not. I don't think it's compelling enough, unless you just like I got a kick out of watching my guy jump off of um jump off the set you know, the movies had something very similar if you just played it as a sim, as you would.

Speaker 1: 37:21

It's not exactly a sim, but I take your point. It's more like a managerial style sort of strategy game.

Speaker 3: 37:29

Yeah, it is very much.

Speaker 1: 37:31

I felt like this felt like a mod of the Sims, to where this is a very specific like movie making mod of the Sims and that's what the movies was like, and when YouTube first was on the periphery, um, it was full of Lionhead's movies, things Cause you could take it out of the game and you could go into create a section where you are, you know the full suite, and people were making replicas of star Wars. A lot of people in the early days of YouTube obviously didn't have any animations, so they were using the movies to kind of backfill between scenes that they were creating and using it for kind of special effects. So you know, when I played it, this is more hollow yeah.

Speaker 3: 38:12

This is very much more hollow than that.

Speaker 1: 38:14

When I played it and you set the AI to create a movie within the simulation element of it, you're right. When you used to watch it it was just like this disconnected mess of blah, blah, blah, simish and all that sort of stuff and it was like, oh crikey, that's a shame. I used to sit and I didn't used to watch every film. But when I reached a new era, like the 50s or the 60s, and I'd pump every single last book and dime into this production first ever color film, first ever sci-fi, the whole lot and I'd be like, yeah, boys hide all the best actors. I felt like an absolute boss. I'll go to the premiere. I'm gonna watch this.

Speaker 3: 38:54

Oh god, no you're like what did I create, what did I do?

Speaker 1: 39:00

I just thought there might be this moment of genius where they made like the movie's version of star wars and I'd have been like wow, but I was a little bit younger then, I suppose, and I guess my imagination ran away with me. Other than creating your own maniacal movie empire, what else have you been? What else has been sort of garnering your attention?

Speaker 3: 39:19

so I'll. I'll plug two games real quick because I don't want to take up all the time, but um, bellatro is one that I cannot get enough of. Everyone's fired up about that dude love bellatro. Um. So yeah, everyone's heard about this game, you know it comes with a pack of cards.

Speaker 1: 39:36

Seb, did you know?

Speaker 3: 39:37

no, I do not. I will not begin the physical edition, though, if I'll be honest, the pack of cards is not enough to entice me. But, um, yeah, that's, you know, right now not having a triple, a game that really has grabbed me so far this year, other than yakus of, like a dragon, infinite wealth, that bellatro and v rising have y'all heard of v rising the half bath not partaking in it? Okay, so, v rising, you start off as a, basically you start off as a vampire, one of the most weak creatures, um, in a middle, uh, in middle earth, basically, and are the medieval era, and basically you start off with this weak vampire who you? You build a small little hut that you establish as your castle, and the really cool thing about this is it's Diablo, except you don't get stronger by just farming the area and beating the same enemies over and over again. You get far and you get stronger by crafting. So you craft, like as your castle goes, you get more resources that you can basically put on yourself like armor, weapons, gear, the whole nine yards. Yeah, so it.

Speaker 3: 40:44

It is so inventive. And not only that, there is boss fights, just like Diablo, but like each boss is very meticulous and very like thorough, where they they actually thought about like, oh, this boss is like the naughty fisherman, and the naughty fisherman is that you have to be that specific boss in order to craft the fishing rod and you can't craft it any other way except, like you have to beat him. And for every one of those examples like there's a glass blowing glass blowing boss, there is a musketeer boss, there is pretty much every almost like most technological advances you basically have to beat a boss for, but they make it fun and challenging and engaging because each one of these bosses have their own movesets, their, their own abilities, their own quirks, their trash talk. You, they feel almost like wrestlers, like actual, like old school attitude era wrestlers, except thrown into like a diablo style game with diablo style move powers. And yeah, it's really.

Speaker 3: 41:45

I think one of the more innovative things about this game is like I'm not a crafting person, but they made me into one. It's like they, I, they made me care about crafting a castle, they made me care about like kidnapping these citizens and basically making them into vampires, and I'm like, oh, you work for me, now I'll equip you and you go and you basically now I'll send you out on missions like almost like um, middle gear, solid five, you know you can send off, like you send off people to other parts of the map, like peace walker, yeah, and peace walker. So it's like it's very much like that, except, like in this version, like you actually can send them to the same parts of the map that you're going in so you can run across your minions while you're out and about and such that's something that I've always ached for.

Speaker 1: 42:30

Um, last time I thought, oh, that would be cool was when I was um playing no man's sky and I sent a load of my freighters off and I was like, oh, it'd be really great to just stay on board and let them do their little freighter admissions while I kind of sit as a passenger in the hangar bay watch it all going on day to day. It was never going to happen. Admittedly, it's a bit of a pipe dream. You have to make that game up in your head. Yeah, I like to see stuff that you've set off, a lot of these games, especially you know we're talking assassin's creed, uh, revelations. Was it where you could collect people up and send them off on missions? I think it might start in brotherhood, where you can I think it was brotherhood where they?

Speaker 1: 43:08

started. Yeah, you sent your minions off to sort of grind away for I don't know craftable material or collectibles that you could then use to kind of buy stuff for your inventory and weapon slots and things. But yeah, I think that's. There needs to be more of that. And, as you say, in an open world, when you stumble across your minions doing your bidding, it's one of those moments where your chest puffs up and you're like, yeah, my boys.

Speaker 3: 43:32

And yeah, exactly, it's like I came across um. I came across um, I was heading back to my castle from like rating rating, like a nearby town and such, and my inventory was full. And I look over to the right at this like mining camp, and I just see everyone's just saying run for your life. And I just see my minion, damien, it basically just molly whopping the whole, that whole little like mining area and and I get a kick out of it because damien's like run, run, run, you fools, yeah. And I was like damien man, yeah. And then, um, he looks over, he looks over, he's, and like you can see him unequipped, his weapons as such, and he's like master, and he does a little bow, oh, wow, yeah. And then he's like excuse me, sir, and then goes back to going like just molly whopping everyone back in the bandit camp.

Speaker 1: 44:21

still, so he's like playing this on.

Speaker 3: 44:23

Steam Deck. Yeah, I played this on Steam Deck. They just released it for PS5, though this last week. So you know a lot of the people that I talked to like that are also like games journalists. They've been playing mostly on PS5. But I've been playing it on PS five, but I've been playing it on PS um, pc and steam deck and it's phenomenal. It's probably one of my favorite games I've played this year on either platform. But yeah, I here's another thing before before. I, you know, throw the reins to RGT and you about what you've been playing, did you?

Speaker 3: 44:54

This has Castlevania integrations into it as well. Like, oh, yeah for sure, oh for sure. So like, you can create like your castle, very much in the same theme as the Dracula castle from Castlevania. You can teleport your whole castle very much like Castlevania. You can you run. Simon Belmont is in this game as well, so, and he's one of the bosses. He's one of the bosses you can take down and defeat and you can also unlock a lot of the gear, weapons, designs and um, and also like some of the cosmetics from castlevania, so like is it worth 33?

Speaker 3: 45:29

bucks. I think it's the best game this year, so I would probably say yes, but to be honest, you have to. Here's my thing you have to like diablo as far as like the, as far as like the gameplay goes of that, and then like, you have to be okay with light crafting elements, because the game is centered around you crafting your castle materials, and like your armor and gear because you're. If you were to take off all your armor, you go back to level zero, but each armor piece you equipped adds. That's how you level up your character.

Speaker 1: 46:03

Okay, that's interesting RGT in fact one more question, Seb, Helldivers 2,. Where you been? I'm not a multiplayer guy, very much I'm not, you know me, I would rather stab my firstborn in the eye than play a multiplayer game. She's now blind, right, and I'm all about the same way.

Speaker 3: 46:23

I'm about the same way about multiplayer games. But yeah, it's. I think this is the greatest double a um game this year and it feels it's an indie game, but slapping that playstation logo makes it feel triple the way and I think that studio should be very proud of what they've done.

Speaker 1: 46:43

I just oh yeah, absolutely, even just from a graphical fidelity point of view.

Speaker 3: 46:47

But bringing in that hell divers, one sweet gameplay and making it 3d, yeah, for me it's like I I don't like games that feel repetition, where I feel the repetition to where I'm like, oh, I'm just diving into the same place over and over again and just doing slightly different things. I so that's the kind of thing that turns me off about the game, but I do think it is a really cool premise and concept I just I have I've been skirting around the sort of position that you just talked about, where it's like the same thing.

Speaker 1: 47:24

But I've been doing that to myself because there's a certain few key missions I like. But when I dip my toe in the water of all the other different kinds of missions that are available on all the different planet types that are available, it's like, hmm, I ought to cut them some slack really and try it. And when you do try some of the other missions which are slightly longer in in play time, still great rgt. Yes, is michael elfwick coming today or not?

Speaker 2: 47:48

no, not today.

Speaker 1: 47:50

It's about same today I like I like how you pivoted back to our recently rescued American colleague.

Speaker 2: 48:03

RGT. What have you been playing, you little snake? Like I was saying earlier, it's been a bit of a struggle lately, but I did have Board Border from Discord.

Speaker 1: 48:11

You're not back on that, no.

Speaker 2: 48:13

No, hang on, hang on. All right, I'll say now I'm not back on that, but I love that game so much. I was in such a game funk the other day. I got back from work. There was nothing I wanted to play, so I just laid on the couch and started watching someone do a playthrough of Harvest Stella.

Speaker 1: 48:36

Oh no, an absolute Loser. I mean, what I would say is you're an addict. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 48:45

Yeah, that's a good way to describe it.

Speaker 2: 48:47

I watched about 40 minutes and I just thought what am I doing? I've put 130 hours in this game. Just get yourself together, find something to play. This is ridiculous.

Speaker 1: 48:57

In terms of sins, you're absolved because someone spent far longer on a oh dude. I don't know who's interested, but a new ano game comes out next year, based in the roman era anyway, should we say about?

Speaker 3: 49:13

ps5 hang on a minute now I like how in the Ubisoft showcase because I think that was the Ubisoft showcase, right. It was like I was watching. I was around a couple of people and they were like, oh my god, this is the. This is like the Ubisoft announcement. They said they were going to do a brand new IP. Everyone was excited, the energy was palpable, and then Anno came in and it was just like someone gut punched everyone you stood up like a statute phallus, just rigid.

Speaker 3: 49:45

I did. You know what I did. I said you know what I was just like. I was that same person during summer game fest when everyone was just like, oh my god, 2k is gonna announce something. It's gonna be borderlands, it's gonna be mafia. I'm so excited. And then they announced civilization 7 and everyone's like and I'm over here for that.

Speaker 3: 50:04

Yeah, and I'm over here like 1692 hours into civilization 6 and I'm like the king the king of the north is back. So I I didn't feel that ano thing. I was just like wait, wait, whoa, there's an audience for this, y'all just aren't it.

Speaker 1: 50:21

You know, it's one guy from farmerton, but he's all over it like a rash rgt what five people love this game. Man, it has respect what else have you got snuck back there, friend?

Speaker 2: 50:33

anyway. Um yeah, so, being bored from the discord, we had a bit of a game shed night here in the shed. So we same again. We thought what should we play? What should we play? And then we thought, well, yeah, so me and Boarder from the Discord, we had a bit of a game shed night here in the shed. So same again. We thought what should we play? What should we play? And then we thought, well, whenever we go to the arcades, we always play. Well, I say always. We normally play Virtuous Striker. So I thought, well, I'll put the Dreamcast one on, see what it's like. And I mean it is nearly arcade.

Speaker 2: 50:57

perfect it is good on there, isn't it? Oh, it's so much fun. I mean he beat me every game, but it's just so fun. And then we said come on, let's play another old football game. So then we said about the indoor mode on the old FIFAs we used to play like five a side. So we went to FIFA 98 on the N64.

Speaker 1: 51:13

Tell me you didn't leave actual soccer on the shelf.

Speaker 2: 51:23

Actual leave. Actual soccer on the shelf. Actual soccer stayed there. It didn't even even, it didn't even get slipped out of the shelf. Just have a read of it. Unbelievable, yeah, but saying that probably will next time so I've actually forgot about it.

Speaker 2: 51:31

I forgot I had it. Um. So, yeah, then we played fifa 98 indoor mode. That was good fun. And then, yeah, we got talking about Tony Hawks because he's a really good skateboarder, big skateboarder, back in the day. So we got talking about skateboard games and he said he hadn't played Tony Hawks Underground. So I was like you need to play that he hadn't played.

Speaker 2: 51:49

Thug Nope. So we stuck that on and we ended up playing to the early hours. We got halfway through the game and I still love that game. It's still one of my favourite Tony Hawk's series Underground the first one Absolutely brilliant. So yeah, we had great fun with that. I said the other week, a couple of weeks ago, when we recorded that I was going to try a big open world game and I stopped.

Speaker 3: 52:10

Hidden West.

Speaker 2: 52:12

Nope, fable, I've done Fable. I went for Avatar.

Speaker 3: 52:20

No, I've done fable. I went for Avatar. No, it'll be a soft one, I'm done.

Speaker 1: 52:23

I'm done. I'm done with you. You're fired, you're rehired because I can't live without you, but for a moment there you were toast hang on.

Speaker 2: 52:31

I haven't said my views on it yet oh, go on oh no oh no yeah yeah

Speaker 1: 52:42

graphically it's a banger on ps5, and so it's beautiful looking, it's just far cry it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's good looking.

Speaker 2: 52:51

Even my daughter came in I was playing and she said, oh, look the, you know the forest and that looks really good and colorful and graphically good. Character models are pretty good, they're all right, but it's that uber soft thing for me. It's they and tell me if I'm wrong. Listeners, put it in community corrections. I always find, or nine times out of ten with an uber soft game, they don't know how to start the game. They don't pull you in from the start. On any of their games watchdogs, this Avatar game, some of the Assassin's Creed there's nothing.

Speaker 1: 53:23

There's not that dramatic start to get you hooked in listen to, kind of pivot off that back to kind of something Seb said earlier. I'm pumped for Star Wars Outlaws, don't get me wrong. I feel like I need it now. I feel like that might be my kind of thing, I'm swinging towards, but I, like you, I'm I'm real nervous that they're going to kind of cook that landing and it's that first 20 minutes or that time between starting the game and pressing a button, which is the measure of a good action game, I would say, or it's certainly a measure of metric in the industry, but I need that to be, I need that to be sweet, I need that to be. I'm talking jedi fallen order, kind of grab you by the seat of your pants and drag you in.

Speaker 2: 54:07

You think of some of the best single player games that you know have these great stories at the start. You know your uncharted's last of us, spider-man. That's that first hour. You play where they know how to hook you in and you want to play that game. You want to play more. You want to learn more. You want to learn your environment with ubisoft. They don't seem to do that. I mean you play like I tried playing that watchdogs legion last year. Oh no, absolutely shocking. There's no love or soul in that game whatsoever. You just get dropped in. Here's london where you go. You know this.

Speaker 1: 54:40

There's nothing it's not enough anymore.

Speaker 2: 54:42

No and although this, this was an okay start with avatar, with the story, I sort of thought, okay, I'll have a look, I'll have a look. But then you're sort of in the world and it's go and get this. He needs some medicine, you need to break these trees to get your comeback. Then you find a resistance base, then you get a base and then you go out on a mission to break a tart and after about two hours I was just like is this what it's just gonna be for the whole game, just going out and getting this and going out, and I just thought, um, yeah, I think I need more than ever now. He's forbidden west now, I think.

Speaker 3: 55:17

They call that the Ubisoft formula. It's the same thing. Watch Dogs is the same thing as Far Cry. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 55:25

And that's the thing that's making my niche rattle together about Outlaws. I really want that to be good, but it's basically going to be Avatar with a Star Wars skin. It's basically going to be all their other stuff. I think you're going to be Avatar with a Star Wars skin. It's basically going to be all their other stuff.

Speaker 2: 55:40

I think you're going to be right the thing is.

Speaker 1: 55:43

I've started to see on the periphery some good things being said about how it's actually okay, but it's a bit of a hot mess of loads of different ideas and then that's maybe what's kind of holding it back. It's a bit of a patchwork quilt which you know, if you find the kind of subsystem within the game that you're into and you're into that little subsystem, you know what it can rock. Look at me, assassin's Creed 3, probably my favourite one and I think that ship element of it, which wasn't pivotal to the main story, if memory serves, ended up being my favourite element of the game.

Speaker 1: 56:22

I think that element of it is better than black flag in its entirety.

Speaker 3: 56:24

I don't care what anybody says, I will face you down in the street. Um so if anyone's going to argue about ss's creed that fiercely listen.

Speaker 1: 56:32

I don't know why, but I would die on a hill for three. Every what, every other. Every other game they did I'm not even interested in, like Black Flag. I grinded through that like a dirty dog. I didn't see anything that anybody had sort of hyped up for being an enjoyable aspect of it. Three came in quiet American Revolution bait and switch on the character at the beginning.

Speaker 3: 56:56

George, just be honest. Just say you're ready to move over here. You love baseball. Ac3 is your favorite. You're, you're ready to to wave to the american flag.

Speaker 1: 57:07

Man, to be honest when I was at the baseball over the weekend I caught sight of myself and I thought I look more american than half of these americans. Yeah, probably so. I promise I'm like that sort of Iowa farmer kind of. Look to me. I'm out there on a great big, stupid, ridiculously sized big tractor pulling like four acres of plow behind me. You're UCP George III. Randy, I ain't messing around RGT. My goddamn name will be randy, absolutely all day long.

Speaker 3: 57:42

Randy mctruffle, the third junior and now mctruffle, is where you lost us. It's randy. If you were having the name randy, your name would be jim bob randy.

Speaker 1: 57:52

Jim bob right that sounds like the description of a horny teenager oh, randy Jim Bob oh, randy Jim Bob, again look at him. Trousers around his ankles, bottom side on his hand. He just fell over and cracked his head open on the roundabout so, rgt, can I give you some advice here?

Speaker 3: 58:13

did you pay for Avatar or did you rent it?

Speaker 2: 58:17

no, it was a present from my wife for my birthday.

Speaker 1: 58:21

Okay, okay, Be gentle Seth.

Speaker 3: 58:24

No, no, I think that's completely understandable. What I was going to say is next time you want to try an Ubisoft game like, spend the $20 a month to do the Ubisoft Plus thing that they have. So they have Ubisoft Plus, which is basically their version of Game Pass and play everything you want, and cancel after a month, and then you know. So that's what a lot of people did with earlier this year.

Speaker 1: 58:50

I think we've already got that roped in, haven't we, as part of the premium tier? I know EA's on there and it seems to be full.

Speaker 2: 58:56

Oh no, I think you're right. I think Ubisoft is on there.

Speaker 1: 59:02

I don't think Avatar is, because I think it's still pay, and I don't know whether Avatar is part of the Ubisoft Games Pass.

Speaker 3: 59:07

if I'm honest no, not yet. So Games Pass with Ubisoft. I think they have a one-year clause, so after one year it pretty much pops up. But with Ubisoft Plus you can connect the Ubisoft Plus account with your Xbox account.

Speaker 1: 59:24

I've done that, yeah, so basically, I was collecting bizarre points off of the old Assassin's Creed games as I went through and ended up being able to buy a skin for Assassin's Creed. What's the one in Paris? It's actually really good.

Speaker 3: 59:39

Unity Syndicate or Unity yeah.

Speaker 1: 59:41

I ended up buying skins in Unity with what I'd kind of scraped out of the PS3 versions of Assassin's Creed 1, all the way through Rogue as well.

Speaker 3: 59:52

An absolute desperate little man so that's a cheaper way of like say, you don't want to pay the $70 later this year for star wars outlaws, just pay your 20 because it's automatically going to be on there. But it's going to be on there that they said day one, so I'm, unless they change their mind and throw that out of the window.

Speaker 2: 1:00:11

They said, like all, their day one, ubisoft, things are going to be on there, so it's like I usually do that with EA play, you pay four pound for the month and then they get the first 10 hours of the AFC for for the free Look at this dude Look at this dude. And then cancel and it carries on when you actually get the game. So I just do that, just get a headstart and play early month early.

Speaker 3: 1:00:33

But I did that with Madden as well. But yeah, so I'm curious, George, where have you been playing? Besides, you know, Anno.

Speaker 2: 1:00:41

Sorry, I've still got two games left. Oh, my bad, sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, my bad.

Speaker 1: 1:00:47

He absorbs the limelight, doesn't he? No?

Speaker 2: 1:00:49

honestly, there was one good game after all this I played, and it was Roller Drone.

Speaker 1: 1:00:56

Oh, so fun.

Speaker 2: 1:01:02

That's roller drone. Oh, so fun. That's pretty cool. Actually I've had sort of 15 20 minutes.

Speaker 1: 1:01:04

Yeah, that's very well made good going that, really enjoying that. I felt like the tutorial was a little bit obnoxious. Yeah, it was like it really made you play it, didn't it? It's like god, I think I might learn it quicker just playing the game, but I can't even get there and I said it was the first tutorial in a while since driver.

Speaker 2: 1:01:19

Probably that made me think like, oh my god, I'm ever gonna get yeah, no, I I did feel that I was sort of playing through it and enjoying it so much. Suddenly the tutorial was over and I was in the first competition and playing, and I think I'm don't know where I am now, but halfway through I think it's getting tough, but it's so good, it's really addictive and that's something that, um, because we work scheduled at the moment, I can jump on for half an hour.

Speaker 1: 1:01:44

Controls well.

Speaker 2: 1:01:46

Controls very well. Um. Took a lot of inspiration from other games and really works. Pays off. Really good, um.

Speaker 3: 1:01:52

And finally, close the studio down. I was looking that up just now. I was just like was that the studio that you got closed down, like last week?

Speaker 1: 1:02:01

I hate that. Let's face it it's a well put together game and it's certainly got its column inches when it launched. But you know, financially it didn't do the money.

Speaker 3: 1:02:11

No, no, but I mean I felt like it at least had a shot though, because I think they put that on PlayStation Plus way too quickly though.

Speaker 2: 1:02:20

That's what I've downloaded it from. Downloaded it from Plus.

Speaker 1: 1:02:23

So what's this last little gem?

Speaker 2: 1:02:26

Well, this sort of sums up where I've been with my gaming at the moment, and you two will find it hilarious. So my gaming fun.

Speaker 1: 1:02:32

Emlyn Hughes' Soccer.

Speaker 2: 1:02:34

No, it dropped down to me with the Switch laying on the bill bowman's rugby playing sonic cd on sonic origins is what I was playing, what the hell yeah as soon as I heard sonic, I was like man, this man's, this man needs something.

Speaker 1: 1:02:50

He needs something bad an anima, anima, even playing it on the switch oh yeah, sonic origins.

Speaker 2: 1:02:55

That's another one um. Rgt got me for my birthday.

Speaker 1: 1:02:59

Great game.

Speaker 2: 1:03:00

Wonderful game, yeah, best ever. But I had very little memories of Sonic CD. So I thought, well, I'm going to throw a Sonic CD up and out and play that. So I've actually been quite enjoying it. But yeah, it's just. I got to that point where I thought there's nothing else to play. I'm just going to play Sonic. I know it sounds terrible and there's nothing else to play, because there is, but nothing is grabbing me. So I think it's going to have to finally be Forbidden. West next week needs something to pull me out of the funk, I think yeah, you can get.

Speaker 3: 1:03:31

You can play that in anticipation for Lego Horizon oh wow, can you?

Speaker 1: 1:03:39

get me one of those baseball organs because I could have been like forbidden west. I'm excited now that you've finished the first one, I think that, and you've had quite the palate cleansers. I think you're ready for that and I think you are gonna get absolutely fished in. I'm a bit nervous about you not enjoying Avatar, because those games are very similar.

Speaker 2: 1:04:04

There's a quality difference though.

Speaker 3: 1:04:06

There is a quality difference.

Speaker 2: 1:04:08

I'm sorry, the original. I mean, how old is Horizon? The first one now, what's that? Six, seven years, Seven years, yeah. Well, again looking at the timeline of PS4 to.

Speaker 1: 1:04:18

PS5, we wouldn't have had horizon by now either? No, she's.

Speaker 2: 1:04:22

That's crazy that first one is a way better put together game than avatar. I mean, they're not on the same in same ballpark, so oh yeah, I think I know what to expect from forbidden west. I'm just looking forward to the graphic upgrade and how you know from what I've seen trailers and from what you've said, how pretty it looks. Um, yeah, I'm all in. I think I need this now.

Speaker 1: 1:04:42

So it's good. I. I mean, I've maybe talked about this on the show and I've talked about it to you off air, but I got that game the day it launched, installed it and then didn't stop playing it until I remember you hitting that hard. I played it all. I played, remember you hitting that hard. I played it all that Friday night. I played it all Saturday, all Sunday bar for two hours all Monday. I had that game pretty much done in a week and it's not a small game. No it's beefy.

Speaker 1: 1:05:14

I went all at it. I was a bit disappointed by the burning shores, but then again I do find that the DLC for horizon games seems to come just a bit too late. You kind of worked yourself out the game. You've put it down, you've played some other stuff. You've lost that muscle memory, cause by the time you get to the end of forbidden West you're doing some pretty out there stuff and you're facing some pretty big stuff. Yeah, the enemies doing some pretty out there stuff and you're facing some pretty big stuff. Yeah, enemies, there's definitely some. You're gonna have to use all of your different materials within your arrows and your traps and all that sort of good stuff. You've really got to be on it.

Speaker 1: 1:05:49

And then burning shores landed and I was super excited because I'd really enjoyed the world and I got into it much like I did frozen wilds and it was like oh my god, am I holding the? Am I holding the controller upside down? What's happened to me? I can't play this. You had curb stomped, oh my, everything was apex as well in burning yeah, especially the frogs man.

Speaker 1: 1:06:10

Ah, we've spoken about those on air, those frogs. The design's amazing, but I absolutely hated them.

Speaker 1: 1:06:15

If I knew where they lived, I'd poison their food but yeah, I'm excited for you, rgt, because I think, I think forbidden west is probably the most underrated triple a game this year, I mean of this generation oh, they had the misfortune of launching at the same time as elden elden ring and the shame for that is and no disrespect, because I know a lot of people that I care for very deeply jumped straight on the Elden Ring train or got Horizon and then dropped it like a hot stone to jump on Elden Ring and never came back and I kind of knew at that moment Elden Ring probably wasn't for me right then.

Speaker 1: 1:06:50

I've kind of been dabbling with it, which we'll get to, but it was such a great game and it got literally stomped into the ground next to. Everyone went crazy for that. Even casuals went and got Elden Ring and we're talking about it around the water cooler where I was sat talking to myself in the mirror about Horizon Forbidden West, because no one else was talking about it, I was thinking how can, how are people ignoring this like this?

Speaker 3: 1:07:15

This is the game we've been wanting. I felt the exact same way and then like, um, it's a shame, because the first game got the same treatment, with um breath of the wild it did where it just got completely swallowed by the magnet, magnetism of that game and I was like, no, no horizon, you're gonna get horizon doll over again. It became a verb.

Speaker 1: 1:07:38

Sadly Is it my turn now Can. I talk about video games.

Speaker 2: 1:07:42

Yep certainly can.

Speaker 1: 1:07:44

Okay, what have I been playing? I've been playing the original Like a Dragon. I'm over six. He's kind of been my. I don't mention it every week because it's something that's constantly going on in the background. It's not issuing it's the first one I've got Isshin on the shelf, but I refuse to get to Bill on me and the FIFA and the UFC.

Speaker 1: 1:08:00

Yeah, I refuse to get to the next one until, because I've been an avid fan of the story to this point and I damn refuse to let it beat me. Rather than I beat, you know, I want to beat. No, hang on a minute. Anyway, that's totally thrown me. To be honest, man, it looks like through.

Speaker 3: 1:08:28

RGT as well.

Speaker 1: 1:08:28

Yakuza like a dragon, whatever you call it. I'm really enjoying it. But I checked my save file. I'm 60 hours deep on this bad boy and I don't even think I'm halfway through. I'm liking all the side stuff. I'm liking all the bits. I'm loving the stories, as always the sort of sub stories I've found lots of little bits, I can get my meat into.

Speaker 3: 1:08:53

By the way, I beat Like a Dragon about 90 hours. I think is when I rolled credit. So it is a meaty game.

Speaker 1: 1:09:00

Oh, some two thirds of the way through. That does give me some hope. I was speaking to Rowspacemunk in the Discord and he was like it's a big game. I was like I know this. Now I really like although it's not as deep as you kind of want it to be Ichiban Holdings is like one of my favorite things, that's so fun, so fun.

Speaker 1: 1:09:18

Two minutes. I'm going, I'm doing it and holding down R2 just to sort of fast forward, as they kind of work through the monies and, like you know, it's perfect, it's charming, it really is. Yeah, it's got that Yakuza-ness to it. I'm still not completely sold on the turn-based. I used to find the actual fighting easier because you could go in. I've talked about this on air so I won't labour the point. But you could go in with a million stamina royales in your pocket and even if you weren't the right level, you could literally just slowly beat this dude, whatever boss it was. You could beat him into the ground. With the turn based that is not happening. You've got to be the right like. So it's a proper jrpg in that regard. You've got to be the right level, you've got a and the whole job specialization thing. To me it's like oh god, gosh, you know what? Add another layer of complication if you want. Um, you know see I love that.

Speaker 1: 1:10:14

I absolutely love that. Like you're changing your job specialization, you're changing the job specialization of the other people in your team, then you've got to level the job specialization up. Then you've got to level your weapon up, with all that niff-naff and traffic trivia you've been around. Then you've got to go see the weapon dude and he's got better weapons and it's like, oh, when does this ever end? Whereas back in the old school I could go in, rest the controller on my leg and absolutely annihilate the buttons and it would normally result in me coming away the victor feeling like I'd lost. I'd got carpal tunnel and I'd lost feeling in my fingers, but I didn't care.

Speaker 1: 1:10:51

There was that moment where you could turn it round quickly, pause, go into the sub menu, drink a stamina royale and get back in there and do it all over again. Now you kind of got to wait for your turn or you've got to put them in. If you play an auto, you've got to put them in a healing phase. The in auto, you've got to put them in a healing phase. The AI isn't really good enough. So you kind of the AI's good enough, I suppose, in a street brawl, but if you get into a boss battle.

Speaker 1: 1:11:14

You've got to live and make every single move of your turn count. You've got to be precise, yeah, you've got to be right on it, and you've also got to very quickly work out what these guys Achilles heels are, cause quite often you'll smash up against them like a, like a tsunami against a cliff, and it's every move you're pulling out. It's like resist, resist, resist. It's like what is going to destabilize these guys. And then one of the sub characters you'll do one of their sort of out there moves and it'll put them into a state of confusion or something, and then you can really rally on these guys and start wailing on them. But yeah, it's interesting. I mean, it's certainly kind of boned up my jrpg skills again in a sort of pantheon. I didn't really want to be boning them up in. You know, it's certainly got the persona hat out and it's been like, oh crikey, I thought I was playing yakuza, but now I'm 60 hours deep on a traditional JRPG. I just want my life back.

Speaker 3: 1:12:11

It feels like Persona 5.5.

Speaker 1: 1:12:13

It really does? In that regard, it does, but do you know what? I'm enjoying it? So I've always. For probably most of this year I've just been quietly grinding away on that. This will make you laugh Once you beat the holdings, by the way this will make you laugh Once you beat the Holdings.

Speaker 3: 1:12:25

by the way. Like the game gets astronomically easier because you become so rich that, like a lot of the top gear, you can just buy, and then that auto battles become a lot easier as well. Yeah, well.

Speaker 1: 1:12:36

I'm I'm within the last throes of being the top company. I've do you know what as well? I've really enjoyed the sub story of that whole business arc. You know, where you're kind of like, there's a guy who's been running this sort of cartel really, and he's been throwing these obstacles in your way in terms of the shareholder meetings and then it's, you know, these people are actually in league with this dude and, yeah, again, the storytelling in the game is still top tier.

Speaker 3: 1:13:07

Finish that off, because you do unlock a really cool character afterwards that you can use in battle.

Speaker 1: 1:13:13

Yes, it becomes easier afterwards. Well before I even move on to issuing, I've got to play the man who erased his name, which is digital only in the UK. I was looking, I was toying with the idea of getting a physical from PlayAsia, but I've got every other physical release, so I'm probably going to end up going down that road, but I'll get the digital initially. I'm quite excited for that because I believe it's only about a 20-hour game, so that's going to be a nice, almost palate cleanser. This is the one that was going to make you laugh.

Speaker 1: 1:13:46

I've been playing Hell. As soon as Portal comes out, george Ghost grabs the gen previous to the gen that he's got. So he's gone deep. On the Vita he's got himself. I mean, I had Helldivers before and I always used to fritter around with it, I suppose towards the end. But I'm all in on it again now Helldivers 1. On the Vita, only on it again now. Helldivers one on the vita only. I'm not gonna play anywhere else.

Speaker 1: 1:14:14

Um, that's still enjoyable. The community is still really active for it. It's just a nice little thing to have um been playing helldivers 2, jumped into a mission with og tom, had just a just a nice bit of old school chat with him while we played. I don't normally go on headset, but I kind of saw that more as like a phone call, you know, to a family member A sick, poorly little, weirdo family member, but you know, still a family member. And what else have I been playing? I think that's probably it.

Speaker 1: 1:14:46

To be honest, I've still got Uncharted 4, another playthrough to finish. I've still got. I really need to kind of dust off Alan Wake 2 and just get that last third of the game finished. There's nothing wrong with it at all. It's just kind of propped up at the wrong time and F1 Manage is probably going to get deleted. It's not the latest one. I've talked about this a couple of episodes ago. It's like last year's version, but it's so similar to the first. I've tried to grind through another couple of grand prixs, but I'm so done with it.

Speaker 3: 1:15:22

Um you just burned yourself out.

Speaker 1: 1:15:24

Huh, it's just so similar to the first one. I should have just carried on playing that. Um, it's a shame because it's just so similar to the first one. I should have just carried on playing that. It's a shame because there's nothing fundamentally wrong for the game, but as a yearly upgrade which is how they're doing it now every year the new one comes out, like EA or FC or FIFA or whatever it's called, or MLB even, which, I'll confess to you now, the latest MLB looks great from an aesthetic point of view. The menu is beautiful, the additions to the gameplay that they've made are great, but sadly it's too many years on the bounce of mlb for me to really even get out of triple a.

Speaker 1: 1:16:00

I'm like um, this is, and every year you kind of got to wipe your progress of your previous game. Some of the old MLBs, let you carry on. Import your character. These new ones, since we've had the PS5, that's a big no-no. So every time you got to recreate yourself, scan your face, you start yourself up as this plucky 18-year-old again. It's like maybe I've got some actual physical time off at the back end of July into August. Maybe at that point, you know, I can maybe just unwind into it. I still love the game, as in baseball, and I do have a still like the biggest soft spot for MLB the gaming franchise. I think it's great. But next year maybe if I don't play this one as much, because normally I'm hundreds of hours in on a career mode road to the show, but this year nowhere near, and I'm wondering if I can just sort of maybe not go as deep this year. I can just sort of have it on the periphery that next year mlb 25 or 4, whatever which way it rounds goes with the yearly connotation. I can't remember. It's just one big MLB game to me, but I'm hoping that I'm going to arrive at that and be like, yes, something new.

Speaker 1: 1:17:14

They definitely need to refresh the pitcher game. I know everyone rocks up to play MLB just to hit big home runs and be the big. Yeah, I'm the judge, but I'll be honest with you, I'm not into that. I'm into the whole sort of pitcher. Slow the pitch clock hasn't helped, but you know, slowing the game down, doing the pitches, getting some dirty inside-outside pitches, you know just… the minutia of baseball, the real grit of baseball, it's not just to turn up and go wow, mate, you hit the ball wheel far. There's so much more going on at a granular level in a game of baseball that really you can only appreciate from the pitcher's point of view.

Speaker 1: 1:17:54

So, yeah, that's due a definite rework, the changes they've made to the menu and road to the show. When you know classic road to the show, you would always be in your changing room sat there, you know, scratching your balls, waiting for your next match. Now you could be on a coach, you could be on a plane, you could be in the team room, you could be in your own bedroom, like those little things. It didn't cost them anything to do, but it's added so much more variety to those inter-match interstitials that it's like, oh, I'm not even in the big leagues getting the podcasts and the TV shows and all that sort of AAA extravaganza and it already still feels pretty good.

Speaker 1: 1:18:33

So, yeah, I'm excited, hopefully for next year and, like I say, a bit more spare time on my hands to just mindlessly plump away several hundred hours into a baseball career mode. Yeah, I think I'll be ready in in 12 months time. Um, gentlemen, that probably brings to the end my, my gaming activity and now we must pull on what I call the big boy trousers. I'm gonna button up my button down, pull the tie up around my neck, as I ask you, gentlemen, to look all journalistic in what you're doing, because it's time for the news.

Speaker 1: 1:19:19

I don't you know that to me sounded newsy, but well, the fans quite retro but it was newsy if you're below a certain age, you might need to know that that's the sound of the news wire coming in. We've scaled the very darkest region of the internet to bring you the latest stories first up. Ps digs deep into its back catalogue. This is quite the mouthful, but I'm going to go for it. Are you ready? Platform fans, rest assured knowing that from 18th of June, you'll be able to play every oh, I'm going for punishments Every single mainline Jak and Daxter game on PS5 and PS4, the release of the PSP platformer Daxter. I will stand by this, arguably one of the best entries in the series. We'll round out the selection with Jak and Daxter, the Precursor Legacy, jak 2, jak 3, jak X, combat Racing, already available. Jak selection with jack and dax of the precursor legacy, jack 2, jack 3, jack x, combat racing, already available. Jack and dax of the lost frontier. The psp and ps2 epilogue, which is actually super hard to find on ps2, not so bad on psp, almost literally impossible on ps2 launched earlier this year, should be noted. The original trilogy, along with jack x combat, combat Racing, are still tied to Sony's old PS2 emulator, meaning they don't play as well as they necessarily should.

Speaker 1: 1:20:34

Earlier in the PS4 generation. The Japanese giant ported a select number of PS2 titles to its current-gen console, but the emulation was sloppy and lacked quality and life improvements. The firm's new PS2 emulator debuted alongside the likes of Sky, sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, or literally Sly as we would know him. It includes quick saves and rewinds, so it's great to see all the Jak and Daxter titles readily available on current hardware. This is the kind of preservation we want. We also suspect all of the Sly Cooper games will eventually make their way across, and we'd love to see the Ratchet Clank series follow, especially the larger Overlook spin-off and I like this one as well Secret Agent Clank, which very few have actually played. Now, off the back of this, boys, let's go old school Bonus. Bonus news you probably never played Ghost Hunter. Me and RGT are big fans of this game. Bonus news you probably never played Ghost Hunter. Me and RGT are big fans of this game.

Speaker 1: 1:21:33

I saw this bit of news and thought you are going to be all over this this this was the sort of game that made you wonder why you were buying a PS3 back in the back in the day. The visuals, the textures, everything that Ghost Hunter is pumping out on PS2 is phenomenal. Developed by Cambridge Studio, the UK-based team that would later be renamed Guerrilla Cambridge, before being shut down following the release of the PS Vita's excellent Killzone Mercenary. I don't think that's what killed them. I think RIGS VR killed them. If I'm honest with you, it was published in the United States by namco, such as was the mistreatment of the title title by platform holder sony. But it's actually a great little game, coming to ps5 and ps4 as part of the ps premium from the 18th of june.

Speaker 1: 1:22:16

Now the game is effectively a third person shooter, although it's somewhat of a prehistoric one. The title predates resident evil 4 and gears of war, so the combat is fiddly and archaic. Movement Movement is ridiculously restricted. While you're aiming, combat sees you weakening ghosts before capturing them with Ghostbusters style traps and ecto-wands, for want of a better word. But there's more to it. You can also control a spirit to solve puzzles or lure phantoms into specific positions.

Speaker 1: 1:22:43

While it received middling reviews at launch, this was a forward thinking title with excellent presentation, and it's one, ultimately, a lot of people overlooked. The North American version was updated to include a number of gameplay improvements and fixes God damn, you, damn, yankees. Compared to its European counterpart, we've been struggling on with, quite honestly, control-wise treacle. This is obviously a time when patches couldn't be issued, because whatever shipped on the disc is what you got, but we'd recommend this, given a go. To be honest, it's one of the best looking PS2 titles upon its release and still got lots of interesting ideas, despite its ancient and inconsistent gameplay.

Speaker 1: 1:23:21

A single playthrough will take you 10 hours, so you've got the time and you're curious about the subject matter and story, be sure to check it out Now. Rgt, I know there's a lot of news to cover here, but basically I want to get balls deep with Seb. Seb, have you played Ghost Hunter? Are you aware of it? Is it on your periphery? Have you ever seen it before? Or is this a game that's got you going? Hang hold on. Hold my spectral pint here, a second pal while I pick up this ancient-looking control pad and get myself a little bit ghost-huntery.

Speaker 3: 1:23:55

See, I've heard of this game. I've never touched it. I did not own a PS Vita until later in life, so I didn't get it. This is a PS2. Oh, ps2, my bad, yeah, but no, I didn't touch this on the PS2 either. So I very much, I'm glad game preservation is coming through and I'm glad the people who are jonesing to replay this type of game is going to be able to. But other than that, I don't think I'm going to be touching this one. If I'm being honest, there's too much out there right now.

Speaker 2: 1:24:28

I think it's good as well, because with the new PS2 emulator you've got your rewind as well and a lot they've done with the PS1 titles they've been launching. I have downloaded the first Sly, which I think is just Sly to us or Sly the Raccoon to us. I think it's different.

Speaker 1: 1:24:46

I think it's Sly Raccoon to us, and I think that our American cousins.

Speaker 2: 1:24:53

Oh, Sly Cooper, isn't it they call it.

Speaker 1: 1:24:55

Sly Cooper, thievius Raccoonus that's it.

Speaker 2: 1:24:57

Yeah, so I have downloaded it. I've heard good things. You've never played Sly. No, I've downloaded this one on the PS5.

Speaker 1: 1:25:14

I downloaded this one on the ps5. I've played slide back in the day, um, but I've heard good things about this um emulator with the rewind and slightly improved textures and stuff. So I I don't know if it's true, but I've heard that it's. It probably don't look that great, um, because obviously I think the place where it looks best right now is probably on that ps3 re-release that went on the vita as well. Um, the trilogy sly trilogy yeah, was it called the h? Sly hd? They, they batched hd, I believe. Yeah, games, yeah, jack and daxter sly. I think we even got ratchet and clank.

Speaker 2: 1:25:41

Really, because that's that's on ps plus as well, which is odd because you've got both, but I suppose you're gaining with the rewind feature and absolutely yeah, but yeah, I'd be interested to give it a go so I have a question how excited are y'all to play astrobot later this year?

Speaker 1: 1:25:57

I'm pumped for that yes, I can't my only reservation, and me and rg talked about this a couple of episodes ago and we'll, we'll test the waters, we'll see what the cult has done to you now. I was excited to see it. I was, I was kind of hyped, I'll be honest with you, and when it showed up at the showcase I was like yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll have a piece of this. But having played the playroom vr playroom, uh, having played the astrobot vr missions, having played the PS5 launch banger Astro Bot, a lot of what I've already played, which not everybody has played fair enough, is in this game, from what I can see. So it's going to be massive, according to them, the biggest game they've ever made. So, no doubt, recycling of ideas and textures and bosses and things makes some level of sense, especially if it's kind of a little bit unknown to the mainstream.

Speaker 2: 1:26:54

And I think yeah, I think a lot of people's first time playing it was on the PS5. Because you either played it on the VR, and if you didn't have the VR then you sort of missed. So I suppose you kind of missed those.

Speaker 1: 1:27:05

Yeah, they're sort of thinking it as their second big game, the thing that I wanted to ask you about Seb is, in terms of spaceships, the PS5 is the most butt-ugly spaceship Every two rear-rits retro blasters.

Speaker 1: 1:27:20

Yeah, that was a stretch and then fly into deep space. What was your take on that? Because, obviously, when it came out of the sand without the faceplates, the PS5 looks pretty badass naked, with its fan hanging out. But as soon as it sort of booted into space and the face plates attached and this cumbersome white brick clumsily made its way through this warp portal, I was thinking, my God, boys, you've really blown the farm.

Speaker 3: 1:27:46

What was your thoughts on that element. I I don't like that element at all. I, I think that is. I think it is ugly as a spaceship, for sure it was a stretch to make that look like a spaceship yeah, I will. I will say the like him actually like having a tie fighter, which is basically the ps5 controller and navigating like that is absolutely beautiful. That was fire.

Speaker 1: 1:28:10

And considering the haptics we got from the first game, to imagine that thing transforming in your hands and you feeling the plates move and whatnot, which is certainly within its capabilities to replicate. I am very excited to see that.

Speaker 2: 1:28:22

It's one thing sorry to go back, but when I did play Avatar, it's one thing I will say the haptics's not pretty good in that game with the adaptive triggers for. But that was the batman limit. But they did incorporate that, which I didn't think they would, because a lot of developers missed that.

Speaker 3: 1:28:36

So ubisoft does a good job at doing that, though.

Speaker 1: 1:28:39

Yeah, just wait till you've played forbidden west, till you talk to me about haptic triggers.

Speaker 3: 1:28:44

Oh, pal for sure, yeah, sorry, carry on no, I was just gonna say I'm like I'm hearing good things about astrobot. It's um. They're saying they're gonna have um like playstation themed bonus worlds as well, and then they're also they're probably looking at 80 different levels in this game, so I think that's that's well.

Speaker 1: 1:29:05

This is that we've not just heard this. I do believe this is confirmed in hands-on previews. So you know, give it to me. I just and there's nothing wrong with like a greatest hits montage of some of your previous stages, but I kind of want that to be on the very back edge of minimum. I'll be honest.

Speaker 3: 1:29:23

Well, george, to be honest, let's be. Let's be serious here for a second. You remember? Remember how no one played the Wii U and so the Switch just re-released all the Wii U stuff.

Speaker 1: 1:29:34

No, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. Vr is the same way.

Speaker 1: 1:29:39

You don't like no one's playing it. My other grip with Astro Bot is when the VR launched, sony put out a statement and I've been scouring the internet and I want someone, maybe in the Discord, to find it for me. But every game that we release going forward is going to have a VR element. So when I heard Astro Bot, I was like bam, cannot wait to see. Even if it's like Concrete Genie and it's hidden in a submenu somewhere, you put the headset on and you wave a bloody paintbrush around, I'll take it.

Speaker 3: 1:30:09

Right now I'm starving so just like Pastor. Longhorn tripped me into the cult just like Pastor Longhorn tripped me into the cult Pastor.

Speaker 1: 1:30:19

Longhorn mumsy right down new law.

Speaker 2: 1:30:22

New law Pastor.

Speaker 1: 1:30:25

Longhorn. Hey, I'm Jeff, my boy, coming to you on my knee.

Speaker 3: 1:30:30

I'll show you what a cult's all about you have drinking the Kool-Aid that is PlayStation VR. They have lied to you two times, two times in two separate generations. They basically came out with a VR component and they haven't supported it.

Speaker 1: 1:30:49

The thing is, what gets me is, in a way, right okay, last time I got kicked in the ghoulies like this by a business, it was Xbox with the Kinect and I'll be honest with you, I never felt so humiliated in my life as that guy that was clumsily stumbling around his living room that he'd hastily rearranged so the connect could even see his face, let alone his hands. Um, to get this thing playing now I I ddt'd that through a flaming, exploding table covered in fluorescent light tubes. I was that done with. It was like no xbox, you've had your go now. That's it, you're done.

Speaker 1: 1:31:30

Sony have kind of done it to me twice and I'm forgiving them only because on VR1, I had some really standout great experiences.

Speaker 1: 1:31:39

On VR2, I'll say this alone it's a bit of a big ticket because you could probably get a flight to somewhere quite gorgeous in Europe and then go kayaking for real. But kayak vr was worth the entrance fee and I didn't need to get wet, not like that. Uh, I didn't need to get wet at all and no man's sky was the bridge that shadowed between psvr1 and psvr2 and gave me that warm feeling of like yeah, do you know what if I did? And Sky was the bridge that shadowed between PSVR 1 and PSVR 2 and gave me that warm feeling of like yeah, do you know what? If I did actually want to get stuck into something? There's a whole universe to play through here, and we've not even dusted off Resi 4 or Village in terms of their VR modes as well. So I mean, after Biohazard in VR on VR1, I mean enough's enough. I mean, I don't mind a horror game. I'm not someone that really gets that really like scared by that. But in VR, I don't care who you are, that stuff is terrifying.

Speaker 3: 1:32:43

Yeah, I'm a chicken, so I don't care In that Biohazard game.

Speaker 1: 1:32:45

when that dude comes through the wall for the first time, I literally I'd only just eaten my sandwich and it was already in my panties. I was like absolutely terrifying. Uh, and normally in the game you can kind of see where a guy's gonna do a jump scare at you. You know, the wall is kind of like a little bit different texture.

Speaker 1: 1:33:09

You're like, oh hey, started a little bit yeah, there's a little bit of going on here. Guys, are you kidding me? Like? Oh, here he is. I'm not scared at all in vr, honestly, this peripheral sound effect you know what was that, what was this, what was that? And I played it on the flat screen. He just ran down the corridor play it on vr and I'm literally crawling on my hands and knees terrified. So there is a place for it. But yeah, you're right, I've been done day two times oh, for sure, for sure.

Speaker 3: 1:33:39

And to be fair, like I think vr is a really cool concept in games, I just don't. They haven't shown you any respect as a vr gamer especially when like any respect as a consumer full stop oh no, for sure not, especially considering like the two bet, arguably the two best like titles in vr today asgard's wrath and um and half-life alex aren't even available. Aren't even available on this platform. And you paid what? 500 or 600 for?

Speaker 1: 1:34:07

this. I don't need you in here waving the books about.

Speaker 2: 1:34:09

You know I'm not enough I think, I think you can use the uh psvr2 for steam and steam oh, yeah, on pc now, but your pc isn't that beefy enough.

Speaker 3: 1:34:18

Yeah, but you need the adapter. You need the adapter to make it work.

Speaker 1: 1:34:21

So it's gone. It's gone a little bit. The pc boys are going to get hold of it. It's going to be a little little bit like PSVR 1 with us with the breakout box and all the other associated dribble. But do you know what, in terms of a high def VR headset that's got some really nice bells and whistles in it, they could do a hell of a lot worse. I think if you're at the premium end of VR gaming and you had the disposable income and you were like, oh, actually I'll give this a try, I don't think you'd be disappointed. The haptics in the headset alone.

Speaker 2: 1:34:49

You know to simulate probably one of the most advanced vr's there is sure in the market yeah, outside of apple right now.

Speaker 1: 1:34:56

Yeah, don't get me wrong, like the screens probably could be better. I suppose, in terms of if you've got money to literally rinse, I'm sure there's something you could get. That would be way better. And I know a lot of people have moaned about the lenses and the technology that's in the VR 2. But, to be honest, chuck the headset on and I don't imagine there'd be many complaints. Gentlemen, what's this next bit of news?

Speaker 3: 1:35:26

They came, they saw they kicked its ass, but they could have shown more Everyone. It's time for the next news story. This year's Xbox Gaming Showcase was absolutely fantastic with the entire two-hour runtime or 90-ish minutes if you exclude the Call of Duty bit. But you know, most of us did um, providing some amazing reveals that left us in absolute awe, and apparently there was more that could have been shown. Kind of funny's. Host paris lily good guy, I met him, by the way who has appeared on xbox's showcase in the past. Mentioned on the rest was that Risteria.

Speaker 3: 1:36:10

Risteria yes era oh, reset era, my bad reset era that he'd spoken to multiple people at Xbox about this, told you that showcase was going to be good, he said. And the wow thing is I had multiple people at Xbox telling me there was so much more that they could have shown, and Gamescom is shaping up to be a big show too. End quote. So some of the games that we didn't see at the Xbox showcase included Towerborn, marvel's Blade, clockwork Revolution, contraband, everwild and a few others, and those are just the first party titles that we absolutely know about. Xbox hadn't had a big showcase at Gamescom for the past few years, so here's hoping we might have another showcase in store for us in late August. In any case, there's clarity a lot in the pipeline at Xbox, bethesda and Activision Blizzard right now. So, gents, what do you think about this story?

Speaker 1: 1:37:12

I mean, we talked at the beginning and you know the Xbox Game Showcase came along and I'll be honest with you previously Sony had done what we talked about. You can quote it on air as saying by me and rgt a good job. You know I came off the showcase thinking, yeah, yeah, that went, okay, I mean yeah, it's all right yeah I expected there to be a little bit more.

Speaker 1: 1:37:36

I kind of wanted, maybe, a surprise. You know, we had a few things lurking around in the background that I expected to see. That didn't make an appearance. It's like, okay, do you know what? They're just trying to keep their powder dry, keep people's anticipation up. That's okay. Maybe didn't want to drop just a CGI trailer. So, yeah, okay, fair enough.

Speaker 1: 1:37:54

Then Xbox turned up, opened its lunchbox and they had everything in there and it was. I'll be honest with you, it was a pleasant surprise. They managed to pull in not only their own studios but some of the periphery third-party studios that also showed their games during that time. That actually sort of swelled it out and made it look good. Same with the playstation showcase. There obviously are some tertiary titles that are our multi-platform. But the xbox showcase turned up and smashed it out the park for me and I'm a bit of a nerd and it's super boring.

Speaker 1: 1:38:28

But that flight simulator, I was into it. But when that flight sim dropped I was like oh yeah. But then when they got to the jobs element, I was, oh, my goodness, gracious me, I was moister than moss on a spring morning. It was absolutely beautiful to see it give me snow runner vibes. It give me farming sim vibes. It give me everything. Um, so I'm intrigued to see. It gave me SnowRunner vibes. It gave me Farming Sim vibes. It gave me everything. So I'm intrigued to see what that holds. But to think that they actually sat on stuff is staggering to me.

Speaker 2: 1:38:59

But is it staggering when you think about how many studios yeah, I think all what's gone on as on as well, god did they need this to be good? And I think well we've had shows titled.

Speaker 1: 1:39:13

Xbox needs to show us something soon. You know, yeah, xbox, where are the exclusives?

Speaker 2: 1:39:18

we've been begging them, it's been bad news after bad news, and you know, up till the recent interview, phil sp Spencer disappeared, and then clumsy interviews from Sarah Bond. It was just, it was a poor show from them and you were just thinking, come on, you need to do something positive. But to be fair, you know it looked good, that showcase, I must admit, Best one I've seen for a long time.

Speaker 1: 1:39:45

Seb was off air when that whole sort of we're going to be on everything story broke and I'll be honest with you, was not helped by a social media, b the lack of noise coming from them and, c their influencers paid or not along the way, that literally ran that story into the ground. There were so many rumours it was so hard to pick out. That literally ran that story into the ground. There were so many rumors it was so hard to pick out. I should imagine a million kids picked up that afternoon and took their Xbox down to CEX or whatever you've got in the States and hopped it in for a PS5. And it was way too soon to be making that call. But the console was literally. If you'd have took a thermometer to the Xbox corpse a couple of months ago, it would have registered as dead yeah, and I think the problem is a lot of people say sony are too quiet.

Speaker 2: 1:40:35

At times I don't say a lot, whereas I think maybe. But I think sometimes xbox are too vocal. They're always, you know, they're with the gamers all the time. They're friends for the game and phil spencer's game with and sometimes you just need to say, look, it's too much, you need to step back from that. Run the company, get some games going. And sometimes they send mixed messages. They're over at Tango Dreamworks a year ago giving them awards and saying how brilliant studio they are, and you're our foot into Japan and making it bigger, and then a year later they're shutting them. You're just like, yeah, if you're over there giving them their awards and saying that just do it in private, because everything's digitally, you've got a footprint and everyone will bring this all back up, so you're leaving yourself open. I think if they're a bit more quieter, we'll work away. And you know, do these games that they've been showing us, you know, and sometimes they sort of trip over themselves a bit. But, like I say it, the showcase was fantastic. I think.

Speaker 1: 1:41:36

I thought it was brilliant, best one I've seen, like I say, for a long time I'll be honest, I should think the shareholders breathed a sigh relief as well, men, because it wasn't looking great and and then boom, they came. They delivered when they had to. I want to see some of these actually come home now and actually genuinely be playable.

Speaker 3: 1:41:54

I mean the Fable thing they got to deliver.

Speaker 1: 1:41:56

Yeah, Fable was interesting, but let's face it, we've been looking at the Fable for some time now.

Speaker 2: 1:42:01

Yeah, and Perfect Dark as well.

Speaker 1: 1:42:03

They came too early with Fable with that CGI trailer. Then we got that kind of giant gameplay sequence that we saw which kind of made us feel like Fable was a lot closer than it is. We've had another gameplay experience, kind of like an amalgamation, in the last showing. I'm a Fable fan even after the Kinect game, and that's saying something. Even after Finect game and that's saying something even after Fable 3 and that's saying something. But I like the comedy of it. I like the world building that they've done.

Speaker 2: 1:42:38

I like the world of Albion. It felt Fable to me. It did feel Fable.

Speaker 1: 1:42:41

It absolutely felt Fable to me, and one thing that I kind of picked up on the periphery of on social media was like people were saying that one of the in-game characters didn't look very good in terms of aesthetically pleasing and I watched the trailer again and thought that's a beautiful woman in terms of gameplay. It's realistic in terms of the aspirations you're talking about the main character yeah, I think so.

Speaker 1: 1:43:07

In the trailers that female character isn't there. That was being spoken to. You can probably pick your sex and you can probably adjust your face as you go through. You know these games are like, but I did find that in the modern world a little bit of a weird thing for people to be saying she's not good looking enough. They'd done the same with Star Wars, didn't they? Well, don't forget.

Speaker 1: 1:43:31

At the same time, not that long ago, people were complaining about Horizon, forbidden West and Aloy having hair fuzz. You know, women have hair like light down. It's okay, yeah, it's just. And I just, I don't know, I just to be honest, that bit was so tone deaf. I just sometimes think that we as gamers broad brush, I know, but we don't do ourselves any favours when we get on the internet and make ourselves look absolute clowns. Oh, it's just ridiculous. I'm excited for it. I don't want that to suck any of the hype away from what I saw. I think it was a good showcase. Like I say again, to double down on it, the fact that they had other stuff in the quiver, that they were like actually no, leave it, that's enough, we've done enough, and they could have just gone, all in like boom, all of it, and we'd have been like oh my God, you know it's like.

Speaker 3: 1:44:19

The thing is, I think outside of Clockwork Revolution with the titles that we actually spoke about a that we actually spoke about a lot of these games are games that would have probably drugged the showcase down. If I'm being honest, like marvel's blade is still early in development, another cgi trailer would have probably felt like a. That would have done nothing for it at all. Totally, yeah, tower born is the same way I. I don't know a soul on this planet who's excited for contraband and then ever wild. No one knows what that game is because we've only seen the cgi trailer. If and reports are that game's still in development, hell, if that's the case, then another cgi trailer would have done a disservice I mean ever wild.

Speaker 1: 1:44:59

It needs to rock. Five years now, 12 to 18. Yeah for sure, mate. I mean that needs to rock up soon, otherwise that's going to end up being because, by the time that I wonder if it's stuck in development hell, because it's been in development for such a long time that some of the concepts that they had they've already been been beaten to market with. So they're sat with this game that kind of looks like a little bit of pup. It probably plays well, it probably looks good, but it's probably not doing anything new, because other games have come to the market with similar ideas and aesthetics and it's kind of left them feeling like carrying this sort of weird looking ugly baby that they kind of want to show to people around, but they're also scared that people are going to say that's one ugly baby.

Speaker 2: 1:45:39

I think I've said before similar thing about fable and perfect dark. I'm excited for those. I think it's brilliant, but are the demographic of the Xbox going to know what Fable or is it going to be lost on them?

Speaker 3: 1:45:51

Here's the thing I want to bring up. Sorry about this, george. I think those two games showcased a lot better for a younger generation. About this is the gameplay. This is what this is what this type of game is versus Indianaiana jones, where indiana jones I did hear a little scuttlebutt on social media that you know like some people were confused because they thought it was a vr looking game because, like the first person you actually punching it's like that doesn't showcase well to a young, especially if you're trying to appeal to a younger audience, you're trying to capture a new audience.

Speaker 3: 1:46:25

This at least perfect dark I think almost didn't need to be called perfect dark. It looks like a really cool brand new uh game that if you would have told me this was purple, a game called purple like and it was just about a spy action game, it, the gameplay, is compelling enough that it looks intriguing. I don't think. I don't think anyone's signing up for that game saying I want oh well, especially after a certain age demographic, saying I want to play perfect dark they're saying like, oh, that's what I was going to allude to.

Speaker 1: 1:46:56

Like the 40 year olds are waiting for indiana jones to come out and play a first person experience of that and and to your point, that's the bit that doesn't really fit well with me. I kind of want that to be a third person action game but based on the history of the studio and the very crowded already third person action adventure treasure hunting game, they had to flip it up, do something different, because otherwise it would have been called indiana jet. It would have been. If they had to come out in a third person, it would have been compared to tomb raider, quite rightly, and uncharted uncharted and I don't know if it would have had the grip to pull it off. Whereas if you flip it and say okay, it's going to be first person, all of a sudden those comparisons start to get morphed. All of a sudden it's really only comparable to maybe their previous games or maybe similar first-person experiences, which kind of gives it a chance to get its own breathing space. I just don't know whether there's anyone's going to take that breath.

Speaker 1: 1:47:50

Yeah. Whether anyone's going to want to draw themselves through that, I don't know. It's brave and I'm excited for it. As a 40 year old man, god, you know people turn up and want someone older than their dad to tell them what video games are cool. I realize the irony is not lost on me. Yeah, I realise the irony is not lost on me. Yeah, I'm Listen. The next 12 months for the Xbox brand is set to be really exciting. I think they probably no matter what's good for business in terms of putting their games on other platforms, and we've seen that's been really good for business because they've been doing. Sea of Thieves, especially, has been literally destroying the PlayStation charts since it came out, and that's a testament of it being a good game.

Speaker 3: 1:48:33

I think multiplayer is acceptable. I don't think that's a single-player thing. Feels cringe to me still, because I'm like a live service game. You want to get a large audience, I get that Absolutely. But I'm like if you put a single-player, all your single player games on that other platform as well, I feel like what's the point in getting your platform at that point, you know.

Speaker 1: 1:48:56

I think, that's the case, that maybe their own game, their own sort of console devotees are actually. That's the question that's on their lips right now. Like yeah, I've got an Xbox, but if you're going to bring it to everything else, why would I stay PC get a PlayStation, get a Nintendo Switch 2, either which way, you know you're going to be able to carry on playing your Master Chief. You're going to carry on playing your Gears, maybe not on the Switch, but you know. Yeah at 15 frames per second yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:49:32

But no, they'll make it for retail for worse.

Speaker 3: 1:49:33

You know we're gamers of your, and so I I have a question for y'all. Um, keeping it back on the topic of the xbox showcase, it's like I do feel like this was a fantastic showcase. I do feel like there were elements that probably could have been and these are neat, picky things like I feel like this would have been a perfect opportunity for you to basically, you know, kind of like add that extra by saying like hey, all of Activision Blizzard's back catalog is now on game pass. Like I feel like that's a miss to where I'm like I understand.

Speaker 1: 1:50:02

They're working towards that.

Speaker 1: 1:50:03

But as far as I understand, like, although the ink is dry on that contract, it's still not dry on that contract. There's still some other bits and bobs that need to be wrangled through. That deal's done but it's not done, but it's done but it's not done. You know, I think that might rumble on for a while. They're getting there, aren't they? They're getting there, and whether that's through the ability to adopt the catalog or whether Microsoft or Xbox are just throwing hard dollars to kind of fulfill that promise, I'll be very interested to get a peek behind the scenes just to see which one it is.

Speaker 1: 1:50:38

Because if they own the games, they own the games, no issues. It should be all on there tomorrow. But if there's still some final legal wranglings going on in some sub-corner of the world who had an objection towards this thing and they've got to go due diligence and it's been agreed in the court, but then you've got the whole ratification of the whole thing to be put through yet Maybe they just can't. So they're just throwing money at what they can to make it work for now, I think when they get there, that will be a moment that they will absolutely rinse, and quite rightly because I would.

Speaker 3: 1:51:09

I see, I thought that same thing and then I was just like, oh no, they have diablo on there now. And I'm like you have world of warcraft on the pc, the pc version, and I'm like it feels like those are like, though, they put the two biggest ips from the blizzard catalog and you know, on there. And I'm like, oh okay, so if you could put diablo on there, you could put world of warcraft on there. Well, world of warcraft is old as dirt. At this point there's kids in the street that are younger, that are like playing around, right right using the world of warcraft cd to throw at each other yeah, exactly, I'm like they don't know, what world of warcraft is.

Speaker 3: 1:51:43

I'm like it came. It came out before they were even born. So that's what I'm curious about. It's like if you can do that with the old IP, then I feel like any IP should be available. But another opportunity I think is missing is like World of Warcraft should be ported over to consoles. I think that would have been a huge win. I don't play World of Warcraft, but I know the audience is there. I think that would have been a massive win.

Speaker 1: 1:52:07

Yeah, massive win. Now would probably not be a bad time to do it, because obviously we've got the extra sort of headspace of the new consoles. That could kind of make it work, and I think that if you were new to the franchise and you were coming in early doors on that, you wouldn't know any different, and I think that you would have a good experience. I don't know why they've walled it off. Makes no sense to me. Um, maybe it's just something that they don't think is. You would have thought, though, and maybe it's just a time thing right now, but off the back of the success of, like boulders, gate three, you would have thought they'd be like oh, there's an open goal here that we're just not kicking a ball in, but and evidently like no, do we.

Speaker 3: 1:52:46

And evidently eso is still selling after 10 years and I'm like, if that's still profitable, I'm like just throw, throw your biggest, biggest ip there as well, I think the thing is, if you give everyone everything immediately, you've got nothing to get them hyped about.

Speaker 1: 1:53:05

So you've almost got to. When you acquire these catalogs, you've kind of got to drip feed it in a little bit, because otherwise it'd be boom, everything's available. And one of my bugbears with these online libraries is you go in there and you just can't see the wood for the trees.

Speaker 3: 1:53:20

So then any paralysis?

Speaker 1: 1:53:22

yeah, so you could take a game, shine it up one month, do a load of blog posts about it, do an official Xbox podcast about it, do some YouTube reels, get people pumped for the idea of what it is, this game that they've maybe only seen on the periphery. And then you know, maybe once a month, just boom, boom, boom, you've got content.

Speaker 1: 1:53:45

That's one thing, they're not lacking right now is content, and if you can drop all that content right away and let people find the highs and the low spots, or you can curate that menu.

Speaker 3: 1:53:57

I agree with you. They're not doing that yet, and that's what's baffling to me. I'm like you have what? Almost 20 years of Call of Duty. Just put one Call of Duty game a month, they've got the digital version of chef ramsey in the background he's just got his fridge he's found a gone off call of duty game.

Speaker 1: 1:54:14

He smelt it.

Speaker 2: 1:54:14

He's like what's that how long has that been in there.

Speaker 1: 1:54:18

Phil spencer's like oh, I don't know, I clean. Who cleaned the fridge? Who cleaned the fridge? We cleaned it yesterday, chef, this wasn't clean yesterday.

Speaker 3: 1:54:27

Exactly. I'm like you can do a Crash Bandicoot every month. I'm like a Spyro. I'm like you can throw. You've got everything now.

Speaker 1: 1:54:38

Well, there's the opportunity there to have a little bit of fun as well by kind of bringing PlayStation's Midnighties or very first mascot in as a war animal against the PlayStation right now. Now, whether that's the Classics re-release and I don't know whether there's some guidelines there depending on who owns what, it's a bit muddy in terms of what is owned within Crash and what's not. But even if you did the re-release Crash, you could have some fun with that. That's already there. But shine it up, make a big deal of it and put it in a bundle with four or whatever it is. But there's certainly there's mileage to be had.

Speaker 1: 1:55:12

But I don't really feel like Xbox is really that interested in the little wins which that would bring. They're kind of just looking for that absolute mega, much like PlayStation is. They're just looking for that mega win and they're willing to literally just bin a studio off. It just doesn't produce a mega hit today. It's a bit short-sighted, but it's not the first time it's happened in the industry and I don't think it'll be the last RGT. Yes, bit of retro news here for you. You sexual Tyrannosaurus, do you want to sing the opening line, seeing as Elfwick's not here or what's going on you?

Speaker 2: 1:55:50

wouldn't want to hear me sing. We'd lose so many listeners that wouldn't be worth it no, I want it, I want it no, I'm not singing sorry it would hurt your ears.

Speaker 1: 1:56:01

Do you want to speak it in the? Because you know, everyone knows that opening line yeah what do you want me to read?

Speaker 2: 1:56:09

the title of this next article?

Speaker 1: 1:56:10

or do you want me to read yes, I want you to read the title of this next article how I want to be the very best, so buy this cutter proof an unofficial reproduction of the NES Nintendo World Champs Carter Ridge.

Speaker 3: 1:56:36

I got what you were putting out. I got what you were putting out.

Speaker 1: 1:56:39

You're with me. I got what you were putting out.

Speaker 2: 1:56:42

I'll just read it. I want to be the very best, so I will buy this cart. To prove An unofficial nice of the nes nintendo world championship cartridge has been successfully backed via kickstarter, raising a total of 16,593 british pound sterling at the time of writing, with an initial goal of 8,452 British pound sterling. Labelled as a new pro version to celebrate the upcoming 35th anniversary of the 1990 World Championships event, it will contain the original version of the cartridge alongside new pro version. What's the difference, you might ask? Well, the pro version is more difficult, to put it bluntly, unlike the original, in which players started in World 1-1 of Super Mario Bros, you instead start in World 8.1. Meanwhile, rad Racer starts at Level 3, while Tetris starts at Level 8. You'll be given the option to set the time limits from five minutes all the way up to 15 minutes.

Speaker 2: 1:57:53

The thing is, it's ruddy expensive. You're looking at 140 uh euros, which is 119 pounds, for a purple cartridge of the game, while a limited edition gold cartridge, which was already sold out, signed by competitive gamers robin mihara and thor ackerlund, costs a whopping 350 euros 296 pounds and they're sold out. Well, furthermore, we can't imagine nintendo itself would be pleased with the endeavor, particularly since it's about to release nintendo world championships nes edition on the Switch. An entirely different product, mind, but still. One commenter inquired about the product's legality and whether Nintendo might block its release. Mahara responded there have been dozens of NWC repros made and have not been shut down. This will be shut down.

Speaker 1: 1:58:53

I mean he's right. He's right in what he's saying, but he's wrong in the fact that no one's made a big deal kickstart about it.

Speaker 1: 1:59:03

Exactly no one's been charging somewhere close to 350 euros, 300 pounds or, let's face it, 300 bucks. By the time the dust has settled and the smoke has cleared. I wanted this in here because I kind of find this whole sort of blood-sucking of retro gamers and the collectors out there. This is aimed squarely at them and I'll be honest with you. I don't know whether I like it or. I don't know whether I hate it. That's kind of why I brought it here.

Speaker 2: 1:59:34

I want it in the discussion I think if you made a replica nez cartridge that looked like the world championship cartridge you might get a waiver. But the slapping super mario bros, rom on there, and and rad racer and tetris which I'm not sure about, rad racer, but the other two are owned properties of Nintendo you're likely to be shut down because you're Rad Racer's there. Yeah, I'm sure it is. So they're going to shut you down, aren't they? You can't just dump their ROMs on a cartridge. You know what Nintendo are like.

Speaker 1: 2:00:07

Well, mate, I mean, it was only in the past week, the new cycle of the last week that we kind of missed with the Bobby show, and everyone needs to go listen to that because just for his description of what he stumbled across in Astoria Park, it's absolutely hilarious. So immediate mass download. But yeah, there was a lot of. There was a large ROM hosting site that just backdoored out all their Nintendo stuff and a lot of their other more questionable ROMs and you think to yourself well, if they're nervous and they've dumped the back catalogue, this isn't looking great. Nintendo's getting more and more aggressive in its protection of its IP, be that old school games like that that I think a lot of young kids would turn their nose up at.

Speaker 2: 2:01:00

Well, you get. I mean you get these emulator systems. You buy off AliExpress and bits and pieces you know, I've got one.

Speaker 1: 2:01:06

I've got one with a load of NES games on it.

Speaker 2: 2:01:08

Yeah, there's ten a penny, you know. And Nintendo, you know. By the time they'd gone for a lawsuit to shut these companies down, they'd called something else and they're doing another product. But this, going on Kickstarter and advertising Nintendo's ROMs on something you're making money off, it's going to be shut down, isn't it?

Speaker 3: 2:01:26

I mean it deserves to be.

Speaker 2: 2:01:28

No, I agree with you. You can't just legally take people's ROMs.

Speaker 1: 2:01:34

To be honest, you know what Nintendo are like. I went outside in a Super Mario t-shirt. I looked down and my chest was blurred. This is how dangerous they can be. What do you reckon Pastor Longhorn would make of this?

Speaker 3: 2:01:47

Yeah, he would probably love this sort of thing.

Speaker 1: 2:01:49

The little shady man. I reckon he's got a bit of Ray blood in him a thomology he might be a distant cousin. Pastor Longhorn has got to be one of the best characters this show has put out in the last ten years, and it's only been going five he's the most conniving character we've come across in the UCP he yeah, he makes fagan ray look like a kid.

Speaker 1: 2:02:16

Um, there's an old school blast from the past. Listen, I don't think there's any community corrections, but if there were, if we've slipped up in anywhere and you want to put it right, we can't be right all of the time, just 30% of the time. You get in touch with us. You can either RGT, tell us how these people might get in touch with us and say that I don't even know what a game is. George needs to be removed from the air immediately. Seb needs to be raised up on a plinth. We want to see more pyros. We want to see him come down for the next podcast, like Shawn Michaels, to Wrestle up on a plinth. We want to see more pyros. We want to see him come down for the next podcast, like Shawn Michaels to WrestleMania on a zip wire. Or, for the cooler kids, logan Paul or whatever his name is.

Speaker 2: 2:02:59

Well, if you want all that, you can contact us at questions at unofficialcontrollerpodcastcom, or you can DM us on Instagram or Twitter, or you can jump on Discord and get community corrections on there and tell us exactly how you want to see Zeb zipline into the next show.

Speaker 1: 2:03:18

Absolutely Pink and purple pyros going off left, right and Chelsea. This dude's coming down like Brett the Hitman Hart, but with a way bigger budget.

Speaker 3: 2:03:29

And then the song Sexy Boy is just playing in the background, like oh, that's what you want. Then the song Sexy Boys just playing in the background like Shawn Michaels oh, that's what you want, is it?

Speaker 1: 2:03:37

Sexy boys.

Speaker 3: 2:03:38

I'm not your average boy.

Speaker 1: 2:03:43

Longer than your average boy. I like it Right. With all that done, the UCP is known for a particular character. For want of a better word, he's missed you, said he's been calling. He even called it past the Longhorns, but past the Longhorn told him that you weren't available. I'll be honest, I'm glad he was there when Mouse, the Bounty Hunter, rocked up because you needed a getaway vehicle that can transcend time and space and just get you safe. Shall I bring him down? Let's throw him with the gate key, because it's time for a peek in what we affectionately call Stingray's Bootwalt's Nestle between some counterfeit nappers and a dodgy copy of Battlefront all this week. These are the new release highlights for the week June 17th to June 23rd 2024. Listen, these aren't digital or physical, or will be by the time this boss cat.

Speaker 3: 2:04:40

By the time this boss cat?

Speaker 1: 2:04:42

Yeah, boss cat, boss cat. I don't know what a boss cat is, but all of a sudden I want to collect all of them. Or could be it's in your feed. It could be region independent, I don't know anymore, because Ray's staring at me Spring stop wattle wall. His eyes are bearing into me like a ring wraith. If I'm honest with you, gentlemen, I'm going to give Seb time to think about something other than Billy Bob. Country Ray In Crocs, wearing a straw hat and dungarees. I want to know how you're seeing him. Rgt.

Speaker 2: 2:05:20

What's going on this week? He's tried to dress basically like the Ghost Hunters guy on the PS2. Really Bad quiff, a lot. Yeah, he's got bad quiff, but he's almost looking like a cross with the hof. So he's got a bit of a quiff, bit of a mullet. He's got some seriously, seriously tight leather trousers on.

Speaker 1: 2:05:44

I mean, how tight can you see the silhouette of little ray?

Speaker 2: 2:05:47

and I'm not talking, wayne um, almost it looks crushed, if I'm honest. I mean it's, it's a car crash in there. I mean it's in a hell of a state, um, but he's also, he's got some ghostbusters gear with him, some knocked off ghostbusters gear. So he's, oh wow, he's got that.

Speaker 2: 2:06:11

Ghostbusters gear with him, some knocked off Ghostbusters gear. So he's got that. Wayne is like a NES cartridge, but he don't quite look right. He's sort of gold, he's sort of purple and he's got Super Marvin Brothers written on him. So I don't think he's even got quite the correct ROM. Oh, hang on, there's a load of lawyers coming in chasing him. So I don't think he's even got quite the correct ROM. Oh, hang on, there's a load of lawyers coming in chasing him. Oh, he's gone. Oh, he's been chased by the. Oh, it must be Nintendo's lawyers coming after him. So, yeah, so Wayne's doing loops around the garden at the moment. But yeah, how about you then, george? How's the sting appearing to you?

Speaker 1: 2:06:57

The sting is appearing to me, as I imagine pastor longhorn looks now. If you've ever seen smoky and the bandit, there's that, that guy with the big, wide, 10 gallon and he's got his little kid that looks exactly like him with the 10 gallon and the tie, the whole.

Speaker 1: 2:07:09

Yeah, that to me is what Pastor Longhorn looks like, and Ray's turned up looking exactly like him and Wayne's turned up looking like his kid. I have noticed on the front of what looks like the Nissan Bluebird to me, the whole classic steel horns with the fur wrap, kind of I don't know, hot glued to the front. He's not pulling off the look exactly, but I see what he's going for.

Speaker 2: 2:07:39

He's made an effort.

Speaker 1: 2:07:40

Yeah, apart from when you get up close you realise he's wearing a pair of cowboy boots knee high, but they're actually Crocs Knee high. Crocs boots knee high, but they're actually crocs knee high.

Speaker 2: 2:08:03

leather crocs pointy they've got pointy toes as well, so they're proper. You know steer boots, he's not. Is that wrong? I want a pair.

Speaker 1: 2:08:07

Well, to be fair, I think he's doing a Kickstarter to get the Spurs, but I don't know, because you're close to him, you might get him chucked in for free.

Speaker 2: 2:08:16

Are they still called Crocs or are they called something different, like Cracks?

Speaker 1: 2:08:23

Cowks, they're called Cowks, cowks. Okay, yeah, like Cowboy Crocs, they're called Cowks.

Speaker 2: 2:08:30

Ah well, you're onto something here, Matt, I know.

Speaker 1: 2:08:33

Well, you know, we always get inundated with the AI art and anyone who wants to have a mess around with an AI art generator and chuck this back at us. I'm all eyes. I want to see how someone gets what I've just described as an image, how someone gets what I've just described as an image To be fair, the best realisation of what I've just said. I'm going crazy. In Digital Monkery, you can enter, but you can't win. Maybe you can win, I don't know. Let's see the best. It's not personal, it's just that you're always on the AIR and I want to see someone else come up with something. But if no one else does Digimon, chris wouldn't have another fridge magnet for his collection. I want to see the best of that. Kauks, the two guys for Smokey and the Bandit that's going to take some describing, I'll tell you that now. But Ray, raid, seb how are you seeing the Ray and also his? I see you brought the UCP dog in.

Speaker 3: 2:09:41

Yeah, biscuit's doing well, he's doing well.

Speaker 1: 2:09:43

How did Biscuit find his time in the court?

Speaker 3: 2:09:46

He didn't join, he's not made for the court life. So they had a dog door and he basically bounced, he basically bounced. So, speaking of which, speaking of the cult, um, you know, I was there at the, the, what they call the entry hall, right beside the entry hall, and I was walking in to the, basically the cafeteria, and I went to the cafeteria, I grabbed, they scooped me up like three cans of canned corn on my on my tray and such like that, and the brisket of course, and they sat me and basically they forced me to sit down for lunch. And while I was eating lunch, you know, like I was going to put the spoon of the spoon of corn up to my mouth, and it was shot out of my hand and in. And I looked towards the entry hall and I saw ray there and ray was whole.

Speaker 3: 2:10:36

Ray was dressed. He was dressed in like a black leather vest. He had two gun gun holsters attached to his vest and then he had, he had spurs on his feet, boots on and, I kid you not, he had these skinny jeans on, which was completely the whole look, if I'm being honest, were they tight enough to see the ray jewels as well, or was it?

Speaker 1: 2:11:00

was it also too? Were they too tight and they crushed the mini ray?

Speaker 3: 2:11:04

no, it was tight enough that you could probably make out outlines, but it was like loose enough that that he was able to do roundhouse kicks and such so you know like he was able to do like these walker texas ranger style walk, like kicks and such, and I was like, oh, ray's got moves, but anyways, so him.

Speaker 3: 2:11:22

So in the entry hall there's ray and then there's this little mouse and they're both standing there side by side and and then like I hear commotion and next thing you know, this mouse and ray to go back to back and they basically say we got to get them out of here, we're bad boys, we can do this. So basically, basically the ray. The ray was like a bad boy, like will smith and martin lawrence and so, but a country life style version. And you know, basically they loaded me up, ray, scooped me into his arms a very muscular, like bowling pin-style arms that he has and basically threw me into the back of a hearse and we drove out of there and I have this image now.

Speaker 2: 2:12:08

It's almost romantic.

Speaker 1: 2:12:10

I have this image now of him picking you up in his naked, strong arms and you kind of like just sort of burrowing into him, almost sort of newborn style, and just looking up to him with these wide open eyes, in awe of this dude.

Speaker 3: 2:12:24

Oh, I indeed curled up. I was just like, oh, thank the Lord, I was like someone's getting me out of here.

Speaker 2: 2:12:31

Someone's getting me out of here, someone's getting me out just for the smell of blue straws yeah, I indeed curled up.

Speaker 3: 2:12:36

The man had a musk and I ordered to him, which you know was probably from the texas heat. But I digress, I was ready to get out of there so I didn't mind it so much. But anyways, you know, we, he walked, and he was walking past the front door, the bodies of the cult littered everywhere, and then you could just see, added, like the chapel window, across across the hall. You could see, you know, pastor longhorn looking at us like I'm gonna get these bastards back, I'm gonna get them back. As we drove off into the back, I could just see. Sorry about that. It.

Speaker 1: 2:13:11

It's fine. It's the third time it's a hat trick of Swarles in the history of the show. We needed it.

Speaker 3: 2:13:16

So yeah, you can just see Pastor Longhorn just basically waving at us at a distance like I'm going to get you back, so like Jason, he now owns the rights to Furkay. No, no, no, no, no. So I didn't sign anything away. Furkay no, no, no, no. So I I didn't sign anything away, but you know I I would become breached in contract in furkay when I went off and left with the colt. So I have to smooth things over with him or else they're gonna drop me as a client.

Speaker 1: 2:13:40

So I know a mexican I know a mexican streaming guru that would gladly extend the contract to zutomax. They're still the overall paymasters of the UCP. He's had a few. He's been in and out of court a few times. Sings a little bit Crazy he's. Yeah, he likes talc. It's not what you think, he just likes talc.

Speaker 3: 2:14:09

Before I sign back on with the Furkay, I'm thinking to myself I might want to test the waters a little bit. I'm a free agent right now. I'm in the neighborless legal ground, of course, but there's a company that I'm looking at towards the end of this year, shiny Bot Productions. There's a little bot by the name of Astrobots coming out. He's representing the Shiny Bot Corporation and I'm like I might need to switch sides here.

Speaker 1: 2:14:36

Oh, hang on a minute. You can't just leave the best fur rendering software house in the business. You can't do that.

Speaker 3: 2:14:45

They've been there since 2020, and they haven't put out anything new. And, to be honest, you know they've been distracted making spider-man stuff and you know I auditioned for spider-man. I didn't get the part they said I was a little too old to be a miles morales type.

Speaker 1: 2:15:01

So I'm a little spurned at the moment I didn't realize that fur k was so grounded in reality.

Speaker 3: 2:15:11

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:15:12

Before we slip out of this sort of haze, that we find ourselves in and realise that we're just talking to ourselves and that Ray was real or not, I don't know what he is I'm going to grab this out of his sweaty Texan palm. Still wakes the deep. It's coming out on PC, ps5 and Xbox series X, june the 18th 2024. Here's the blurb. 1975 disaster strikes the bearer D oil rig off the coast of Scotland. Navigate the collapsing rig to save your crew from an otherworldly horror on the edge of all logic and reality.

Speaker 3: 2:15:52

I, I, am I going to play that one?

Speaker 1: 2:15:54

I'm not going to say that Each time I see a little bit of something about this game, I get more and more intrigued. I actually think it's probably going to stand up quite well as like a kind of one and done little bit of an experience, to be fair, in the shadow of what's coming out next. Pun intended, I guess this thing. It doesn't sound a freaking chance, but yeah, which one of you wants this?

Speaker 3: 2:16:23

Elden Ring Shadow of the Ur-Tree is coming for PC PS5, and Xbox Series X. Tree is coming for PC, ps5, and Xbox Series X June 21st 2024, winner of hundreds of accolades, including the Game Awards, game of the Year and the Golder Joysticks Awards, ultimate Game of the Year. Elden Ring is the acclaimed action RPG epic. Set in a vast dark fantasy world. Players embark on an epic quest with the freedom to explore and adventure at their own pace. Shadow of the earth tree expansion features an all-new story set in the land of the shadow, embedded with mystery, perilous dungeons and new enemies, weapons and equipment. Discover uncharted territories, face formidable adversaries and revel in the satisfying triumph of victory. You're not going to experience that much victory. Dive into the riveting interplay of characters where drama and intrigue intertwine, that create an immersive experience to savor and enjoy. Gentlemen, are you going to be diving into the lands in between and trying to become the elder lord once? I?

Speaker 1: 2:17:37

probably will eventually, but right now absolutely not. There's so much more other stuff. I've still got to get through the, the base game. Uh so, and I mentioned at the start of the show, I've been dipping my toe in. I kind of like the fact that the character and the build that I've chosen initially feels very blood borne in the animation to impact mode, and you know I'm quite excited to carry on playing. I just every time I sit down I'm like, well, I ain't got real long, I probably just going to play hell divers. Uh, I ain't got real long, I probably just going to play Helldivers, and that's not good for anybody. So I need to just mix it up a little bit. I need to get stuck into that. The game's, to be honest, fantastic, but I don't know if I've said this on air or not. I might have said this to OG Tom off air. But Elden Ring's got this real even on PS5, it's got this real kind of weird PS3 aesthetic to it.

Speaker 3: 2:18:32

Grainy-looking art style.

Speaker 1: 2:18:34

Yeah, grainy, nasty-looking thing. You know, I know that Elden Ring is absolutely not possible on the PS3, but Elden Ring looks like it's on the.

Speaker 3: 2:18:43

PS3. I concur with you 100%. I never dove into Elden Ring in the sense that I think this is truly a game of the year. I understand why people love this game. I understand it's a fantastic video game. I played 40 hours of this game and came away thinking to myself like I probably could have better spent my 40 hours, because I don't think I think for everything it does right in the form of gameplay, freedom, exploration, it it does right in the form of gameplay, freedom, exploration. It does absolutely wrong in the form of, like telling a cohesive story and also getting players invest into the world. That's not. Hey, let's see you get stronger and try to actually take on the beast of this land. I'm like I wish they would invest in more time into not necessarily, instead of lore building investing more time into actually giving a story that a lot of people could grab onto an hour, one through five, if that makes sense I and I think I completely agree.

Speaker 1: 2:19:44

I don't. I'm not looking for a handout here and in some of their other games you damn don't need one because they're very linear really in terms of how you progress. But Elden Ring is not linear at all. It's a massive, open world, as it says on the tin, and they nail it. But you drop yourself in that world and I know there are kind of like very subtle gingerbread trails of where you need to go, but they are so subtle you're barely seeing them, I think for the first five hours, which is a good example.

Speaker 1: 2:20:14

I think those gingerbread trails should be just that little bit more obvious, because I can see a lot of people coming on this game, especially because all the bigger boys have talked about the other from souls, you know, from software souls type games, and been like yeah, yeah, I want to be a bigger boy, I want to be a bigger boy and boom, they're two hours in and they've bounced. Can't believe that many stick the landing. To be fair, fair play to all those that did better man than me. Like I say, I'm kind of slowly peeling away the veneer layers and it's not alien to me because you know it's a from software game. I knew it was gonna be this obtuse bm off I knew it well.

Speaker 3: 2:20:52

They kind of lied about the story aspect because they said hey, this is, this is written by george rr martin, or code written by martin and I'm like, oh, the game of thrones guy code wrote this game and then you play this game and I'm like, oh, it's lore heavy, but then you also have to find that lore all all throughout the game. And but then you also have to find that lore all all throughout the game and there's no really through line of a plot a, plot b or plot c. It's just like your adventure is the story and I'm like I think that's, if I'm being honest and I'm being blunt, I think that's a lazy way of storytelling. I'm like every game, every game is, is basically your adventure is a story, but that doesn't excuse you from not creating a very good, good story, if that makes sense okay with that said what's your mummy?

Speaker 1: 2:21:39

mummy for this week, oh I'm going.

Speaker 3: 2:21:42

I'm still going to be diving into a lot more v rising. I think the fact that, no, you've got to pick one of these, you know it's not that long yeah I don't know what.

Speaker 1: 2:21:49

I don't know what pastor longhorn put in you, whether it was sort of Christian spirit or what. The canned corn man, yeah.

Speaker 3: 2:21:55

Okay, the canned corn, but no, if it has to be between those two, I probably would. I don't know, I'd probably pick Still Wakes the Deep, because it might be a shorter experience that I'll actually dive into. Okay, it might be a shorter experience that I'll actually dive into.

Speaker 1: 2:22:12

I believe that'll be three pumps for us in Wakes to Deep, definitely Well done, guys. You've got the Mummy Mummy on the box. It's the most sought-after accolade in gaming, so reach out to us and we will get one dispatched to you immediately. With that being said, the only thing we've got to do is grab a VHS at a race boot. I'm going to go with a bootleg copy of Let it Be off, the Disney Channel, the Beatles documentary, where I saw RGT. I now know that time travel is possible and RGT has the key, because RGT went back in time and masqueraded as Mal Evans, the Beatles' roadie. Now I implore everybody on the Discord and who's close to the show, who knows what our GC looks like, to get on this. He's going to hate me.

Speaker 2: 2:23:02

Yeah, I'm just thinking of the repercussions of your statement, man.

Speaker 3: 2:23:06

There's going to be.

Speaker 2: 2:23:07

AI pictures of my head pasted into this all over the place.

Speaker 1: 2:23:11

They don't need to. It's already done because you are Mal Evans. So that's my mummy, mummy RGT, what's your VHS pic, friend?

Speaker 2: 2:23:20

I'm going to go for Critters. Oh no, I've actually never seen it.

Speaker 3: 2:23:28

I've heard good things, I've never seen it.

Speaker 1: 2:23:30

Well, you can have a second copy. What are you also taking, seb? What's your VHS pick? My?

Speaker 3: 2:23:34

friend. Well, here in the US I'm not sure if this is worldwide, but the Boys season four dropped today, at least the first two episodes, I believe. So that will be my mummy, mummy, and I'm so excited to dive back into that gritty, dirty world.

Speaker 1: 2:23:50

I think I've only done two or three seasons so I'm quite pumped to see what's next.

Speaker 1: 2:23:55

Um, that shows production quality and the acting and the way it's all put together it's such a good spin on the superhero genre, like they would be assholes uh, they would be god. Complex the lot and the way that's realized and put up on the screen and executed is is really top tier, so good pick. With. That said and done, I look down on the floor. I see the. I see the mauled toe end of a calc and what looks like, uh, like a haze, like a low level fog, which I can only interpret, based on the whiff, to be that strange, elusive musk that kind of lulled seb into, like a safe feeling in, uh, in, ray's arms, which, I'll be honest with you, is worth its weight in gold.

Speaker 1: 2:24:44

He's gone, we've got our goodies. The only thing left to do? Oh, actually, we've got two jobs. Rgt oh no, we've got to. Every single month, a whole host of decent chaps and chapettes pay, donate to the show to support the show. They're our subscribers and they're a hell of a lot more than that. They're our top tier loyal lovers as far as I'm concerned, and one of their perks is that they get their name read out by us every single week. Could you furnish rgt seb with the list of these kind of people that?

Speaker 2: 2:25:29

already have.

Speaker 1: 2:25:30

This is on uh little place little place, wow, uh, okay, so while we're here, let's do it. So we've got the tiers. If you want to get involved, you're more than welcome to. At the bottom of every episode is a drop down box you can click that. You can head off to a little website and you can support the show to any of these levels. Here's your tiers $3 tier you get your name read out on every show. Easy peasy, right. Five books you get your read out on every show and you get our yearly art merchandise.

Speaker 1: 2:26:03

Every year we upgrade the artwork. You're going to get a copy of it on a fridge magnet. Similar. There's the $8 tier $8 is transferable to GBP. If you're in the UK, you're getting a good deal Read out on every single show art merch yearly, plus access to the inglorious chat on the Discord.

Speaker 1: 2:26:23

Now, we don't paywall the show, we don't even paywall the Discord. But if you want to get in there with all the other supporters, you want to get into that little private chat area where you know you're a super fan of the show and you want to just get that, get that, get that full-on ucp chat going. You've got to be in there, uh, and you also become glorious, which makes you among a god amongst men, then there's a ten dollar tier. Now, if you've ponied up for this, quite frankly, frankly, I'll have a word to the Pope because, to be honest, you need to be sainted. Ten bucks you get Red Art on every show, you get art merch yearly, you get access to the Unglorious chat and you get a quarterly Zoom chat with the hosts.

Speaker 1: 2:27:05

Now we're back up to full speed. We've got the Bobby and the Seb East and West Coasts of the world represented in spectacular fashion. So Transatlantic Meetup is now on the cards. Rgt's been, I would say, on at me. He's a bit light. He's been throwing bricks through my window with a note wrapped to them. He's smeared some of them. Dog poo, that one dog poo.

Speaker 1: 2:27:35

Good, because I ate every gram of it, whatever it was.

Speaker 3: 2:27:43

You should have kept the straight face RGT because that delivery was amazing, flipping flawless.

Speaker 1: 2:27:49

I nearly woke up. Now we're at the end of the show. Things are getting dangerous and it's been. You've had an absolute banger served up for you today. Gentlemen and ladies, quarterly Zoom chat. Rgt's on at me. We need to get on with it and we know you want it. So I'm thinking we could do like a quiz, or I could show you around the Farmington Ponsonbury Manor. We could show you games, game collections or whatever. We could just get on and sit back and chew the fat Law aside. If you want to talk to us about anything, we're up for it. So we're going to dip our toe in with the first quarterly Zoom meeting. See what works, what doesn't work. Love your feedback on that. We'll chuck up some ideas. I've got some video game quiz cards somewhere that I think might be quite fun and we can obviously do a little bit of a merch giveaway off the back of that. We can send this stuff anywhere in the world. So don't feel like, oh, I can't get involved because, don't you worry about it. Rggt's got contacts.

Speaker 2: 2:28:54

Oh yes, he can send logistics is my middle name that isn't as andrew, but it's gamer that's what I was thinking too.

Speaker 3: 2:29:06

I thought I was like, I thought it was gamer, broke the fourth wall, phil and andrew and andrew it's gamer Broke the fourth wall.

Speaker 2: 2:29:10

Phil, head out Andrew. Head out Andrew it's gamer Gamer. Otherwise, your gamer tag is rat.

Speaker 1: 2:29:23

Well, I can't go no further. Let's not muck about what we normally do. Is Seb, is we take one about? So I'll start. So thank you to our subscriber, our supporter Trestles New York.

Speaker 2: 2:29:36

Next up we have the amazing Italian stallion, his badabink star.

Speaker 3: 2:29:42

Next up we have Tingle Turner or Tuner Tuner. My bad, tingle Tuner, you can read Tuna.

Speaker 1: 2:29:51

That means I get to make space in the cupboard because for some reason now I'm joined by an Axiotal Digital Monkery and Scotty, although he's got a shout-out coming up. So who's next?

Speaker 2: 2:30:06

We've got Roast Space Monk.

Speaker 3: 2:30:09

The Gamer Gran as well RGT.

Speaker 2: 2:30:13

I'm leaving that in. I love it You're fired and then you're instantly rehired. I've been fired twice and hired twice in one show, hey man you're making moves?

Speaker 1: 2:30:23

Yeah, this is how you progress in any company. If you stick with the company, you're never going to get promoted. But if you leave, get something else and come back damn, you're never going to get promoted. But if you leave, get something else and come back damn, you're running the place. Next, the absolute mega stallion, bull Border.

Speaker 2: 2:30:38

And then we've got Boba.

Speaker 3: 2:30:42

And we have Marathon Gaming.

Speaker 1: 2:30:44

Absolute stud, which means I get the immortal Sealmaster Elliot. I mean it's worth joining Discord alone just to unseal a game and then send in the video because it literally crushes him. I don't know why am I getting off on crushing Elliot? The guy's like one of the loveliest people on planet Earth.

Speaker 2: 2:31:03

Yeah, it's a bit weird that. Apologise now.

Speaker 1: 2:31:05

I'm so sorry, Sealmaster who's?

Speaker 2: 2:31:09

next Sound like you're at a karate club, then I'm so sorry, sealmaster. Next up we have the absolute unit, which is Ginge.

Speaker 1: 2:31:19

On that note, I'll tell you someone who's missing in action from the early days Sensei Rios. Oh yeah, now, last time I was on Instagram he'd changed his name. I don't know whether it was in Homage to Bobby, but he's like HandsomeRob7 or something like that. He's gone from Sensei RedDragonRius. He's now an Aldi version of Bobby. Get in touch, sensei Rius. I mean, you had some of the earliest merch. He was one of the first t-shirts yeah, he did. Yeah, Fair play to him.

Speaker 3: 2:31:49

Next up, we have.

Speaker 1: 2:31:50

Emma Sharp yeah, not on the apps. No, okay, just checking.

Speaker 2: 2:31:58

Sorry.

Speaker 1: 2:31:59

OG Tom. Is she back from holiday at Farmington now, or what's going on?

Speaker 2: 2:32:05

No, I don't think she's gone yet. She goes in the next week or two, I think. Okay, all right, I don't want to say a date in case OG Tom's around.

Speaker 1: 2:32:17

To be fair, once a sexual predator, always a sexual predator Next. Oh my Wow, we're family, it's okay. He's a big fan of comedy as well. Situational awkward comedy he's a big fan of. So a man who's never situationally awkward at all and always fit for every motion and appropriation ever it's Harvey Retro he's so in he's automatically given consent.

Speaker 3: 2:32:44

Love to hear it.

Speaker 2: 2:32:47

Next up we have the Wonderful Grape, which is nowhere near Berlin.

Speaker 3: 2:32:52

Next up we have my favorite on this list, mumsy.

Speaker 1: 2:32:58

No, hang on a minute. So I've been stitched up with the RGT fan club again. You love it. I don't know who these guys are, but I don't like them at all. No one's ponied up for the GN fan club why? Would they, you're right, I'm the most despicable creature on the internet, so I deserve my fans, thank you.

Speaker 2: 2:33:23

Who's next, pete Brocklehurst? Thank you, pete.

Speaker 1: 2:33:27

Absolute stud. Is it my turn?

Speaker 3: 2:33:30

So it's Seb next, okay, all right. Then I have Billy Marmite absolute stud. Is it my turn? So it's Seb next, okay, alright.

Speaker 1: 2:33:34

then I have Billy Marmite absolute legend which means I get Simon Simon, simon Pryke well done.

Speaker 3: 2:33:47

I think that was a good try.

Speaker 2: 2:33:49

I'll get left with the man. Do I have to say this, sexually as well to him?

Speaker 1: 2:33:54

Is that me who's contractually obliged to say it sexually?

Speaker 2: 2:33:57

That's what I mean, that's fell on me, so do I do it or do you do it?

Speaker 1: 2:34:01

I'll give it a go Go on then. Saf gangies.

Speaker 3: 2:34:06

The man, the myth, the legend.

Speaker 2: 2:34:11

I'm not even going to comment on that.

Speaker 1: 2:34:14

I thought I was going to get loads of stick, for when I absolutely fluffed his name in post-coilful noises, I absolutely thought I was going to be done, but I got off quite lightly, to be fair.

Speaker 2: 2:34:24

Well, you started off doing it the first few weeks in sort of a deep, sexy voice, and you've now turned it into some sort of B-rate adult movie.

Speaker 1: 2:34:32

I'd say it's B-rate for me and Fat Zangiefa innit.

Speaker 3: 2:34:35

It gotta be, it gotta be. He starts off at B and goes up from there.

Speaker 1: 2:34:42

With all Turning to a Ric Flair woo-off.

Speaker 3: 2:34:51

With all that said and done.

Speaker 1: 2:34:52

Gentlemen, ladies, we thank you so much for your very, very kind donations on a monthly basis. You are uh making the difference.

Speaker 1: 2:35:01

Hopefully, you can absolutely try to pull that back into the show in terms of the merch and the bits and bobs that we've sent out already in the early adopters. Um, we want to continue supporting you. We've got some live events coming up, um, which we're attending, and we'd love to see you there as well, um, and we've got lots of exciting things planned. So, yeah, thank you so much for your support. Um, it's game changing and it certainly allowed us to be able to um help people, or at least offer to help people, and, you know, really game changing stuff going on. So we thank you so much for what you've done. The only thing really left and I want to make this a quick fire round, if we may, gentlemen, because my enthusiasm at recording in the day is waning, because it's now, by any reckoning of the world, clock 10 past midnight, um gentlemen, that's what it is over there.

Speaker 1: 2:35:58

No, I'm joking okay, but we're running close rgt. What are you hoping to play this gaming week?

Speaker 2: 2:36:05

uh, I think it's gonna have to be a start on forbidden west, um, probably some more roller drone Drome, and I must get back on to Bioshock 2 and get that finished. This would play that again, so I must get back on that. I've left that too long. Probably mostly those three.

Speaker 1: 2:36:22

I think I'm moister than a rotten ham sandwich. Good, is that moist? I think, given time very. I would call that sl think given time very.

Speaker 3: 2:36:32

Yes, yeah, I would call that slimy, but okay.

Speaker 2: 2:36:36

That fits for him as well.

Speaker 1: 2:36:38

Yeah, I mean yeah.

Speaker 3: 2:36:46

Well, everyone, I'm hoping to play.

Speaker 1: 2:36:48

My reputation outside of this show is toast.

Speaker 3: 2:36:50

What are you?

Speaker 1: 2:36:51

hoping to play.

Speaker 3: 2:36:52

I'm hoping to play some more V Rising. I think that's an amazing game that more people should check out. If you have a PS5 or PC, definitely check that game out. I think, especially if you like vampire lore and also if you like Diablo and crafting, like light crafting elements, definitely check that one out. I also think, yeah, I beat Bellatro this week, this past week, so I'm probably going to move on to greener pastures as far as that game goes, but probably just V rising. If I'm being honest out, I think I've. Yeah, I found everything in Prince of Persia, so I think I'm good right now.

Speaker 1: 2:37:28

Okay. No that's you, george. I'm good right now. Okay, how about you, george? Well, I did actually forget to mention that I've been playing an awful lot of Dave the Diver. I really quite like the game.

Speaker 3: 2:37:38

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:37:39

My only frustration is dude the food serving. It's a bit like oh, can we just get this out of the way? It's tedious. I want to get back to the diving. I know we needed to break the gameplay up a little bit, but I can't make Dave run very far and I'll be honest with you. I've got that many things on the menu and that many people coming now, so many people go home disappointed and so much sushi goes in the bin and so much effort went into catching it. Throw me a bone, someone, please.

Speaker 3: 2:38:07

Hire more people. Hire more people, man.

Speaker 1: 2:38:12

With people come costs. They do with people come costs. But you're right, that's probably what I should do. It's beyond my capability for Dave to do on his own anymore. But yeah, that game is is actually really fun, and of all the games as well, it really fits the ball really nice. Are you playing on Switch? No, no, no. And of all the games as well it really fits the portal Really nice. Are you playing on Switch? No, no, no, oh, thank goodness no, I'm playing it on portal mainly. Oh no.

Speaker 3: 2:38:41

It's fine, oh, and PlayStation Portal is pretty good. Yeah, oh, that's good.

Speaker 1: 2:38:45

To be fair, once I'd gone full sort of white jacket, tech specs, geeky glasses, the whole bag of tricks pulled a pen out my top pocket and fiddle with my internet settings and all that sort of stuff, it worked flawlessly.

Speaker 1: 2:38:59

If you're brave enough to do that if you're brave enough to do that, and I've heard success stories where people haven't even had to do that. But bear in mind you're gonna have to go deep on your route of settings if it's not working straight out of the box. And now I can take mine away Not far, admittedly, I haven't pushed it to its limits, but at least two, three, four miles as the crow flies, no problems at all. I might as well be sat at home, so very pleased with that. Are you going to play the Godzilla part? I've got the DLC. It came up free at some point in time and I grabbed it because I think it's going to go paid very soon.

Speaker 3: 2:39:35

I think this fall right, yeah, I think.

Speaker 1: 2:39:37

Well, I don't know if it goes paid or whether it just gets. I did read that it was just pulled from sale, so whether it was like an exclusive time thing, that was a bonus for the movie, but yeah, it looked pretty cool. And there was another one as well, the Dredge DLC as well I picked up because I was like, yeah, that's got legs and that was free as well. So I thought, yeah, I'll grab it. One last touchstone before we hit the outro, gentlemen, and I wondered what your thoughts were on this. Playstation's had an outage. It's not quite the PSN outage of back in the day, but PlayStation Stars has gone. Yeah, no, not yeah, because where's all my digital collectibles? I've spent ages collecting. And where's all my points? I've spent ages collecting.

Speaker 3: 2:40:21

I'm just hoping they stop talking about it.

Speaker 1: 2:40:23

if I'm being honest, Thing is it's free stuff.

Speaker 2: 2:40:27

It doesn't cost you anything or saving up for a £20 voucher.

Speaker 1: 2:40:34

Oh, did him. She would be, wouldn't you? I reckon we ought to get past along on on the phone. I've seen I see RGT being a prime candidate for the call.

Speaker 2: 2:40:42

Oh, I'm all over it. I'm already no man.

Speaker 3: 2:40:45

Are you a corn eater? Oh, oh yes. Oh yeah, you're going to fit right in, not orally anyway. Oh, you definitely fit right in laughing, laughing wow laughing.

Speaker 2: 2:41:03

Is it still in the tin or?

Speaker 1: 2:41:05

laughing but anyways it's on it's third cycle of the human body. He just cleans it and then just serves it back up. Wow, yeah.

Speaker 3: 2:41:16

If you bring a lot of butter and everything, they'll love you.

Speaker 2: 2:41:19

I've got plenty of butter.

Speaker 1: 2:41:21

RGT's the dairy king. I don't know why I said king. I was going to say queen, then I was always a man, I better call him a king and it came out. It basically ended up sounding like queef. That's all we have time for this week. Listeners, as always, thank you for your time. We look forward to the pleasure of speaking to you again next week. Until then, happy gaming and remember there's nothing wrong with being given the unofficial controller. It's what you do with it that counts. See you, gentlemen, see you later. Bye, outro Music.