845: REVENGEANCE (Shadow of the Erdtree Mini-Review)

Hey, everybody, it's not Tuesday. It is Friday. For BombCast Revengeance.
I'm your host, Jeff Grubb from giant bomb dot com, joined by
two very special people from Giant Bomb to More Hussein and Lucy James. How's
it going, Tam going well, I'm excited to be on the Revengeance glad
to have you. We are gonna have you. Catch us up on urge
tree, give us some more thoughts on that. And then Lucy meanwhile,
how them hobbits, what them hobbits do? What them hobbits do? Indeed,
Yeah, I played some of Tales of the Shia, so I can
tell you all about that. I also met a Hobbit recently, so this
is a very hobbity episode for me. I'm excited. And then I've decided
for like for the second section instead of like doing like some game, because
what I wanted to do was a mount rushmore of UK nineteen eighties and nineteen
nineties computers. Maybe if you guys think it's a good idea, because I'm
really what I want is I want you guys to tell me what computers you
grew up with. And if I were to like go back and look into
this what I should do? No, dog pans, don't do it.
You're considerably older than us. I well don't remember what I like, I
had something. I had something with Windows ninety five on it. The eighth
I definitely like, I'm interested that too. Okay, what the conversation is,
it's like, were you okay that? That's fantastic? But really what
I want to talk about it is like what you guys were playing while I
was playing Nintendo? Were you playing Nintendo? Or was there like something else
that was like big in your place instead? But we can have that conversation.
Let me text Dad James man considerably older, tam No, I'm just
messing. No, it's all good. All right. Let's let's start with
elder Ring. Elder Ring Shadow of the Tree. It's out now, launched
basically yesterday. Today's really the launch day. Whatever. Everyone's playing it.
It is being described by many people as elder Ring two in a lot of
ways. Tim, do you think that's a fair descriptor? I do not
think that's a fair descriptor very interesting. So how would you how would you
describe it to people? I would describe it as DLC for elder Ring.
That's you sound you sound like a real asshole. I feel like the way
I say it is that the way I tell people is like they put a
Dog Cells game in elder Ring. In terms of like how that's interesting,
what it's, what it's I feel like that's the best encapsulation of what that
game is, because it feels like it feels like elder Ring, but it's
tighter in the way that a Dark Cells game would be. The major difference
between it has you know, a field area and overworld if you want to
call it that, but the specific areas that you go into they feel like
interconnected instead of having like you know, pathways that connect each area, there's
still Instead it's just all on like the the main map and you just move
between them. So there's like a there's more tissue in between the kind of
various muscles of the weird. It's a denser Yeah, it's denser, denser,
but in terms of like also how it's played or like how it plays
out, it's roughly thirty hours, which is about the amount of time you'd
probably be playing a game like Dark Souls for and yeah, it feels more
like a they added a kind of major expansion. I think of it like
closer to something like a World of War Cross style expansion minus all the online
stuff, where is like, you know, it's it's me. It's got
a whole new area, it's got new enemies, it's got you know,
items and stuff like that. So for me, it feels like more of
an expansion. But we just don't use the word expansion much anymore these days
unless it's outside of mmo's mms just don't get expansion. Yes, I was
just thinking that as well. Yeah, so that's pretty much how I describe
it and present it to other people. Adult Souls in Elden Ring, And
we talked about this on game as Mornings today, like a lot of people
are finding it very difficult. I'm it was like challenging for me, but
I had to do this thing. So I thought I had a save ready
to go, and apparently I did start New Game Plus and I just forgot
and I did. I must have played it for like a couple hours.
So I started up and I'm like, huh, why don't I have any
these the sights of Grace unlock? There's two sites of Grace here. That
doesn't seem like enough. And then I realized I did the new game plus
thing. So I went and grabbed a save file and I had to do
this whole thing to like inject it into the game. It wasn't too difficult.
That is on if people are like wondering if there's a shortcut to do
that, Yeah, yeah it's it's on the like some odd sites, I
think gamers and Nexus or whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah, it's easy
to do and say, yeah, do you still get achievements if you do
that? Yeah, because it's like it's just a safe stay. Yeah,
it's just the same. Yeah. It's also like it doesn't ping any service
or anything like that, so you won't get banned for it or anything like
Exactly, I could have done this instead of killing killing the Little Modern Palace.
Yeah huh. But I feel like if you're I recommend it, if
you're someone that has played a bunch of it and feel confident, Yeah,
if you have, that's my issue. Yeah. If you haven't and you
just grab a save file and go in, you you you have, you've
cheated yourself and the game where you what happened to me? Yeah, even
to someone who I beat the game, I played one hundred and fifty hours.
I've been playing really in two years, and I'm playing a couple of
care through that is very different than the character. I'm used to a magic
casting character, and now I'm in there with with very much not that a
strength build, it seems like mostly and I was like the first mini boss
that came across, I was really struggling. Yeah, that's the thing.
I couldn't get the I could get the timing down on it. Yeah,
so it was rough. You want you want the muscle memory to kick in
again and warm up, you know, the sharpness around how to tackle,
and also like the mentality. It's a different way to play games. And
I feel like if you just jump in aften not playing for you know,
since the original release, you will get kicked about a bit. So like
if you're if but if you're the kind of person who's like I played these
games, I'm very confident in this. I just accidentally went into New Game
plus or I lost my savee wile then it's then it's fine, like and
there's yeah, there's files out there that are like, hey, I've collected
every single thing in the game. I've there's that seems to be with this.
Yeah, there's a bunch of Larval tires. So you can also just
respect by going to Ranala in Rylacaria, and then you're good. You've got
you can set up your own build and you're good to go. It was
somebody said that they didn't add any achievements in a tree. I don't think
so. I don't remember anything popping up. I think, oh, yeah,
yeah, didn't didn't have achievements, so that means I still got I
still got a platinum baby. Because I wondered, like, as I was
playing, if they just hadn't turned the one yet because we were playing release.
I don't think they have any I don't know if they have any on
isn't there a requisite prerequisite on like PlayStation or something? Yeah, I console.
I thought it's like, well maybe not, fore it's definitely expected by
a lot of fans. I think, so they'll probably there will probably be
some people wanting about that, but uh yeah, it's I'll say that.
Once I started to get the hang of things though there at the end it
did take about an hour playing. After I kindly got the thing installed and
got past that thing, it was like, okay, I'm I'm feeling this.
I could also just tell this it is kind of difficult. It is
challenging, more challenging than I was expecting. Even on Elden Ring, I
definitely considered to be a challenging game. I could see them like really,
and it's the way you described it, Tam. It's not just like density
of content and that connective tissue. I think they're just like, they really
want to give you the difficult to Dark Souls experience right away and they're not
going to hold it back. So but I'm excited about it by that.
That is something I'm finding very enticing. Yeah, it still has a very
manageable difficulty curve. You know, difficult is relative. So if you're the
kind of person that never has completed these games, are you don't get on
with them. Nothing's changed. But even though it's difficult, if you have
played the original game or played Dark Souls, you'll be fine. Like they
they don't just crank up the difficulty and like leave you to it and it's
hard. Because of that. There's actual thought and design put into the way
the difficulty works, and it's reflected in the way enemies ramp up, and
there's a whole delicate science to the way these make these games. They make
these games that is that goes far beyond they just made it harder. It's
like they made it harder, but they do that knowing how to do it
while making it achievable for pretty much everyone, as long as you're willing to
persevere and engage it in the way that they kind of outline they want to
create the template for the ninety five on Metacritic. Not that it matters too
much, but I was pretty impressed by that. You think it earned that,
You think it's like the highest rate of games of all time. Yeah.
I think the thing that's going to be the discussion this year is is
it legible for Game of the Year? Yeah? And it happened. Yeah,
And like from my personal perspective, I don't see why not. I
think we talked about Cyberpunk when Phantom Liberty came out as potential well yeah,
it was on our top ten, but we discussed it as if it could
have been. You know, it was in the running to potentially get Game
of the Year for us. So from a Game Spot perspective, Elden Ringshadow
of the Ear Tree is going to be in contention. I do wonder if
it's the same for like, you know, the one that people really think
of as prestigious and the others like you know, the game awards and that
kind of stuff, that one's a bit trickier. I think if they go
based on if we go based on like previous years, I don't think they
accept the d l C as a Game of the year contenter can't remember ongoing
game, right, So yeah, yeah, I don't think they don't like
the community one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that is like for me,
I think that's I said the same with Cyberpunk, was like, it's
the scale of things these days are so significant that I think that we need
to reassess what DLC really is and consider each one in its own merits.
I think that this is the thought in these kind of scenarios is very outdated,
where DLC is still treated as you know, we've added another gun,
or we've added some armor to it, or you know that kind of thing,
whereas this is a game that was made across multiple years and features a
significant content addition injection and even has a little bit of an overhaul on the
previous content. So I would I would think like that would warrant and merit
looking at it as its own thing again, and like I said, I
thought the same for Cyberpunk as well. Yeah, Lucy, so you've been
playing How deep into the DLC are you? That is difficult to say.
I have done more than I did in the three hour preview session, right
but I spent a lot of time at the very beginning because I felt I
was under leveled. I just explored a bunch, so I definitely found a
couple of areas that I was not supposed to. I think of about ten
or so hours in I because I was I started a new save on PC
in my because I'm afraid I'm an elite gamer now, and I'm of course,
yeah, I'm afraid of that too. Genuinely, I'm playing my I
haven't had a single I restarted it a few weeks ago before we did the
preview session, so I already had a run, and I have my little
Fucker builds on my des Bleed poison Rot build. So I've been kind of
working my way through that, slaying alban Orics right now. I don't want
to say where I am, but I've Yeah, how many bosses have you
beaten? There's a sixteen total bosses in this or something. Well, let's
say who counts as a boss and who is just like, yeah, I
mean sixteen. I think is is because yeah, I've eaten four that have
a big health bar. Mm hmm, okay, yeah those are the Yeah,
but no think No, I don't think I have because I've I've explored
and one of them was definitely not like I didn't. I did not have
to beat that dragon. Oh yeah, no you don't. You don't have
to fight all of them at all. Yeah, there's some optional bosses,
so it's like a beaten four with a big health bar. But I don't
because I like, I won't be able to see it as a linear kind
of like my the way that I've tackled the game millennially until I finished it,
so I really have no idea where I am and I know, Yeah,
it's like core bosses that are like, hey, these are linked to
story in a meaningful big way, and you don't have to beat all of
them. You can. It's the same as with you know, the main
game. You don't have to get you can only you can defeat two of
the the main game is like one hundred and something. It's like mad yeah,
like like big health. But one of them, though, I will
say, was I basically had a Godzilla let them fight moment because I found
a big dragon and he was getting by a bunch of boys and I literally
just sat on the cliff and watched. But then I felt really mad because
I thought the dragon was going to beat all the little boys. And then
the dragon glitched and was just stood still, and so there was this one
soldier just hacking away at the leg. It took like ten minutes. I
was texting Tam in it and I was like, I don't feel good about
this. No, it counts those care fair is fair, So I'm sick
to say you're enjoying it. I love it? Yeah, God, I
tweeted out when the embargo was up, and I was like, one thing
I was worried about was that I think playing elden Ring more than anything else.
Like I know people will say the same of a Breath of the Wild,
but I actually felt the Breath of the Wild in comparison. There weren't
huge, beautiful, like distinct environments and like that that feeling, yes,
And so I didn't feel I was worried I wouldn't get that sense of wonder
and then I was playing and there's a point where I saw this castle and
there was the tree at the top of it, and there was like a
big fire gollumn like and it just looked like a painting. And I was
like, oh my god, I get to explore that and I get to,
you know, exist in that, and I yeah, I've been all
right. So then if I if I, like were to ask for some
pointers about how to get through this first little bit right now, I am.
I got that the blasphemous sword, and I am trying to go light
armors so I can dodge and I kind of get in there, do some
swings and occasionally do the big fire attack with that sword. It seems to
mostly be working. I'm I'm worried that I'm going to get to a point
where it's like, nah, dodging is not going to help you here.
You need to rethink your entire strategy. But I don't know. I don't
think so. I think you could, like, as long as you the
weapons that you pick will scale up, but well, your damage out put
will scale up depending on the amount of skato tree fragments that you find.
If you explain that, for people that I just I just got the hang
of that too. So schedu tree fragments are like basically leveling up in the
DLC and only the basically right. Yeah, So they are a separate stat
a series of stats which you go if you go into your stated screen,
you'll see yellow ones there that they depending on how much you get of them,
that goes up. But the moment you return to the lands between that
stuff isn't in play anymore. The weapons are fine, any like core levels
that you've done are fine. The scatter tree and the the other stuff that
you collect on there go. The spirit ash blessings won't come into play there.
So it's basically specific to this DLC to make sure that you don't go
back overpowered and like kill everything immediately. Yeah, am I going to be
finding those in like parts? So they're actually like the majority a significant number
of them are around the Micholas crosses, so you know the kind of symbol
that they tell you to go and look for to show where Michola's pathing has
been. You'll find a bunch there. There's also remember that Pop character that
we just told you to go and attack and you went the other way instead.
Some of those. Yeah, some of those will have them as well.
And then there's certain enemies that I won't say what they are, animalistic
enemies that you'll encounter at some point that will drop them as well. Beyond
that, yeah, beyond that, it's just kind of like you will find
them heir in there after you defeat enemies or just like hanging about in certain
areas. There's not a reaches the point where you have to like collect three
I think it is, and then they become a singular upgrade. So as
you've got you've got to hunt them down. I think you can go up
twenty levels scattered tree levels. I believe it is. Okay, that's if
you collect every single one, and it's like it does like scale, like
you're saying like it like, yeah, my first one was like just one,
and then it's like, well, now go the next up you need
to. And I'm assuming it's going to do that each time, three and
then four. No, I think it stays at three after after three years
where it caps out, okay, and even if you get like every single
one of them, the bosses don't become trivial at all. Now that does,
Yeah, it continues to be rough if you if you heard you can't
cake walk kit, you have to actually play the game properly. And then
the spirit Ash blessings are the they do the same thing, so they upgrade
your attack power. The scatter tree ones that upgrade your attack power and damage
negation for yourself. The spirit Ash does it for Torrent, your steed,
and also any spirit Ash summons, so if you if you're summoning a s
ash, it will be more powerful if you collect the spirit Ash blessings.
Those are these those are found more in the world. I think, Okay,
yeah, the summons I wasn't able to summon, and that was just
because I was like an like a dungeon that wasn't allowing it, right,
So it's like, oh, yeah, I could summon things and then it
wasn't working. I'm like, wait, I just think that's just because no,
man. Yeah, there's certain areas which you can summon. It's usually
around like big boss areas, boss areas and enemies areas with lots of enemies
nearby. Usually you can see if it's going to be a big fight or
a scrap, they'll let you summon there, okay, And it's it's kind
of similar for you know, summoning other players, there are specific areas where
you can summon the best place for it and for both of you. How
do I beat the Black jail Night run away? Now? I saw that
fucker in the preview and I tried him like three times if I remember correctly,
You run in, immediately, run to the left and let him spray
his bullets, close the gap, attack twice, pause and when he pauses
he'll backstep the moment he starts his backstep, jump forward and strike and do
two attacks again and he'll backstep again, and you basically caught him in a
loop. They just keep jumping towards him, and like when he tries to
create space, don't let him have it. And then if you remember,
yeah, because there's a bunch of those lads that are the will behave a
bit differently as well. Great news. They have twitch drops at Elden Ring
and they've got the little like eel thing and so I got it. Yeah,
I got him. And what's the other one? There was another one,
mister wolf Night. I think he's a badge, though I don't think
it's the next but yeah, I got him. Yeah, it's fun.
I want the pool noodle lad. They're really they can be deadly if you're
not careful. Yes, I accidentally got bucked up on one of them,
and I was like, yeah, please you to begin with, they only
attack you when you're like hitting them, and then you get some other types
as well later on, a little more aggro, which is fun. I
did see a little bit of Maximilian Dude I believe, was streaming this in
four K on Twitch, and I was like, Oh, we're there.
We're finally there where like that can actually work and the game looks just really
good. It's that That's the first thing that hit me when I got back
in. It's like, oh, yeah, the best artists in the world
working on like one of the biggest games ever, and it's just such a
joy to look at everything that the big fire guy that's right at the front.
When am I going to be able to beat him? You can find
him immediately if he wants you can't. It's not what he's doable immediately okay,
like hashtag doable. Yeah, I mean the thing that you have to
be careful about is you will die a bunch of times to learn this attack
patterns and its attacks are quite like AoE fire stuff, so you have to
be very precise with like dodging his fire, and it can be tricky.
Even I struggle with it still, Like I've beaten a bunch of them,
and sometimes I'll get like the arena will fuck me up, or I'll just
like didn't predict the right attack there. Right, the fire's got a much
bigger area than I was expecting. Yeah. They are worth doing though,
because they give you the tiers that you can put into your physic and they
have some cool new new tiers that mess with properties in a very fun way.
So they are they are tricky to do. You can, like,
once you've gone up a few scattery levels, maybe try one. But the
fun last thing, did either of you try the There's like some new ways
to fight. I believe there's like a hand to hand combat. You try
that. Yeah, Yeah, it's it's fun. The hand to hand stuff
is good for like one v ones and there's certain a bit like the barel
has a good like not AOI, but it's good at crowd control to a
degree. I especially like if you put like a bleed effect or something like
that on on the stuff like the bakele or whatever. It can be handy.
I just I think they're fun. I think they're designed to be in
there for freaks who want to be like I'm going to stream myself completing the
entire game using only punches and kicks, right, yeah, yeah, exactly,
Okay, it's definitely viable. I just don't find them to be particularly
that much better streamline. Yeah, it's good, you're gonna have a rougher
because the range on attack is is very you know small. You have to
be up close and personal, which means you know you're in danger way more
and your your ability to dodge is way more. Put to the tests.
If you screw up, miss time something and get hit, chances are you're
going to die, and you can't also panic attack your way out things.
Some people do that way, you know, they overwhelm, They're just start
swinging. So I started blasting that kind of approach, but you can't really
do that with do that well with a hand to hand style. I think
the stuff that is really I think a lot of people should try and give
a goal is the projectile weapons, which are new, Like you can if
you search like there's a forge knocking about where you can get like so cool.
Yeah, they're mainly puzzle folk, not puzzle, but it's like traversal
focused. Then you can get, for example, an axe that you throw
and it's it's unlimited and you just keep throwing it from a distance, so
you can just keep lobbing axes and stuff like that. Those are fun.
And you get like kunai and things like that, like a sphere blade.
Yeah, yeah, those are okay, those are Those are fun to do.
And I think that there's a lot of new like sorcery and magic stuff,
which is really cool. A lot of like the Holy stuff is fun.
I think there's the way people combine it as well with other things is
going to be where the real mileage is. I'm excited to see people grab
all that stuff, go back into New Game Plus and then power through it
with all the new abilities and such. The builds are going to be wild
broken. Yeah, I'll be excited to see that, absolutely. All right.
We'll be playing more elden Ring on the website here in the next couple
of weeks, probably talk about it more on the BombCast as well. In
the meantime, though, Lucy James, what are the Tale of the Shires?
What are the Shire Tales. I did play Shire Tales. The Shire
Tales, No so, I played Tales of the Shire, which is coming
out at some point this year, being made by Wetter, published by Private
publish by Private Division. And as a big Lord of the Rings fan,
first of all, kind of just say how nice it is to have a
game that's not set during the War of the Ring. It's set beforehand,
so it's set somewhere in between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. I
didn't get the exact year. It's a weird one because it is a farming
sim and I think the real fulfillment of those games not farming sim sorry,
but like cozy genre, there is farming in it. There's animal crossing,
there's relationship buildings. So I'm using farming as a generalized to a stagy value.
People know what you mean, People get it. Yeah, mean you
can can like lay crops and everything and grow your own stuff. So it's
very difficult to get across in half an hour. Just how that game is
going to come together and see how relationships with the Hobbits form, or you
know, there's even a dwarf in there, and Gandalf comes by, and
I assume other people, Like I heard someone reference Bilbo and you know,
I'm interested to see, hey, is this going to be around the time
maybe the Bilbo adopts Frodo or you know, so it remains to be seen
it in terms of story stuff. One thing I think they definitely nailed,
and this was from like a very limited hands on time with it, is
that like it the Shire is this safe haven, like that's how Tolkien always
wrote it. It's like, you know, the allegory that people use and
Tolkien hate allegory, but it's like it's it's England, it's green, it's
lush. People are like simple townsfolk. They have a community, and like,
I think that vibe they totally nailed. The one thing I would say
is that like everything hinges, like they've done it very clever wa where it's
like everything hinges around the fact that Hobbits love food. So what's the best
way to increase your standing with other Hobbits? Cook meals? And the demo
that I did first was like there was a lot of that, and there's
different ways, you know, like they'll tell you they prefer it salty or
like a recipe cause for it to be salty, and you can adapt you
know which kind of you know, if you have a different this kind of
mushroom will make it a little saltier. But then there's like a little graph
thing essentially where you're trying to get it into the sweet spot. So every
time you add a new a new ingredient, you can move it closer into
that zone to try and get it perfect. And the better it is,
the more it will be loved by the other Hobbits. It's very cute,
but the one thing that I think, like I said, was it was
difficult to gauge is like how the relationship's actually going to work, because it
was very limited in terms of how much I could interact with everyone because I
would walk around like they basically give me free rein to run around hobbitson and
they were just like, oh yeah, go go chat to whoever. But
everyone didn't have dialogue for me because it was like a weird part of the
vertical slice. So there were only really like two or so quests that I
could actually do. I couldn't you know. It's also I get why because
of ratings shit. But you can go to the Green Dragon, but you
can't drink alcohol there. Is no pipe there is no pipe weed. We'll
get the matyrs on this immediately, exactly one. But it was really cute.
I think the one thing that I really liked about it was they let
me come back and I was able to mess around with the home decoration part
of it, okay, which was like, I was really impressed with the
tools. So as someone who's played a lot of the SIMS, like a
lot of the Sims, especially in the SIMS four, you have to get
really creative or you have to download mods to be able to like position things
in a way to have clutter. Like clutter in the SIMS building is super
important, to make it look less like everything is attached to a grid,
and like to make it look lived in. The tools that we used that
I was able to use in the Hobbit in Tales of the Shire were really
really good, like in terms of moving stuff around, in terms of uh
like palette, in terms of you could have, oh, you can have
a big arch in the middle of your Hobbit hole and you could have it
be painted, or you could have it be a different kind of word,
or you could have plants on it. And so it was like very It's
like free form. Yeah, so it was good. I think my my
main concern is how it is all going to come together. I there were
a lot of like really fun little Lord of the Rings Tolkien references in it
without it being like too overbearing, but there was so there was one thing
that they didn't actually have an answer for me. So when you name your
hobbit, you can select from a list of hobbit names and Hobbit surnames.
But so there wasn't Gamgee, but there would be Sackville. So you couldn't
be in like Sam and Gaffer Gamgee, but you could be a Sackville but
not a Sackville Baggins and they and I was like, is that a story
reason why you can't actually be doing that? Like or is it just you
know, you don't want someone to pretend to be Frodo's sister or whatever?
Right? Yeah, the Embrace group very protective of their property, of course.
Yeah. It was cute. Yeah, it's it sounds cute. It
sounds like I get what you mean by it all coming together, because well,
I think I'm like, what do I want from this game? Because
I do find it like like enticing in a lot of ways. This idea
of like just come hang out with them in the shire. That sounds so
pleasant to me. It's always like my favorite part of the movies is like
when we see the stuff in the Shire. That's definitely the stuff I always
found the most exciting. So like, okay, so once I'm there,
is it like does it not have a lot of momentum because there isn't a
lot of pressure on the player to change things? Or is there? Well,
that's the thing. So the I asked about what what is the quote
unquote central conflict here? Yeah, and it's basically the fact that this particular
village is not recognized by hobbitson as being a Hobbit village. Okay, very
cool. So they want to basically like be recognized by the right citizens.
Yes, there's no there's no Nasgul coming. Gandalf will obviously appear like you
can see him in the trailer. I I kind of love that, like
like low steaks, relaxing thing, like I just want to go foraging.
I could do this, I could do that, go fishing. It'd be
like a sieve, like different sieve wind conditions. It's like like can you
improve the culture, and then when can you improve your diplomacy. Can you
make yourself so like the best beer and now they like it doesn't have alcohol,
but to make the best food. And then that's them wants to be
part of you. Yeah, Ted Sandyman has nukes, I don't know,
like yeah, exactly, very aggressive with them for some reason, you know,
like I don't think you can go to you can't go to bree or
outside of there's a barrier, and they definitely want to keep you in hobited.
So yeah, I just need to know how it all comes together.
Play more of it for an extended period of time. But as like a
cozy Hobbit game, it's taking all the boxes fe right now, but yeah,
need to see, need to see more. I also I also hate
the fact that it's called Tales of the Shire A the Lord of the Rings
game. Yeah, A the Lord of the Rings game. That is bad.
Yeah I understand why. But yeah, I think I said the other
day and it came out and I'm like, Okay, it's not as bad
as I thought it would be to say, but it's not great still.
Yeah, A The Lord of the Rings game is kind of how you have
to you have to say instead of a Yeah, you're right, Lord of
the Ring. It's not it's just a a Lord of the Rings game.
You have to like sort of change your musicality of Lord of the Ring.
No, you have to, tim you have to do it like in the
Elden Ring opening where it goes up rise, so up the Lord of the
Rings game, The Lord of the Rings. All right, let's uh,
we're gonna take a quick break. Can we come back. We're gonna wrap
up this episode pretty quickly. I just want to kind of talk to them.
We talk to these folks about some British games and stuff like that.
What that was like right after this? All right, and we are back
and let's let's get into it. We actually decided we're gonna do a mount
rushmore of British game developers. Uh. I definitely have some stuff that comes
to mind. Are doing specific people? Are we doing studios? So I
was thinking studios? But you would you rather do people? I mean we
can we can studios? Then yeah, okay, cool? All right?
So I immediately think of the most British game studio, which I think is
I think the British is signosis. I think the most British. I think
that Bridge, I think, yes, okay, all right, cool,
I'm gonna get a dot going here then yeah, whatever, I just associated
like, I'm like yeah, like it's like that is European to me,
but I'm I'm pretty sure they're British growing up and now today it's like you
asked me to name a British game developed, I would still say signals do
we are? We are? We limited to the four faces that are currently
on Mount Rush, the four Faces about Rushing d M a design slash rock
Star right Star North was it originally? Well why can't they be like why
can't they be like the Hogee Rock in Narua where every time there's a new
one they add them to the they chosel them into the mons cowardly you got
to get rid of one, Yes, exactly, all right, let me
get this. I feel like I should I want to say this, but
it's the recency of it. It's it's just not a great spot, Like
I want to say rock Steady, but well there should they should be in
the conversation, Yeah, I think so, but also like even I'm like,
man, that's just a squad game. Though they definitely lost some of
their luster, right, that's how I feel about them as well, Zumo,
super Massive, Rare, rare, Hello Games Hello a good one.
Yeah, Playground, Playground, I mean oh, Cyrus Serven says, thank
goodness you're here. Is extremely British. But is the developer British? They
are Cooper? Yes, two boys, good boys. Are we kind of
like IDOS because we can? Yeah, because IDOS was there for a while.
Okay, what else do we we said? Rare, rock Steady,
We could just consider these medium molecule. Media molecule is the one I was
going to ask you both about. Okay, Media molecule, create assembly,
Yes, assembly is a good one. Travelers Tales Team seventeen, Ninja theory,
Ninja theory, and then uh Lionhead, code Masters yeah, code Masters,
rebellion rebellions there, yeah, sure, yeah. They let me shoot
Hitler in the ball exactly the most activities. Yeah, which one did you
say, Lucy Frontier? Oh? Friend here? Okay, that was even
monkeys? All right, so we got we we have a lot to choose
from here. Do we can keep anymore? But for anything else? I
mean rock Star, Yeah, I mean like yeah, because dm A design
was also like Lemmings too, Yeah, yes, also very yeah, Rockstar
have to be on there. Yeah. Okay, so Rockstar is a lock
let's put down lock Star. Okay, Like I said, I would go
with Signosis, but I'm willing if you guys have three will put up there
before that fellow game. Oh I didn't put Hello Games, but we could
do that, right Signosis. I think I would put them on there,
but I know how many people of you know right now would be like I
know Signals, Yeah, but it'd be like when when I'm when we're doing
these, I always feel like like yeah, like George Washington, right,
like the like, yeah, it has to be on there, right,
Yeah, And rarely it's like it's it's the sensibilities are baked into the games,
right. The British humor is like a huge part of their appeal.
Okay, well that makes it like we owned they owned an entire like generation
an era of Nintendo. Basically, it's like they were the only company.
Yeah, they're the only company that you could mistake the games for being Nintendo
games, which is powerful. Yep, absolutely, and that that's uh,
you know, even you go back to their NYS games, which were pretty
good, and they're like one of the studios that really was putting out stuff
that competed with Nintendo self. Okay, one spot left. We can put
a couple up and I try to whittle. What do you how do you
all want to approach it? We have a Hello Games, Idos, rock
Steady, Media Molecule, Creative Assembly, Travelers Tales, Sumo Team, seventeen,
Ninja Theory, Code Master's Rebellion, and Frontier. Mm hmmm, creve.
I like, Creative Assembly is a good one, but it's good.
Yeah, But I feel like in terms of personally, I would go for
rock Steady, but I am very biased on that because they made three absolutely
incredible Batman games and then they are like, we're done, We're not gonna
we will not make any more games. They did not make a single game
after that, which is a shame, but you know, it is what
it is. And I feel like Crative Assembly has some decent ones. But
that's the thing I don't Yeah, I know that the yeah, yeah,
Alien Isolation and then Hyaenas Yeah, the last two. That's right. Oh
yeah, scroll down a little bit, sure, I can just it cuts
off a Ninja theory. I can't remember who we've got underneath, Like Rebellious
I like, I like, I like Rebellion. It does feel like I
think rock Steady, medium molecule, creative assimply come to mind first, even
hollow games come before Rebellion, but that maybe yeah, I think, yeah,
Team seventeen like obviously worms and stuff. But in terms of that publisher,
in terms of the publishing label they've got, you know they did Dredge,
Yeah they did. I was doing Developers of Publishers. Is there a
distinction there? Do we want to make a distinction? I guess we do.
I guess we don't have to make a distinction, but we can because
Dredge was made New Zealand, I feel like you kind of have to have
medium molecule on there like that, And I'm like leaning towards I lean towards
that those little big planic games. Man, they were they start, I
mean even like dreams yh incredible, just like I ken't like I think of
sack Boy as being synonymous with the PlayStation three and some degree four. But
when they were, when the little big planet was popping, it owned everything.
Yeah, it was crazy like they it started. It became a merchandising
engine for PlayStation where the original of funcos basically where you could make sack Boy
look like anything, and they sure as hell did it. Yeah, and
it's very much also in that like art style that I associate with like rare,
like just a cute character with just like a stubby little arms. Out
of three of those games were super fun, like really really fun yep.
So I feel like between the Little Big Planet game and then also like Dreams,
like Dreams is obviously not the success story that perhaps most people wanted,
but it was very cool and very impressive. They haven't made a modernation Racers
modernation that Terraway. They made Terroway, remember, and that was fucking They
haven't put out a bad game. They haven't even put out a mediocre game,
right. They put out Like Bangers and they had a massive impact on
the industry, and if you were in the UK, like the UK was
going out of its way to like shine a light on how like uh prestigious
it was to have a medium molecule, they were behind. So I feel
like they should be Okay, I think that puts them in there. Lucy,
say that sound right to you? I think that looks good. Then
our mount rushmore of British developers goes as this rock star Signosis Rare and Media
Molecule. And when I said out loud that list that sounds like an analyst
start chiseling. That is that sounds pretty good. Yes, get him up
there, go say in Minecraft though, Yeah, of course the dude just
want to get in Minecraft and make that That would be pretty funny. I
just imagine what it's like to have like a real amount Rushmore with sac Boy's
face on it, and it's horrifying that massive. Now just look at her
went down and see that every day. Yeah, that's that's a lot.
All right, Let's uh, let's wrap this up. Hey, what are
you guys gonna be doing this Weekend's more more? I mean I listened to
him. I know you played a lot of eldering. You still like it's
it's wild that I stumbled into a new area by accident. I was like,
oh, I had no idea this was hair. There's there's like I
keep finding I found a new boss the other day but I had not seen
which was crazy. I was like, oh you, I didn't see you
hair before. But yeah, I'm gonna be playing more of it, I
think, And then I think I'm gonna try and play something else. I
think there's a bunch of Steam Next Fest stuff that I downloaded and just haven't
touched. So some of those I think might be still playable, Yes,
some of those who turned out the A and then I'll find something else that
paper Mario maybe. Yeah, that's been fun. I'm finishing that up.
I'm really happy with it. Lucy James, how about you? What do
you got going on? I am going to be on so skill Up is
doing a game on cancer charity stream on Saturday, so at like seven thirty
PMPT me. I believe Hubert from Easy Allies and j Bodino are gonna be
hopping on, so come through, donate some money. Never can watch it
on skill ups YouTube, Chan, YouTube dot com. Let's launches skill Up
and then Monday We've got star Players launching, which I'm very excited about.
We finally revealed it. Yeah, but anyone has followed my Instagram stories and
I wondered why I've been at the Guy Fieri Bar and Grill and Burbank so
often. That is it's because you love it I've ever met. I love
Flavor Town, but we are very excited about it, so it's uh it's
going up on Monday with Money Exchange. We've got Dominic Monaghan, I Shaw,
Tyler, Rajulkleilem, Johnny from Health like we have we have really and
more to be announced. So that's fun. And then this weekend forward,
Yeah one Benjamin Star is coming to stay with me next week, so I
have to do it. I know what you mean. I'm like, I
because I got some people coming intown for Summer Slam in like a month or
so, and I'm like, I should really just get a whole area clean
to all over my house. We're gonna make hire some people and walk up
and down the hills of San Francisco and yeah, we'll look at the bus
and we'll just meet him at the top. Like we we went to see
Glenn Schofield's exhibit last night. Sold really crazy talented, yes, And I
remember seeing his Instagram being like, man, what doesn't he just dot all
the time? And then like he emailed us out of and I was like,
hey, I have an art show in San Francisco. Becomes like hell,
yeah, he does like really cool art and I think you can buy
them off his website. You can, yeah, And it's like super well
done. High quality like dead if you like dead space, and that his
studios work, like there's some stuff there that are very There's there's a few
necro nasty zambos like he did. He's done like Frankenstein's Monster Dracula, but
like really messed up versions of them. It's really cool. It was He's
always been really, I mean he is. He is an artist like in
that he is very quiet and like which is wild when you think of him,
like as being a founding member of like you know, the studio makes
a call of d E and like you know, et cetera, et cetera.
Huh. Absolutely, yeah, we went saying it was the top of
a very big hill, so we might just get bent to that. Sounds
like like a good idea. Don't punish him with San Francisco too much,
you know, let them car up to the top. All right, I'm
gonna take a little bit more of my get good here there we go.
Yeah, the mental Vicks vapor one when it was stuff he knows. Yeah,
right, this has got mental And I think this is basically just that
just it says it just says get good on it. So yeah, it
says gamer Inhaler, which is an incredible sentence everybody. You can find that
on Amazon. Don't buy it on my account. Please use code Grab Detroit
made Detroit, what uh for Lucy for tam Uh, I'm Jeff Grab.
This is giant bomb. We've got plenty of cool stuff happening on the website.
Everybody go check it out. I mean, there we do this.
There we go. Until next time, everyone, have a good one to
take care of yourself and goodbye by