Unofficial Controller Podcast
IBS Mix-Ups and gaming news and discussions
What's it like to blend Assassin's Creed Valhalla with a Star Wars twist? We share our excitement over upcoming games, including the intriguing indie "Cristala," and discuss the trials of battling tough bosses and unexpected elemental weaknesses in Like a Dragon. Navigating JRPGs without grinding isn't easy, so we dive into strategies and the occasional reliance on walkthroughs. Nostalgia kicks in as we recount the evolution of first-person shooters from the N64 era to today's heavy hitters like Halo, and speculate on the future of the Nintendo Switch 2.
From Metroid Prime's visuals to the competitive landscape with handheld PCs like the Steam Deck, we cover it all. We critique Nintendo's strategy of balancing nostalgia with fresh content, and reflect on the importance of innovative experiences for the new console. Our journey wraps up with a look at Fable's potential influence on Zelda, the challenges Xbox faces with its exclusive games, and some whimsical discussions on retro VHS movies and upcoming sports games. Tune in for a blend of gaming news, strategy tips, and a dash of humor that keeps the conversation lively and engaging.
Could you design a video game?
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
How to Start a Podcast Guide: The Complete GuideLearn how to plan, record, and launch your podcast with this illustrated guide.
What's it like to blend Assassin's Creed Valhalla with a Star Wars twist? We share our excitement over upcoming games, including the intriguing indie "Cristala," and discuss the trials of battling tough bosses and unexpected elemental weaknesses in Like a Dragon. Navigating JRPGs without grinding isn't easy, so we dive into strategies and the occasional reliance on walkthroughs. Nostalgia kicks in as we recount the evolution of first-person shooters from the N64 era to today's heavy hitters like Halo, and speculate on the future of the Nintendo Switch 2.
From Metroid Prime's visuals to the competitive landscape with handheld PCs like the Steam Deck, we cover it all. We critique Nintendo's strategy of balancing nostalgia with fresh content, and reflect on the importance of innovative experiences for the new console. Our journey wraps up with a look at Fable's potential influence on Zelda, the challenges Xbox faces with its exclusive games, and some whimsical discussions on retro VHS movies and upcoming sports games. Tune in for a blend of gaming news, strategy tips, and a dash of humor that keeps the conversation lively and engaging.
Could you design a video game?
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
How to Start a Podcast Guide: The Complete GuideLearn how to plan, record, and launch your podcast with this illustrated guide.
Hello and welcome to the Unofficial Controller Podcast, your weekly gaming podcast, episode 224, with me, george and this week joined by Seb. Sss to my IBS. How's it going?
Speaker 2:It's going pretty well. It's going pretty well. I was going to do the grand intro, but I know we're keeping things a little snappy today, so I'll just say it's very glad to be on the show with you today. And quick question here you know like? What kind of ibs do you like?
Speaker 1:well, I was more referring to the irritable bowel syndrome.
Speaker 2:Uh oh, okay, what I?
Speaker 1:what I? What ibs are you thinking of?
Speaker 2:I? I have no idea now, now, now you cut me off. God, I was. I think I was thinking of the beer, like we. I think there's like a type of ipa here like I.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know, as I really know that much about beer. To be honest, it's wet, makes you feel a bit dizzy and fall down. I don't really care what the name is on the front, um, as long as it's wet and cold um, crazy enough, I missed up those initials.
Speaker 2:I don't even know very much about beer. I'm like it's either liquor, margarita or bus for me. I'm like I'm not very much of a beer drinker either no, me neither.
Speaker 1:To be honest, I prefer like an aperol spritz in my old age or the gin and tonic or something along those lines. Beer tends to kind of. I know probably half the audience has turned off like oh really, george, I thought you're a beer drinker. Well, you know. No, I don't mind a good beer, but it tends to bloat me up. I turn into like a gaseous blimp and I can't get that. I can't get that volume of liquid down me anymore. If you think about what you drink on a sesh. If someone said to you, drink that much water, you you would cry. It'd be some form of torture. Yeah, when it's got five percent of alcohol in it, you guzzle it like a pig. I can't do that anymore. I'm not that. I'm not built that way anymore.
Speaker 2:I can understand that.
Speaker 1:Let's get stuck into some video game, because last week I think even Pastor Longhorn would have uttered the words. And you boys call this a gaming news show. Let's get stuck into it by saying to you sir, what have you been playing?
Speaker 2:Man, more of the game I talked about last week, v Rising. I've been playing a little bit of that. I dove my toes into Granblue Fantasy, can I?
Speaker 1:just about V Rising. How far are you into it? Because last week you were relatively positive about the experience in the game. You've obviously got a little bit further and opened up even more of the game. Are your thoughts still positive or have they tailed off a little bit as you've got further in?
Speaker 2:no man, if I think this is for sure in my indie game of the year right now, um, which is, I think, saying a lot, considering I think indies have relatively carried this year with power world, yeah, with power world, with what's your bug game for PlayStation, hail divers too, I'm like.
Speaker 1:I would call it a book game. I thought you could. I thought you're going to start to refer to grounded. I was like no, no, no, mate, no, but hell divers is a bug game. You're right, it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, yeah, um, I'm like with hell divers, power world v rising um bellatro, I think, like indies have kind of carried this year, um, so yeah, I definitely think I would definitely probably put this on the higher echelon of those. I I think this is the most complete experience for single players as opposed to, I think hail divers is the most complete experience for multiplayers. But yeah, I think this is utterly fantastic. The more you play, I think, the better it gets, because I'm like the more castlevania mechanisms and and functions get like introduced and so people who like that world or like that anime really are going to gravitate more towards that storyline. I think like they lean more towards like the werewolves and Dracula and other facets of like I guess you could say Dracula, lore and such in there. So I think, like the more you play it and the more you unlock it's like combat systems, guns and all that kind of stuff. I think it really grabs you and doesn't let you go.
Speaker 2:Good systems, guns and all that kind of stuff. I think you, we, it really grabs you and doesn't let you go. Good is that, is that it for you? Just v rising, v rising, v rising or is there a sniff of something else?
Speaker 2:no, um, I didn't. Grand rising um grand blue, I I don't. Grand blue has a grabbed me and it maybe is because I'm coming off of um lack of dragon, uh, infinite wealth, which is quite a meaty rpg. I tried my hand at um was I? I beat persona 3, which didn't really feel like. It felt like a step backwards, and you know appropriately so, from persona 5 to me. Yeah, I was a bit nervous about it for that reason.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I've got it on esp, I think where it started, uh, no, um. Persona 3, um, I've got it on PSP, I think where it started. No, persona 3 I've got on PS2, the first one, and then I think there was a Fez edition. Yeah, there was, and then it was on PSP as well, in almost like a mobile port, I want to say. And when they said this was coming out, I was like, oh okay, and I like the aesthetic of the blue.
Speaker 1:They've obviously chosen a colour, like they did with the previous ones, and I think that's nice because it ties the sort of UI together and some of the other elements of it. But I was a bit nervous about it for that reason, because it's not what I would call like a full-fledged release from them. It's like a shined-up version of the previous game and that's fine because the previous game still holds up and better than most. Um. But they kind of and I don't want to speak ill of the earlier personas, which are obviously on ps1 and psp, but persona 3 is just about where they started to get traction in the ground in terms of the persona franchise generally blew the wheels off of everyone's expectations of what a game like that could be. Um, but I've I've seen footage of of the remaster of three, but not actually played it myself. Would you recommend it to me?
Speaker 2:I, I think you've already played this game and so I would probably say, like this has persona 5 like mechanics in it, but it's still persona 3 and yeah, you know, I I'd likely played on persona 3 back in the day but I'd never like persona 5 was my full-fledged, this is my persona.
Speaker 2:Like this, that's the one that really grabbed me and hooked me. But so going back to three felt like it was the skeleton, like the skeleton layer of what persona is. But I think, like over the years and this is coming from a guy who hasn't played four, keep in mind but I think persona five and the way they modernize storytelling, the way they, you know, encapsulated characters, comes from a more realistic and grounded place versus. You know, like in persona 3, you gotta like I'm one of the main persona guys is just a guy who likes food and you're talking about food stuff with them and I'm like I get that. But like in persona 5, I feel like a lot of those characters went through a lot more meaty like real life issues and it felt like the series kind of grew up and this is almost like this is almost equivalent of you like you watching hbo shows and then going back and watching nickelodeon teen shows is what it feels like. It's not bad, it's just, it is acquired taste.
Speaker 1:You have to be in the mindset for that and I think that as the series has grown in popularity, especially in the west and, and you know, it's allowed them more time, I suppose, and certainly the characters, even four to five. So three to five is an even bigger leap of actual character development, scripting and plotting um, the interaction with the other characters. By the time you get to persona 5, it's actually really well thought out. Behind the gameplay is such a complex web of interconnecting narratives and things. You know I don't envy them they're experts at their craft, absolutely but I don't envy them being able to tie that all up because you can miss so much in that game.
Speaker 1:Um, if you don't play it with a guide or you know you miss one element of a conversation one afternoon or something where you don't have your sort of stats up in terms of your social stats, then you know there's a lot left on the table for multiple playthroughs of a god knows how many hundred hour game really, if you want to sink deep into it. It's crazy. So, yeah, it's nice to see the evolution and it's nice, I guess, that some people that maybe became persona fans off the back of golden or off the back of um five maybe keep their hand in while they wait for the next one yeah, I it's.
Speaker 2:It's a complicated thing and we took brushed on this, like last week when we talked about the dynamics between like it feels like we've been in a lot of that. Feels like like a dragon because like the way those, the way like all those stories come across is like over the top. They have that almost anime isms to it and you know, I almost want a palate cleanser on the AAA side side. Like I find myself, even though I always say ubisoft swims in sevens, looking forward to an ubisoft style game right now of like you know, like I'm looking forward to star wars outlaws, like I would sell a pet to get my hands on outlaws today.
Speaker 2:I would I I understand that and it's like and I know on, like I know the blueprint, I know what Star Wars Outlaws is going to be, I know exactly how that's going to play, I know how everything is going to unlock, how the map is going to open up, because we've played that game thousands of times. But right now I'm like we're kind of barren for a Western-style game at this moment. So I'm like I would love that right now.
Speaker 1:I mean it's a little bit off topic, but one thing that I've been kind of mulling over in my sort of gamer brain, obviously, since we've got the deep dive gameplay deep dive but certainly light touch gameplay, vertical slice that they showed recently, and I did think to myself the actual transition from space to planet is great. I think the space combat looks good Not to kick Starfield while it's down, but maybe this is how you should have done it, guys, because obviously there was a lot of pushback on the transition between planets and the space battles etc. Which I think they've handled well. It's a bit of a lighter touch in terms. Well, it seems to me to be a slightly lighter touch in terms of the depth of the narrative on some of these side missions et cetera. But yeah, I'm very excited for that.
Speaker 1:I'm nervous, as we talked about last week and I think you were alluding to there that it's going to feel very much like you're playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla with a Star Wars skin on it. I'm sure there's already a mod for that on PC, but, yeah, I skin on it. I'm sure there's already a mod for that on pc, but, um, yeah, I'm, I'm, I need that now. I need that. I don't know about you, but I'm I'm queued up ready. Um, is there anything else that's been? You know you're looking for a palette cleanser. Have you maybe dabbled into the back catalog to see if you can find one, or are you just kind of surfing from one thing to the next?
Speaker 2:no man, I've. I've gotten a lot of um indie codes recently and I think that's kind of where I'm. I'm going to focus more on new than I am on the back catalog just because, like, I want to give coverage to those indies whereas, like these big outlets, because of seo and all that, aren't going to give coverage to those. So I'm like I want to give that. So I'm um.
Speaker 2:There's one cristala that I'm um, that I'm really going to dive into. It's downloading right now. It is a game about like a cat in almost like a Dark Souls universe, but it also has like Batman. You know, this cat is almost like the Batman of its universe. Oh, wow, yeah. And the cat the cat is like a humanoid. You know, it's kind of like it stands on two legs and such like that. So it's almost like the cats in Skyrim. But so I I'm looking forward to playing that. I played that a little bit of PAX. Then there's a couple of other games coming out that next week show. I'll probably be able to dive into a lot more of of what I'm playing. But, like this week, it just feels like the holdover until either some games come out or I actually get my hands more in-depth on a lot of these indies. What about you? What have you been playing?
Speaker 1:I keep scratching around. In the back catalogue I played a little bit more of Like a Dragon, the original. I've hit a bit of a brick wall. There's a couple of bosses appeared that I kind of had spoiled for me a while ago and I'm a bit disappointed that it did, because if it hadn't been spoiled it would have been one of those jaw on the floor like, oh my God, it's my dude's moments. I don't want to say too much because I know some people haven't played it and I don't want them to have to suffer what I went through because that deserve the pop. Um, but you know I I'm a bit stuck there. So if anyone's uh can help me out with, uh, what?
Speaker 2:I think I know what part you're talking about.
Speaker 1:You do this tour and the first one's crazy and the second one's stronger than ox and uh um I I are you using guides to play that game?
Speaker 2:are you just playing?
Speaker 1:it. No, I've never used the guide on yakuza before. I kind of just find my way, or, like a dragon, I kind of just find my way. But with this one at the minute I'm kind of sat scratching my head because it's that toss-up between your jrpgs and underneath your attacks there is an element tied to the attacks either lightning, or there's a slashing one and fire and all that sort of stuff which I didn't know about. And now I'm.
Speaker 1:Mental weaknesses, the elemental weaknesses that I just never even didn't even cross my mind would be in a like a dragon game. But obviously, because it's a jlpg, it had to to add some depth to the combat, which is applaudable. But at the same token I've kind of plowed through my traditional yukuza where of just going all at it. But now I've hit a bit of a brick wall and I've always done this Time immemorial, even back to when I was a kid, in the JRPG I'll tear into it and I'll get to the first place and what I should have done is walk around in a field for 20 minutes levelling up. But no one really tells you that when you're a kid, when you first stumble across a JRPG, and it's part of the JRPG gaming landscape that I'm the least keen on. I don't want to mindlessly grind through the same enemies Now like a dragon, yakuza, call it what you fancy, we'll call it like a dragon, for now it doesn't have that so much because there's a lot more variety out on the streets for you to kind of get through.
Speaker 1:It did present me in the original games there's something called the coliseum where you can go and fight, and it did present me, just prior to this, this multi-leveled area you could go up through almost a leveling up tool, and I got about halfway up and thought, well, that's relatively easy. I guess I kind of just want to push on with the game and and jrpgs have what I would call traps in some regards. You kind of you go into what really should be a gated off area in terms of level. You find yourself save, locked, stuck in a battle that's probably impossible to win. Now there might be some strategies I can employ, but I rinsed my phone of pound mates and they probably did about 20 damage each time and I was like, right, okay, wow, this is, sit yourself down, this is going to. We're in for the long haul here guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:And you know, I went up to the mountain a couple of times and got beat back down. I kind of switched off. I was super frustrated. So that's when I did pull out not a guide but a walkthrough, and it was at that moment where it dawned on me that I'd screwed up those jobs are important.
Speaker 2:Those jobs are important.
Speaker 1:I screwed up big time and now I'm save locked and I need to check my cloud save to see if there's one up there. But because I'm playing on a PS4 and then shooting the cloud up and then maybe playing on a PS5 the week, you know, the next day I'm playing the PS4 version on PS5 for that reason. So it seamlessly transitions between the two, using the cloud, which is an under-talked about, under-talked about and under-utilized probably feature of modern consoles, where you can kind of drop down a machine anywhere, sign in, pull your cloud save down and get deep again where you were. So, yeah, that's kind of burning away in the back of my brain. I've been playing some.
Speaker 1:There's a game on Vita called Uncanny Valley which is like a almost like a side-scrolling point-and-click. It's quite old, it probably came out in maybe 2016,. But I was just browsing through my Vita downloads and I was like, oh, uncanny Valley, yeah, I didn't really give that the time of day. Really nicely put together in terms of the graphical effects and the heart, back to sort of the 80s, 90s pixel art aesthetic, which is quite nice. There's more to uncover there and it's certainly an interesting game, but maybe not quite enough to grab me. My thoughts were slightly confirmed when I went looking for a review and, yeah, they weren't too favourable, but there's certainly a game in there multiple endings, multiple playthroughs that can be enjoyed. So if anyone's on the cusp or if it's cheap in a sale, I'd say grab it if you're mildly curious.
Speaker 1:There's been a lot of Helldivers.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, Out of curiosity, it seems like you lean more and I know you play pretty much everything, but it seems like you lean heavily on the PlayStation side of the fence on your most of your play time. Is that the case, or has it just been like a late fever lately?
Speaker 1:Um, I think that the way things are set up and the things that I've got multiples of makes it very easy for me to just fall back on my PlayStation library. Um, the Xbox is another room and you know, saying that I dug the Switch out yesterday and updated it you may laugh.
Speaker 1:I put some, put a shot of adrenaline in its heart and kind of put the paddles on it and pumped it up and I don't know why, but I felt compelled to renew my Nintendo expansion pack plus so I can get the N64 games, and I downloaded the new, as was in the showcase. I downloaded the new N64 Mature app so I can play Turok, which has not aged well, and Perfect Dark, which has aged even worse, although I did get on a little bit better. When I just started, I put one arm kind of behind my back, almost rested the switch on my knee and only used the left joy-con, which gave me more of that N64 vibe. You'd be kind of locked with one analog. I was using it to kind of twin stick before, but it doesn't work like that. It just doesn't work. You can mess around with the buttons and remap them and other things, but it wasn't really getting me anywhere close.
Speaker 1:I inverted the up and down. Look, when I was younger I wanted it inverted the other way, where up is down and down is up. Now I don't know what's changed, but I can't work that anymore. You play modern-day shooters, man, yeah, unless it's a flight sim. So now, when I want to look up, want to press up. When I want to look down, I want to press down. Um, I've never inverted left and right. To me that just there's way too much computations in my brain before I can move my finger, which renders me a little bit kind of rubbish, I suppose. But perfect dart was interesting. It's again an insight into a world where that game was triple A top of its table and absolutely owning the whole sort of FPS genre. I know the PC boys are going to chime in with like how dare you? But let's face it. You know GoldenEye and to a certain extent Rare and Perfect Dark certainly helped the cause of the FPS on console.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they crawled, so Halo couldn't run console. Yeah, they crawled, so Halo could run basically.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, I know that there's other kind of um evolutions along the way. You know, that's almost like saying from monkey to pro magnum man, uh, or or homo sapien, it's. It's a lesser straight jump than that, but you're definitely right. Um, in terms of Helldivers 2, been playing Helldivers 1 on the Vita. I kind of went on the Switch and bust around and just I know you're going to be like no, it's dead, but it's still a great machine for what it does. It's almost like the perfect portable 360 in terms of like the upper echelon of the games.
Speaker 1:You can expect that era was not a bad era for games. There's plenty on there, but most of it's been played before. So, yeah, looking forward to Switch 2. We knew it wasn't going to be in the showcase when Nintendo put it out, but part of me still wanted it to be. You know one more thing, or just in case you're worried, or if you, you haven't heard the whole Switch 2 narrative. It's a shame, but I'm sure they'll get there when they get there.
Speaker 1:Right now, off the back of that showcase, if we may morph this, what you've been playing, into a little bit of a pre-news area, nintendo still seem to be wringing quite a lot of money out of the Mark I Switch. There's something in the news about Metroid Prime and the confirmation that that was running on Mark I Switch. I don't want to gazump the news too much, but seeing that gameplay trailer with the ships steaming in and Samus jumping out the top and walking through that environment, I don't know why people were so adamant. It was Switch 2. I can see it being a cross-gen game, absolutely, but yeah, it didn't look that good.
Speaker 2:I was just about to say I'm like and this is like not the character Sebastian who always like rips on the Switch. This is as a person who doesn't have super nostalgia to towards older, like nintendo properties, because I didn't have a whole lot of them growing up, except for the game boy, game boy vance, and then, way ahead of way ahead of that, the wii and now the switch. That's my lineage of nintendo and nintendo. So I don't have the nostalgia. But like I played metro prime for the first time last year whenever the the remaster came out and I watched that trailer, just like you did, but my outlook on it didn't look like oh, this is advanced. Like to me it looks like if someone would have just told me that was metro 1.5, I would have believed them, because it looks to me like metroid. It just looks like Metroid.
Speaker 2:I did. I think and I want to dive into the direct thing real quick it's like I think Nintendo had a phenomenal lineup there. I, just outside of Mario and Mario Party and all that kind of stuff. I I think where I give Xbox a lot of credit with their showcase is that they made a lot of people care about IPs, in a sense, and games that didn't necessarily have either a huge fan base or their fan base was dead or, you know, they made you care about something new and I think in this case I think metroid. Outside of the people who already like metroid, that game looks like it's about 30 years old. Even if, even though it's a new game and I think that's great for the fans, it's just I think they did a poor job of showing okay, this is great for new people as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is how we sell it to it. Yeah, yeah, I agree, and I think we kind of touched on this last time, obviously through films and other things. But you know, metroid launched on the original NES that is time ago now and, yeah, obviously the one on the Super Metroid on the SNES and obviously the Game Boy Advance versions and I think, an original Game Boy version. Obviously we've got the GameCube versions, which kind of flipped it up and made it a different game with the Prime postcursor, but it's a game that they really should have been selling to and I always use this, but like a nine-year-old Fortnite addict, exactly.
Speaker 1:There's nothing in there that would make him sit up and that's really every single game that comes out now that wants to attract to. I mean, I saw some stats the other day that sort of said the mean average game, uh, age of a gamer is 31 years old and I was like, wow, this median age seems to follow me through gaming. Does that mean that younger kids aren't getting into gaming anymore? Is it a dead hobby? I mean, I know it's not because the gangbuster numbers that Epic are doing through Fortnite V-Books transactions and things like that, but you're trying to attract a new audience to a franchise like Metroid. That's not. I don't want it to be a Fortnite clone. I absolutely do not. Because I think I don't want it to be a Fortnite clone. I absolutely do not, cause I think you need to go to the original genre. But it needs to be snappy, it needs to be quick. I feel like a game like sunset overdrive.
Speaker 1:Although it kind of technically flopped, depending how you want to look at it, I think it did perform well. It's a call here. Yeah, it did well versus the installed consoles at the time. I think if you look at it through that metric, it did really well. But that game and it's a bad example.
Speaker 1:But that game was something that I would have thought would appeal to the younger generation. It was quick, it was snappy, he was edgy certainly from a teen audience point of view. The enemies were obviously zombies, which is always interesting because you can do some crazy stuff to these things and get away with it, you know, in terms of the rating of the game, but still be beating down on a human or character without making it a robot. I don't want Metroid Prime to be that, but I certainly think that software houses either need to move closer towards something that's more appealing to a wider audience to make sure that in 10 years time, people actually give a damn that they're either relaunching or remastering or creating a new Metroid game or a spinoff from the Metro universe, because look, at perfect dark, like when we saw it at the Xbox showcase.
Speaker 2:It stayed true to the homage of what perfect dark is as like a spy, as a spy joint, but it also like leaned closer to, like modern day mechanics that had tracked younger, your younger audiences. It was snappy, it was zippy. I'm like there was fluid. There was fluid like animations there. I mean, I think I could show that to a nine-year-old down the street and I think he would be like, okay, I would at least check that out.
Speaker 2:I don't think there's a chance, you know, in all of icarus, that I can show that to, uh, show metroid that to the nine-year-old, and that nine-year-old is going to be like, well, that kind of looks bad. You know, like the graphics don't look great, the animations are clunky. I'm like I get it. It's you want to be true to that, that lineage. But I think god of war 2018 did a perfect job of like, oh, this is still god of war, but this is now for a modern audience as well. So I think, I think most I think nintendo has that problem bad to where, like they lean heavily on the name of ip, but they're not necessarily establishing it for a new generation, except for the mario games, which automatically has a tie-in, because it's mario and that whole showcase to me, although it was successful and I think actually it came across really well and it was certainly surprised surprised me in terms of what they showed.
Speaker 1:But I start to see the end of the switch one and I see that we've had tears of the kingdom, which reuse breath of the wild sort of engine and map pretty much a lot of the animations and things were similar. They did a great job of chronic adding legs to it, but it felt like an awfully expensive dlc. We saw the new zelda announced here, which is more based on the sort of links awakening style and it feels to me like they built for links awakening. They almost built like a Zelda maker, yeah, and they had all these assets stored and they had all these sort of gameplay mechanics stored and it just feels like they just put the work it's disrespectful to say the work experience boy, because there's some very, you know, hard heavy hitters involved in Nintendo's sort of pocket of developers that they have.
Speaker 1:But it did stink to me a little bit of a cheap, you know Switch. You're getting to the end of its life. What are we going to do? Well, we could rehash this and we mix it up a little bit Y'selda this time around, like, well, yeah, okay, I see some legs in that. Bash it out 70 quid, job done. Do we need to bring Switch 2 out at this rate? Well, we know that everyone's that all the Nintendo fanboys, I suppose are going to rock up to buy a red-spined Switch case. Yeah, I do worry that the Switch has been such an insane success and people have got addicted to filling their shelves with red spines that maybe they're not getting played as hard as they should be. And I think if they're getting played as hard as they should be, I think some of these guys would be a lot more outspoken critics about some of the things that they've been serving up.
Speaker 2:I want to ask a question because I think this is a phenomenal topic. I think a lot of the switch and this isn't me being a hater, this is just me looking at it objectively yeah great I think. Yeah, I think the because I'm trying to be real here, I'm not trying to actually do like oh, the Switch is dead, kind of like Mark, yeah, well, we can do a bit of that if you want. But no, like I think the. I think the Nintendo Direct was really well done. I just I'm wondering on that Switch 2 lineup. It's like I think the Switch 1 did so well, because one it's the gimmick of you can finally take your games on the go. First time you can finally take triple a high level games on the go.
Speaker 1:And also.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, for sure. And then you also have the all the fantastic games that were on the Wii U that people did not play, where the people finally paid attention to that. So you had all those and the rest are remakes, remasters, and I think, like you had a couple of phenomenal games there with tears of the kingdom, breath of the wild, mario odyssey and such like that. But as I look through the whole library of like the switches catalog, I think there's only like seven real games that from first party. That is to where I could say, oh, these are like innovative steps up for their franchise. I think kirby of forgotten the forgotten, what forgotten worlds or forgotten lands yeah, we, I think we spoke about that recently.
Speaker 1:That's the one with the I think rgt's recently been playing. It's the one where you could become a car, which you know. I found that very charming. I thought that whole game was, you know, really well put together and um James, the work experience boy back at UCP Towers, absolutely loved it, couldn't get enough of it. And that's someone new coming in that maybe had played Kirby's Yarn or one of the Yarn games on Wii and then Wii U, I think from memory, and then obviously stumbled onto that and absolutely loved it. I think that was a bang-up job of what they did there.
Speaker 1:But you're right, I think that was a bang up job of what they did there, but you're right you stand back from the Switch library and remove the nostalgia glasses or the Nintendo shades or whatever you want to call them, and there's an awful lot of 360 bargain bin stuff there that you're coughing up 70 bucks for that. If you span around, you could probably get on Facebook marketplace a 360 and a stack of these games for 50 bucks and it's like, okay, you take it on the go on the switch. But you know, to a seasoned gamer like you or I we've, and I've bought them on the switch I'm just as guilty as the next man. Because, oh, wouldn't it be great to play skyrim on a rock in the middle of nowhere? Yeah for sure not, not really and 20 frames per second.
Speaker 1:Yeah, certainly, certainly not again, uh, and not like this. So, yeah, I, if the switch to is backwards compatible, which you know the industry vibe is that. Yes, it will be. You know, the carts are going to carry a hard lock on them so you can't, you know, swap them in. You can't put a switch to car in a switch, but you can certainly put a switch cart in a switch. To makes a lot of sense to me. So there's always going to be now that big, burgeoning back catalog but what?
Speaker 2:is the library going to look like on the switch to, when you don't have the wii u catalog to to like take a hold of and you've already ported most of your classics now already to the Switch. I don't think you can. I don't think that handicap is there anymore is what I'm getting at. And then also I'm like I agree, you have that Steam, you have the Legion, you have the Steam Deck, you have all these like PC handheld competitors that are coming.
Speaker 1:Well, to just go back to your point from a software point of view, you know the the wii u had some great games on nintendo, were trying really hard to win the hardware battle with software during that era. You know they banged out a great mario kart towards the end of it and obviously it got delayed so it could be a simultaneous launch. But you know breath of the wild and a slew of other great games that you know didn't get the eyes on them but were a very easy win on the Switch. So all of a sudden it was banger after banger after banger. Well, if you'd missed a gen from Nintendo's point of view, banger after banger after banger, if you'd been a loyal Nintendo follower, you were completing these games for the second or third time.
Speaker 1:And now we arrive at the Switch 2 and you've really got to hope they've banked some of that cash, that they've banked some of those ideas, that they've banked all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 1:And maybe this is why in Stingray's boot this week we're going to see Luigi's Mansion 2, because it's easy, because there's other teams working on much bigger stuff, because when that Switch 2 launches, yeah, there's going to be a lot of success and there's going to be a lot of people transitioning over, and I think the switch is going to remind people the switch to sorry is going to remind people that hardware sales can still tear up. Um, I think there's going to be a lot of um pent-up demand for that when it gets here. So I have every envisagement that it will be a great success out the gates and they're going to throw down a Nintendo figurehead sacrifice for it, aren't they? It's got to be Mario at this point, because he went last, I suppose, and needs to rock up here and make it work. So we've got a Zelda to with the Switch, with, technically, I see the Switch 2 launching with an Odyssey sequel. If the Switch 2 launches with a remaster of Odyssey, I'll be honest with you, dude. I mean, yeah, it's a dark day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I hope they don't do that. I'm actually looking forward to the switch to launch lineup and beyond, because I want to see what what they can do whenever they don't have easy wins. I want to see if, like, yeah, I want to see what odyssey to what the odyssey team is working on. I want to see if they crank out a new and I think, fire him a fire emblem.
Speaker 2:Three houses was like that step up that I was talking about with Kirby as well, but like they went backwards with the next Fire Emblem. But I want to see what the next Fire Emblem looks like, what the next if they do another Smash Brothers, if they do another Mario Kart, like, because Mario Kart at this point is like the Wii U version, just with a whole lot of extra content, and it is I'm like I want to see what a new mario kart looks like. I want to see what you know they do with their heavy hitting ips and I want to see that without the oh, we're going to port like 73 different things here. I want to like playstation hasn't had that um advantage, so to speak. All for the most part, most of their catalogue this generation has been new installments, xbox they haven't put out games very much, but new installments for the ones that they put out.
Speaker 1:I think PlayStation's probably a little bit guilty of the fact that I think the PS4 was such a runaway success and from a graphical fidelity point of view, they're at the upper end of even. You know, by the time you've remastered that and got it up to 60 fps, I mean, oh god forbid, 30 with ray tracing or 15 with ray tracing, whatever's going on. They've had some easy wins of these cross-generational ones. There's been some, obviously, reboots and dark souls and some revisits of other games.
Speaker 2:You know directors and the last of us and they're.
Speaker 1:they're as guilty now of leaning on four or five characters that they kind of like doubled down on. We've got Jyn from Ghosts, we've got Aloy, we've got I mean, whether we see him again or not is in for question but we've got God of War. We've kind of got Death Stranding, but something in my waters. I don't know whether that's. Could that be multi-platform?
Speaker 2:when it comes. I think that is going to be multi-platform.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking day one, because obviously there is the opportunity for them to lock that down from an exclusive point.
Speaker 2:I think time exclusive is more likely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I'm wondering now if even that's I don't know it depends on the user install. I suppose um and that's probably a conversation for another day because I think that's. I think maybe that's where xbox is losing.
Speaker 2:I've gone off topic now because my brain's no, no, I like the, I like the trail of thought though um, and now I've completely forgotten where I was going and now. I've completely forgotten where I was going. So PlayStation has had and don't get me wrong, I think you're spot on there They've had leaned on nostalgia with also like remakes, or what they call director's cuts of a lot of their different IPs and stuff like that I was going down the route of installed users.
Speaker 1:There's been a lot of talk. You know Xbox has done well, but by any metric, playstation, for some reason, is outselling it almost five to one. And software matters, man, yeah, well, you know you get midway through the gen, as we are now, or approaching the midway of the gen, and you think to yourself as a developer or an unless I put myself in the fire cell that's Games Pass I'm not going to penetrate that platform, and if I do, for the installed users versus PlayStation and the developing team, that I need to put to one side to make sure it can run on one machine and the other in a good way as well, because these things have to be optimised to the upper limits.
Speaker 2:You've got to wonder Are the lower limits now the?
Speaker 1:challenge on the.
Speaker 2:Xbox side is the optimisation on the Series S, more than it is the X.
Speaker 1:The Series S is the throttle point, admittedly, but you've got to wonder to yourself is there any point? And I feel like Xbox, although they're trying to be very player-centric in a way, they've kind of made themselves hard to launch a game on. I know a lot of games are skipping xbox now and I don't wish that on anything. You know, I want to see games come out across all platforms, exclusive beside, I think, the consoles. Consoles always need exclusives, that's. We might as well sell everything we've got and go get a steam deck tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Um, oh hell, the steam deck. But no.
Speaker 1:But then you look at the install of the steam deck and although it's been by any metric of success as a as an actual financial platform, if steam only had steam deck, they'd be done oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they'd have to throw in the towel at this point, but no, it's like uh, steam deck, I think, is almost the crawl so something else can run, kind of kind of like system. I don't, I steam's making buku's money off their their platform and just hosting games and such like that, so they don't really again.
Speaker 1:I'm sure I was reading an industry article um where playstation's revenue is higher than Steam's. I think it was in an article about, you know, Xbox possibly being able to pull the Steam library into the next Xbox, which is interesting. But there's also a lot of how do you optimize that library to work on an Xbox? I mean, we're talking games on there that first launched on Windows 95, that they're still hosting for the Nostalgias, and you know that's how you do it right there, like you.
Speaker 2:So you know how basically PC has no limits. It's like you basically modify the settings directly to whatever your PC can handle. And Windows right now is basically you install steam on windows. You it's like you install windows on xbox. It runs steam and you just modify the settings. Because I'm like on any pc, like as long as you connect a controller, for the most part steam is smart enough to pick up the the of that controller. So I'm like it doesn't matter if I use a Wii controller or it doesn't matter if I go all the way up to PS5. It knows what kind of controller I'm using and the outputs associated with that. So I'm like the crazy thing is, if Steam ever goes to Xbox or Steam Library ever gets on Xbox, xbox's margins might as well just call it a day. At that point I'm like their margins are gonna be shot. You can't have a library to where, like, legitimately, a game comes out and three weeks later it goes on a sale for 65 on a steam library on a platform like xbox. You just can't do that.
Speaker 1:You're not making money at that point well, you also don't know where you'd get off in terms of you know why. Would you have games pass, unless the steam library is tied into some games pass subscription? And then, when you get steam library as part of your games pass subscription, obviously does that mean you then you need steam pass in addition, or is that going to get rolled in and then are you then able to dip into every game on Steam, or is every game on Steam going to be gated behind a financial transaction like it's impossible.
Speaker 2:It would be impossible for them to track down every developer and pay them for like for that it's an impossible scenario.
Speaker 1:And then, how does the Steam library get incorporated into Games Pass or the Xbox Games library? Because me and you on the outside of the industry have already come up with two what I would call massive hurdles, and I just don't know how they're circumvented in a way that's good for what should be a frictionless console experience, because that's what console gives you it's frictionless.
Speaker 2:I don't think Xbox would want to incorporate the Steam library in there. I think Xbox would want to purchase Steam and then say like, hey, we own that store, we own the storefront. I don't think you in the end, basically, you either keep it as, like our xbox presents steam the same way they do, like what blizzard and activision is such like that. I don't think you intersect anything like that. You just like if you buy xbox game, you now own it on steam and on pc. I think that's that's the way they would play that. Oh, that's the end goal.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, again to me that does not lean into and we know this is probably not where they wanted to take their franchise, so to speak but that does not lean into selling hardware at all. That leans into just bolstering up a PC experience, and if that's where they're heading, fine. But I actually think that they've done some remarkable things. Dreamcast got there first with online yeah, okay. But Xbox original Xbox and definitely the 360, made it easy, made it cool and they paved the way for that. And I think there's something about that console experience with the large screen TV.
Speaker 1:Like I know some PC master race is going to kick the door off and come in and be about how you know, they've got HDMI outputs now, george. Like, yeah, I know, but I don't want to be and you can tell me one thing and you can tell me the other, but there's no way owning a PC at some point in time to get the latest game to work does not involve C colon backslash and as soon as we get to that point, I'm done. I want to put a game in, download a game and play it Frictionless experience. That's why I now, that's why I gravitate, gravitate, that's why I gravitate towards the console user interface and experience, because it's easy. I've had PCs back in the day I mean, admittedly it was like a 286 or whatever but just to get it to run a game. You were in the settings.
Speaker 2:You're installing drivers for the sound chip and the graphics card and dude, I have not got the time for that now pcs have gotten smarter to where, like, they can detect your optimal settings and such fat so you can play like so I was telling you about blockbuster inc and such a fat like it can detect like, oh, this is a lackluster. Like not running the on the like the highest of highs, it doesn't need the highest of graphics card to run it so I can run that on ultra high. Versus like my pc is like two years old now but if I played was a jedi survivor and such like that, it was like, oh, your PC can run this on ultra high, but we it's at a lower frame rate so we're detecting you probably need to run this on high at 60. And I'm like, ok, I can do that. But what my thing is?
Speaker 2:It's like I think what PCs are now have changed so much to where, like the handheld argument of like, of like what a steam deck is, what a legion go is the fact that I can plug my steam deck into my tv and if, and it's just like the switch, it changes things a little bit. Yeah, it's like it changes things and I think, like if xbox has committed to basically always being a console manufacturer, now I think on the software side. They're basically insinuating it's a matter of time before we go third party and all games are everywhere is what they're trying to aim for. But like they're still making those, those consoles, it's just I don't think they're giving a lot of good incentives of like why should you an xbox if that, if your software is everywhere? I think that's that's the question I think they're going to need to answer. Even if they magically bought steam, it's like okay, you bought steam, but why do I own an xbox? I can just get a pc or still do this on playstation if you're trying to throw games there as well.
Speaker 1:I suppose you get your maximum bang if you're everywhere, but then it does kind of gate off your ability to be able to sell some hardware and maybe safely navigate a new user in through all that and then get them to fall in love with your franchises, which ultimately, I think obviously. Why, going back to PlayStation, nintendo, why they seem to be doubling down on their instantly most recognizable franchises ip sale, man exactly, they can leverage those ips into movies, series. We've seen it happen. They're all trying to sort of mario, mario Fallout recently.
Speaker 2:I'm like those are becoming huge. Last of Us on HBO. Those are becoming mainline successes. I'm like there's levels to this now. I'm like Mario has been popular all of our lives. Mario, though, has never been more popular than what it is now, and that's because it made a billion dollar movie.
Speaker 1:Either by design or by accident, become the Disney of the video game world. I'm not the first person to say it, but I think it's true. It's like that family friendly vibe that kids and adults can get something from. You know, there's the challenging gameplay, but there's the fun graphics, there's those easy steps levels where you kind of just can have fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and even a step further. They have Nintendo Land now, exactly.
Speaker 1:You know, and this mythos starts to grow, you know my kids, my first console, full, proper console, was a Nintendo. My son's first proper owned console of his own was a Nintendo. It's a safe bet for the parents, you know Well. You know well. You know gold standard. Well, not what, not that that means anything these days because it's attached to everything. But you know, back in the day that meant something.
Speaker 1:It meant like nintendo, at least looked at family friendly yeah, yeah, well, not family friendly, but a seal of quality, and for the most part they're going to be kind of kid, teen friendly games, you know, pre-teen kind of era. And then obviously you bifurcate then and you either go with or both. If you, if you, you know financially well off, you can get your xbox or your playstation and within them obviously your gameplay maturity starts to develop and grow and at that point you either double down on one or the other, and I know a lot of people say why I have one of the other when you can own both, but not everybody.
Speaker 2:We're in a great position, I suppose, where we can have everything not everyone's like that and not everyone wants to be like that either, though not everyone has the the, I guess, the hunger to want to own everything either. They're like, um, especially like the modern day kids we were just talking about. I'm like they can play Call of Duty or Fortnite on their phone and they can play it on one console. I'm like a kid doesn't necessarily want nor need to have three systems whenever they're two games that they're playing primarily on are available everywhere they pick up their tablet. They're good to go. I are available everywhere they pick up their tablet, they're good to go. I'm like they pick up their console, um, whether it be a switch or xbox or playstation or some cases.
Speaker 1:Like kids, love pcs nowadays, like they just what the hell? And I've not seen it. You know, when I first saw fortnite running on a switch, I was like wow, this is impressive. Quite what it looks like now uh, obviously, with all the map additions and the changes and everything like that's absolutely kudos. If you've got a kid out there and game boy matty a listener, maybe that kid, if he's getting victory royales on a switch on fortnight, I mean I praise, praise to you, praise to you. That's impressive.
Speaker 1:With all that said and done, seb, we've got a trio of hot news takes here. We've got the very darkest range of the internet to bring you the latest stories First up. Who let the dogs out? Interesting story here Malie expert and animator, lee Davis has found his way home to Naughty Dog after a four-year excursion. During that time, he worked at Microsoft's the Initiative, working on the Perfect Dark game that we talked about at the top of the show and the now-defunct PlayStation Back Studio Deviation Games.
Speaker 1:Beginning his Naughty Dog career in 2010, davis worked as an animator on the last of us, uncharted 4, last of us part 2 and on the uncharted spin-off, the lost legacy on linkedin davis revealed. This time around, he's been given some extra responsibility, he says I'm happy to share that I'm starting a new position as senior animator at naughty dog. What project will he be working on of, of course, remains unknown, but probably one of the several single player games definitely in the works at the storage studio. David's speciality, as it happens, is in bringing brutal UFC inspired combat to life, and he was likely involved anytime a Naughty Dog game has made you cringe in sympathy. If you need a reminder, you need to check out his Harren demo reel and you can find that on youtube if you, if you want to go, look at it which today probably features the most incredible character animation work we've witnessed before or since, and makes one hell of a resume.
Speaker 1:Um, reason why this is here. Obviously this guy's been around the industry and he finds his way back to naughty dog, um, simultaneously at the same time as some of these behind-the-scenes single-player games are being muted. Now this to me screams of obviously the Last of Us, part III. If we're going to utilise his skill set that he's developed to this point. I don't know whether it leans into the other rumoured game, the sci-fi game Naughty Dog, are working on. I mean, we know last of us part three is probably a guarantee really. I mean, it's been intimated, it's been said, you know it's happening I don't think that's ps6, though I don't think that's anywhere near yeah, no
Speaker 1:I to that. Timeline wise, I'd be very inclined to agree with you from a storyline point of view. I mean, I was someone who thought last of us part one did enough. I was someone who was a big fan of last of us part two and I think it did enough quite where that story goes post this now, I think if abby had landed a little bit more squarely on the shoulders of most gamers and I'm still shocked that you can play that game all the way through and not have feelings for abby and certainly want to see Abby or Lev's journey continue because the Last of Us was never presented as Joel and Ellie- no, no, it's a universe.
Speaker 2:I think they did a really good job of making that almost like Star Wars isn't the Skywalkers even though Disney is obsessed with the Skywalkers Star Wars in the first crawl line in a galaxy far, far away. It's a galaxy. The Last of Us is a world where, like, everything is going to hell in a handbasket and like it. I think we can explore other stories outside of joel and ellie, but I I I think this is an interesting story because I think this isn't necessarily indicative of what naughty dog is doing. I think this is like. This tells a story about what happened with Perfect Dark and the initiative. I think that's the story.
Speaker 1:That's what I wanted to wheel around to, because you've got this guy. Is his work done or is he like I'm done? Has he completed all his animation work and gone, yeah, awesome. And then skipped off the deviation and gone, oh no. And then skipped off the deviation and gone, oh no. And then skipped off the naughty dog. He's come home, hasn't he? He's back in the dog house, but yeah, what happened during his time?
Speaker 1:Because perfect dark was shown the other day and we've talked about some of these animations and you know the from a first person point of view I think you alluded to at the start of the show. It looked very slick in terms of its navigation, of the climbing and some of the free running that was involved, and and the gunplay looked nice. It presented well. Um, why wouldn't you want to try and keep this dude around? I mean, it makes sense to me that you've got a killer score here. Um, people move around in the industry. Some people don't like to do more than two or three years at a developer before the move on looking for the next rung on the ladder in terms of the sort of career chase. But what's your take on this triple s?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think the moving around part is I think that is right for about five years ago, where the industry had a lot of flexible positions and such like that. Now it's like it's a dog fight to get a job in games now, especially like even on the senior side, because, like everyone, there was so many layoffs right now and not a lot of people are just hiring to fill in those, those back in layoff positions. So I think this is like a tale of two of two stories here. I think the initiative and what perfect dark was probably when he got hired is drastically different than what he, what he signed on for, like we, what we saw in the trailer didn't look like it had a whole lot of melee combat, if we, if I'm being honest, oh yeah, it didn't look like it had a whole lot of melee combat.
Speaker 2:It was more centered and focused on like the gunplay, the game, the gunplay. Centered and focused on like the gunplay, the game, um the gunplay. It was focused on stealth and it really didn't seem like it had a whole lot of hand-to-hand combat involved. So maybe what he, what the game originally was and what it became, became two drastically different visions. And then on the other side looking at, looking at naughty dog and such like that. They what they were doing before, when he left, when they were working on the multiplayer the last of us multiplayer, basically rumored project that got canceled and what he, what they probably are doing now, is that leaning towards more on the single player space probably seems like, oh, like two things happened in two different companies and he didn't fit with either one of them at the time, and now he found his way back home, which I think is interesting.
Speaker 1:The initiative seemed like the kind of game of wet dream that we always fantasized about. You know, set up this almost Elysium-like place where we're going to gather all the best talent in the best place possible. We're going to fill it with all these guys. But was the initiative a case of too many chiefs, not enough Indians?
Speaker 2:Yes, it could have been. But it also could be, like I, that game went through a rough development cycle, so it could have been a case to where I'm like I don't know if they had a vision for that game and if it was like a scale-borne situation to where that vision just never got on track or anything like that. Or it could be the case of where um, where feet were, you're right, too many cooks in the kitchen where, like, where feel had an example of what he thought that game should be and then, like the team at the time thought, hey, this should be like a spy, almost like a thief style game. Another team maybe thought, maybe, like, uh, I know the development um hit the developer head left as well. So I'm like maybe he thought this game was going to be a more gristled, grounded, almost like 007, hitman style game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm like it could be a case to where, like when Xbox acquired all these studios and everything basically got lost in communication. Like you, basically, it's almost like when you work for a company, they get acquired by another company. There's always that communication gap of like, what do we do next? And only, like the, the boardroom knows what, what's the direction of that company. I think that could be the case. I think this is like I want to pitch this question to you. It's like what do you think perfect dart? What did you imagine perfect dark was going to be when you heard about it?
Speaker 1:I mean just to rewind a little bit. You know I said at the top of the show I played the original on switch and you know at the time that had a little bit of the rare style british humor in the background with the alien I think his name was elvis or something along those lines and yeah, it had an element of that. But if when that game was launched we had more advanced hardware, there's no way that game would have been that way. It would have been mature, as it was aiming to be. It would have been gritty, it would have been visceral. The thing that held that back was the hardware. They made it as good as they could make it.
Speaker 1:When it limped on to um, was it 360 launch? Yeah, it was. It's a long time ago now, you know, and they gave us all the shiny surfaces and kind of reimagined joanna dark a little bit, and certainly the world that she inherits. Again, it was a slightly different game and it didn't hit with the fans. The new one, I don't know where you take it. I don't know whether you ramp up the mature elements of it or whether you need to lean back into the comedic side of it a little bit. You know, ultimately, people are going to be arriving at this, having probably never experienced the original having never experienced a 360 version, maybe dabbled with the original, with the remastered graphics on xbox live, or games pass wherever it resides.
Speaker 1:Now there's like a beefed up version. That's not on the switch, by the way it's it's. It's running the n64 code and you could tell um, but yeah, I don't know what people want to expect from it. Now, what do I want from Perfect Dark? Do I want gritty James Bond? You know, part of the sort of inner teenager of me is like, yeah, I want to rip someone's head off and snap their neck and do this out on the other, but does that fit within the Perfect Dark universe? No, absolutely not. That wouldn't feel right to me. That would feel like it was Call of Duty masquerading as perfect dark.
Speaker 2:There's a very fine line of paying homage and then taking it to somewhere it shouldn't go. And here's a question, though. It's like so you're an old school, perfect, dark person. Are you the person they're trying to appeal to? Are they trying to appeal to a younger audience?
Speaker 1:That's what I can't even work out. You know, from the trailer On the 360 version. Yeah, I think they were trying to appeal to a perfect dark OG, maybe like myself, and I only skirted with it because I'd already moved on to the Dreamcast by then. But I think that, like I say, the 361, yeah, they were appealing to me. This new one, I don't know who they're appealing to. They're they're trying to appeal, as we said at the top of the show, to a new audience, but they're also trying not to insult the people. That kind of pave the road to this point. It's a fine line. It's such a juggle and in a way, I kind of want the. In a way, I kind of want the quest for new fans to win over the homage to the older fans who, as we said, they're 30 plus, they're aging out of gaming or getting distracted from gaming because they've got family commitments, they've moved to that next stage in their life.
Speaker 2:I think that's the issue with Xbox as a whole, with their library. It's like that balance of who are we trying to appeal to.
Speaker 1:I think they're quite guilty when they bought Rare of seeing success on the Nintendo 64 and going, oh, we'll buy that, you know boom. But then, by the time you've hollowed that skull out, there's not really much left bar a name.
Speaker 1:You didn't do anything with it, though other than well, yeah, and I, and and to that point I want to see him do something with it. You know that, all right, they've blown the sort of rain, sock rain, soaked rooftop vibe in in the 360 version, which would have looked cool now, but instead we're running around flower covered streets and sliding up drain pipes. I don't know let's. It would be interesting to see how that performs against something like Indiana Jones as well, because obviously both first person sort of adventures.
Speaker 2:That's what I was alluding to. I'm like, if you're Indiana Jones, are you trying to go after Indiana Jones fans? Or like, are you trying to get new fans?
Speaker 1:And I'm like that's the tricky balance there, because I'm like if they've paid for that franchise and they want to use it to push the console, to push games pass and quite rightfully so I'm all for that. You kind of need it not to be a one and done so, you need to attract a new audience. That goes hey, do you know what this indiana jones you know? Imagine a kid coming along, sees indiana jones on games pass, says hey, yeah, I'll give this a try. Imagine for a moment where they absolutely loved it because the game nailed it as a great game but still had that indiana jones ephemera around it. And then they went this universe is great, the go off and watch maybe the first three films I'd recommend and then after that maybe take it with a couple of wheelbarrows of salt, um. But you know, you could attract people to this franchise and around it in a halo fashion and actually do some good, um.
Speaker 1:But I think that if you've paid for that franchise, you also need it to be able to stand on its own two feet and from that point of view you need to be quirky, you need to be fun, you need to be interesting and you need to appeal to an audience that initially probably thinks Indiana Jones is this brand new gaming franchise and then only towards the end of it, works out that it's attached to a 40 year old film franchise at this point, whose main star is might as well be in a wheelchair. Um, so yeah, I don't know, there's a, there's a lot going on there, but, um, why don't you this last headline? I didn't change, but I think it sticks, so you read this out for a sec.
Speaker 2:They came in they saw they kicked its ass, but they could have shown more hot off the heels. On of the xbox game showcase earlier this month, microsoft has announced that it will be bringing its biggest booth yet at gamescom 2024 in germany this august. The team hasn't broken down everything that would be playable on the show floor, but it has provided us with a chunky list of games that will be present in some fashion, including Avowed, aria, history, untoned, towerborn, age of Mythology, retold and more. We're waiting on more news on what xbox fans at home can expect at the show or from the show, and we're hoping to hear more about that side of the event soon. Last year, team green provided a big celebration and lots of looks at individual titles. Anyways, gamescom 2024 takes place august 21st through august 25th, and those of you who are interested in attending the event in person can look up the current ticket prices online right now. So, george, what do you think of this story?
Speaker 1:I mean off the back of everything that we've spoken about, after that absolutely fantastic showing of Xbox at the showcase earlier this month, to turn up and make some of the games that we kind of were wanting to see a little bit more of Towerborn etc. To actually see them rock up and make those playable on a game's floor. Now, whether that's the full game, I very much doubt it. There's going to be, you know, very curated vertical slices of each of these titles that people are going to be able to have a play with. I think it's going to be interesting to see what the industry makes of that um.
Speaker 1:I just thought it was incredibly brave. They blew the doors off of the showcase and could have shown more. We reported that last week and now they go into Gamescom with either very large chunks of playable levels and certainly, I would say, most of the gameplay mechanics intact and used, utilised, and then to allow people just to randomly turn up, pick up an Xbox Series X controller and play these bad boys. I actually think it's incredibly brave and I think it's interesting that they're supporting gamescom um in this fashion as well, because it'd be quite easy to stick a look quiet, basically be quiet, not have a big booth. You know, big booths are kind of something that we don't hear about, um in physical game shows anymore.
Speaker 1:Because you know, covid towards covid, the death of e3 was inevitable yeah, um still keeps alive, and for them to rock up in this fashion, I actually think it's quite brave yeah, they um, they have a little bit of a presence as packs.
Speaker 2:I I know they um they're sparingly at summer game fest as well. So I think they're. They're doing all the the media I guess you could say the media tour of trying to basically revitalize the brand of xbox, and I think they're doing a pretty good job. I do question a couple of decisions here, and that's aria history untold and age of mythology retold. And it's not because, though, me and you both are niche gamers in the sense that we like strategy, we like building, we like city builders and such like that. I'm gonna be honest with you, george those are games you deep dive into and you just lose yourself into. They do not demo well, though, no, like they do not.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, Unless you prevent a vertical slice, which is a scenario oh yeah, for sure, but even then, I'm like, even then on a demo floor, I've been there at PAX to where, like, there's tons of people around you, you have to put on headphones With a game like Aria History Untold. You have to put on headphones with a game like aria history untold. You have to click around on a mouse and such like that, and then you sit there smelling the next person's fart next to you while you're playing this game. Yeah, you're.
Speaker 1:It's far removed from the at home experience, isn't it? You know me and rgt hopped to a game show in the uk and yeah it's, I kind of just walked by a load of games because I just didn't want to put myself through that pain.
Speaker 2:Um no, and there's some games that are like okay, this game I have to check out, like for example um, undisputed is a boxing game coming out it demos extremely well it does extremely well.
Speaker 2:But this the type of game it is some games lend itself to that environment more than others. Like a arkham game would demo very well, for instance, like action focus, you can get in there after you learn how everything plays. It's all good. A fighting game demos well. Like a strategy game, that's almost like a 4 4x strategy game never really demos well, I think that it does it. It really does it. But, like I do think it's smart that people get their hands on a vow though, because I think there's so many question marks for a lot of people, myself included, on on if that game is actually going to nail it, because I think right now it's shown up like three times in all three times. I'm left thinking to myself if that game wasn't on Game Pass, nobody would play that, or at least very few people would play that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know if it's something I could get down and throw in hard cash behind, that's a fact. I was thinking the other day. I know it's insane to own an Xbox and not have Games Pass, but I was wondering what the user experience would be like for someone who decided they didn't want Games Pass and still wanted to rock up and day and date these games physical.
Speaker 2:There is a huge market for people who own an Xbox and just have the I guess you could say the common casual gamers library where they do call of duty every year. They do madden every year like all the sports games, the show and all that kind of stuff and they don't touch game pass because I think for them that is their and call of duty box. You know that's their fortnight call of duty and sports box. So I'm like there's a huge use case for that and for those people who are those type of people, you have to make them want to play Indiana Jones, avowed and all those kinds of stuff. Avowed, I think, showed almost just as bad as Indiana Jones. This time around to where I'm like the showcase ended and I heard nobody talking about Avowed South of New Night. People were talking about like yeah, I'm like Flight Sim. It's a niche audience and I think people still talk more about flight simulator.
Speaker 1:I think I waffled on about flight simulator for 20 solid minutes last week. I lost myself in it, uh, and agreed and they're saying and more though, so just to put some pre-insights in there that there is going to be more on the show floor, but I've got no details on to what, but I I thought this was interesting, it's brave.
Speaker 2:So just um, I'm just gonna spoil a couple of things. I believe stalker 2 is going to be there as well. Okay, um, you know, I got some gamescom emails. I'm not going this year, of course. I'm like my wife and I are playing another international trip, we're not going to make gamescom, but like I, I think stalker 2 is the other one and I think their other fall release is going to be there. I'm I'm blanking on the name. Um, oh, the starfield expansion is supposed to be there. So I'm like the shattered dreams, shattered, shattered, something I can't remember. But those, those two I know are, think, a part of the and more. But I think people already know what Starfield is.
Speaker 1:I don't think a DLC on a Gamescom is going to change anything and like, unless it's the equivalent of what They've got, the misfortune of launching after Shadow of the Earth Tree as well, which is held as probably the greatest DLC.
Speaker 1:It's been reviewed as the greatest DLC of all time. You know, the Starfield DLC has got quite some miles to go to garner the same, and I think this year is going to be a tough gig. If you bring in DLC and it doesn't, you know it's got one hell of a candle to hold itself to.
Speaker 2:And even in this genre. I think a better comparison is not even just the Elden Ring DLC. It's like the Cyberpunkpunk dlc.
Speaker 1:Phantom liberty for last year completely revitalized that game in a way that oh yeah ultimately that was the time to get that game because it was much bigger, it was fixed, it had loads more missions in it. It was the full suite. I mean you kind of knew that going in with Cyberpunk back in the day. I don't think any of us expected it to be quite the horror show that we got. But you know, those that have stuck with it have ended up with a gorgeous looking game.
Speaker 2:I love it. I absolutely love it. It's probably my favorite game this generation at least one of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I won't disagree. I played it raw dog style. You know, same here and it was. I had not many issues with it. But there's an infamous moment that I've talked about on here where I ended up inside panam's body, um which was, and that's the way you intend to.
Speaker 1:I kind of ended up in her with her eyes looking at me. I was in there and I saw her like a reversed lip. So it was a. It was very, very odd. Um, in terms of glitches like that was the most humorous standout one, but there were lots of other sort of weird bits and bobs going on in the background, but none of it affected my main playthrough or my save data or anything like that. So I got away relatively scot-free in the grand scheme of things said, but I know a lot of people kind of poured hours into it and it glitched and the whole thing broke. So yeah, there's a lot for starfield to do. I think I also you know park in starfield there for a moment. I actually think that if Xbox had managed to contain the we are launching on everything story and presented it themselves in a better way, this would have really felt like a really strong year of growth in terms of output of software, in terms of support of the install base install base in support.
Speaker 2:Would you have been able to swallow that, though, steel, even if they told you, even if they sugar-coated it and said, hey, we're starting the initiative of launching four games everywhere, and then, like that, once you open up that bottle, you can't close it back up.
Speaker 1:The only thing, the only thing, the only thing that would have bummed me out and obviously we kind of see where Xbox kind of saw Microsoft stroke, xbox saw it in the end was Hi-Fi Rush was a game that I think people on other platforms looked at enviously. It was a stealth drop. It reviewed unbelievably well. It played as well as it reviewed, if not better.
Speaker 2:It kind of it was sunset overdrive for this generation yeah, it set tongues wagging.
Speaker 1:It was doing different things with its integration of its soundtrack into its gameplay mechanics and hooks. You know, wow, this is something fresh, this is something new. This is kind of what I was expecting. That's the only thing that kind of. If I was an xbox gamer, I guess that would be the only thing that would have really bummed me out.
Speaker 1:I guess when we said earlier not everyone is lucky enough to own everything and that no you know, and I understand why people always say oh, you know, game gaming it's so tribal, you're either with one or the other and gaming should be for everything and everyone. I totally agree. But that tribalism comes back from a financial point of view. Nine times out out of 10, you're a kid in the playground, you get behind your PlayStation banner and you use it as a shield to push through the Xbox gamers are going to club together in like a tribe and they're going to push through with their story. I was the same.
Speaker 1:I had an Atari ST as a kid and everybody else had an Amiga and yeah, the system was not as powerful as the Amiga and nowhere near as popular, and it galvanized a really great friendship with me, with the lad I've mentioned on here before, terry Blow. You know we both had STs and we became sort of wingmen off the back of it. And the same here. And I think that, yeah, I would have been a bit bummed out from a tribalistic point of view that those games had moved over, but certainly Grounded. It deserves to be seen and played by more people. It's a live service game at the end of the day. And the same for Sea of Thieves. That game needs the extra players and I think that's a good move. I think Hi-Fi Rush would have been the one that probably would have stung the most. That really would have been.
Speaker 2:It burns, it really does.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would have burned. That would have been. It burns, it really does. Yeah, that would have been.
Speaker 2:That would have been yeah, especially if, like you're an xbox only guy, like you're an xbox only guy and you've seen for two generations. Now let's be real, now that you've seen god of wars come by you've seen a god of wars, you've seen uncharted, you've seen everything under the sun come by, and then you finally get your one win, your one win, and now everyone has that too.
Speaker 1:I'm like Give it away and it's almost like Xbox don't recognize that there is an element of tribalism with their console and there's people there and these people were the ones that kind of maybe pulled the rug from under their feet. And I think that social media furo all was probably primed and pumped by people. They're guilty of pumping themselves, but also people that had been hyping the console time memorial at their workplace on social media to their friends, to everybody. They've been pushing the brand. I'm xbox, I'm xbox, I'm an xbox guy, I'm an xbox guy. Boom, hi-fi rush, hi-fi rush. Came home that week and your chest was out. You look like vinnie mack wandering down to the ring. You know you were giving it man, I know what's his one. No chance, no chance, you got a chance in hell. You were that dude. You know you were walking down to the ring, chest out, arms out, carrying carpets, giving it the full hi-fi rush uh, let's be real here.
Speaker 2:It's not just games, I know. Like everyone says, oh, gamers are tribal is, uh, tribalistic, like cultures. But like you buy cars for features, you buy cars, they have name brands and, like features, sell you on, like your cars in general, pizza, like all, like you have your brand of pizza for a reason, and I'm like you have that same thing, and even more tribalistic, I think, the video games, cell phones. There are people who legitimately will not talk to other people because they're android users. I'm like there's, there's legitimately that thing, you know. I'm like, I'm like there is a tribalism there and that android versus iphone thing really has come down to oh, this has features that doesn't. You know, this has a brand that doesn't. But I'm like when, when iphone loses its features to android people because people's complain and vice versa, and it's like we're like that with almost everything under the sun that has a brand and also has another competing brand.
Speaker 1:So it's not just games, you know no, no, absolutely, and I think in this modern world of I don't know what they're called or whether we even fit into this pantheon ourselves, but certainly influencers are kind of guilty in this whole sort of branding. And certainly, to go back to the original point, the Xbox brand did get burnt by upset people that have probably been supporting the console since the original Xbox. To see them give away. I mean to be respectful to Hi-Fi Rush.
Speaker 1:It's a great game and it's interesting and it's doing some interesting things, but when that's your crown jewels and it gets given away, there's not really a lot going on. There is there, really, and that's a shame. So let's, as I say, 2024 without that slip up of going everywhere all at once. That had been a steady climb from our complaints at the back end of 2020, whatever last year is three right if xbox need to show something, they turned up in 2024 and they started that climb of showing stuff that they'd been building on, and I think the worst enemy themselves was themselves and their own fan base, who were just sort of angry.
Speaker 2:You know, like they're ravenous for something too, I'm like they're angry something.
Speaker 1:And then, while they're still starving, xbox gave away the, the one chip they were saving on their plate or the one fry they were saving on their plate, to make it worldwide content. You know, I well, I don't know it's, it's, it's a funny one. I just I hope they can, I hope they know that they've got some wind in their sails now and they've actually bizarrely managed to curry some really good interest in the games that they're showing.
Speaker 2:I hope that I'm like you. I think if they just said the live service games, I think no one would care, like very, very few people like it would have fell on deaf ears. The people who actually did care, they would have been like, ah, but everyone been. Like it's a live service game, like it needs an audience, let's chill out. But I'm like the first time you do a single player like this is the focus of, like this is the one win. You've gotten the one game that's been nominated for a game of the year. It's like 10 years of what it feels. Like that that strikes ire, like that. I understand where the victory all comes from. I understand where people like look at the, the decisions there, and they go like, well, now, what's to stop you from doing halo, gears of war and all the other like crown jewels, that that we have? I mean to that point.
Speaker 1:If it had been, I don't know they were putting Grabbed by the Ghoulies on PlayStation or Switch, or if they were putting Blinks on PlayStation or Switch.
Speaker 2:I barely think it would have even broken the news you know.
Speaker 1:And even if it had been, oh yeah, we're experimenting and that's the narrative that they're kind of hiding behind oh, we want games to be for everyone, Even if they'd banged out Gears as a trilogy, I don't know, that is sacred ground, I suppose. That is, and so is Master Chief, but I can see it happening.
Speaker 2:Flight Simulator, I think is a good example. I think that's a better example of like if you do Flight Sim first and because that's a niche audience you're trying to appeal.
Speaker 1:Hey look, I can get right behind that. Yeah, but outside of Games Pass. You know, last week I spoke quite at length about Flight Simulator the new one and the job aspects of it, which I think is going to give it the legs to get out there amongst the casuals. It's free on Games Pass and this is maybe what the argument is that they're trying to create. But then it's what? 70 bucks on PlayStation?
Speaker 2:I mean, it's the opposite with the show right MLB. The show is $70 on PlayStation and free on Game Pass.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this would be well. No, this would be the same. It would have been free on Games Pass and yeah, you're right, it's the opposite. But yeah, it's it rank that MLB thing still rankles, but you dig into the story.
Speaker 2:You see what I mean, though, yeah.
Speaker 1:To me. I know I'm a very unicorn-type guy and I guess this is probably where someone who's into Flight Simulator on Xbox would kind of stick their head up and be like, oh no, but I'm an mlb guy, I love the game. I think until it made its way on to switch to some degree and xbox it was the unsung playstation exclusive that nobody really knew about outside of the states and mlb. For me it looks good, plays really well. Again, I'm a bit sort of worn down by it. But yeah, it's that niche game and it did hurt that. Maybe my favorite PlayStation exclusive me personally was the one that got put over and I feel like Mr Hi-Fi Rush right now. You know I was bummed out, I'm over it now. I really don't care. And you know, if it helps spread the word of worldwide, especially thanks to Games Pass, the word of baseball, which I think is suffering in the States a little bit, it needs help.
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, it needs help.
Speaker 1:And I think that's praiseworthy, I suppose, but must sting from a development point of view. To me it was right up there with all the other exclusives. One of the reasons why I kind of gravitated towards it was, like what else is going on here that is exclusive that I don't know about? Mlb? Well, give that a go, boom. I'm hook, line and sinker in love with baseball and have been for some time.
Speaker 2:We just won a championship. Our MLB team with baseball and have been for some time, so we just won a championship and our mlb team, the texas rangers, just won a championship. And he I'm in dallas where where the rangers play like we just won a championship and the tickets to still get into a rangers game are about three times cheaper to get to a cowboys game still and as game, which is our football and basketball equivalent, it is. So I'm like, yeah, baseball needs help, like needs help across the board, it's not just the game.
Speaker 1:It's the pure American sport and I just don't see, I don't understand why Americans have kind of turned their back on it a little bit. You know, maybe they're sick of it, Maybe and for me I'm- not I mean this is.
Speaker 1:We're going way off topic here, and yeah, for sure. But for me the pitch clock maybe helped the casuals, but to maybe me or you that's a long time fan of the sport, it, it, it's changed the game and I don't know if I like it, you know, I like, you know I'm a pitching. I like the strategy of it all. I like the kind of stretching the innings out with them kind of taking a moment and pausing the whole game really, and the pitch clock has made it. It's for the TikTok generation, it's never going to go away and it kind of works.
Speaker 1:You know, when I've been to see the baseball I've seen a non-pitch clocked game and it was. It was a feel slow now, didn't it? Yeah, it's a full day's work and it, you know, even if you watch an old game on tv from that area, like oh goodness, then you watch a new one and it's like bam, bam, bam, bam bam. The pitches come fast and thick and you, it's a much more readily, but I feel it boils baseball down into just big hits and I know that the 90s big hit Royd era of baseball is kind of like.
Speaker 2:The popular era here.
Speaker 1:Romanticized a lot, isn't it? You know the Jeter era and you know those big armed, big hitting, allegedly Royd, not roided, guys were smashing balls outside of the stadium into the car parks. Wow, it's interesting and exciting and everything, but it's really boiled it down to the greatest hits of the game. I think if you've taken this 200-year-old sport or more, at this point and you've watered it down into a clip show of big hits, it's disrespectful of the other other elements of the game that make it so good.
Speaker 1:You know you've got the picture, which is fascinating. There's all the psychology to go with it that you know, one pitch after the next. Once you get into the psychology, you can see I was trying to lure the batter away, or push the batter off off the off a little little bit, or trying to upset up Skittling. You've got then, obviously, all the people out in fielding. You know it's a lot more than just smashing big balls in the air and running around a triangle of mats. It's a lot deeper than that. There's a lot more going on and I don't know whether I don't know how you come back from the pitch clock.
Speaker 2:I don't know either, but I think that same question like to bring this back to games I think that same question you're thinking about with baseball right now is the same thing. That's with the Knicks story, with Metroid Prime. It's like Metroid, I think, is going to have an uphill battle to where, like, the fans of it are really going to love Metroid, but then the new generation is going to be like, oh, as an FPS that feels ancient Of the 12 people that own a Switch, that were fans of Metroid Prime originally, that haven't gravitated towards other consoles because they've been sick of playing kids' games.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're going to be stoked For the other millions of people that they want to buy it. I just don't know how that works, seb, let's get into it prime time. Over the last few years, as more and more time has passed, with barely a whisper from nintendo or retro studios regarding metroid prime 4 beyond, many fans have begun to ask the same question will it skip the switch and launch on switch 2 after all? The game's eventual reveal during the latest nintendo direct came after the firm had finally acknowledged switch's successor, confirming it would be revealed within the next financial year. So many had come to the conclusion if prime 4 doesn't feature in the showcase, then chances are isn't heading for the switch 1. Alas, there it, there it was and it looks beautiful. But did it look too good for the Switch? That's what some folks seem to think. But IGN has gained a pretty affirmative comment from digital founder Richard Ledbetter that Metroid Prime 4 Beyond is, at least based on the evidence so far, a Switch original game.
Speaker 2:Where are the people looking at man?
Speaker 1:I know I'm so confused and there's so much hype around this that you know. I think there's so much excitement for switch 2 that people kind of let the the story drift a little bit with imagination and that's one of the hardest things to pull out when you're trying to compose the news what's real and what's not? Um, richard ledbetter's comments it's looking great. There's a couple of nice effects in there we took a closer look at, but ultimately all the evidence points to this game running on the original Switch. The internal rendering resolution counts at 900p, which is the same as Metroid Prime Remastered and as good as it is. There's some anti-aliasing issues and even some very minor frame rate drops. Everything about the visual makeup is consistent with a really well-made Switch game where Retro has an excellent track record.
Speaker 1:I can imagine the development studios really happy that people are making Connection with Switch 2, mind you. So there you have it. While there's no doubt in our minds that the game is running on the Switch, or at least obviously in development comparable PC hardware, we thought we'd put everyone's mind at rest once and for all. Now we're not going to completely rule out the possibility that Metroid Prime 4 Beyond winds up being a cross-gen release similar to Zelda, twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild. The timing would likely line up quite closely after all, but we think it's obvious that for now this is a Switch game through and through. I mean me and you kind of we rushed on a little bit.
Speaker 1:We talked about this to some degree and when it first kicked off I was like ooh. But then, as the gameplay carried on, I was like nah, this is Switch 1 for definite. And you know, confirmed there by, I know, people beat down on Digital Foundry a little bit. You're a countryman, right? It's much like ourselves at the UCcps. Okay, miss, transatlantic collaborative. Uh, that seems to nail on, I suppose, these technical breakdowns. They are the go-to place to find out how a game's performing. You know they, they put it through its paces for sure. And if they've come back and said Switch 1, it's Switch 1.
Speaker 2:Yeah, here's my thing. Even if it was Switch 2, I'm like, what do you think is like? What features do you think people would get excited about if it was Switch 2? That the game's finally in 1080? I'm like.
Speaker 1:Well, is that what we're looking at with the Switch 2? Because, to imagine it, a 4K screen, I don't think Nintendo have really got the time for that, really.
Speaker 2:I don't even care about it. You know Making a game 4K.
Speaker 1:Well, the thing is, if the Switch 2 is anything like the Switch 1, and we're led to believe that it is handheld, let's face it.
Speaker 1:You know, I've got a Portal and at 1080p on a screen of that size Looks great, it looks phenomenal. I know this sounds a bit oh, george, really have a word with yourself. But there's times where you're playing on the Portal, perfect conditions apply here. You're playing on the portal, perfect conditions apply here. You're playing on the portal and you think, wow, you know this is 4K. It looks 4K to me. It's crisp, lines are sharp, everything looks good. It's compressed down on a 1080p screen and it looks. You know, it looks real natty.
Speaker 1:There's no need for them to be chasing a 4K screen in a handheld. It's going to bump costs. It for them to be chasing a 4K screen and a handheld, it's going to bump costs, it's going to be harder to develop for. But when you dock that bad boy with the modern TVs that are out there in, most people have transitioned from 1080p now to some form of basic 4K set. That move happened probably over the last 12 to 18 months where they finally probably got the mass adoption of the 4K set, you're going to want to plug your Switch 2 in it before K on your TV. So I don't know whether that's internal rendering in the dock or whether that's internal rendering in the machine for the upscale.
Speaker 2:I think it's upscaling. I think it's 2K upscaling.
Speaker 1:That's fine. That's fine and it's 1080p on the screen. Handheld.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can live with that. I think that might be a dreamer's paradise. I'm a dreamer, Seb. I look like a dreamer.
Speaker 1:At the end of the day, we welcome in someone called Stingray looks different every week. What my version of the Switch 2 is. It's 8K, bro, it's 8K. You can see mario's teeth and everything like that.
Speaker 2:Fully wiped, you can see the hairs around his nipples yeah, it's a little bit of overkill for the cartoon, like art styles that we're going for here, but, like I, I I think I think everyone's going to be happy with Metroid.
Speaker 1:Unless the game is bad, I don't think it matters if it's going to be on Switch 2 or not Again to go back to the baseball analogy and some of the other things we've spoken about, I think Metroid Prime 4, after all, this time needs to land and do a stand-up impersonation of the original trilogy, and then it needs to bow its head and get off the stage before anyone notices. Then we need to see what next-gen Metroid looks like, because this is ultimately a high-res GameCube game. And if this is what a Switch 2 is kicking out the gates, I'm disappointed. You know, technically a Switch 2 should be a handheld PS4, bare minimum. And if you think about what it could push out in terms of Horizon Zero, push out in terms of horizon zero dawn, in terms of death stranding, even, yeah, ghost of tsushima, the list goes on and on and on. The graphical fidelity within that we've never seen.
Speaker 2:You're right, nintendo have got an art style that kind of doesn't need that, but but the switch, I think they get let off the hook for that, though I think like, yeah, like you're saying, though I'm like I think we do need to see what a step up from nintendo looks like versus do we need to?
Speaker 1:does it need? Does nintendo carry on doing what it's doing and it's safe yeah, it is safe.
Speaker 1:And then the switch 2 ends up being like a greatest hits place of all the ps4 and xbox one big hitters. You know, much like it was the safe place for PS3 and Xbox 360 big hitters. Does the Switch 2 become that to the last gen, while also pumping the Nintendo CGI movies out at the same time with interactive controls? I don't know. I mean, to me that would be the safest bet for them. I mean, if you had a console of that power and you I said this to OG Tom in a WhatsApp message. You know, tears of the Kingdom should be the final goodbye to that open-world Zelda. What Zelda needs to be on the Switch 2 is another reinvention of itself that moves away. I know there's going to be a lot of kickback, but if they serve up Breath of the Wild 3, people will think, yeah, people will buy it, but they're going to bump off it quick.
Speaker 1:You think so, yeah, I do. Well, let's start off with this. If they're going to stick with that idea, it needs a new map.
Speaker 2:I'm right there with you. I don't like those games to begin with, but I'm right there with you.
Speaker 1:I don't like those games to begin with, but I'm right there with you, If you know, I kind of want to see it was an evolution from its previous games, which a little bit more linear in the way you could go about it. You were very. You weren't on rails, you felt like you could go everywhere but you kind of needed to do that dungeon, that dungeon, then that dungeon breath of the wild kind of opened it up. You could cook, you could do all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 2:This new one, what do you do in an Elden Ring world, though? Gameplay is really advanced past, where I would argue that the weakest part of Zelda, tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild is the gameplay.
Speaker 1:The action is basically hit, hit, parry, dodge and that's To break it down to its most that's it.
Speaker 2:That's all it is building blocks.
Speaker 1:That's all zelda ever has been. In terms of the combat now, be that the nairs or the snares, I think that's the next evolution.
Speaker 2:You go for more than it is anything else I'm like, because what it is right now, it's rudimentary at this point I wouldn't disagree.
Speaker 1:I think, as you say, the evolution there was the physics incorporation of physics into the open world, which certainly made it feel more modern. I think opening up the whole gameplay arena um made it feel new and modern. If they'd trotted up with those tree-lined corridors again, it would have got absolutely flamed, wouldn't it?
Speaker 2:Some people love that, though Some people love the dungeon style of Zelda.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it keeps the narrative tight, but I think if they'd gone with that on Breath of the Wild or launched a game like that during Breath of the Wild to make it seem worthwhile and the fact it had advanced, they'd have had to have voice acted everybody to give it that feeling, because that linearity and storytelling would really hurt if you then had to read every single on-text screen or hear some Simish like You're ready, um. So yeah, I mean, maybe that's what they're going to be able to do with the next switch, maybe they're going to be able to lean more into maybe voicing these characters more and we see more of them.
Speaker 2:but I mean you got that with immortals phoenix rising. Everybody was voiced there and it's basically a Zelda game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it was a Ubisoft version of a Zelda game and therefore it sold about three copies, didn't it? Let's face it, yeah, to me Immortals, phoenix Rising should have maybe been what a Kid Icarus game looks like on a modern machine.
Speaker 1:You know we hadn't had kid icarus for years and I always used to sit and bemoan the fact they'd kind of killed the character. You know I loved kid icarus off the back of the captain n cartoon um the games master, which I still like watching now. Um, their take on megaman and other people was hilarious. Mother brain like really wow. Um, but to see kid Icarus got a 3ds shoot them up game, which I don't really feel for me, lent into what kid Icarus is, no, um, you know, immortals, fenyx Rising could have been a really good kid Icarus game, but you know it's probably never going to happen. And that's the other thing. Nintendo probably need to be aware of that. They are stomping and PlayStation and not Xbox so much anymore, but PlayStation for sure and Nintendo are stomping the mud hole dry on the people's ability to keep taking these franchises again and again and again and again and again.
Speaker 1:I'm right there with you um, I think there's gonna be franchise fatigue.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I I want to. I want to pose a question to you, um, because I know we we talked about metroid. I think we're off that that subject. On the zelda thing, though what does z, does Zelda look like after Fable comes out? Because I think Fable is going to blow the doors off of what an open world I would almost call that. A Zelda-like game is going to look like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Fable's take on.
Speaker 2:That world has always been a little bit more team mature in terms of its gameplay not its, but it's jokes and it's narrative um but still, I mean, everyone always thinks about the game of the narrative and like the humor of of fable. But like gameplay wise they're kind of similar if you think about it, like the way they're kind of structured of like I'd say, fable's a little more advanced because you actually have like the switch between magic and projectiles is a little more.
Speaker 1:I say it's more advanced in that regard, but I think it's slightly retarded. In terms of its sort of puzzles nintendo was kind of addicted to, like the the temple scenario of Zelda. It was pivotal and and that that creeped its way into breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom for sure, but less so in terms of like, absolutely you have to go here and you have to do this and you have to get that new thing here. There were elements of that in some of those sort of mini quests where you kind of move the, the logs around and things like that. You know, very interesting, you know, fable never felt like you went into an. You know you went into arenas and you basically just laid waste to dudes. It wasn't as mature, I don't know, as a fable, maybe as mature gameplay wise as as a good zelda but I think I would.
Speaker 2:I would say zelda is more you have to. It's more thought-provoking in the sense there's like puzzle elements to its combat there's puzzle elements. That's kind of what I'm trying to intimate in my, you know, rudimentary country, bumpkin way but no, I I do think like, what does a playground games fable look like and then does that influence Zelda or vice versa, is what I'm wondering.
Speaker 1:I don't know if it influences Zelda, but they certainly maybe ought to be taking a look at what other people are doing because you know, as we've said previously in this conversation, the evolution of Zelda needs to be. There's going to be no way for Nintendo to hide when Switch 2 comes around, and you alluded to this at the start of the show. You know the Switch was a pretty easy ride for them. They got lucky that off the back of the Wii U, nintendo was written off as dead and the Switch came along like the Messiah and uplifted them and saved them. But it also gave them a really easy get out of jail free card in all that Wii U software that they could repackage and chuck out there um, and they did earn it with what I'm saying, with like seven different titles, but outside of those seven I'm like what?
Speaker 2:what did? What did you do here? I want to see.
Speaker 1:No, they didn't do anything they innovated from a hardware point of view but from a software point of view they hid behind the wii u's greatest hits, um, and people bought a wii u and waited years to get those those hits, to kind of make their console worth buying. I had a wii u day and date um thought it was going to be the next coming of christ. It wasn't. He basically sat on use for over a year and then I got rid of it because I was just done. Um, I felt insulted. I felt you know, the hardware was a joke.
Speaker 2:You couldn't walk more than two yards away from machine and it work on the screen and we're gonna have to do an episode about this one day of you, of you and I talking about and probably rgt talking about, like our gaming regrets, because it sounds like between this vr and, you know, maybe dreamcast connect. I was like original xbox to some degree.
Speaker 1:I felt like I got kicked with um. You looked over at the ps2 and you're like wow, yeah, I know maybe I've got it on a slightly better graphical fidelity, but you had it first and you kind of want a different stuff by now, yeah for sure. And then you know I could wind that back to the atari st. That wasn't really a choice, that was a gift from my parents, which I'll always be grateful for yeah, yeah, I'm talking about stuff you actually chose, though, stuff you probably like.
Speaker 1:Oh, that that's gonna be my mom, oh I know it did gangbuster numbers, but I got a 3ds day and date and was like, is really, I've bought this to play a game I finished on n64 in 3d. And I'll be honest with you. Why did I do this?
Speaker 1:you know I never touched the 3ds, if I'm being honest it was a well-built bit of kit and once the gimmick of 3d had gone away it felt like a very hollow game boy really, with n64 level kind of graphics on and a bit better. So, yeah, I don't know that it wasn't for me at that time. Maybe if I was living the way I'm living now when that came out, yeah, maybe it would be, but it wasn't and I felt let down by it. It. But that's a conversation for another day.
Speaker 1:But if anyone wants to get in touch and correct us on what we've spoken about, we've gone in depth on quite a lot of things. So no doubt multiple mistakes have been made and if you want to confess your gaming mistakes, how would the masses get in contact? Seb, and let us know that George wouldn't know one end of a fable from the other and his comments about Zelda are completely flawed because he got rid of his Wii U and he's not obviously knowledge enough about Nintendo to even comment on it. How would they get in touch and let us know?
Speaker 2:Well, everybody you know this has been a great episode. Thank you for tuning in. If you want to get in touch with us, you can hit up George and Sebastian ak AKA, the video game tag team champions of the world, by by shooting us a message. You, um, you can shoot us a message on discord. We can, you can read out. We can read out all your live questions on questions at UCP are unofficial controller, podcastcom. Or you can DM us on the Instagram and Twitter and the video game tag team champions of the world, the road dog George and the bad a S is going to read all those out for you. Anyway, I had triple.
Speaker 1:S the bad.
Speaker 2:Triple S is going to read all those out for you. But, george, you know, I think it's time for us to take a peek in Sting Ray's boot.
Speaker 1:You're absolutely right Now, fresh off his heroics last week and I don't know if you saw the AI image of Ray with a mouse on his shoulder I didn't see it, I've got to go look that up.
Speaker 1:Steaming out the gates of Pastor Longhorn'se combine, as you quite rightly called it last week. Uh, I, I thought that was a great episode, probably been less humor this week, but uh, it's good to know you're safe and well and you're sort of reintegrating after your time in a cult. Uh, can't, can't have been an easy time, I have to admit. No, what the race is, I've been chilling in a bunker.
Speaker 2:right now, it's to make sure that I'm waiting until everything blows over.
Speaker 1:You see, in series one of the show we actually recorded in an abandoned nuclear bunker called the Games Bunker. For those that want to dig into that, that's episodes one to God knows 90 maybe. From then on we moved to new york and, uh, we even recorded on a submarine. Um, we've had all sorts of things go on. We had a plane crash live on air. Um, we've met scrooge in the christmas carol. Um, I even met a man that was voiced by Mike Rouse, gaming celebrity, but was made up of Tom's retro consoles.
Speaker 1:If you want to find out what that's all about, dig into the back catalogue, I implore you. There's console retrospectives. There's series retrospectives. There's talking points. Did the Wii U? Did the Switch? Did the Wii U kill the Switch? Some along those lines.
Speaker 1:Greatest gaming peripherals of all time. If you want to know what Sega Activator is, you probably best listen to that episode. That's one of my favourites. We've got what I would call CGI-heavy episodes where we've got loads of sound effects. Me and Bobby went back in time to the launch of the original Xbox. That, to me, is a particularly great episode. That starts with OG Tom getting arrested for the Epstein Island actions.
Speaker 1:So there's a bizarrely underneath this gaming news show. Is this almost soap like storyline? It's been a bit story like this week, but knowing that Seb's living in the ucp bunker hiding out from pastor longhorn puts a smile on my face. And to that end, it's time for a peek in what we affectionately call stingray's boot. What's nestled between some counterfeit nappies and a dodgy copy about a friend? All this week these have been released. Highlights for the week june 23rd to june 30th 2024 listeners theseers these aren't digital, physical or will be by the time. This podcast is in your feed but could be region-dependent. You say the Switch is dead cowboy, but it's got its finger in every pie in the boot this week yeah, it does because, like first up, we got the greatest hang on that's going to be ever made hang on.
Speaker 1:How are you seeing ray?
Speaker 2:oh okay. So now that I'm back, you know we got to bring back, we got to take ray, or at least his cousin, back to his roots.
Speaker 1:So right now, how dare you bring billy bob country right out here, billy?
Speaker 2:bob country ray is back, everybody, but this time he's taking the. He's taking the trip to sweet old louisiana, right down, right down the interstate, right there. So instead of um him wearing his trademark overalls and and usual garners and such like that, he's wearing a more of occasion get up. He's wearing occasion um, two-piece suit, which is right, yeah. So it's almost like cajun, right, extra spicy today. So so he's wearing a, um, a brown, a brown like actual dress suit. It has, like the louisiana, like almost new orleans states logos all over it and such that, and then underneath it, instead of a dress shirt, he's wearing overalls that, basically, you know, let his chest breathe a little bit on the top, and so he has, like this suit and overall combination, wow, yeah. So in his, in his back pocket, he has, like this suit and overall combination, wow, yeah. So in his back pocket he has some crawfish that he's just ready to eat at any given moment and strung over his shoulder he just has this baby gator that is either going to be a pet or maybe a snack.
Speaker 2:We're not really sure yet. George, how do you see it? Huh, no, no, no, no, wayne stayed back in Texas to watch after the farm. Okay, billy Bob Country, wayne, yeah, billy Bob Country.
Speaker 1:Wayne. Well, I'm seeing Ray as Goldie Horn this week. Goldie Horn yeah, I don't know why he's presented himself like this and I'm seeing Wayne as, like a miniature Kurt Russell. They've come as a couple, they're father and son, so I don't quite know how that works out. No, I don't even want to answer that question. I don't even want to think about it, if I'm honest with you, but that's how I'm seeing. Uh, not quite as colorfully as you, but that's how I'm seeing sting and wayne this week. Um, again, I'm imploring someone to write a wikipedia down of how all the different ways ray and wayne have been seen.
Speaker 2:I think that would be fascinating um, I think we need a wayne country, uh, a stingray country or tree, a stingway family tree to a family tree where there are all these different variants yeah, what about goldie? Horn ray yeah, yeah, where's he from?
Speaker 1:that's awesome. So that's that, and get your hand in the boot and pull out for me this first title.
Speaker 2:What you got, um, this might be the greatest switch game or to ever grace. The switch is pull out for me this first title, what you got. Um, this might be the greatest switch game or to ever grace. The switch is coming out on june 27th 2024. It's luigi's mansion 2. Everybody in hd evershade valley valley has been in a frightening fog. The particular dark moon which once hung in the sky pacifying the land in ghostly inhabitants, has mysteriously shattered. Witnessing this strange phenomenon, ghost researcher Professor E Gad calls upon Luigi to stop the ghost from wreaking havoc across the valley. Can the cowardly hero gather his courage and find the scattered pieces of the dark moon and restore peace? I was lying everybody when I called this the greatest switch game. To come to the switch, by the way I?
Speaker 1:I might not be. I think it will present really well on the switch's screen um do you think this is the best luigi game?
Speaker 1:No, no, I don't. I had an absolutely rip-roaring time when I finally got my hands on Luigi's Mansion 3 and thought it was actually probably one of the Switch's best games. If I'm honest, I really loved it. It was exactly everything a Nintendo game should be, and it paid homage to the original Luigi's Mansion and this one, while also kind of moving the genre forward a little bit. So, yeah, I'll be interested to check this out, though I kind of want it to be a budget-ish title. So I need to check the RRP on this bad boy. I shouldn't think it will be. It'll be 70 bucks, no doubt.
Speaker 2:Is that the European or UK version of MSRP?
Speaker 1:Yeah, RRP. Yeah, I guess it is Registered retail price I think it stands for, but MSRP is the same thing. I'm reaching in. I'm not pulling out anything anywhere near as glamorous as Luigi's Mansion 2 HD on the Switch. I'm pulling out Spy X, Anya Operation Memories on PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch and PC. I couldn't find confirmation of an Xbox Series release, but we'll update you on the Discord if I do find evidence of that. June 28th 2024, Anya Forger has to create a photo diary, collect memories at school and other exciting locations, play with over 15 mini games inspired by the popular manga series. Can you help Anya fill up her photo diary? Before we let Ray disappear and make his way around the rest of the world dropping off these gaming goodies, we've got to pick a retro VHS out. The boot, boot. I look at you. Seven ask to you what are you taking home?
Speaker 2:movie wise this week I think I'm a retro one. I think I'm going to. I think I'm gonna pick the rescue rangers movie rescue rangers movie.
Speaker 1:What the newish one?
Speaker 2:no, no, no no, the old one, the old one, the the old one, either that. No, I think I'm gonna go with the goofy movie. I like the goofy movie a little bit. That is good, that is. I love that one well, I'm gonna.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna inspired by you, I'm gonna take home that new version of chip and dale rescue rangers where they kind of. It's not bad it's actually good, isn't? It yeah revisit their lives a bit further down the line, where ones are kind of washed out bum and the other ones like a mega movie star, I. I think that was really well done and the integration into the other pantheons of cinema that it crosses, I thought, was really, you know, quite sweet I laughed for like five minutes when they introduced like the bootleg characters.
Speaker 2:Oh, it hit me so hard I just think that was.
Speaker 1:You know, it didn't have to be as good as it was, it would have been fine if it just been a solid nostalgia trip but to to kind of spin it on its head and play with the the lore around cartoons Generally, it felt almost like it crossed into. You know who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Speaker 2:Roger Rabbit.
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah like it had a lot going on and I think it landed probably 90% of what it was going for. So I think it's worth a watch, especially if you've got a soft spot for the series. Or I think the pilot was merged into a movie maybe you know to become the rescue Rangers movie, but yeah, all all good. I mean I looked down on the floor and there's a copy of overboard a Goldie horn movie, uh, with Kurt Russell in it on the floor, but he's badly worn and water damaged, and I also see what looks like an alligator tooth and a claw, a crawfish claw. So that's Ray, done and dusted.
Speaker 1:Before I ask you, sir, what you're hoping to play, if you have a little dig into the Discord OUCP hosts message chat, you'll find a list of our very loyal supporters who pay money on a monthly basis to support the show. I probably ought to just to those that listen to the show and you want to get involved in supporting it. The show will always be free. So if you just stumbled across this and you're like, hang on a minute, it's going to make me pay, absolutely not the George Newton. Bottom guarantee to you, ladies and gentlemen, is that this show will always be free, no matter where you find it. You will never have to pay. But if you choose to support the show, there's a couple of tiers that are going to make that worthwhile. I'd imagine $3. You're going to get read out on every show, as you're about to hear, For $5. To get read out on every show, as you're about to hear for $5. You get read out on every show and art merch yearly, Cause we update our album art on a yearly basis. Uh, $8. You're going to get read out on every show. You're going to get the yearly art merch plus access to the inglorious chat that is the sort of exclusive area on the discord. The discord is also free and it always will be. But if you want to get into the, the hall of fame, um, you've got to be at the eight dollar level. If you want to go to a level above that and we're truly humbled if you would do that and and very humbled by you for doing so out there at the moment for ten dollars you're going to get read out on every show. You're going to get art merch yearly and you're going to get access to the unglorious chat and the quarterly Zoom chat with hosts who no doubt will wing in either Bobby or Seb as well, time dependent and hopefully make a real song and dance of it.
Speaker 1:Rgt's had his first verbal warning because that's not been set up yet. Yeah, I'm harsh, I'm savage, but I am what I am to that end. First out the gates is because that's not been set up yet. Yeah, I'm harsh, I'm savage, but I am what I am To that end. First out the gates is the wonderful Trestles of New York. We've hosted an episode there. Thank you for your support. Seb looks like he's still hunting through his Discord for a list, so I shall read out Badabinkster and TingleTuner. Seb, I will run with this, Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:I'm having trouble, seb. I saw in the background that you were kind of all over Discord and didn't know where to be, so it was in the host chat. But, like I say, I'll run this through row. Space monk, the gaming, gram bull, border boba marathon gaming seal master elliot, my ginger steps on ginge. Emma sharp, uh, no longer on the apps, apparently. Uh, harvey retro, the king of darkness, nowhere near berlin, the sexiest man to even put a finger into forever skies. Uh, the beloved mumsy. Uh, where would we be without her? Probably not even born. The immortal rgt fan club pete brocklehurst, billy marmite, sim Simon Pryke and Fat Zangief.
Speaker 2:Oh, fat Zangief, I have so many questions. How did RGT get this fan club?
Speaker 1:I don't know, goodness knows who even that is. It probably is Mum.
Speaker 2:I'm going to have to talk to my agent about this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, me too. I'm not getting the representation on the UCP that I kind of hoped for, but you know I'm that sort of hard yards guy in the background. Yeah, probably that annoying stain on the floor that you can't get rid of, but you know it's become a fabric of your life at this point. But you know, thank you to everyone who supports the show. We hope that you get something from this and obviously we've got the upcoming.
Speaker 1:Anyone who supported the show to a certain point is an early adopter. If you're joining after this point, the early adopters got full access for 12 months and there might be some legacy members in there that we keep at that point. But after that point it will reset and you'll need to be at the certain levels to make the most of it. So enjoy the early adopter phase while it lasts, and hopefully that whets your appetite for a bit more and hopefully everyone else will. I mean, I feel like $8 is the sweet spot, so we might need to kind of move the tiers around, so, but you know our GT is on with that. Yeah, I just yeah for sure.
Speaker 2:He is a fan club for a reason Everybody. He yeah for sure, floating an hour. He is a fan club for a reason everybody.
Speaker 1:He handles all this he does With all that said and done. Ray's gone. We've talked what feels like in-depth about games. Yeah for sure, proper gaming podcast Last week. It could be leveled. Are you really a gaming news show this week? I think it could be leveled that we came dressed as a gaming news show. Yeah, suit tie, I think it could be leveled that we came dressed as a gaming news show. Suit tie shirt the lot they're like. You're too much of a gaming news show this week. Yeah, next week needs to be full chaos and bring it on. Let's skip to the question now, on the tips of everyone's tongues, because you mentioned that you're the indie guru around here and you've been peppered with some codes. Is that what you're hoping to play next week, seth?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to be playing Corpse Keeper, which is, you know, I've already written a review about it, but, like it is basically a roguelike fighting game and you're playing as, instead of you playing as, like fighting characters. You're basically a corpse master who gets to play as different types of zombies and basically you're controlling these zombies, and it's almost like a concept actually yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1:I was hoping you were gonna say that and now you said I'm like what platforms is?
Speaker 2:this on um PC and PS5 right now. So that one's a good one. Let's see, I'll be playing a little bit of that and then I'll be diving into a couple of other things and really I'm just biding my time before I probably full-fledged. Let my life be devoured by NCAA football and the return of that. Oh wow, you're going to go. There, are you? I think I am. It's been a long time coming.
Speaker 1:I want to slap the taste out of your mouth because I bet you've not even touched MLB this year and I guess that's kind of okay.
Speaker 2:It's on Game Pass, so I touched it. I didn't pay for it. How?
Speaker 1:deep did the digits sink on MLB this year? One knuckle, two knuckle or the full fist.
Speaker 2:About three knuckle. About three knuckle. I played about five hours. Enough to kind of say, okay, I see some similarities here, but I which bit did you?
Speaker 1:Did you go road to the show or were you just all over the place?
Speaker 2:I went road to the show and then I played one pickup game, so it wasn't like I dove full-fledged into it. But road to the show. I didn't even get out of the minors before I was distracted by other things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I'm kind of just on my way out the minors right now and I talked about this last week the transitions away from always being in the clubhouse to being on a plane or on a coach, or in your bedroom, in your flat or a hotel I don't even know what it is but they've been welcomed, they've padded it out without needing to go completely ridiculous with an EAafc style story, which I was happy with. But yeah, much like you, I don't want them to change road to the show because I believe it's like really classically done. I don't want like a nmba 2k style story no that's too much, it's gross it really is gross.
Speaker 1:And even the madden, you know, career mode that I've toyed with you know I was I just found it gross, it didn't. It didn't feel classy at all, it just felt like a ps2 game, you know, it was all I'm more of a sports guy than I am.
Speaker 2:I'm more of a franchise guy than I am like a career mode guy, if that makes sense. I like building up like the bottom of the barrel team to try to be a juggernaut by naturally doing trades or picking up free agents, that sort of thing. I it's almost like you in baseball, where you're like I love the minutiae of the sport and I want to actually like dig into like the layers and the spreadsheets and all that kind of stuff. That's why I am with like more of my sports games to where, like, I'm not a career guy unless it's like the tail end of like the life cycle of that game. So like, right before, right before like 25 comes out, I basically spend all the points that I've acquired um by playing like the regular franchise mode onto my career mode and then I see how well my, my juggernaut of a player will really play after the cumulative time of the year points have been on them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so, um, well, that's interesting um, I think though I think that's what I'm really gonna play is like v rising, and uh, I do. I am going to attend a small get together um online, and we're going to be playing the demo of the the power rangers beatem-up game that was just announced, and so I'll report on that next week, when we all get together, that'll be quite the hook In terms of what I'm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm looking at. I've got a bit of time to myself this weekend. Girlfriend's at work, kids are away, but I'm kind of a little bit. I'm kind of gasping around like a like a fish out of water, if I'm honest with you, because I'm like I want to make this weekend special in terms of being able to just unhook all day and into most of the night uninterrupted on a game. But what's what's there for me? Like I'm gonna spend the next sort of 24, 48 hours trying to, you know, solidify down on a decision and get that downloaded on the machine so I can wake up saturday morning and tear into it. I should imagine the reality would be more like this I'll peruse the store and playstation premium and Switch and Games Pass for several hours until Friday night. I'll wake up Saturday morning and do the same and then I'll probably just play Helldivers 2 and it'll be Monday again already and it'll be back to normality. So yeah, I hate to sound.
Speaker 2:If you want to try something new, V Rising is one that is like Hades meets Diablo. I kind of like.
Speaker 1:I went in on it a little bit. I didn't download it for sure, I didn't actually play it myself, but after what we spoke about I was super, super intrigued on the premise. So I went and found myself a trailer and started watching that gameplay yeah yeah, gameplay.
Speaker 1:There's a gameplay trailer kicking around where you can see kind of how people are playing it, and I was like, oh, you have to be in the mood for it. You do have to be in the mood for that. Yeah, it wasn't quite. When you explained it to me, my imagination ran away.
Speaker 2:And I was like oh, wow, you know this.
Speaker 1:in my mind it was.
Speaker 2:I kind of knew the concept, but my mind walked it into something completely different, and the gameplay grounded me back to Planet Earth in terms of what it actually was.
Speaker 1:No, it's more of a Diablo meets the Sims kind of job, and that's the vibe I got and that's not quite what I'm looking for. I'm kind of looking for a palate cleanser, but also something that kind of piques my interest. By the time this episode goes live, sadly, any recommendations you put to me will be on deaf ears. Sadly, because that moment will have gone. You'll be listening to this on the second day of me kind of wondering what the hell I'm going to play. So if you hear this and you hear it in a good time I'll see if we can schedule this to release early doors on the Sunday. So if you get to this point, you're like actually, george, you should try this, hit me up on a DM on the Discord, or if you're not, on the Discord.
Speaker 2:Did you like the new Prince of Persia?
Speaker 1:Do you know, I didn't even bother to get it because I don't know why it just didn't scratch my itch for what I'm looking for. I know it's been received well, but I don't know if it's actually my cup of tea.
Speaker 2:Are you a Metroidvania person?
Speaker 1:Not really Kind of Kind of. I'm not against it. I feel that as I've got older, my ability to play those games has diminished. I suppose I don't know if it's an age thing or whether I was never that good at games in the first place those that game game, those that can't podcast. We know this, don't we? So I'm obviously garbage at games and spend all my day talking about them. But yeah, I'm just looking at.
Speaker 1:I don't want to dive into a franchise I've already played, played to have another playthrough of a game. I just I'm not. I don't want to do that. I just want to find something new that's that's got a good story hook, um, or maybe even like an anno or something like that. But I've been just looking everywhere, dude, and I even kind of circled around marvel's midnight suns hey, it's free on epic right now. It is, it's free on a lot of places. And it's free on Epic right now, it is, it's free on a lot of places and it's like, oh, maybe. But then I read about like a card element of it and I suddenly started. I felt my interest waning and I was like oh no, yeah, I'm a.
Speaker 2:you know I like strategy games. I recently dove into a game called Capes. It is a strategy fire emblem game that is like superhero based to where it's like it's the boys meets. It is like the boys?
Speaker 1:I don't know, because if it's on PC, I'm I'm done.
Speaker 2:I'm playing on an Xbox. Well, like I, I plan on picking it. Like I plan I playing on Xbox. But I'm playing. I'm streaming from my Xbox to my Steam Deck Because right after we get done recording, I'm going outside and checking on a brisket. I have on the grill. Oh, a bit of barbecue boy, yeah, yeah. So I barbecued my dog. Some hot dogs, got some burgers on there. I thought you were going to say you barbecued your dog. I was like wow, no, no, I thought they were going to beloved ucp.
Speaker 2:Mutt times haven't gotten gotten that hard. But um, but no, I have a. Yeah, I have a big brisket on the grill. I'm gonna, I'm gonna check on, but yeah, it's that only on capes.
Speaker 2:Capes is like a x-com slash, fire emblem meets uh, basically the boys, um, super, except like, except the boys is like, very gritty, it's down to earth. The capes in this one are the. The superheroes aren't the bad guys. They're still the good guys, but superheroes have been outlawed. So it's more like x-men, if I'm being honest. X-men with the boys riding in a fire emblem style to where, like, you have to learn how to use your superpower, your, your team's superpowers to basically do objectives and defeat all the enemies on the map so, if you like fire, I've got the trailer up and running in the background and actually mildly intrigued by it it's.
Speaker 1:He's got, as you say, all those elements of strategy x-com, the superhero element like, like you know, that's front and center right on its chest, that's obviously where it's at and I, you know, I'm mildly intrigued. I kind of almost like the kind of PS2 aesthetic of it as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the art style. Really, I really dig the art style, but yeah, I think it's really fun. I think the writing is a really good mixture between campy and like grounded in a way. Um, the characters do play back and forth with with each other a little bit, especially when you're at your home base. So I think that that element kind of got to me, get got to me a little bit, and I like the, the mixture of like the powers that they chose, because they didn't.
Speaker 2:Some of them do feel like a copy of like some of the tried tropes that you have like. There is a guy who's very much almost like storm. There is another person who's very much like um, um kurt from the x-men, where it's just a blink back and forth. But yeah, I think there's really cool powers that they have and I think the story doesn't overstay its welcome. But it's a really good challenge as well. So I think that one's a good one. If you want something while watching the boys, especially right now, I'm like it. It scratches that itch. I'm still playing a good superhero game excellent uh.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, I think that brings us to the end of another great show and thank you everyone for listening. We're we're super stoked you did. And don't forget to get in the back catalog and download some of the uh shows that you might pique your interest. History of a million different consoles in there, game boy to dreamcast to ps2 even. I think we got as far as that before that series ended, so there's plenty there for everyone to dig into. If you want to support the show, obviously you've heard the ways to do that, um seb. If they want to find you on social media outside of the discord, where would they look?
Speaker 2:yeah, y'all can just type in sebastian um, sebastian pnr on all your social media platforms and then, just you know, just send me a message on the discord. Um, I'm ramping up with a new project lately. I'll give you more information about that soon. I want to challenge you, though, people. Bobby has been doing a solo episode. I'm going to do a solo episode for the UCP, but I want y'all to give me a topic, and let me run wild. Give me a topic in the Discord. I'll do a solo episode for you or me, and George will read out a topic of your choice. Everyone, get on the Discord, that's the place to be Sculpt.
Speaker 1:Sebastian, that's probably what this we can sculpt you into, anything we want you to be. Yeah, I just don't want you to be Astro Bless. Wow. I don't want them to sculpt you into Country Ray, though I think that might be a bit too far, but I'm intrigued to see what they come up with and certainly hyped for. However, that develops into a solo episode, which you know I'm all ears for. I love it. With that all said and done, seb, is there anything more you want to impart to our wonderful listeners?
Speaker 2:nah, man, thank y'all so much for embracing me once again. Love this community, always glad to be a part of man. Thank y'all so much for embracing me once again. I love this community, always glad to be a part of it. Thank y'all so much, um george, where can they find y'all?
Speaker 1:how they can find me on the discord, lurking in the background, always lurking, always watching, never really saying a great deal. You'll see the little yellow and pink original series, one artwork appear because I don't know how to change it on every comment that I kind of like or find you know interesting screenshots or whatever it is you're posting. Or even when I dip into the culinary delights section where people post up their meals, uh, every now and then I drop a like a poo in there. Um, normally sat in the downtown abbey section all by myself looking at downtown abbey memes, uh, that I've posted over the last five years. Other than that they can find me. I'm probably the face behind the social media, on Twitter and on Instagram. I've also got a personal Instagram account called Spiel Barnhoff, probably quite easy to find if you want to see what my face looks like.
Speaker 2:Them is your only fans, right.
Speaker 1:Well, there's a link to my only fans on there.
Speaker 2:Okay, gotcha, gotcha.
Speaker 1:It's definitely not safe for work, but I wouldn't say it's as deep as you went on MLB this year. It's probably only one finger, one knuckle.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's safe.
Speaker 1:To use the UK terminology, probably upstairs, upstairs, on a first date. Maybe a squeeze of the chest through a band Don't, to use the UK terminology, probably upstairs, upstairs, on a first date. You know, maybe a squeeze of the chest through.
Speaker 2:Don't watch at work everybody but watch on the way home when you, when you're driving home, you're riding the transit home.
Speaker 1:Um, I think that if that's where they want to find me, that they're more than welcome to. Uh, I implore everyone to join the discord as well. It's free if you want to continue the conversation. Get involved with some of the like-minded fans of the show. Maybe get involved in some of the free challenges. There are prizes to win, so game-based challenges. Challenge accepted is pokemon go this week. Who can catch the the heaviest weighted pokemon? I was going to say the fattest, but I don't think that's very modern to say um, and I think there's a preview coming up of the next. Maybe the girthiest? Yeah, I did want to apply that, but only because Pokemon that are surprisingly small end up weighing like eight tons and weird stuff like that. I don't know enough about Pokemon to fully comment. Maybe dense the densest the densest? Yeah, but in the UK we would use the word dense to describe someone who wasn't the brightest bulb in the house.
Speaker 1:Oh, so we use that as weight.
Speaker 2:He's a bit dense.
Speaker 1:That's funny, but yeah, so get involved. We'd love to hear more from you. One of the best things about this show is meeting, meeting the people that that listen um, either online or in person. So, yeah, um, be good to see you all. To that end, I would say that's all we have time for this week. Listeners, as always, thank you for your time. Look forward to the pleasure of speaking to you again next week. Until then, happy gaming. Remember, there's nothing wrong with being given the unofficial controller. It's what you do with it that counts. See you, seb. Bye.