July's Best Indie Games And Marvel Rivals | GI Show

<v Speaker 1>What is going on? Everybody? Welcome to the Game Informer Show,
<v Speaker 1>a weekly podcast covering the video game industry. I'm one
<v Speaker 1>of your hosts today, Alex van Aiken. Thank you for
<v Speaker 1>joining us every Thursday for a discussion about the latest
<v Speaker 1>gaming news, reviews, and exclusive reveals, alongside Game Former staff
<v Speaker 1>and special guests around the industry. Today, I'm joined by
<v Speaker 1>Marcus Stewart. How you doing, Marcus?
<v Speaker 2>Good? I made a very exciting purchase recently.
<v Speaker 1>Oh it really tell me the first time ever.
<v Speaker 2>In my life, I bought a pillow.
<v Speaker 1>Oh that's awesome. Congratulations, It's huge.
<v Speaker 2>It's it is. It's nice. Say, I never thought that
<v Speaker 2>you could do such a thing. I've always just put
<v Speaker 2>up with what I had, But what I had has
<v Speaker 2>not been doing great for me and my neck.
<v Speaker 1>You thought they stopped manufacturing pillows like twenty years ago.
<v Speaker 3>Like like VCR players.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>I think it's one of those things that as an adult,
<v Speaker 2>like transitioning from a child to an adult, you the
<v Speaker 2>light bulb of I can purchase a thing that has
<v Speaker 2>always just been readily available. That particular light bulb didn't
<v Speaker 2>go off yet for pillows or bed stuff because I'm
<v Speaker 2>not I was like, oh, I just always have bedding.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you know.
<v Speaker 2>And I'm also a guy that is like very frugal
<v Speaker 2>slash I can put up with. I'm low maintenance. Let's
<v Speaker 2>just say sure, like I don't really need nice stuff.
<v Speaker 2>But in this case, I was like, oh, this, this
<v Speaker 2>is hurting a lot. I could just not put up with.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, it's not supposed to hurt.
<v Speaker 2>Good pillow.
<v Speaker 1>I think about pillows. They are supposed to be comfortable.
<v Speaker 3>That's what I like sleeping.
<v Speaker 1>I think painless is usually.
<v Speaker 2>I actually looked up like high rated pillows that weren't
<v Speaker 2>obscenely expensive and got like a nice one, and it
<v Speaker 2>felt really weird to spend money on something like that.
<v Speaker 1>That's awesome.
<v Speaker 3>Adult Marcus over.
<v Speaker 2>Here, I know, I know, you don't become a man
<v Speaker 2>so you buy a pillow. It really puts hair on
<v Speaker 2>your chest.
<v Speaker 1>That other voice you're hearing is none other than our
<v Speaker 1>editor in chief Matt Miller, who was also an adult
<v Speaker 1>joining this on the show. How are you doing today, Matt,
<v Speaker 1>and confirm I do, I do try, I do try.
<v Speaker 1>I'm doing well. I have a pillow at home, so
<v Speaker 1>I'm feeling good about that, and I have other you
<v Speaker 1>know things, that adults.
<v Speaker 3>Need at home. Of course, of course you know I
<v Speaker 3>forks plates.
<v Speaker 1>My I have recently a parchased some things that aren't pillows.
<v Speaker 1>But I got some new guitar pedals within the last month.
<v Speaker 1>I got a blue Sky Stryman. I had one of
<v Speaker 1>these guitar pedals a very long time ago. It was
<v Speaker 1>my favorite pedal, and I is a dummy and sold it,
<v Speaker 1>so I recently bought one again. And then for any
<v Speaker 1>other gearheads listening, I got the Hologram Chroma console, which
<v Speaker 1>is a really sleek looking multi effects pedal. Very cool stuff.
<v Speaker 4>The verdict, I'm sorry to say that the verdict just
<v Speaker 4>came in alex that does not help with your adult.
<v Speaker 1>Oh no, gear okay.
<v Speaker 3>Does not count points towards adults.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, all right again next week, yep, we'll do. This
<v Speaker 1>would be our recurring segment. What I bost bought last week.
<v Speaker 2>If it's inching you closer to adulthood or not.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's that should be an important metric. I guess. Well. Cool, Well,
<v Speaker 1>we've got a packed show today. This is a video
<v Speaker 1>game podcast. If it's your first time listening, welcome. We
<v Speaker 1>are Game Informer magazine. The thing you were reading when
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<v Speaker 1>your hands very soon. Let's get started with the show.
<v Speaker 1>Today we're gonna be diving into Marvel Rivals. I know
<v Speaker 1>we talked to it. Y'all talked about it a bit
<v Speaker 1>last week. I was a'n on, Miller wasn't on, So
<v Speaker 1>we've got a lot to say. I beat Thank goodness
<v Speaker 1>you're here. I'm excited to dive into that. Matt's been
<v Speaker 1>playing Dungeons of Hinterberg, got four strike on the Agenda,
<v Speaker 1>Silent Hill too, the Old One Arranger, and maybe a
<v Speaker 1>little more. So it's gonna be a good show. I
<v Speaker 1>will stop stop vamping, I will stop delaying. Let's get
<v Speaker 1>into it. Matt, you have been playing Marvel Rivals. I've
<v Speaker 1>been playing it quite a lot. I'm checking. I'm pulling
<v Speaker 1>out my Steam right now to see my hour count.
<v Speaker 1>I got fourteen hours in it, so I'm feeling pretty
<v Speaker 1>pretty good.
<v Speaker 2>For clarification, because I have not yet played it, but
<v Speaker 2>I would like to. It's not is it an open
<v Speaker 2>beta or how do you play this game?
<v Speaker 4>It's a closed beta. Yeah, closed beta.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, so I can't get it into it basically.
<v Speaker 3>Well, I think I think if you want it.
<v Speaker 4>To play, I might have a connection. I know some
<v Speaker 4>people in the gaming industry, Marcus but I think generally speaking,
<v Speaker 4>if you're out there in the world, I don't think
<v Speaker 4>it's a thing you can just hop into.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, they were doing twitch drops and that kind of thing.
<v Speaker 1>There have have been ways if you hit level six
<v Speaker 1>in the game, you can get invites to give away.
<v Speaker 1>But the thing with that is they're all first come,
<v Speaker 1>first serve daily and so I've been I'm like level
<v Speaker 1>level twelve or something, and I have yet to get
<v Speaker 1>an invite code through. That means so, yeah, it's it's
<v Speaker 1>kind of hard, honestly to get in.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, but we're.
<v Speaker 1>Gonna be diving into the game itself for people who
<v Speaker 1>didn't get to play talk all about it. But milliarly,
<v Speaker 1>what are your what are your early thoughts on it?
<v Speaker 4>Well, I'm abound the same place you are. I bet
<v Speaker 4>I've looked at my hour acount. I'm playing on PlayStation,
<v Speaker 4>but I'm betting I'm somewhere around twelve hours probably. Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>And it's surprised me. You know, I was really attracted
<v Speaker 4>when they did the announcement to their interesting art style
<v Speaker 4>that they're kind of playing around with, And the more
<v Speaker 4>I've seen of that, the more I like it. Now
<v Speaker 4>that I'm actually playing it. It's very very stylized and
<v Speaker 4>kind of doing its own thing with the Marvel heroes
<v Speaker 4>that most of us are very familiar with. But I
<v Speaker 4>wasn't sure what to expect out of the gameplay. And
<v Speaker 4>as I started, I think I'd be curious what your
<v Speaker 4>experience was.
<v Speaker 3>But I was.
<v Speaker 4>I was like, oh, this is so pretty. But then
<v Speaker 4>I wasn't really digging it for the first like half
<v Speaker 4>an hour I was playing it. Maybe maybe the first
<v Speaker 4>hour I was still kind of like on the fence,
<v Speaker 4>and then it kind of clicked, and thus, you know,
<v Speaker 4>another eleven hours after that, I'm still like coming back
<v Speaker 4>for more matches. There's no doubt that it It draws
<v Speaker 4>heavily and unabashedly from the Overwatch formula.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and at times.
<v Speaker 4>Is even directly like did you like this character? And
<v Speaker 4>Overwatch We've got you covered, right. I mean, like, for instance,
<v Speaker 4>there's a there's one of the characters who goes around
<v Speaker 4>the matches skating and healing people, you know, I mean,
<v Speaker 4>like it's that.
<v Speaker 3>Close of a thing.
<v Speaker 4>There's another character who's a kind of a cute, spunky
<v Speaker 4>girl who hops in a mech and you.
<v Speaker 3>Know, rex people.
<v Speaker 4>So like there's there's definitely places where they're like they're
<v Speaker 4>trying to get somebody who enjoyed Overwatch to come and
<v Speaker 4>like and play. It even down to that you like
<v Speaker 4>this kind of character, you like the specific character, and Overwatch,
<v Speaker 4>well we've got a Marvel character that's like that. Nonetheless,
<v Speaker 4>it's it does a lot of cool things, you know,
<v Speaker 4>like and it does it well that with this kind
<v Speaker 4>of a hero shooter, having interesting, balanced characters is kind
<v Speaker 4>of the key to success, and the game has it,
<v Speaker 4>you know. Like you, like I said, you start those
<v Speaker 4>first couple of matches and you're everybody's just immediately killing you,
<v Speaker 4>of course because you don't know what you're doing. And
<v Speaker 4>then you start to gradually like, oh, okay, I've wrapped
<v Speaker 4>my head around this character, and maybe I'll go try
<v Speaker 4>this other guy, and you try that one. You kind
<v Speaker 4>of start to get that vibe, and eventually you're getting
<v Speaker 4>into that really fun loop, yeah, of constantly trying new characters,
<v Speaker 4>going back to ones that you like, expanding your repertoire
<v Speaker 4>of what you can be successful with. And I've been
<v Speaker 4>I guess say, I've been having a pretty good time.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I'm right there with you. I So I played
<v Speaker 1>this at Summer Game Fest for probably forty five minutes
<v Speaker 1>and wasn't It wasn't blown away. It was kind of passive. Mean,
<v Speaker 1>I think I talked about on the g I Show
<v Speaker 1>that week that I yeah, I just felt like it
<v Speaker 1>was missing something and it felt very derivative of Overwatch,
<v Speaker 1>which I still one agree with that second fact. I
<v Speaker 1>think it is very derivative Overwatch, like you said, Miller,
<v Speaker 1>whether that's something that's a little more I think they
<v Speaker 1>kind of wear it on their sleeve.
<v Speaker 2>Reminds me of Overwatches.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, yeah, I mean literally, I think
<v Speaker 1>almost every character in Overwatch has an ability in this
<v Speaker 1>game in some way, shape or form. I think where
<v Speaker 1>where it gets interesting is, you know, some of the
<v Speaker 1>characters those abilities in this game might be mixed and
<v Speaker 1>mac mixed and mashed up in interesting ways.
<v Speaker 3>You know.
<v Speaker 1>I'm trying to think of a specific example, but like Grew,
<v Speaker 1>for instance, he's a tank in the game, and he
<v Speaker 1>can you know, he has Zaria's Ultimate where Zaria, you know,
<v Speaker 1>throws in her graviton surge this big ball and it
<v Speaker 1>sucks people in. Grew does that with a ball of roots.
<v Speaker 1>But Greut also has some other interesting things about him,
<v Speaker 1>like characters can ride on his back for damage reduction.
<v Speaker 1>Certain characters like Rocket Raccoon, And there's a new character
<v Speaker 1>they've introduced called it's the land Shark. I don't remember
<v Speaker 1>his actual name.
<v Speaker 4>A Marvel character, Jeff the Lark from I think West
<v Speaker 4>Coast Avengers.
<v Speaker 3>It's just kind of a jokey Avengers, yeah, a little.
<v Speaker 1>Bit by the way, Shark Jeff the land Shark is awesome.
<v Speaker 1>I love playing that character. He's really really strong healer.
<v Speaker 1>But so those two characters can ride on Groot for
<v Speaker 1>damage reduction. A group can also like summon cover and
<v Speaker 1>if he's close to the cover, depending on the type
<v Speaker 1>of cover he summons, he can like if people get
<v Speaker 1>close to like the root walls, the roots will attack them.
<v Speaker 1>Because it's like okay, yeah, there's like each character almost
<v Speaker 1>has like there's one Overwatch element and there's something new
<v Speaker 1>and it kind of makes it so feel it's familiar,
<v Speaker 1>but it feels fresh. And I think those team ups
<v Speaker 1>that they're officially called team ups in the game, the
<v Speaker 1>Gruden Racket, Rocket Raccoon thing. There's other characters like Luna
<v Speaker 1>Snow can combine with uh nay More, who is from Aquaman,
<v Speaker 1>and nay More can summon.
<v Speaker 2>Like wait wait wait wait then huh I want to
<v Speaker 2>save you the wrath of the comic book fans. I
<v Speaker 2>don't know nay More. He's basically the Aquaman of mar
<v Speaker 2>Even what did I just step Did I just step
<v Speaker 2>on a rake? Yeah?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's easy to mix up.
<v Speaker 2>They're both, they're similar, they're both aquomen but there's only.
<v Speaker 1>Oh I'm a dummy. Yeah, I'm a dummy. Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I'm a dummy. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Uh yeah, wow,
<v Speaker 1>i'd really to just step on a rake. I apologize.
<v Speaker 1>I haven't editing coffee today, DC fans, Marral fans, I'm
<v Speaker 1>so sorry. Uh, nay More is like Aquaman and can summon.
<v Speaker 1>Oh god, that's like the easiest mistake to make.
<v Speaker 2>Technically, is Aquaman like name More, doesn't name More predate Aquaman?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, okay, there you go.
<v Speaker 1>Oh god, I'm gonna get I'm gonna get messages. So yeah,
<v Speaker 1>name War can place down Octopus octopi and they are
<v Speaker 1>kind of like sentries and stuff. But if if Luna
<v Speaker 1>snows on the team, uh, name Or can activate like
<v Speaker 1>an ice version of of his abilities, and there's a
<v Speaker 1>lot of really cool synergies there that I think, you know,
<v Speaker 1>make make the game. I mean, it gives it more depth.
<v Speaker 3>Number one?
<v Speaker 1>You know, should I really should I run this character
<v Speaker 1>that I really like that doesn't have any synergies with
<v Speaker 1>my current team? I really like the Punisher, but I
<v Speaker 1>don't have a Rocke Amvacoon on my team that will
<v Speaker 1>help me with Ammo and such. Or should I should
<v Speaker 1>I go and play you know, should I play iron
<v Speaker 1>Man to to buff up, you know, to team up
<v Speaker 1>with Hulk on our team and get you know, give
<v Speaker 1>the Hulk extra health. That kind of stuff. A lot
<v Speaker 1>of cool team ups and synergies there that it's like, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>is it worth playing into those synergies or in this moment,
<v Speaker 1>does it feel like I should break away from that
<v Speaker 1>and do something different to try to shake up the game?
<v Speaker 2>That seems like the coolest thing about the game as
<v Speaker 2>someone has not played it, Because to me that seems
<v Speaker 2>like as a comic book fan, it almost rewards that fandom.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know how they communicate what synergies exist, Like,
<v Speaker 2>I don't know if the game just tells you these
<v Speaker 2>characters going together, or if it's something you have to
<v Speaker 2>find out on your own.
<v Speaker 1>No, it's it's like on the screen select there are
<v Speaker 1>right above the hero roster, there's like these series of
<v Speaker 1>little squares and if you hover over them, the hover
<v Speaker 1>of the icon, it'll tell you, Okay, here's who's been
<v Speaker 1>picked on your team. If you you want to match
<v Speaker 1>with him and synergize them, you can pick these characters
<v Speaker 1>and here are the buffs you'll get. Okay, and I
<v Speaker 1>believe those are seasonal, they will rotate out. I believe,
<v Speaker 1>Oh really.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, Marcus, you're you're hitting on.
<v Speaker 4>I think one of the things that the game really
<v Speaker 4>has going for it through its license with Marvel is
<v Speaker 4>that there are very few pop culture characters that are
<v Speaker 4>more ubiquitous and familiar at this point than Marvel's superheroes
<v Speaker 4>and Marvel villains, and they they lean into that too
<v Speaker 4>to help you understand the kind of character you're going
<v Speaker 4>to play and what they might be able to do. Right, Like,
<v Speaker 4>for instance, uh Alex brought up iron Man. Right, if
<v Speaker 4>you think about iron Man and what he does in
<v Speaker 4>comics or in the movies or anything like that, it
<v Speaker 4>would feel weird if you couldn't float and fly around
<v Speaker 4>and shoot out memes and missiles as iron Man, Like,
<v Speaker 4>that's a that's a piece of information that if you
<v Speaker 4>have even a little bit of awareness of these characters,
<v Speaker 4>you already know about iron Man and you can be like, oh,
<v Speaker 4>I like that idea, I like that fantasy.
<v Speaker 3>I'm going to go do that.
<v Speaker 4>A lot of other non licensed hero shooters have to
<v Speaker 4>establish that understanding through visual visual iconography, and you know,
<v Speaker 4>just playing the game, and I think you you kind
<v Speaker 4>of come in already with a certain level of understanding
<v Speaker 4>of what you can do with these characters, at least
<v Speaker 4>with some of them, right and and I think that
<v Speaker 4>that helps a lot. The team ups are also very logical,
<v Speaker 4>right like, and they make sense if you know the characters.
<v Speaker 4>You know star if you put star Lord on your
<v Speaker 4>team and Mantis on your team, they're both guardians of
<v Speaker 4>the galaxy, and they have a thing that happens with them.
<v Speaker 3>And I think that that's that's fun to play with.
<v Speaker 4>There's a weird aspect of the gameplay that I think
<v Speaker 4>is kind of key to to to what makes the
<v Speaker 4>game fun, and that is that instead of having a character,
<v Speaker 4>there's lots of multiplayer shooters where you like, you choose
<v Speaker 4>a class, you choose a character, and that's like the
<v Speaker 4>thing you're gonna be for that match.
<v Speaker 3>This is not do that.
<v Speaker 4>You select your character and there can only be one
<v Speaker 4>character on your team of that guy, right.
<v Speaker 3>But you can change your character every time you respawn.
<v Speaker 4>And I have many times, as I'm sure you have to, Alex,
<v Speaker 4>seeing a match completely turn around. Oh yeah, because you
<v Speaker 4>know Team A is just rolling over Team B and
<v Speaker 4>then Team BE kind of like, okay, these two people
<v Speaker 4>just change characters and all of a sudden, it's a
<v Speaker 4>complete like it completely flips the dynamic. And because there's
<v Speaker 4>six characters on the field for each team, things can
<v Speaker 4>change quite fast, right, like yeah, and you suddenly it
<v Speaker 4>suddenly the payloads moving down the road and nothing's stopping it.
<v Speaker 3>And then it just stops, and you realize.
<v Speaker 4>It stopped because somebody switched over from Punisher to Doctor Strange.
<v Speaker 4>And that was the thing, Like having Doctor Strange on
<v Speaker 4>the field and having him being able to like use
<v Speaker 4>his magic to block attacks and the other people get
<v Speaker 4>behind him and all that kind of stuff was the
<v Speaker 4>thing that really made the difference. And so that that
<v Speaker 4>tactical layer is very appealing and forces you to really
<v Speaker 4>pay attention to the flow of a given match.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and be reactive to it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I want to get into a little bit Matt.
<v Speaker 1>You brought we brought this up before recording. You've also
<v Speaker 1>been playing Concord, which I know we've we've talked about
<v Speaker 1>on the show previously a bit. But I want to
<v Speaker 1>hear your thoughts on as somebody who has someone on
<v Speaker 1>the show since these game these betas have come out,
<v Speaker 1>what you think between the two because you know, you've
<v Speaker 1>got Marvel Rivals over here free to play, very derivative
<v Speaker 1>of Overwatch, but like, is it's fun?
<v Speaker 3>Right?
<v Speaker 1>Then you've got I believe forty dollars price point of
<v Speaker 1>Concord doing something a bit different, you know, still kind
<v Speaker 1>of a hero shooter, but more in line with like
<v Speaker 1>how I called duty feels a bit. What are your
<v Speaker 1>thoughts between those two games?
<v Speaker 4>And yeah, I mean it's worth worth sharing a little
<v Speaker 4>bit of background for me that like, I was an
<v Speaker 4>Overwatch guy. I played a good bit of Overwatch and
<v Speaker 4>then fell off of it.
<v Speaker 3>I don't play it as much anymore.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, but I am drawn to the idea of that
<v Speaker 4>kind of interesting different gameplay styles represented by characters having
<v Speaker 4>a little bit of a like a fictional backdrop that
<v Speaker 4>helps to bring some life to the to the game world.
<v Speaker 3>All that stuff works for me, right, I.
<v Speaker 4>Think for me moving away from Overwatch on like some
<v Speaker 4>people who just like started to hate it or something
<v Speaker 4>like that, I don't hate to Overwatch. It just was like, Oh,
<v Speaker 4>I've had enough of that. I don't need to really
<v Speaker 4>be constantly playing.
<v Speaker 3>It the way that I was.
<v Speaker 4>So both Concord and Marvel Rivals appeal to me inherently,
<v Speaker 4>and I bet that that I'm not alone in that camp, right, Like,
<v Speaker 4>I bet there's a lot of other people out there
<v Speaker 4>who are in that same space of like, yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 4>I remember, really I've played a lot of Overwatch back
<v Speaker 4>in the day, and then I just don't anymore. But
<v Speaker 4>I wouldn't mind playing another thing kind of like that.
<v Speaker 4>Both these games are trying to do that. Concord appeals
<v Speaker 4>to I liked Concord too a lot, but for different reasons.
<v Speaker 3>One of them is that.
<v Speaker 4>The the gunplay and the actual ability usage and stuff
<v Speaker 4>like that is really tightly tuned in in Concord. It's
<v Speaker 4>I think it feels at times a lot like Destiny.
<v Speaker 4>Destiny's my personal favorite shooter. I play a lot out
<v Speaker 4>of Destiny and the just the feel of movement and
<v Speaker 4>jumping and shooting definitely draws on some of the things
<v Speaker 4>that I like about the Destiny universe.
<v Speaker 3>And I think Marvel Rivals it's good, but it's not
<v Speaker 3>quite there in terms of like a little loose. It
<v Speaker 3>is loose, right.
<v Speaker 4>Like it's a it's maybe maybe in a way that
<v Speaker 4>would be inviting to more casual players. Maybe some of
<v Speaker 4>that is a little bit purposeful. You don't need to
<v Speaker 4>be like a shooter expert to play Marvel Rivals by
<v Speaker 4>any stretch, because there's a lot of classes that are
<v Speaker 4>just like I'm going to run up and punch things
<v Speaker 4>right where I'm going to be Spider Man and swing
<v Speaker 4>through the level, and that's kind of like the skill
<v Speaker 4>set that you're going for. Concord is trying really hard
<v Speaker 4>to do this kind of interesting thing of like establishing
<v Speaker 4>a fictional universe and building it out gradually.
<v Speaker 3>At least it seems like they are through their seasons
<v Speaker 3>and through.
<v Speaker 4>Like moments that happened for the characters, and yeah, I'm
<v Speaker 4>interested in that. I think it's it's a hard that's
<v Speaker 4>a challenging thing to do, right, It's a challenging thing
<v Speaker 4>to get off the ground and get somebody interested in
<v Speaker 4>a fictional universe when there isn't really a core story
<v Speaker 4>that you first had them play through, right, Like Overwatch
<v Speaker 4>did it a little bit, right, like with their cinematics
<v Speaker 4>and things like that. I think there's lots of people
<v Speaker 4>who are like, they like those characters and they like
<v Speaker 4>that universe, but it's hard.
<v Speaker 3>To do Marvel Rivals, I mean, like it or hate it.
<v Speaker 4>The reality is that, like, you know Marvel, you know
<v Speaker 4>who those characters are. You know who Spider Man is, right, Like,
<v Speaker 4>you know that he's going to make some silly equips
<v Speaker 4>and he's going to swing around. He's going to be
<v Speaker 4>kind of an agile guy who punches and kicks and
<v Speaker 4>then gets out of danger.
<v Speaker 3>So there's like a built in vernacular already.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, and kind Cord can't lean on that. It gives Marvel.
<v Speaker 4>I mean, I think Marvel is likely to be a
<v Speaker 4>later release, in final release, right, Like Concord's pretty imminent,
<v Speaker 4>isn't it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I want to say in August.
<v Speaker 2>It's like, yeah, it's like a maybe two weeks away
<v Speaker 2>at most.
<v Speaker 1>I'm looking it up. It's August twenty third.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, so that one that one, you'd be able to
<v Speaker 4>check out, you know, anybody who check out quite soon.
<v Speaker 4>Marvel Is is further out, But I don't know. I
<v Speaker 4>I think they're both really good games so far. I'm
<v Speaker 4>drawn to both of them. I think Marvel I was
<v Speaker 4>more suspicious of because of the like the free to
<v Speaker 4>play stuff, and I think there's still potential there. You know,
<v Speaker 4>we've in the closed beta. What we've seen does not
<v Speaker 4>reveal very much about monetization uh approaches, and there's the
<v Speaker 4>potential for that kind of thing to be really broke,
<v Speaker 4>you know, really breaking. Otherwise great game, but we'll see,
<v Speaker 4>you know, at least from the start here. I like
<v Speaker 4>the characters, I like the art style. I like the
<v Speaker 4>the constant change up of gameplay styles.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's been good, you know, the.
<v Speaker 1>The as even talking, I was kind of thinking what
<v Speaker 1>Marvel Rivals kind of reminds me of Marvel Rivals to
<v Speaker 1>Overwatch or even just like Marvel Rivals to the team
<v Speaker 1>shooter genre reminds me of Pokemon Unite in a lot
<v Speaker 1>of ways, and it's relation to things like DODA and
<v Speaker 1>League of Legends right more simplified in some ways, you know,
<v Speaker 1>but it's like these there's just like a novelty and
<v Speaker 1>seeing you know, your favorite pop culture characters duke it out.
<v Speaker 2>It's like a a really good carrot on a stick
<v Speaker 2>to get you to try a genre that you might
<v Speaker 2>not have otherwise been interested in. Because I remember when
<v Speaker 2>Pokemon Unit came out, like, I am not a Mova guy,
<v Speaker 2>and I'm not even a big Pokemon guy, but I
<v Speaker 2>do have like an affection that stemmed from when I
<v Speaker 2>was into it from childhood or even I was like, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>maybe this is the moba I try, just because of
<v Speaker 2>the license tied to it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and I and Pokemon Unite has continued to have
<v Speaker 1>a pretty strong player base from from what I know,
<v Speaker 1>and people continually go back when they release, you know,
<v Speaker 1>new characters, and it's cool because they'll they'll release new
<v Speaker 1>characters that I am like, what you release that character
<v Speaker 1>that Pokemon but it's it's novel. Yeah and uh and
<v Speaker 1>and to be fair, Marvel Rivals seems to be doing
<v Speaker 1>a little bit of the same with like Jeff the
<v Speaker 1>land Shark. That's not a character that I think. I
<v Speaker 1>think if you had asked me, is there a cartoonist shark,
<v Speaker 1>like a funny comedic shark? In the Marvel universe. I
<v Speaker 1>probably have been like that sounds familiar, is that? And
<v Speaker 1>like one of the containers and Guardians of the Galaxy
<v Speaker 1>or something.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they had to respond to Suicide Squad earlier this year.
<v Speaker 2>They're like, oh, you have King Shark, Well we've got
<v Speaker 2>Jeff the land Shark.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Yeah, shots fired. But I have enjoyed I think
<v Speaker 1>we've talked a lot about like the the mechanics and
<v Speaker 1>the systems and all that. But like, I want to
<v Speaker 1>know your favorite characters because for me my rotation currently,
<v Speaker 1>as for tanks, I play a lot of Magneto. On DPS,
<v Speaker 1>I play a lot of Punisher and iron Man, I'll
<v Speaker 1>sometimes play Scarlet Witch, and then on Support and these
<v Speaker 1>aren't like the official I forget their their actual names
<v Speaker 1>for their classes, but on Support I've been playing Jeff
<v Speaker 1>the land Shark, and before that I played a decent
<v Speaker 1>amount of Loki. But Matt, what about you? I want
<v Speaker 1>to know who you you gravitate to?
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, you know, it's interesting when you play game like this,
<v Speaker 4>you start to see, like what is what are the
<v Speaker 4>characters who are always on a team? Yeah, And that
<v Speaker 4>usually suggests me like there's a nerve incoming right like somebody.
<v Speaker 4>Somebody's getting hit soon. I think Venom is getting hit
<v Speaker 4>at some point. Venom is really like it seems to
<v Speaker 4>be show up on every team. I don't know if
<v Speaker 4>it's because he's I haven't had that much success with him,
<v Speaker 4>but clearly other people do.
<v Speaker 3>He shows up as MVP a lot.
<v Speaker 1>I like him as like an off tank.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, people do well with Venom.
<v Speaker 4>I would say he seems to be the at least
<v Speaker 4>in this close bait has been a strong contender for
<v Speaker 4>favorites for me.
<v Speaker 3>I've played. I like Mantis a lot.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I like that maybe more so than other games
<v Speaker 4>like this, whether Overwatch or other things, that you can
<v Speaker 4>really be a pretty successful damage dealer while healing with
<v Speaker 4>most of these support roles, which is which is fun.
<v Speaker 4>Mantis is a character who I've I've like, knocked out
<v Speaker 4>a lot of enemy guys with, but I also she's
<v Speaker 4>really fun to be constantly juggling out, healing and buffs with.
<v Speaker 3>I like Doctor Strange a good bit. He's got this
<v Speaker 3>big kind of rhyinhart like Shield down Front.
<v Speaker 1>I like his ultimate a lot where he likes briefly
<v Speaker 1>sucks the souls out of people and like if you
<v Speaker 1>hit the their souls and it'll do damage to their bodies.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, it's cool shank some stuff.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, no doubt I played a star Lord actually.
<v Speaker 3>Started to emerge as an interesting and fun character for me. Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>He uh, he's got his element guns kind of hit
<v Speaker 4>really hard. But then you know, you get to reload constantly, right,
<v Speaker 4>so you get like a brief burst of high damage
<v Speaker 4>when you shoot, and then you gotta like reload. But
<v Speaker 4>one of the ways you reload is by dodging, and
<v Speaker 4>dodge recharges pretty quick, so it encourages us. Is this
<v Speaker 4>style of play where you're constantly like popping in and
<v Speaker 4>out of cover, you know, taking some potshots and then
<v Speaker 4>leaping back into cover. And then you also have a
<v Speaker 4>kind of a jet pack thing that lets you occasionally
<v Speaker 4>get up into the air a little bit and fly.
<v Speaker 4>So he's been fun. I think those have been maybe
<v Speaker 4>my favorites there. I've tried a lot of them. I
<v Speaker 4>like you, like you, I like Magneto. He's pretty neat.
<v Speaker 4>I've had some success with Hulk.
<v Speaker 1>I have not I've had He's a hard.
<v Speaker 3>One to get a handle on because it's got like
<v Speaker 3>three forms.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, I stay away from Hulk. I also find
<v Speaker 1>when I'm Hulk, I get focused really hard in ways
<v Speaker 1>that I don't necessarily in other characters.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>Part of the part of the tactical dynamic of this
<v Speaker 4>game is there's a lot of things that are telegraphed
<v Speaker 4>through visuals.
<v Speaker 3>And sound.
<v Speaker 4>That if you you know, one of the ways you
<v Speaker 4>get good at the game is as soon as you
<v Speaker 4>start hearing Scarlet Witch shout pure chaos, you get the
<v Speaker 4>heck out of there, right because is that what I want?
<v Speaker 4>And uh and and she wrecks everything that is nearby
<v Speaker 4>to her at that moment. So if you hear it
<v Speaker 4>really loud in your in your audio, you're like, oh,
<v Speaker 4>I'm too close to her right now.
<v Speaker 3>I need to get.
<v Speaker 4>Away or else I'm going to have a respond. So
<v Speaker 4>there's that interesting dynamic where you're really wanting to kind
<v Speaker 4>of pay attention to the the audio and watch what's
<v Speaker 4>happening around you, and you you start to learn the
<v Speaker 4>cues of like, oh, Punisher just put up turret, or
<v Speaker 4>you know, Storm is about to throw down a tornado
<v Speaker 4>that's going to wreck everybody, So you got kind of
<v Speaker 4>like watch for those cues.
<v Speaker 1>Get off the payload.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, exactly.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, well cool.
<v Speaker 4>I think it's a people should keep an eye on it.
<v Speaker 4>Don't dismiss it as like, oh, it's another free to play,
<v Speaker 4>you know, nonsense thing.
<v Speaker 3>It's it's good.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it doesn't seem like it. I think I heard
<v Speaker 2>that it's The betas have done very well for them
<v Speaker 2>in terms of the the players for it. This game
<v Speaker 2>is probably going to make a billion dollars, right because
<v Speaker 2>pretty well, yeah, the license and even just like we
<v Speaker 2>don't know when it's coming out for real ease, but
<v Speaker 2>for this beta to be active coming out of San
<v Speaker 2>Diego Comic Con, where at least maybe the way I'm
<v Speaker 2>feeling it feels like the excitement around Marvel coming out
<v Speaker 2>of that is higher than it's been in a while,
<v Speaker 2>with uh, you know RDJ making his way back to
<v Speaker 2>the MCU all that good stuff that it just feels
<v Speaker 2>like this is a great time for something like this
<v Speaker 2>to be out there and on the way. Yeah. So yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I think they're I think they're gonna do just fine.
<v Speaker 1>I think so. I think so. I I have been
<v Speaker 1>playing a smaller game called Thank Goodness You're here. I've
<v Speaker 1>beat the game. I think it's out not I think
<v Speaker 1>it is out August first, if you want to play
<v Speaker 1>it as well. It's from a developer called Cole Supper
<v Speaker 1>and I believe it's being published by Panic. Let me
<v Speaker 1>double check while I talk. But uh yeah, thank goodness
<v Speaker 1>you're here. It's a comedy adventure game. And uh it's
<v Speaker 1>it looks like a cartoon. That's like the easiest way
<v Speaker 1>to I mean it looks like you're watching uh you know,
<v Speaker 1>some sort of family guy or American dad sort of thing.
<v Speaker 1>A little more actually more of like a cal Arts
<v Speaker 1>I would say cal Arts Arts style, more of a
<v Speaker 1>cartoon network. Look. But uh yeah, it's it's a about
<v Speaker 1>to me about three hours to beat beat it in
<v Speaker 1>two sittings. Uh, and you are this You're in a
<v Speaker 1>northern English town called Barnsworth, and this game is full
<v Speaker 1>of British humor. One of the main characters voiced by
<v Speaker 1>Matt Barry from What We Do in the Shadows. I
<v Speaker 1>think he's in the I T crowd. If you don't know,
<v Speaker 1>I know some people I've been I've been talking to
<v Speaker 1>this game about there, Like I don't know who Matt
<v Speaker 1>Barry is. I'm like, if you've seen the clips of
<v Speaker 1>the Vampire, who says Arizonia. That's that's Matt Berry. Sometimes
<v Speaker 1>that triggers a memory for people, sometimes it doesn't. But
<v Speaker 1>he's hilarious, and he plays a gardener in this game.
<v Speaker 1>And I honestly the format kind of reminds me a
<v Speaker 1>bit of Untitled Goose Game a little bit. It's not
<v Speaker 1>it's not a stealth game like Untitled Goose Game is.
<v Speaker 1>But in the way that you move throughout these different
<v Speaker 1>parts of a town and you know, complete quests, uh
<v Speaker 1>and and in this in this you are you get
<v Speaker 1>there and everybody needs help. Everything's falling apart in this town.
<v Speaker 1>You know, things are always going to rye and you
<v Speaker 1>are helping this town do errands. And the whole reason
<v Speaker 1>you're here is I believe you're there to get a
<v Speaker 1>job or or something with the mayor's office. And essentially
<v Speaker 1>at the start of the game, the mayor's busy, so
<v Speaker 1>you just go and get into the townspeople and and yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it's it's this really hilarious adventure game. I think it's
<v Speaker 1>probably the funniest game I've played. I love British humor,
<v Speaker 1>I love dry humor, and just this leans more into
<v Speaker 1>the absurd rather than than necessarily dryness, but it's it's
<v Speaker 1>so good. I haven't I haven't read a review yet.
<v Speaker 1>I think I'm going to. I was talking to Brian
<v Speaker 1>about it, but I would be giving this a very,
<v Speaker 1>very high score. I think it's incredible. It's a very
<v Speaker 1>hard game to talk about because a lot of it
<v Speaker 1>is a lot of it is walking through this town.
<v Speaker 1>You backtrack quite a lot, which which honestly annoyed me
<v Speaker 1>at first, but then I realized they they kind of
<v Speaker 1>force you to backtrack, and and this backtracking kind of
<v Speaker 1>sets up jokes and various punchlines as you get to
<v Speaker 1>go through these similar situations through new lenses. I should
<v Speaker 1>say a lot of what you're doing in this game,
<v Speaker 1>you have the only way that you interact with people
<v Speaker 1>is by slapping things. So you walk up to somebody
<v Speaker 1>you want to talk to them, you have to slap them.
<v Speaker 1>And sometimes it's, you know, a larger person stuck in
<v Speaker 1>a gutter and you're slapping their butt to talk to them.
<v Speaker 1>Other times, you know you're you're also playing like this
<v Speaker 1>very tiny character compared to the size of everyone around you,
<v Speaker 1>and so the environments are always surprising. It reminds me
<v Speaker 1>of almost South Park a little bit the South Park
<v Speaker 1>games Stick of truth Less, so in like the RPG
<v Speaker 1>mechanics because in this game you're playing like a variety
<v Speaker 1>of mini games, although it all feels seamless and it's
<v Speaker 1>a very hard game to talk about. I'm sorry, I realized.
<v Speaker 2>This just for the Goose game comparison. Is it completing
<v Speaker 2>a series of somewhat cryptic task in like creative.
<v Speaker 1>Ways, Yes, but there is no checklist like there is
<v Speaker 1>a Goose game. You're typically you're typically talking to people.
<v Speaker 1>They are giving you hints as to what their problems are,
<v Speaker 1>and then you're gonna go in either get them that
<v Speaker 1>item from another character, but that character needs you to
<v Speaker 1>do a favor before they give you that item. Very
<v Speaker 1>very traditional adventure games set up, and so you're you're
<v Speaker 1>pretty much i would say, the characters and the game
<v Speaker 1>really kind of lock you into areas and so it's
<v Speaker 1>it's pretty hard to get lost. There's a lot of
<v Speaker 1>roadblocks in place so that you stay on task right,
<v Speaker 1>and then once you complete that task, you know something
<v Speaker 1>will have, a game event will happen, a cut scene
<v Speaker 1>will play, and it's all very seamless because it's all
<v Speaker 1>in this cartoon art style. So but it's it's really hilarious. Again,
<v Speaker 1>I think it's I was sitting there thinking, I was like,
<v Speaker 1>what other games have made me laugh? Like cry laugh
<v Speaker 1>cry laugh, Yeah, ugly laugh, and it might just be
<v Speaker 1>this one. Honestly, it's really really good. I'm I'm really
<v Speaker 1>impressed by it. If you're looking for like just like
<v Speaker 1>a game as like a palate cleanser, or if anything
<v Speaker 1>I've said, you know, kind of resonates with you, it's
<v Speaker 1>it's really hilario. So I think if you look up
<v Speaker 1>screenshots of it you'll see it just like really catches
<v Speaker 1>your eye. Man, it's so good, and a lot of
<v Speaker 1>it just feels like you're watching a show.
<v Speaker 4>Honestly, Yeah, yeah, I'm happy to hear you use that
<v Speaker 4>term palette cleanser. It's a thing that increasingly I've found
<v Speaker 4>myself really recommending to people as a way of like
<v Speaker 4>how to think about enjoying games the most. I think
<v Speaker 4>one of the things I hear the most from people
<v Speaker 4>is people who get like burnt out because they're at
<v Speaker 4>this point they're playing one game all the time that
<v Speaker 4>they love, and yet it starts to it's this becomes
<v Speaker 4>this like love hate relationship, you know, whether it's Call
<v Speaker 4>of Duty or Destiny or League or whatever, because.
<v Speaker 3>You're like it's the only thing you're ever doing and you.
<v Speaker 4>Feel like, well, I just I'm all my friends are here,
<v Speaker 4>and I'm definitely going to keep playing. I don't want
<v Speaker 4>to leave it, and yet I sometimes I sit here
<v Speaker 4>and I'm playing and I just like hate myself for
<v Speaker 4>playing it, and like, if you're like in that, can
<v Speaker 4>I'm telling you, man, there's the solution to that is
<v Speaker 4>like just let yourself play some palate cleanser games, like
<v Speaker 4>what Alex is describing something that's like three.
<v Speaker 3>To eight hours. Yeah, right, that you could.
<v Speaker 4>You can take a weekend off from your your rating
<v Speaker 4>with your buddies and go play something like this, and
<v Speaker 4>then you come back and I promise you it's like
<v Speaker 4>it's you will enjoy your gaming hobby more absolutely.
<v Speaker 1>And I beat I look at my team. I beat
<v Speaker 1>this in two and a half hours. Yeah, and I
<v Speaker 1>might go back and try to hundred percent it. There's
<v Speaker 1>a couple of ways to do that. And I think
<v Speaker 1>it's sixteen ninety nine at least on Switch it's sixteen
<v Speaker 1>ninety nine, so you know, fifteen bucks two and a
<v Speaker 1>half hours, three hours you probably get probably scoz. Yeah, exactly.
<v Speaker 2>I might pick this up. I have a long flight
<v Speaker 2>coming up next week.
<v Speaker 1>It is one of my favorite games I've played this year,
<v Speaker 1>for sure. It feels it's unique, it's novel, it's again,
<v Speaker 1>it's hilarious.
<v Speaker 4>Man.
<v Speaker 1>I love it, and I think it'll probably the way
<v Speaker 1>the year is currently going. I definitely foresee it being
<v Speaker 1>on my top ten list somewhere at the end of
<v Speaker 1>the year.
<v Speaker 2>But Alex, is it a puzzle game?
<v Speaker 1>Dude? It's so it's such a weird game man, puzzle game.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, I guess a puzzle game in the sense
<v Speaker 1>that you are. It really does feel more adventure game
<v Speaker 1>rather than like, you know, there are puzzle elements to
<v Speaker 1>an adventure game, Like there's got to be something here
<v Speaker 1>that I need to I need to go and talk
<v Speaker 1>to a guy. I need to go, and but I'm
<v Speaker 1>not sitting there and solving puzzles, right, eyes.
<v Speaker 2>Is safe and they can still hold on.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, oh that's what you're bringing up. Yeah, yeah, that'd
<v Speaker 1>beef from what a few weeks ago, you guys, you
<v Speaker 1>guys duped me on on our mid year Game of
<v Speaker 1>the Year discussion.
<v Speaker 2>Understood.
<v Speaker 1>I you miss let me, but uh no, this man, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>adventure game. I think like a two D platform or
<v Speaker 1>in some in some ways it's hand drawn doing a
<v Speaker 1>lot of exploration. It's really good. Again it's called Thank
<v Speaker 1>goodness you're here. I love it. You gotta play it, man,
<v Speaker 1>both of you all on this call. You gotta play it.
<v Speaker 2>I will.
<v Speaker 1>I wink too. It's on a Steam, it's on Switch,
<v Speaker 1>and it might be elsewhere. Let me double check. But yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I thank goodness. Dot game is the website I'm looking
<v Speaker 1>right now. Looks like Steam and Switch coming August first
<v Speaker 1>to Oh, here we go, Mac, PC, PlayStation four and
<v Speaker 1>five and Switch. There you go. So really cool game.
<v Speaker 1>Loved it a lot, Go play it. But that that
<v Speaker 1>kind of wraps up like what I've been playing, Matt.
<v Speaker 1>You I want to go back to you. You've been
<v Speaker 1>checking out Dungeons of Hinterberg, which looks really cool.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, it's any game we uh, I'm hoping that there's
<v Speaker 4>another one that I'm I think you'll see a review
<v Speaker 4>from us from from a Game Informer here.
<v Speaker 3>Pretty soon.
<v Speaker 4>We had a we had a busy don't need to
<v Speaker 4>tell you, either of you guys. A busy month the last
<v Speaker 4>few weeks kind of getting through some other stuff. So
<v Speaker 4>I'm arriving at it late. The game's already out. You
<v Speaker 4>guys can go play it if you if it sounds appealing,
<v Speaker 4>But what I've seen of it so far is really cool.
<v Speaker 4>It's it's kind of an action RPG with an unusual premise.
<v Speaker 3>You are this woman who is.
<v Speaker 4>Kind of sick of their life in the big city
<v Speaker 4>being an attorney, and you decide to you there's these
<v Speaker 4>in this weird world. It's kind of like, what if
<v Speaker 4>in the real world, all of a sudden there were
<v Speaker 4>places where monsters and dungeons just appeared in certain parts
<v Speaker 4>of the world, and and people decided to go on
<v Speaker 4>vacation to go and like be adventurers.
<v Speaker 3>That's what she does.
<v Speaker 4>She goes to this little town in the Alps to
<v Speaker 4>get away from the big city that is known to
<v Speaker 4>have this array of dungeons.
<v Speaker 3>That you can go explore or like.
<v Speaker 4>The new escape rooms Dundee. Yeah, it's kind of like that.
<v Speaker 4>I mean, there's a vibe a little bit like if
<v Speaker 4>it was the real world that was like, you're going
<v Speaker 4>you heard there's some great scheme at this town, and
<v Speaker 4>you just got to get out of town and I'm
<v Speaker 4>going to go, like, I'm going to go learn how
<v Speaker 4>to ski in this amazing skiing town in the Alps,
<v Speaker 4>except it's not skiing. It's monsters and dungeons, and the.
<v Speaker 3>Game is split up.
<v Speaker 4>It has a quality that reminds me a little bit
<v Speaker 4>for anybody who played it last year of Dave the Diver,
<v Speaker 4>Oh okay, where you're sort of splitting your time between
<v Speaker 4>like these excursions where you go out into particular locations
<v Speaker 4>and track down and find entrances to dungeons and you
<v Speaker 4>go in and there's puzzles that you solve in, monsters
<v Speaker 4>that you fight and boss fights and all that kind
<v Speaker 4>of classic what you think of as a dungeon, right,
<v Speaker 4>And then you go back to town and it's like
<v Speaker 4>a relationship friendship sim kind of like kind of stuff
<v Speaker 4>a little bit right, I mean, not very very light
<v Speaker 4>in that, but you're going around the town and you're
<v Speaker 4>meeting people. You're choosing who you spend time with, and
<v Speaker 4>by spending time with them, you get certain bonuses. You know,
<v Speaker 4>if I, if I hang out with this guy, they're gonna,
<v Speaker 4>I don't know, make it so that I can open
<v Speaker 4>up locked chests that I find out in the field
<v Speaker 4>because a light PERSONA. Yeah, there's a little bit, a
<v Speaker 4>little bit of nod to personas there. I wouldn't want
<v Speaker 4>to extend that comparison too far because it's definitely not
<v Speaker 4>like a turn based RPG with a party or anything like.
<v Speaker 1>It's like similar to like a Cult of the Lamb situation.
<v Speaker 1>Did you play?
<v Speaker 3>I didn't play. I played a little bit of that game.
<v Speaker 2>But I think that was more management sim Yeah, this
<v Speaker 2>is more.
<v Speaker 4>Like you're wandering around town and just like there's a
<v Speaker 4>day night cycle that you're going through and some kind
<v Speaker 4>of happened in the town. So like pretty early on
<v Speaker 4>in the game, there's a local festival that you go
<v Speaker 4>to and uh, you see them reveal a new statue
<v Speaker 4>in the town square and all the people are sort
<v Speaker 4>of like that's an ugly statue.
<v Speaker 3>And like that's the drama of the game, right.
<v Speaker 4>It's it's like very kind of low like purposefully low
<v Speaker 4>stakes in certain moments about like oh, well, this person
<v Speaker 4>got in an argument with this other person and we're
<v Speaker 4>going to spend a bunch of time talking about that,
<v Speaker 4>or like with the fact that there's some local kids
<v Speaker 4>who don't like that their town has become a tourist destination, right,
<v Speaker 4>and they don't really like you initially because you're just
<v Speaker 4>one of these tourists who's coming through and is going
<v Speaker 4>to leave two days later and not contribute anything.
<v Speaker 1>To the town.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, So there's those kinds of conversations, and then the
<v Speaker 4>next day you get up in the morning and you're like,
<v Speaker 4>I guess I'll go up on the mountain and go
<v Speaker 4>into this weird dungeon. The action is pretty solid, right, Like,
<v Speaker 4>you gradually upgrade your weapons and your armor and things
<v Speaker 4>like that to have different abilities, and you gain access
<v Speaker 4>to unique magic abilities that are.
<v Speaker 3>Different between between the different zones that you go to explore.
<v Speaker 4>There's, like I want to say, there's four different three
<v Speaker 4>or four main zones that you go to, each of
<v Speaker 4>which have several different dungeons, and each of those zones
<v Speaker 4>has their own magic abilities and that mechanically results in
<v Speaker 4>unique puzzle solving things that you've got to do.
<v Speaker 3>Right. So if in one place, you can.
<v Speaker 4>I don't know, create a tornado that you can jump
<v Speaker 4>into to fly over something that might be one of
<v Speaker 4>your magic powers. So you have that in one area,
<v Speaker 4>but when you go to the other area. You don't
<v Speaker 4>have that anymore, and you have a different set of
<v Speaker 4>a couple of magical powers. So it keeps it fresh
<v Speaker 4>in that way. And I would say that keeping it fresh.
<v Speaker 3>I have it in my notes.
<v Speaker 4>It's like, man, maybe it's my review headline. That's really
<v Speaker 4>what the game does well, is that you're because there's
<v Speaker 4>this day night cycle, there's things changing in the town.
<v Speaker 4>There's things changing, like this mountain wasn't open for exploration
<v Speaker 4>before and now it is and now you can go there.
<v Speaker 4>So as time passes through the game, you're constantly feeling
<v Speaker 4>like there's new things happening and new things opening up.
<v Speaker 4>And so even though nothing ends up being incredibly deep,
<v Speaker 4>like I wouldn't describe the combat as super deep or
<v Speaker 4>complex or anything, but it is fun. And part of
<v Speaker 4>that is because you just, oh, I got this new thing, right, Oh,
<v Speaker 4>now I've got another new thing, and now back to town.
<v Speaker 3>I've got this new friend.
<v Speaker 4>I'm going to talk with them, and yeah, now I've
<v Speaker 4>got this new place to go explore. And it keeps
<v Speaker 4>that flow of new experiences coming in a way that
<v Speaker 4>is neat. So I think it's cool. I think if
<v Speaker 4>you're if you want to kind of a quirky change
<v Speaker 4>of pace experience, but that's still rooted in kind of
<v Speaker 4>classic action role playing game ideas, the kind of things
<v Speaker 4>you know, like Zelda Engines or Kingdom Heart style combat
<v Speaker 4>a little bit. Maybe one of the games that came
<v Speaker 4>to mind as I played through it. I think it's
<v Speaker 4>one that people might want to at least investigate and
<v Speaker 4>check out.
<v Speaker 1>Awesome, Yeah, it's I'm eager to to check it out.
<v Speaker 1>The the art just definitely grabs you when looking at
<v Speaker 1>it on the Steam page.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's got kind of a self shaded yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's cool. Well, awesome, that's that's Dungeons
<v Speaker 1>of hinter Berg.
<v Speaker 2>Marcus.
<v Speaker 1>Let's go, let's go over to you. You've been pretty
<v Speaker 1>quiet today. Why have you You haven't been called on yet, Marcus,
<v Speaker 1>you haven't sorry enough. I guess not. I guess the moment.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, you did hear about his pillow.
<v Speaker 1>We did. We heard about your pillow.
<v Speaker 2>It was very important.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, So tell us you've been playing a lot of games, Marcus,
<v Speaker 1>tell us about him.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so the first one I actually played a couple
<v Speaker 2>of weeks ago. It's a game call four Strike. It
<v Speaker 2>is not out I played a media build of it
<v Speaker 2>that was put out by Skeleton Crew. This is their
<v Speaker 2>next game. Who was the developer of liha Oh yeah,
<v Speaker 2>you guys remember that game. L i Ja came out
<v Speaker 2>in twenty twenty one is a game that I reviewed
<v Speaker 2>for US and really liked. I gave it an eight
<v Speaker 2>point two or an eight point five, and it was
<v Speaker 2>a side scrolling action game that had a very very
<v Speaker 2>kind of pixelated look to it, kind of like later
<v Speaker 2>eight bit, and it was very much focused on animation
<v Speaker 2>in a way that something like Another World or like
<v Speaker 2>old school Prince of Persia kind of vibe. But it
<v Speaker 2>was a really cool game. So this is their next
<v Speaker 2>project and it has that same style, but it's a
<v Speaker 2>completely different type of game where it is a I
<v Speaker 2>think they described it as a tactical kung fu action
<v Speaker 2>game where you play as this martial artist who is
<v Speaker 2>trying to I believe, rescue a master or someone, but
<v Speaker 2>also trying to liberate a village. And he has this
<v Speaker 2>ability called foresight that allows him to basically play out
<v Speaker 2>fights before they happen in his head, so he'll be
<v Speaker 2>surrounded by guys and he can do the he can
<v Speaker 2>kind of like and mentally map out how am I
<v Speaker 2>going to approach this? If you've watched the modern Sherlock
<v Speaker 2>Holmes movies with Robert Downey Jr. If remember those sequences
<v Speaker 2>where he would play out how a fight would go out.
<v Speaker 1>And Okay, yeah, it's kind.
<v Speaker 4>Of like Equalizer too, right, Denzel Washington's and you have
<v Speaker 4>a little bit of that vibe times.
<v Speaker 2>Or if you're a dragon Ball fan, think of image
<v Speaker 2>training in that shows. There's numerous examples of this and
<v Speaker 2>it turns out but uh, and so the idea these
<v Speaker 2>fights because it's a two D game, all the fights
<v Speaker 2>play on on the two D plane, and it's also
<v Speaker 2>a roguelike, so you enter these levels on a kind
<v Speaker 2>of roguelike map where there's like two different branches that
<v Speaker 2>you can choose depending on what reward you're seeking from
<v Speaker 2>the end of it. But every level is a separate
<v Speaker 2>encounter that pits you against multiple enemies, usually three four,
<v Speaker 2>and each enemy has a different type where you might
<v Speaker 2>have a guy that can charge at you and that's
<v Speaker 2>his thing, or guy that has a weapon, or there's
<v Speaker 2>one guy who can guard and you're pretty much trying
<v Speaker 2>to figure out the optimal way to win this fight.
<v Speaker 2>And so you use your foresight ability, which you just
<v Speaker 2>hit with a button to sort of enter that mental state,
<v Speaker 2>and you can play out the fight as many times
<v Speaker 2>as you want until you find sort of the core.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know if I want to say to correct solution,
<v Speaker 2>because there's no one right answer. Yeah, but you're trying
<v Speaker 2>to find the optimal solution that works for you, Like
<v Speaker 2>I have solved fights in different ways that resulted in
<v Speaker 2>what I would consider the optimal solution, which is not
<v Speaker 2>getting hit because you have very You only have three
<v Speaker 2>health points and there are very few opportunities to replannish
<v Speaker 2>your health during a run, so ideally you don't want
<v Speaker 2>to take any damage as best to your ability, so
<v Speaker 2>you can you can use foresight as many times as
<v Speaker 2>you want. Terrifices where I sat there and I replayed
<v Speaker 2>it over and over and over, just trying to nail
<v Speaker 2>down whor it's like okay, if this guy comes at me.
<v Speaker 2>Because you have abilities where you can do like light attacks,
<v Speaker 2>you can do a heavy attack like a kick that
<v Speaker 2>can knock two health notches instead of one, but if
<v Speaker 2>you miss, then you're vulnerable to getting hit. You can
<v Speaker 2>unlock a dodge where if someone swings at you and
<v Speaker 2>hit a button, they'll dodge and they'll go flying behind you.
<v Speaker 2>Which you can set people up like that because the
<v Speaker 2>enemies can hit each other if you line them up
<v Speaker 2>a certain way. And then you also have a guard
<v Speaker 2>where if someone hits you, you'll sort of absorb it
<v Speaker 2>and then retaliate. And you can also pick up weapons
<v Speaker 2>which can serve as shields for you, so you can
<v Speaker 2>have someone waste an attack if you pick up a
<v Speaker 2>table and they punch into it, and then now you
<v Speaker 2>can retaliate. It's something you can throw weapons and along
<v Speaker 2>the way, as you're completing arenas, you're getting the choice
<v Speaker 2>to unlock new perks and abilities again Roguelike fashion, where
<v Speaker 2>one of my favorites augmented my dodge to where, oh,
<v Speaker 2>not only do you dodge, but if you hit down
<v Speaker 2>at the same time, you'll throw the guy to attack
<v Speaker 2>you behind you, like kind of like a like a
<v Speaker 2>Reu street fighter to throw they might go flying into
<v Speaker 2>whoever's behind you. So you can mess around with that,
<v Speaker 2>and so it becomes this very fun exercise of trying
<v Speaker 2>to figure out the right way to approach a battle,
<v Speaker 2>and then once you think you're ready, you can play
<v Speaker 2>the battle for real and try to replicate whatever method
<v Speaker 2>you found, and once you succeed, they have this cool
<v Speaker 2>kind of replay system where you can scrub through the
<v Speaker 2>fight and like fast forward, slow down, and just watch
<v Speaker 2>this sort of play out and then I guess, basically
<v Speaker 2>study yourself, maybe pick up like, oh, you know what
<v Speaker 2>I should have done there, Maybe I should have done this.
<v Speaker 2>But at first I wasn't sure what the almost what
<v Speaker 2>the point of the foresight ability was, because you don't
<v Speaker 2>have to use it. You can just go into a
<v Speaker 2>fight and just on your first go just try to
<v Speaker 2>get through it. But then as I played more and
<v Speaker 2>more of it, the fights got hard and you realize
<v Speaker 2>how limited your resources are. It's like you'd be foolish
<v Speaker 2>not take advantage of that, because like the idea is
<v Speaker 2>like playing it over and over, getting down a cool
<v Speaker 2>method and then seeing if you can do it again.
<v Speaker 2>Because there were times where and this is where the
<v Speaker 2>game could be most frustrating, but like by design, where
<v Speaker 2>I got to the end boss and it was like
<v Speaker 2>a really tricky thing to figure out because of just
<v Speaker 2>the types of enemies that they threw at you, and
<v Speaker 2>you're trying to figure out Okay, if I hit this guy,
<v Speaker 2>i'll be open for the guy behind me, so maybe
<v Speaker 2>I should hit him first. And then after a bunch
<v Speaker 2>of like attempts, I figured out a way to beat
<v Speaker 2>the boss and his goons without getting hit. But I
<v Speaker 2>also was coming in with one hit point left from
<v Speaker 2>the run, so I was ready to go like I met.
<v Speaker 2>I replayed it three times the way that I figured
<v Speaker 2>out was the way to go, and then once it
<v Speaker 2>was game time, I blew the last step and lost,
<v Speaker 2>and I had to restart the run and it was
<v Speaker 2>so I think it's even more frustrating than losing normally
<v Speaker 2>because it's like I practiced this, I did it, and
<v Speaker 2>then when it was when it was for real, I
<v Speaker 2>choked and now I got to start over again. But
<v Speaker 2>it's a cool idea. It reminds me of, like, I
<v Speaker 2>don't know, a little bit of into the breach a
<v Speaker 2>little bit, not in a way of you know, it's
<v Speaker 2>not like a grid game.
<v Speaker 4>Or but yeah, yeah, I sort of like that quality
<v Speaker 4>where you were, like you very you could figure out
<v Speaker 4>the exact right thing to do, and the hit point
<v Speaker 4>totals were so small right to the breach you.
<v Speaker 3>Want to get it exactly right.
<v Speaker 2>You know you're predicting the enemy movements too. If I
<v Speaker 2>move here, this guy is gonna do this. So what
<v Speaker 2>if I moved over there instead? And see? What if
<v Speaker 2>that's the key to success. But I think it's cool
<v Speaker 2>so far. It's I like it. I found myself, like
<v Speaker 2>I said, obsessively replaying the doing the foresight mode over
<v Speaker 2>and over. For the harder fights. There seems to be
<v Speaker 2>a main story there too, like you're getting these kind
<v Speaker 2>of cut scenes in between pivotal moments with your master.
<v Speaker 2>And there's also seems to be multiple runs you can do,
<v Speaker 2>or sort of like multiple versions of your character where
<v Speaker 2>I only have two on lock, but you can start
<v Speaker 2>a run where dodging is sort of your main defensive technique,
<v Speaker 2>but then there's another run with a different master where
<v Speaker 2>guarding is your main defensive technique, and we're like multiple
<v Speaker 2>unlike lock slots underneath that that you could get. But
<v Speaker 2>the game, like on its own, is cool. But once
<v Speaker 2>you start really stacking in perks and other abilities to
<v Speaker 2>augment your starter set, that's where it really starts. As
<v Speaker 2>things I've seen videos of being able to do like
<v Speaker 2>crazy jumps and spinning both staffs and doing all sorts
<v Speaker 2>of like like it seems like once you really have
<v Speaker 2>like a good load out, you can play out some
<v Speaker 2>pretty cool like two D martial arts fight scenes where
<v Speaker 2>you're just like flipping all over the place and nobody
<v Speaker 2>can touch you.
<v Speaker 3>That's awesome.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, is there like a I'm trying to wrap my
<v Speaker 4>head around the idea? Is it like is there kind
<v Speaker 4>of like a Simon memory quality thing where you've got
<v Speaker 4>to like, Okay, this is the route, this is the
<v Speaker 4>successful route, But just memorizing what you need to do
<v Speaker 4>is hard.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's it's because all the enemies will react the
<v Speaker 2>same way based on what you do. So if I know,
<v Speaker 2>if I punched this guy that's in front of me,
<v Speaker 2>I know he'll die, but I know doing that, the
<v Speaker 2>guy behind me will advance and do something, so I
<v Speaker 2>need to account for that. And so like everything plays
<v Speaker 2>out the same way as long as you don't change
<v Speaker 2>whatever approach you've decided. But then the moment you either
<v Speaker 2>slip up or you're like, you can miss your timing
<v Speaker 2>by second and it can unravel everything. We're like, oh
<v Speaker 2>I was late doing step three, and now this guy's
<v Speaker 2>a step closer to me than I wanted, So he's
<v Speaker 2>going to get a hit on me. I still get
<v Speaker 2>my hit on him, but in the optimal way. I
<v Speaker 2>hit him before he hit me. But now the positioning's off,
<v Speaker 2>it gets like that minute sometimes.
<v Speaker 3>M Okay, that's cool.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, yeah, you've gotten me excited about that game. I'm
<v Speaker 4>going to go check check that out at some time
<v Speaker 4>this week after.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so it's not out yet, it comes out next year,
<v Speaker 2>and I don't there wasn't a demo like what I
<v Speaker 2>got was. I think they were even saying like it's
<v Speaker 2>technically not even a preview ability. Was literally just like
<v Speaker 2>here's a little slice where we're working on. I think
<v Speaker 2>they said the slice I play it is not going
<v Speaker 2>to be in the full game, so it's more of
<v Speaker 2>a proof of concept sort of thing. But I'm excited
<v Speaker 2>to see what that looks like when it gets sort
<v Speaker 2>of I guess closer to release. It's a neat idea.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I mean, you're I'm I mainly just want to
<v Speaker 4>go see what it looks like now that you've told
<v Speaker 4>me about it, right, Like, I don't. I think your
<v Speaker 4>description is my first time really thinking and hearing about
<v Speaker 4>the game.
<v Speaker 3>So now I want to like go Yeah, there's a
<v Speaker 3>trailer and stuff out there.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Awesome. Well, what else have been playing, Marcus?
<v Speaker 2>I'm playing the hottest game of twenty twenty four. Guys.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's
<v Speaker 2>called Silent Hill Too.
<v Speaker 4>Wow.
<v Speaker 2>All right, Yes, And before people get too excited or confused,
<v Speaker 2>this is the original version. This is not the remake
<v Speaker 2>that comes out in October. I'm preparing for Silent Hill
<v Speaker 2>Too by playing the original for the very first time.
<v Speaker 2>And this is also my first real well you know, actually,
<v Speaker 2>I'm going to say it's my first real Silent Hill game.
<v Speaker 2>Like Silent Hill has been one of my biggest gaps
<v Speaker 2>in terms of like knowledge and franchises. As much as
<v Speaker 2>I love horror games, I as a kid in the
<v Speaker 2>PlayStation Era, I made the unconscious decision to be a
<v Speaker 2>resident Evil person and not a Silent Hill person. I
<v Speaker 2>feel like there's those series that are like you, you
<v Speaker 2>go with one and then for whatever reason, you never
<v Speaker 2>go with the other one, even if it's no like Animosity,
<v Speaker 2>like I did that with Rationing Clank and Jack and Daxter.
<v Speaker 2>Or I didn't play Jack and Daxterer until way later,
<v Speaker 2>but I played all the rationing clinks when they came out, Like,
<v Speaker 2>I was like, I guess I'm the rationing clank guy
<v Speaker 2>in this in this rivalry. And the only Silent Hill
<v Speaker 2>games I've ever played until this year was PT which
<v Speaker 2>and then I beat that free one they released earlier
<v Speaker 2>this year. The short message that that like the you
<v Speaker 2>remember that one that they drop earlier this year. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>Like I played all of that, but you know, in
<v Speaker 2>terms of the real meat, I was like, all right,
<v Speaker 2>Silent Hill two, I would like to play the original
<v Speaker 2>version before the remake comes out so I can compare
<v Speaker 2>because I'm going to play the remake and I'm playing
<v Speaker 2>the PC version using the I don't know if you
<v Speaker 2>guys seen this. This is something that Kyle smartened me
<v Speaker 2>up to, but there's a fan made enhanced edition of
<v Speaker 2>the PC version that is basically a free mod package
<v Speaker 2>that updates the PC version of Silent Hill two with
<v Speaker 2>better lighting, modern controls, so you can play it like
<v Speaker 2>a normal game and don't have to use the original
<v Speaker 2>tank controls. I believe it has the ability to save
<v Speaker 2>any time you want because the game has traditional safe spots.
<v Speaker 2>I was like that, I assume that you couldn't save
<v Speaker 2>anywhere you want before because what would be the point,
<v Speaker 2>and then just other quality of life improvements like frame
<v Speaker 2>rate and stuff. So it runs super well. It took
<v Speaker 2>a while to get it going, but that is the
<v Speaker 2>way to play it, especial because Silent Hill two is
<v Speaker 2>unfortunately a very hard game to play because they've never
<v Speaker 2>really ported it or remastered it outside of that HD
<v Speaker 2>collection from twenty twelve that a lot of fans don't like. Sure,
<v Speaker 2>uh so, I'm I'm a good ways through it. It's
<v Speaker 2>weird because now the statue of limitations has reset for
<v Speaker 2>like spoilers for the game now the remake is coming out.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know if are maybe I know for you, Alex,
<v Speaker 2>I know you're not a big horror guy, but are
<v Speaker 2>you a Silent Hell guy, Matt, or are.
<v Speaker 1>You I'm not a Silent Hill guy, but I know
<v Speaker 1>the plot points and all of that because I like
<v Speaker 1>to know about horror. It fascinates me. I don't want
<v Speaker 1>to experience it necessarily, but I do like I read
<v Speaker 1>like wikipedias for like horror movies and I'm like, dang,
<v Speaker 1>I bet that was scary.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, No, I've played gosh, I did play Silent Hill too,
<v Speaker 4>that was so long ago it feels like a different
<v Speaker 4>life though about me. Yeah, I mean that was like
<v Speaker 4>before I started my career at Game and Former in
<v Speaker 4>two thousand and four and so like free working in games.
<v Speaker 3>But I I'm.
<v Speaker 4>Glad to my memory of it is such that I
<v Speaker 4>can say that I'm glad that you are playing something
<v Speaker 4>that has some updates to it, because you know, that
<v Speaker 4>original game, much as it as it is beloved, it
<v Speaker 4>doesn't seem like it would be super fun to play now.
<v Speaker 4>I mean some of those like late nineties early two
<v Speaker 4>thousands horror games were real.
<v Speaker 3>Janky in retrospect.
<v Speaker 4>Right at the time, they were exciting and scary, but
<v Speaker 4>sometimes they were scary.
<v Speaker 3>Because you just couldn't Oh.
<v Speaker 4>My gosh, I want to run away and I can't
<v Speaker 4>even move correctly right or I can't I can't see
<v Speaker 4>what's happening because the polygons on screen have decided to
<v Speaker 4>not cooperate, you know, Like there was weird stuff like that.
<v Speaker 4>So that's I kind of honestly what I remember most
<v Speaker 4>about that game, just like kind of a hard game
<v Speaker 4>to play, and now I'm sure it would be even
<v Speaker 4>more so if I played the original.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the modern controls make it a huge difference to
<v Speaker 2>the point where it almost feels like it trivializes I'm
<v Speaker 2>going to combat because I'm playing on normal, Like there's
<v Speaker 2>multiple difficulties. But there are times where even in when
<v Speaker 2>I'm in narrow corridors facing against like the creepy nurses
<v Speaker 2>or the weird mannequin looking things. I mean, I played
<v Speaker 2>these games pretty conservatively anyway, like Survival War, where it's
<v Speaker 2>like I don't shoot a I do not fire a
<v Speaker 2>bullet unless I absolutely have to. Yeah, So it's like
<v Speaker 2>they're very easy to just navigate around, which I was like,
<v Speaker 2>this has to have been more difficult with the tank controls.
<v Speaker 2>And then when I do get into fights, I just
<v Speaker 2>use the you get like a two by four pretty
<v Speaker 2>early as your main weapon before you get a gun,
<v Speaker 2>And most times I'm like, I'm just gonna beat this
<v Speaker 2>with this stick because I could just stand in front
<v Speaker 2>of it and they have no response to it. And
<v Speaker 2>again I feel like I was like, would this be
<v Speaker 2>easy to do with the original controls. I don't know,
<v Speaker 2>but that said, the game still is like effectively creepy
<v Speaker 2>at point. I think the sound design, which again has
<v Speaker 2>been gotten polished for the Enhanced Edition, but the sound
<v Speaker 2>design is still really good. Like there are moments where
<v Speaker 2>you walk into a room and you'll hear like just
<v Speaker 2>weird whispers and then it's got like and I attribute
<v Speaker 2>this to the Enhanced Edition, but it's like got in
<v Speaker 2>three D audio kind of quality to it. It's like, oh, like,
<v Speaker 2>where is that coming from? Yeah, And just even the
<v Speaker 2>sound effects of some of the enemies when you're just
<v Speaker 2>sort of roaming the halls is just gross and you know,
<v Speaker 2>you hear it and you're just like, oh, I don't
<v Speaker 2>like that.
<v Speaker 3>Has it got you more excited for the like new version?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? For and maybe in ways that fans might not
<v Speaker 2>want to hear because seeing the story for the first
<v Speaker 2>time and hearing the original performances, because I believe that
<v Speaker 2>was something that was changed in the HD collection that
<v Speaker 2>people were not happy with, Like I think they redid
<v Speaker 2>the voices or something. But hearing the original like James Sunderland,
<v Speaker 2>a protagonist, like his performance is like actively bad, and
<v Speaker 2>again I think maybe fans don't want to hear this,
<v Speaker 2>but like hearing his very he's a very dopey character,
<v Speaker 2>and I don't know if that's by design or if
<v Speaker 2>that's just a product of early two thousands writing. But
<v Speaker 2>he's just kind of an idiot a lot of the time,
<v Speaker 2>Like he just walks into this town and he's because
<v Speaker 2>the premise Silent Hill too, is that he's trying to
<v Speaker 2>find his dead wife because he got a message from her,
<v Speaker 2>even though she's been dead for years. So like he
<v Speaker 2>starts most conversations like people are like, oh, what are
<v Speaker 2>you here for, and he's just without any sense of tact,
<v Speaker 2>saying I'm just looking for my dead wife, as if
<v Speaker 2>that's not a strange thing to say. And then there's
<v Speaker 2>one character where he says, you look like my dead.
<v Speaker 1>Wife, and oh my god, say that?
<v Speaker 2>Who says that look? And and there's this other moments
<v Speaker 2>where's his reactions to things are so just like it's
<v Speaker 2>like the biggest reminder of like, this is a game
<v Speaker 2>from two thousand and one, but I'm looking forward to
<v Speaker 2>seeing like or I would not mind if the remake
<v Speaker 2>just completely overhauled that stuff, Like I don't think they
<v Speaker 2>should be precious about we need to word for word,
<v Speaker 2>keep everything the same, or even have the same delivery,
<v Speaker 2>like maybe keep some of that dufousness in the way
<v Speaker 2>that they did with Leon and Resony before remake. But
<v Speaker 2>other than that, I was I would appreciate if he
<v Speaker 2>had a more just human reaction to some things, and
<v Speaker 2>that goes for some of the other characters, but he's
<v Speaker 2>like enemy number one on that. And then even just
<v Speaker 2>the you know, like the combat is very basic. I
<v Speaker 2>know some people were I want to go back, can
<v Speaker 2>rewatch those trailers that everyone's or not everyone, but like
<v Speaker 2>the hardcore fans have been kind of down on when
<v Speaker 2>he's like this game play doesn't look good, and you know,
<v Speaker 2>I didn't have context for that. I don't really see
<v Speaker 2>how it looks fine To me, it looks like a
<v Speaker 2>third like a modern third person survival war game, kind
<v Speaker 2>of like over the shoulder style, which to me is fine,
<v Speaker 2>and I'm still in that camp of I'd rather have
<v Speaker 2>that than what it was. So yeah, that's been the
<v Speaker 2>fun part is sort of seeing where I land without
<v Speaker 2>any of the nostalgia attached to it, just me playing
<v Speaker 2>a little bit more objectively and sort of seeing like, oh,
<v Speaker 2>I hope that they smooth this over into remake or
<v Speaker 2>this could be better, but like the general vibes are
<v Speaker 2>are still very strong, and I'm at a point in
<v Speaker 2>the story now, like I'm a few hours in where
<v Speaker 2>I'm invested in seeing what's happening, Like it's a it's
<v Speaker 2>a pretty cool and interesting mystery so far. So yeah,
<v Speaker 2>it has. Definitely. I was already excited for the remake
<v Speaker 2>just because it was an easy way to play a
<v Speaker 2>modern version of a game that it's very inaccessible. But
<v Speaker 2>now it's it's like that. Plus I was like, I
<v Speaker 2>would like to see how you guys tackle this. You know,
<v Speaker 2>blueber Teine not the greatest track record, at least in
<v Speaker 2>my opinion. They make okay games, but it's like, I
<v Speaker 2>understand why people are cautious about them Searn being at
<v Speaker 2>the helm of this, but at least from what I
<v Speaker 2>remember of seeing the remake, to me, it looks fine,
<v Speaker 2>so we'll see. But oh, also, it's cool to finally
<v Speaker 2>see pyramid heead and have like actual or maybe more
<v Speaker 2>context to what a pyramidhead is. Like I would see
<v Speaker 2>that character and go, he looks cool, but I don't
<v Speaker 2>know what his deal is. And granted I still don't
<v Speaker 2>know what his deal is, but I'd run into him
<v Speaker 2>a few times, so like, oh, okay, you're the big
<v Speaker 2>scary thing that people are afraid of that this is
<v Speaker 2>what this like.
<v Speaker 1>I guess my introduction to him was dead by Daylight.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I you know, I think there's a there's a
<v Speaker 4>lot of interesting conversation to be had about the challenges
<v Speaker 4>that developers have when approaching a remake for something that's old.
<v Speaker 3>Right.
<v Speaker 4>There's a lot of different approaches you can take and
<v Speaker 4>the degree to which you want to be faithful to
<v Speaker 4>something that you know, if you're someone like you, Marcus, right,
<v Speaker 4>like you're you don't have an affection Correct me if
<v Speaker 4>I'm wrong, but it doesn't sound like you have an
<v Speaker 4>affection for the original.
<v Speaker 3>Silent Hill too, Right.
<v Speaker 4>You just are playing it because you know that it's
<v Speaker 4>it's fondly remembered and that there are people who really
<v Speaker 4>love it, and you're curious about how it's going to
<v Speaker 4>like compare to this new experience.
<v Speaker 2>Right.
<v Speaker 4>So, for someone like you, the people who are making
<v Speaker 4>the game are probably mostly interested in just like, how
<v Speaker 4>can we make this good now?
<v Speaker 3>Right?
<v Speaker 4>But there's also this this need to be aware of
<v Speaker 4>the fact that at least some of your audience who's
<v Speaker 4>going to be compelled to pick up the game and
<v Speaker 4>play it are the people who do have nostalgia and fondness.
<v Speaker 3>For the original and don't want it to be.
<v Speaker 4>Too different, right, So that's that's a hard balance to hit,
<v Speaker 4>I think. Yeah, And and it emerges I think often
<v Speaker 4>is the most interesting thing you can be looking to
<v Speaker 4>talk about, right about one of these games, whether it's
<v Speaker 4>something like this or what you know Square did with
<v Speaker 4>Final Fantasy seven or is doing.
<v Speaker 3>With Final Fantasy seven. Yeah, you know all those all
<v Speaker 3>those games are like, these are old games.
<v Speaker 4>Now, trying to just re redo them and not make
<v Speaker 4>changes to script or or you know, the way combat
<v Speaker 4>feels or something like that, even though there's some people
<v Speaker 4>out there who are like, that's what I want, that's
<v Speaker 4>not what probably would be.
<v Speaker 2>Best, or you haven't played it whole and you think
<v Speaker 2>that's what you.
<v Speaker 3>Want to think it Yeah, yeah, totally.
<v Speaker 2>And go ooh, there's those.
<v Speaker 4>Rose those rose tinted glasses that we all have for
<v Speaker 4>games we played, especially when we were young, where you
<v Speaker 4>think it looked great. Uh, it didn't look as great
<v Speaker 4>as you think it did. I promise it didn't. Whatever
<v Speaker 4>it is, it didn't look as great. Like there's this, Uh,
<v Speaker 4>those games that you're in your head, you've updated them,
<v Speaker 4>you've given them the HD update in your head, but
<v Speaker 4>that didn't that hasn't happened to them.
<v Speaker 3>And you go back and you put them on and
<v Speaker 3>it's like, h this.
<v Speaker 2>Is a dicey. I could see them. I could see
<v Speaker 2>the individual polygons and this fog. Okay, yeah, am. I
<v Speaker 2>will say though one of the presentational stuff in Silent
<v Speaker 2>Hill too, Definitely, I could see why it was so beloved,
<v Speaker 2>Like there's some stuff that I see. It was like,
<v Speaker 2>this seems ahead of its time, especially the cinematography, Like
<v Speaker 2>this game has a lot of really cool camera angles
<v Speaker 2>when you're switching perspectives, Like you walk into a room
<v Speaker 2>and they'll put the camera either up close and then
<v Speaker 2>like tilted in like James's face or behind him, and
<v Speaker 2>they just have a very like interesting way of framing
<v Speaker 2>things that is stylish but without generally getting in a
<v Speaker 2>way of gameplay, like, oh, this is obscuring something. So
<v Speaker 2>I think that stuff. I was like, oh, I hope
<v Speaker 2>they keep that sort of like style to it. So
<v Speaker 2>I think he does lend itself to sort of the
<v Speaker 2>the idea that you and James are slowly losing your
<v Speaker 2>mind in this town. Yeah, so yeah, I hope they
<v Speaker 2>keep that stuff, but I'm excited to see the rest
<v Speaker 2>of it. Apparently it's not as long as I thought
<v Speaker 2>it would be. I think I looked it up and
<v Speaker 2>they're like, oh, it's like eight hours to get through. Also,
<v Speaker 2>the puzzle solving still pretty good generally, and that is
<v Speaker 2>for again, for a survival horror game from that era.
<v Speaker 2>I was expecting to more obtuse than it actually is.
<v Speaker 1>Sure, so I've.
<v Speaker 2>Been pleasantly surprised where there's stuff that I've had to
<v Speaker 2>think about, but it's always they leave breadcrumbs or nothing
<v Speaker 2>has been too just like I can't figure that out.
<v Speaker 2>It's like you got to think about it, but it
<v Speaker 2>makes sense once you come to the solution. So again,
<v Speaker 2>kudos to Konami from over twenty years ago. You did it.
<v Speaker 1>Congrats. Yeah, well awesome. Well take us home, Marcus. I
<v Speaker 1>know you got one more game you want to talk
<v Speaker 1>about before we wrap up the show, and it's one
<v Speaker 1>that I've been very curious about. It's a puzzle game
<v Speaker 1>called a Ranger.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. We talked about this last week. Charles played a
<v Speaker 2>bit of it. I've played the first couple hours of it.
<v Speaker 2>If you're not familiar with it, it is the top
<v Speaker 2>down adventure game where you play as a character as
<v Speaker 2>the ability to slide the world itself, Like the world
<v Speaker 2>itself is one giant sliding puzzle basically, And what's fun
<v Speaker 2>about it is that everyone is aware that you have
<v Speaker 2>this power, Like it's not it's not just a gameplay thing,
<v Speaker 2>like it is a narrative like in universe thing that
<v Speaker 2>people People think it's weird that you can do this
<v Speaker 2>and maybe don't like it because they're being moved around
<v Speaker 2>against their will sometimes, but it's it's fun. I was
<v Speaker 2>worried about this game only because I feel like slide
<v Speaker 2>puzzles in every game. You know, there are recurring elements
<v Speaker 2>a lot of games, and I don't think I've ever
<v Speaker 2>decided if I like them or I feel like it's
<v Speaker 2>a very game to game basis, Like sometimes I'll encounter
<v Speaker 2>one and it's like, oh, that's this is cool, and
<v Speaker 2>then other times it's the most frustrating thing ever and
<v Speaker 2>you're I don't want to do this, but I have to,
<v Speaker 2>And I've I was worried about, like the game being
<v Speaker 2>just that how complicated or annoying can this be? When
<v Speaker 2>literally everything you do is a slide puzzle and at
<v Speaker 2>least so far, it has been very fun and manageable.
<v Speaker 2>I think they have designed the world in a way
<v Speaker 2>to where it never gets more complicated than it needs
<v Speaker 2>to be, or that you can make it yourself. Every
<v Speaker 2>route like you're going through a big kind of like again,
<v Speaker 2>like top down Zelda's maybe the best comparison I can
<v Speaker 2>give it for just the viewpoint, But every route or
<v Speaker 2>every lane that you go to is almost like a
<v Speaker 2>slide puzzle in itself, where you have to figure out
<v Speaker 2>how to slide yourself up a road and then how
<v Speaker 2>to go left, and then every direction change is sort
<v Speaker 2>of its own very small riddle. But it's fun just
<v Speaker 2>figuring out how to quickly navigate those spaces, like you
<v Speaker 2>can do the pac Man thing of Oh, if I
<v Speaker 2>go to the edge of a road, I will appear
<v Speaker 2>on the other side of it, So instead of manually
<v Speaker 2>shifting my way up, I should just go down and
<v Speaker 2>then pop up the other and then keep going. So
<v Speaker 2>I've been doing that everywhere I've been going, and it's
<v Speaker 2>expedited my travels as well as the puzzles where you
<v Speaker 2>need to bring other people or other objects with you,
<v Speaker 2>and then that's where it gets puzzling when you're having
<v Speaker 2>to account for an object that you have to figure out,
<v Speaker 2>how do I get this from here to there? And
<v Speaker 2>sometimes there's barriers that can't be shifted, which there's like
<v Speaker 2>there's an in universe explanation for things that are static,
<v Speaker 2>Like I think it's like the Evil Force, or or
<v Speaker 2>it's like an entity that I think it's called static,
<v Speaker 2>or it's got this weird sort of like multi colored
<v Speaker 2>glue and that's how you know that it can't be moved.
<v Speaker 2>But I like the like it's fun, Like I think
<v Speaker 2>it's well designed. The I've done one major boss fight
<v Speaker 2>so far, and that was a fun fight because it
<v Speaker 2>was pretty much just trying to It was kind of
<v Speaker 2>like the if you've played enough old school Zelda games,
<v Speaker 2>the Big Worm, where you have to attack the tail.
<v Speaker 2>It was like a cool variation of that because you're
<v Speaker 2>trying to shift the floors to where you guide the
<v Speaker 2>spiked tail to hit the head of the snake.
<v Speaker 1>Sure.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and this sort of obstacle course where you can't
<v Speaker 2>move everything in it, so you have to figure out
<v Speaker 2>how to guide the tail and line things up to
<v Speaker 2>where it collides with the head. I thought that was
<v Speaker 2>a pretty fun fight, and I've also liked the writing,
<v Speaker 2>Like the writing has been pretty charming. There's been some
<v Speaker 2>very fun characters. Again, it's fun to see their reactions
<v Speaker 2>to Gemma, who's the protagonist who has this interesting story
<v Speaker 2>where she was an orphan who grew up in this
<v Speaker 2>town where things it seems like things like were generally
<v Speaker 2>static and you're the only person that can move stuff,
<v Speaker 2>and she decides to leave to see the world for
<v Speaker 2>the first time and try to learn about her upbringing
<v Speaker 2>and why she has this power and why some people
<v Speaker 2>are afraid of her. The soundtrack is also very good.
<v Speaker 2>It's got to very bashing vibe to it, just a
<v Speaker 2>lot of acoustic guitar. Yeah, that reminds me a lot
<v Speaker 2>of like the main theme of Bashton that I've really liked.
<v Speaker 2>And it's got a very nice, colorful art direction. But
<v Speaker 2>it's very it's very fun, and there's also something you
<v Speaker 2>can play in kind of short chunks. I'm playing it
<v Speaker 2>on Switch. I believe it's only on Switch and PC,
<v Speaker 2>but that's been a very fun sort of before bed
<v Speaker 2>game where you can almost treat just the act of
<v Speaker 2>reaching a new area as like a puzzle or a
<v Speaker 2>few puzzles and you're like, okay, I made it to
<v Speaker 2>that house. Okay, I'm done because I already had to.
<v Speaker 2>You know, I had to do quite a bit of
<v Speaker 2>thinking just to get to this house. And then you
<v Speaker 2>feel satisfied. But it's cool. I like it so far.
<v Speaker 2>I want to get through it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's awesome. It sounds super. Also, the bedtime game.
<v Speaker 1>I need a bedtime game because my problem with bedtime games.
<v Speaker 1>Mario Paper Mario in thousand Year Door has been my
<v Speaker 1>bedtime game, and it's it's too much to try to
<v Speaker 1>play that game before bed because I always get really
<v Speaker 1>tired very quickly, and I don't get very far where.
<v Speaker 1>It's like having a game like a ranger where I
<v Speaker 1>can be like, I like that idea, like let me
<v Speaker 1>get to that house and then I'll go to sleep.
<v Speaker 1>That's perfect.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and moving the tiles feels good. It's got a
<v Speaker 2>good tile slidey feel to it, which I think is
<v Speaker 2>very important for something like this. You're like, there's a
<v Speaker 2>nice tactile feel to it.
<v Speaker 1>I love it. What are you gonna say, man?
<v Speaker 4>When I was just going to ask you if when
<v Speaker 4>you finish playing, you've got you've got a good pillow
<v Speaker 4>to lay on.
<v Speaker 1>I do. I actually have a very great pillow. I
<v Speaker 1>asked for a pillow for Christmas. Actually nice And do
<v Speaker 1>you not get it? I did. Oh, it's amazing. I
<v Speaker 1>don't think it's meant it's not meant to be a
<v Speaker 1>like a normal pillow. But I felt it at Target
<v Speaker 1>and it was like an eighty dollars pillow, and I
<v Speaker 1>was like, this feels incredible.
<v Speaker 3>Wait wait, wait, wait, what is it? What do you
<v Speaker 3>mean it's just not meant to be a normal It's right,
<v Speaker 3>Let me get it.
<v Speaker 1>Let me get it.
<v Speaker 2>What constitutes a normal pillow? Besides, like, did you buy
<v Speaker 2>like a body pillow? Or Okay, that's a pillow. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>I mean it looks like a house question. It's not
<v Speaker 2>like a bed pillow.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, but it's so comfortable. I love that so much.
<v Speaker 1>It's the softest pillow I've ever owned. And yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>so I haven't taken the tack off either.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you're just bragging trying to show off. This is
<v Speaker 2>eighty dollars.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's amazing.
<v Speaker 1>I'm sleeping on money.
<v Speaker 4>Baby, We've gone full circle.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, guys, that's what you.
<v Speaker 1>Do in the business of podcasting.
<v Speaker 2>That's professional podcasting right there.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, we're doing well. Thank you both for joining me
<v Speaker 1>today on this episode. Thank you all out there for listening.
<v Speaker 1>If you enjoyed the episode, Please consider supporting Game Informer
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<v Speaker 1>to follow the crew this week, follow Matt Miller on
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<v Speaker 1>Marcus at Marcus Stewart seven. On social media, you can
<v Speaker 1>follow me at It's van Aken. Kyle's not here this week,
<v Speaker 1>but you can follow him at Kyle M. Hilliard. He'll
<v Speaker 1>be back next week. And yeah, thanks, thanks everyone for
<v Speaker 1>sticking with us. We are at the end of July.
<v Speaker 1>We're about to enter the onslaught of game releases. I'm
<v Speaker 1>for you, it's coming. I mean, Maddens at the groundhol
<v Speaker 1>right exactly when the game has happened, ye, And we'll
<v Speaker 1>be here talking about all of them. So if you're
<v Speaker 1>new here, be sure to subscribe to the podcast, follow us.
<v Speaker 1>We appreciate all of that. We'll talk to you next Thursday. Everybody,
<v Speaker 1>have a great week. Bye.