[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, it's really funny because people are just posting the way that they've been doing solutions and stuff. Is that Astarion, for me, his cantrip is put grease on the ground.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So every time I'm about to go into combat or if I sneak in as him, I put grease on like stairs or.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's like a little bridge and you can put grease on like the narrowest part of it. So to get to my guys, they have to walk on the grease. They fall over a lot or you can set it on fire.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Shove as a bonus action is unbelievable because yeaah, you knock them down flat on their arse and then if someone else, uh, there is some...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, abilities that like do more damage if someone's prone. So it's like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's great, and I've never thought about a combat encounter in a game that way before, because I haven't, I played D&D, we tried to, last year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was such a shame because like scheduling wise, it just was an absolute mess and we couldn't really get together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I didn't really play much of divinity at all, cause I was very, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think in terms of where it's coming, when it's coming out now, you can sort of pinpoint, hate to say it, but it is at least partially true.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, at least within the public consciousness, mainstream-wise.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Chris Pine. Oh yea, Chris Pine in the movie. But you know, you know, like, certainly there was a shot in the arm, not to say the D&D ever went away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, you know, you had this moment where Stranger Things was happening, it's like, oh my god, the kids play D&D, blah blah blah. And then...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Critical Role got absolutely massive. Oxventure as well. Huge. A lot of Role, uh, a lot of D&D, like, tabletop Role Playing Games. Huge on video, podcast stuff, like the Adventure Zone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you have Larian, who have consistently been making, you know, like Divinity, Original Sin, Original Sin 2, Original Sin 2! Wildly successful game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Critically lauded and then this went into early access three years ago and people were like, oh shit, this is good. And it's just been this consistent drip feed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not even drip feed, just like swell of just like positivity, like it was already very positive on Steam.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then just everything they were doing, I think like marketing wise, talking directly to the community, that kind of stuff just really paid off. And then at this point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe yea, maybe gamers are just ready for more systems based gameplay stuff rather than, hey, I'm gonna hold your hand a bit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, it did. Like, the way I think is really special is like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The way things feed into each other, and it's not just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm thinking, like, especially when you have companions and all your companions have their own shit going on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I was like, you know, in Mass Effect, it's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Acquisition mission, you take them on all your missions, but they don't really do much, they just interact with each other, blah blah blah. And then you have their loyalty mission, and then, you know, suicide mission, everyone together, right? Whereas this one, it's like, they have stuff that interconnects a lot more, they shag a lot of them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All of them. All of them, they give their own opinions on everything, like, wait, there's just, I mean, I guess that's just because there's way more dialogue, but like, they each have...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Such a unique way of like, they're all useful, but also when it comes to being out in the world, they have their relationships with each other. And this was also a massive egg too, don't get me wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, you know, those missions were very much like, one, two, three. Whereas this is like, it's a sprawl and you can see there's gonna go across the entire game and you might be able to pick up on it at some points rather than like certain points in the main narrative.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It just, it just feels really fleshed out, really cool when everyone's at camp together as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's kind of my favorite moment, just because it's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, there's a party you can have at one point. That's great.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, if you, genuinely the controller support is incredible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the, in such a long time. Like, there have been games this year, and that's, you know, another part of the episode that we'll be talking about is like games of the year so far, where it's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I absolutely adore Dead Space. Resident Evil 4 Remake. Sure. But this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We were talking about this at work and like, I, cause early access was what? Three years ago. I'd forgotten how long it originally was in the intro. Like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Waypoints for you, uhm, and like, it obviously rewards exploration, but it doesn't try and encourage you to just, you know, oh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I have a question for you then, did you play Disco Elysium before Final Cut came out? Cause it wasn't way, well...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's talk a little bit about other games that came out this year, cause we talked a lot about Baldur's Gate, uhm, and recently,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, as of I think today, we're recording this on Wednesday.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It has dethroned Tears of the Kingdom as being the highest rated game on Metacritic.com, uh, for 2023. So we also saw-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. Uhm, but, you know, for me it was just kind of like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm talking about this. It's like more of the same, uh, like unguided stuff for me where my TikTok ass brain does not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sometimes, sometimes I can be in the mood to make my own adventure, but I think with Zelda...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The story, don't, don't hate me people on the internet. The story was not strong enough for me to pull me through it because I don't really have a past history with Zelda. So I don't really have, you know. Anyway.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, do you see that, uhm, isn't Nintendo, like, copywriting their, uh, game mechanics? It's like how, you know, Warner Brothers copyrighted or whatever they did for trademarked, uh, the Nemesis system and then no one's used it since, not even Warner Brothers, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly, gotta do something. Uh, talking about games from this year then, uh, so there is a lot of games and, uh, it's a packed as hell year. I don't think...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think Paris Lily tweeted this, he was like, I think this may be one of the best years for video games.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I mean, I'm interested to know, you know, we are in August. We're about to hit this big, big release season.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What are your guys', like, games of the year so far? Gerard, we've been talking about Baldur's Gate, and you've been so sweet and patient, so I'm gonna come to you first. What have you been enjoying this year?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I love Vibespace. Yea, no, Vibespace gaming is like completely right for me. I think I'm in the same boat as you where I've been feeling a bit bent out this year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, there's been a lot going on in general, but like, playing Dredge, playing Dave the Diver,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Two completely opposite on, on the vibes spectrum, uh, Lovecraftian horror.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, in a chill restaurant and diving sim. But I think both of them, the thing that really got me about those and why I'm still talking about them, I'm still playing Dave the Diver, it's like, the loop on both is just impeccable. Just, ugh, yeah, I just, I can keep going, incrementally getting better, discovering more, interacting with more characters, doing more, getting better. And it's just been, also music, sound design in both has been so good. And I guess because,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not that I need to, uh, justify my Steam Deck purchase, but it's genuinely


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and it's just like, it feels, it kind of wraps it in a different sort of package for me, where it feels like, oh, this is the treat to myself when I go travel, because uhm, I don't really play it at other


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but in terms of this year, I mean, Dead Space and Resident Evil 4 for me, just in terms of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How well those have translated, how well they've been remade, the changes and like the tweaks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think for me, honestly, my game of the year is Baldur's Gate. I'm only 30 hours in, but it's gonna have to really shit the bed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't take this without the context that I'm providing, but it reminds me of playing Red Dead 2.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When that game first came out, because of the way that, like, on Slack at work, we just have a Baldur's Gate thing, and it's people just dropping stuff and being like, did you know you can do this? I've run into these guys! And that's, and I love those kind of flash in the pan moments that, you know, Tears of the Kingdom has as well for sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but Baldur's Gate certainly has where people just kind of rally and everyone's kind of on the same adventure together but separately and I love that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, I'm reliving the Elden Ring stuff now, cause, uh, the retry boys, RKG, are playing it, cause they got big doing like Dark Souls playthroughs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When they were IGN and then they split off and they do their own channel now and they're finally doing their Elden Ring playthrough.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is making me just like, I have too much on, I can't do it. It's like, it's like, you know, I can't pick up Elden Ring again. Right now, I want to, I want to just like follow along on the journey.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was gonna say, it feels like now, now we can just like, dig into Baldur's Gate for a little bit and then end of the month is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, Armand, yeah, End of the Month, Wrestle Quest, Armand Core, Into Starfield, Into Cyberpunk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Atlas Fallen, into Alan Wake, into Assassin's Creed, into Card, and then, and then we're pretty much, you know, non-stop until...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, that was a look back at some of the best games of 2023 so far. Obviously, a lot more still to come. You guys interviewed the team from Wayfinders. Yes. We did. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everyone, we've got a pretty cool exclusive offer for all of our FPS users. 20% off Liquid IV. Thank you to Liquid IV for supporting the podcast and sponsoring this episode. Boys, what do you, what do you need to hydrate for? Gaming.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I'm the same. I'm a lemon lime girl. It reminds me, I've said this before, but there is a, uh, drink that I used to have back in the UK that I can't get over here, but this tastes exactly like it and it hydrates me instead of, you know, just making me into a little shriveled prune because I've drank a lot of sugar.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All right. We have a user question. Uh, remember if you have a question for us, hit up contact at friendspersecond.com. Um, and we love reading them and we obviously read them out on the show. This one, I just described it as Gerard Core. Uh, so thank you Samuel Smith for this one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As a big nostalgia person, I have come to enjoy the classic Nintendo games like Star Fox, F-Zero, Earthbound, and Kid Icarus. All of these games sadly have not had modern-day releases, except cameos in Super Smash Bros. etc.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which Nintendo IP do you wish was brought back from the grave? Gerard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you think that's the thing they let him, they let him make? It's like, alright, alright mate, make us another Mario, you'll get your Pikmin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, they're really, they're really popular. I thought you meant like the duck fly. I was like, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, I didn't really dip my toe into the old Nintendo catalog, so I'm a fraud, basically, and I'm leaving the podcast. No, I'm kidding.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, sweet. Oh, that makes it even more appealing to me. I'll report back. I know I've said that to you before about Link's Awakening, but like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, what other things have we been playing, other than Baldur's Gate? So Gerard, what have you been playing recently?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I do cause it's like, I'm not into wrestling at all, but I used to live with, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To round us off then, I played something completely different to the rest of you guys. I played a game called Vemba.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which uhm, was absolutely lovely and it takes an hour and a half.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you are just looking for something to just kind of fill in the gap, it is uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I played it for the first time at GDC earlier this year. It was on I think the Xbox like booth thing. And it's this game about this woman named Vemba.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Gameplay like, you know, you know, it's not, you know, leveling up or anything in this game. You are creating dishes from India that you remember as a child because your mother has written you a cookbook. So when you, when you, when Venba leaves, uh, her mom writes all her favorite recipes into this cookbook.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But over time and over where some of the instructions are kind of missing or they're like rubbed or something, you can't really see them. So there's a little bit of elements of trial and error. And then she kind of talks and you know, says, Oh, I remember my, my mom used to do this or whatever. And.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then she and her husband, you know, they're not loving it in Canada. They're struggling. And then they have a baby who, um, is named Carvin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the, the kid is kind of rejecting his culture a little bit when he gets to school because it makes him stand out for all the wrong reasons. So he wants to be called Kevin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's about kind of the relationship between the parents wanting him to accept his culture, him wanting to kind of go out on his own and fit in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And how it all wraps together in the love of food.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it was beautiful. Like, I cried.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was really good, like, the music in there, and it's, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Indian culture is not something that I can relate to personally. I am not from India. However, can I fully...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can fully relate to having a relationship with your parents when generational gaps are so different. I can fully relate to being an immigrant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and all of the foibles that that brings, I can't obviously, you know, there are things in there about, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there are so many lovely messages that it's like, I implore literally everyone to play it. Uhm, hour and a half. Give it a go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it was, I think I saw it, oh I saw it in Wholesome Direct. Oh, right. It was in Wholesome Games Direct. And then, uhm, I played it at GDC.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I didn't actually realize it turns out that my old roommate Jen, her company Popagenda,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ended up doing like the marketing for it. So that's where I got my code from. I just like hit them up and I was like, Hey, can I get a code? I played this game at GDC and it was cool. Um, yeah. And I just loved it. And actually I was sick this week. Um, and on Monday.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just kind of was like, I want something that is kind of like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Comfort foodie as a game? Like, I was feeling too sick to play some Baldur's Gate. Uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At that point, and I played it and it was like, there is, there is even a point where, you know, Venba is making food for her son who is sick. I was like, oh, this is, oh, this is nice. It's lovely. I fully recommend it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's an Apple Arcade game made by us two who made Monument Valley.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I also, if you have Apple Arcade, definitely play Assemble of Care. Very, very sweet story about someone who's like, their job is just they fix things. And it's this very tactile way of interacting with a video game where you take things apart and you swap out the broken bits and put it back in. And in terms of gameplay, that is the closest thing that I can think of in terms of you have each, each part of the dish


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that sounds cool. To cap us off. But actually to cap us off, Gerard, I'm going to throw to you for this weekend later.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, 11 years ago, on August the 13th, sleeping dogs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I loved the game so much. It was so much, it was so much better than it had any right to be. It was like, from the cast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To just the way that it took those brawler mechanics from games like the Arkham series and just made them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, so, so cool. The, um, yeaah, the brawlers are amazing going round.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My favorite thing about it is that like the way that you would


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You, uh, you narrowly dodged crashing into a car and you got this many points or whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And here's the next person on your friends list who's just a little bit better than you. So it's like constantly trying to get you to improve by comparing you against your friends. And I always loved that. Um, super well, super great story, super well performed. I just, I just, I'm sad we never got another one, you know? It was, it was really good. Like it taking GTA and in some cases doing it a little bit better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sean Murray, Sean Murray had that really intense, like, developer beard. I saw him in February and he's, he's scaled it back. I think things are, things are good. My favorite. The game's improved.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thank you everyone for watching or listening to this week's episode of the Friends per Second podcast. Uh, please review the show if you like it, cause we like it, it's nice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yeaah, it's a puppet of me. Hang on, let me fix- The thing is, is that her hair is unruly, which is like mine. And so, really they've nailed this on all counts. But, uh, J Quake, can people find you?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and you can find me at Gamespot, at Gyro Bomb, uh, at Lucy James Games, uh, Jake, Jake is home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, absolutely. Oh god. I think the thing that brings it down for me is it being Rocksteady. You know, it being Rocksteady and it being Suicide Squad. If this was a random developer and it was a, hey, here's a new IP we're working on that is this multiplayer co-op shooter type game. If this is Outriders.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think the reception would look way different, partly because like, you look at Outriders and you're like, oh, this game looks fine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This game looks like a fun game, and watching the Suicide Squad kill the Justice League gameplay during the state of play, there were moments where I was like, ah, this looks like a fun time, you know, like hopping around in air, getting headshots, his dead shot, you know, taking down waves of enemies with my friends.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That sounds like a fun time when I am playing a Borderlands or I am playing an Outriders, but when you take that and you put Rocksteady on it and you put Suicide Squad on it,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think expectations turn different where Lucy mentions, yeah, like you love Arkham City, you love Arkham Asylum.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because of the melee combat system. You love it for the story. You love it for the characters. You love it for the world building. Suicide Squad killed the Justice League doesn't seem to be taking advantage of a lot of the things that we know Rocksteady is good at. And then on top of that, they are delivering a type of game that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I just don't think a lot of people believe in unless your names are bungee, right? Like they talked about continual updates, they talked about, hey, we're adding in characters down the line. They open up the menu and you...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You see the gear system that looks like in a live service type gear system where you're equipping different types of guns that you're unlocking and different types of, um, uh, wearables and for different parts of your body and all that stuff. They have those systems in there and then there's another tab that says battle pass.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, again, when we think of that type of stuff and we think about the people that do it well, you think about Destiny, you think about maybe Battle Royale style games like Fortnite.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You look at Destiny as the blueprint, but then when you start to list off other games that do that well, the list feels fairly short. It's a graveyard. It's a literal graveyard of people that tried. Like in the last few months we've seen a lot of games shut down that have tried that thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not fresh, like somewhat generic, you know, like this looks like a, this, it looks like they're fitting Suicide Squad into a category that it doesn't fit for. When you're talking about a live service thing, where you are, where you are shooting the weak points, where you are playing as King Shark versus Deadshot versus Harley Quinn, and there are,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Different characters, King Shark is supposed to be this hulky, tanky kind of character, but it looks like they all play the same, right? They're all flying for some reason, which I don't know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're all of them in the sky, right? Like what's going on here? If this doesn't strike me as something where on the team they're, and maybe I'm wrong, of course, like this is us guessing, but it doesn't strike me as a thing where people on the team were like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I think there's also a failure of marketing a little bit with Suicide Squad, Coley Justice League, where the game is out in a few months now, and this is the deepest dive that we've gotten into the game, which makes sense, but, you know, I think the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Loot game slash live service slash battle pass aspect.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, has caught a lot of people as a surprise. It was leaked a few months ago that they had a battle pass and we saw the menu with that in there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yeah, when that hit, a lot of people were like, Oh, that has a battle pass. Interesting. And now that we're seeing it live in action.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think now we've gotten the realization of, hey, this is the reality check of what Suicide Squad killed the Justice League is. Are you in or are you out? And for most of the player base that I think would have been into this game,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think the answer for most of them is I'm out because of the kind of game that it is, where you watch that first trailer, you watch the second trailer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't think they did a great job of being, of being like, hey, this is what this game is. We knew, we knew it was multiplayer, right? They, I remember reading the, when they first, uh, uh, revealed it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're getting a lot of tastes of, hey, Rocksteady's back. This game is in the Rocksteady Arkham universe and also you're playing these characters and it's very cinematic focused.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You are not getting a sense of what the actual game is, and so when people actually get- when people actually get-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The full sense of what the game is, I think that backfires a little bit when it's something that they don't expect.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, Lucy mentioned earlier, um, that the space has changed a lot when it comes to even just games as a service based on a lot of games shutting down recently, right? And like people are, people aren't stuck at home as much, right? Like, I think things are kind of settling, you know, as we've gotten further and further in through the pandemic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I look at something like multiverses, where multiverses came out in August-ish and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You had a pretty, um, sizable player base, right? People were really digging multiverses and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I saw a lot of, I saw a bit of mainstream appeal to it. I can, I feel like I can measure how pop, how like popular a game has gotten based on am I seeing it on TikTok or not? And I was, I was in multiverses TikTok. I was seeing a lot of people make like TikToks about multiverses and different characters and playing as LeBron James and all that stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know the last time I've heard somebody organically bring up multiverses. And in fact, there was a few weeks ago where I saw an article about how the player bases dropped dramatically for that game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and that's, that's kind of what we're dealing with when it comes to live service. And I think it's to your point, Ralph, a lot of people have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When they were asked pre-release like, Hey, so like what, what live service game do you, what stuff do you have in here? Right? Is this a games or service type game? They're like, no, this is, this is just a one and done. Like you beat the game and the game's done. And then later on they released DLC because I think they saw enough players there to do that. Um, and I'm sure they already were in development. That was already in development, but like, you know, they did that. And then.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't think they've done much since then. They're not treating that game as an ongoing game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, for Suicide Squad, them talking about adding in characters, seeing the battle pass, all that stuff, is that a game that people are going to want to play month to month? Like am I going to be returning to that game?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's three months down the line, four months down the line for whatever content update they add that's on their, uhm, their calendar.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't think so. Like that's even, I can see myself playing through it for that first week and be like, oh, I beat Suicide Squad. It's fine. It's, it's fun. It's whatever. And then maybe if you do one DLC drop down the road, I can see myself returning to it, but that's not a game that I'm going to want to play every week. That's not a game. I don't think I'm going to want to play every month. You know, I think that's the big, that's the big hill to climb.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, oh, this is a tough one. I almost said game development. I was like, no, that's in video games. Uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think that'd be pretty fun. Before I joined Kinda Funny, I made some video essays about music and like hip hop artists. Uhm, like I had like a whole video essay about Cardi B. That probably didn't age well, now that I think about it. But, you know, like I enjoyed making


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Music and hip-hop video essays just as much as I enjoyed making, uh, video game video essays when I did back in the day. And so, yeaah, I think being a music content creator would be fun. Uhm, otherwise, I would also like to work- I would- I would like to make a- and develop a tabletop game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think that'd be pretty fun. And like that's kind of a goal. That's actually one of my goals for the year is I want to start on it. I've not actually said this on constant. I've only told close friends this and so you guys get the exclusive. Uh, I want to actually start work on a tabletop game. I want to try my hand at making one cause.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That'd be awesome. Yeah, cause like a lot of, I mean more and more young people are coming up with TikTok and YouTube and stuff at their disposal and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know if there's the education out there to like really effectively usher them into that world, and so yea, having folks to be like, hey, no, this is the reality of content creation, this is what it's like behind the scenes, this is what it takes to make a video, all that stuff, I think would be very valuable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm actually pretty fine. I'm not really, it's not been that bad with me. Uhm, I will say when I first booted up Horizon I tried to do like the advanced movement options and I had to tone that back immediately because it's been a while since I've been in VR so don't jump in into the deep end like I did but


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After I got acclimated again, it was fine, uhm, until I played Kayak VR, which fucked me up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I tend to agree with that. Like, I think it's beautiful. That's the main thing. That's my big takeaway in terms of what Horizon Call of the Mountain brings to the table is that fidelity-wise, that game looks incredible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Almost like an arcade style experience where it is you get into combat and you are strafing around in a circle and like you're busting out your bow and arrow. And I think the combat is fun. Um, but it's not like, it's not revolutionary. And then like for the, for most of the game, honestly, like 75% of the game, you're climbing and, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yea, like, story wise, it's fine. I don't think this is a Horizon story that, uh, if you're a Horizon fan, I don't think it's like, needed. Like, if you're looking for more Horizon and you have VR, then yea, check it out. But, I, I don't, I, for me, it's forgettable, right? Like, Aloy's in it, but like, she's not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She's not like a main character in it, and so you're not missing out on much in terms of her story. Uhm, and yeah, like the gameplay wise, I think it's fine to a good VR game, but I wouldn't say that it's like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wouldn't say I wouldn't put it up there with the Astrobots of the world or the Half-Life Alexes of the world or even honestly the Gran Turismo 7's of the world cause I haven't played Gran Turismo 7. Yes. And that might be a VR seller. Like that, that game is really fun in VR.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I had the same thing where I played, I got it last year, put it up and I was like, all right, Gran Turismo is still not my thing. And then playing it in VR, I've, I've been like, all right, I, it might become fully my thing. Cause I've been doing race after race. I got so into it that my roommate, Michael Hyam, he has a, a steering wheel that you can hook up and play Gran Turismo with. And so I texted him, I was like, Hey, can I borrow this?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I bring it into my room, it's been sitting in our living room for like a year, just dusty. So I take it, I bring it into my room, I like hook it up and I do all this stuff, and I start the race, and I'm in VR, and I'm like, alright, let's go, it's counting down, 3, 2, 1, and as soon as it hits 1, the wheel just fucking, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, VR is all the way left because the calibration was off and I couldn't like fix it. And so the race starts and like my driver goes like this, right? For audio listeners, right? And then like the car goes left and in VR, I was, it was startling. I was like, oh shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It felt like I was driving a real car and I'm about to like drive into a wall into an accident because like I just wasn't ready for that to happen. That's how immersive it is in VR. You feel, like I, very few games I would actually say this for. Gran Turismo is one where I'll say you feel like you're actually there. Like you feel like you're in the car actually driving, which is more than I can say for like even most VR games.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is the DLC available for it? Do you know? Cause I've played Resident Evil Village, I've not played the DLC.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, maybe that's a good point. Maybe that's something they would emphasize. Cause the Rose one came out last fall. Yeah, recent-ish. And so maybe that's something that either comes later or something where they're like, it's just the DLC. Maybe, maybe it doesn't need to be in VR.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, uh, the launch lineup for PlayStation VR I think does have a handful of bangers there, right? Especially if you're somebody that, if you're super into Horizon and you want, you just want more Horizon and you're down a climb, yea, Horizon's Call of the Mountain is there for you and then things like Village and then things like Gran Turismo 7 I think help bolster it as well, but,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, the future of VR, like how much, how much am I gonna come back and use my PSVR 2 is the main thing I worry about when I look down the line of, uhm, what games are announced, uh, over the year. Also what games are here that weren't on PlayStation VR 1, you know, like there's a lot of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ports happening, right? Like, when you talk about the, uhm, a couple things, right? There's the PlayStation Blog, uhm, where they've been promoting, like, hey, we have 40 VR 2 titles, right? Like, come here, you got 40, in the launch window, so in the first about month or so, there's 40 VR titles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A large chunk of those, a very large chunk of those are games that are either, that were on PSVR1 or games that-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, for me there's that, and then there's also the idea of, like, games that aren't there, right? Like, I would love to be like, yo, pick it up, because now you can finally play Astrobot Rescue Mission. You can't play Astrobot Rescue Mission on this thing, which is a bit of a disappointment. It's not backers compatible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, cause I mean even Beat Saber, Beat Saber was part of their, uhm, one of the recent, it might have been like CES or one of those, uh, conferences where they showed off VR for a little bit and they were like, oh and also Beat Saber is coming out for PSVR 2.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sometime after launch, and it's like, wait, but that was on PSVR 1, like why isn't it available, you know, on PSVR 2? And again, that is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Down to it not being backwards compatible, because the tracking is different, so those games wouldn't naturally fit on PSVR 2. Uhm, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, like, I wonder a lot, like, is the $550 for PSVR 2 gonna be worth it for the grand audience that shows up for it at the end of the day? Or a couple years from now, is it gonna feel like a Vita situation where it is, alright, like, where are the games? Like, are there more first party games coming out for this thing?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That still worries me, but I think in terms of software, right now on day, what, two or three or five, uh, we're off to a, we're off to a good start, you know, like I, I think the software that's here on, during this launch window, um, especially now that I've gotten the chance to check out Gran Turismo and, and fucking love it, uh, I think they're off to a great start. Next up, uh, Destiny


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were, they were like, Kade, uhm, what's the word for it? Like, stans? Like, the people that would like, simp over Kade, that I follow, close friends that loved Kade. Shout out to Chloe, Echo Chloe. Uhm, when they did what they did to Kade 6, I've never seen a person just break.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He'll tell you about the cut content where like later on in that same expansion where Cade died, there's a lady that appears that is pregnant with Cade's baby.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I am very close to finishing it. I am about 29 hours in. So how are you feeling?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I really like this game. Uhm, you know, you mentioned it's from the same folks as Nioh and Nioh 2. Don't forget Stranger Paradise, Final Fantasy Origin. Their most, one of their most notable works. Uhm, no, funny enough that Stranger Paradise is actually where I came in with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, like this era of Team Ninja, I missed out on the, the Nioh games, but the idea of a more action-y Final Fantasy game was the one that did it for me. And I played through that and, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Change of Paradise has its flaws, but there's enough fun there where I actually, at the end of the day, I enjoyed my time with that game. Uhm, and I saw the trailer for WoLong, I was like, this looks cool, played the demo for WoLong back when that dropped in the last fall, and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is probably a little bit comparable to the, uh, parries in Sekiro where you are deflecting multiple hits, uhm, at a time to hopefully hit back and then


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've been having a great time with it. Uhm, after I played the demo, I booted up Nioh 2 actually to try and get some time with that because people said that, hey, if you like the Wulong demo, you'll like Nioh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Start playing Nioh 2. Nioh 2 ended up being too hard for me. This is like one of the few times where I was like, I don't know if I can do this. Like, I don't know if I have this stuff. I considered myself a gamer, but Nioh 2 might have just defeated me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah. There's also, the keypull system in that game also kinda fucked me up a little bit. I, I... Love that system. I just couldn't like, my brain, I just couldn't wrap my brain around the keypull system, you know? Like, it's more of a me thing than the game thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yeaah, like I played a bit of that and after a little bit I fell off of it and I was like, you know what? I'll just play WoLong when that comes through. And again, I'm about 29 hours into it. I'm not that far away from beating it as of the time of recording. Hopefully I'll have it beat as of the time you're listening to this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There- I don't know how to- I don't know how to put it. There's something about it that just strikes me as a bit like-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Both almost overly polished and then also flat. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, like it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Aspect of the game doesn't come all the way together for me and then things like story I found a bit forgettable, uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but then like, outside of that and things like soundtrack also I found a little bit forgettable, but outside of that stuff, the gameplay...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It hits so well for me, especially in the combat. I think the game is just super fun to play. It seems a bit easier than Nioh, but still on the harder side, right? Like it's way more difficult than something like Stranger Paradise. Uhm, the boss battles and the boss design I find very fun, and the deflect system.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think just works so well. I love the, the, the stagger system. I love how that stuff builds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Acquiring all the different weapons, upgrading the loot, doing all that stuff is very satisfying, although there is an overabundance of loot. And I had that same thing with stranger paradise and I think Neo probably suffers from the same thing as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a lot of loot in this game, but I do enjoy the process of picking out what weapons are going to work for me. I've been rocking the dual swords, and those have been really fun to mess with. Uhm, there's an interesting system in this game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where you, uh, there's a, it's like a flag system where you are essentially at every checkpoint you have like a battle flag that you'll mark down and that's how you kind of mark your territory and also, you know, fill in the checkpoints. But then there's also these, uh, marking flags that do the same thing where once you mark a spot,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, that'll then up your overall, like, morale for your crew, which then makes it so that the area becomes, the level that you're on becomes a little bit easier, like you're not taking as much damage from enemies, and so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Level to level, the more you explore a level, the more powerful you become in that level, which I find interesting, because you start a level and you're kinda weak.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you get further in and by the time you get to the end of the level, you're all the way powered up. If you've done the exploring and it's like, cool, I can take on anything now, which is a bit different, but I also like it. You know, I think it's a bit, a bit of a refreshing take for this type of souls game or souls like game, right? I'll say action game. Um, but yeah, like I've been having a blast with it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a bit of uneven difficulty, I think, in the game, too, where, yeaah, the first boss is difficult. There is a, there is a boss halfway through that might, uh, probably end up being one of the most difficult bosses of the year. I, uh, I spent like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's funny because yea, the circle is parry, but also dodge at the same time. You know, like I've not really seen them attacks. Yea, like, oh my god yea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you get into the fights and like once you're in the thick of a fight, sometimes you lose track of, oh man, okay, this person's winding up their move. And like you press, you press a little bit too early and I'm like, oh shit. And then you just start tapping it and hoping that you hit it at the right time. And when you double tap circle, you then do like a dodge, a full dodge move.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, when you switch like a spear, there's, it's almost like your character is dancing where the way they'll twirl it and try to hit it and all that stuff. Like yeah, I, I really enjoy it. It feels intuitive. It's not like as I'm fighting, I'm getting lost. It takes a little bit of getting used to if you've not played the other Team Ninja games, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It, you know, it works, I'd say it works pretty naturally, and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've enjoyed, I've, I've, I've pretty much stuck to the dual swords for the most, for most of my playthrough, but every now and then I'll check out a spear. I'll check, I just like checked out the, um, a big hammer weapon that I got just to see. And I was like, oh, that's pretty neat. Like I actually do like some of the choreography here. And then I switched back to the dual swords cause that's my bread and butter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's really interesting because I've, I've been talking about video game genre. Oftentimes can be fascinating when you dig into it because you know, I look at something like JRPG versus Action RPG versus Western RPG and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oftentimes, especially now, where a lot of video games have- video game genre has evolved and has become a little bit more homogenous, it-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, the shoe doesn't fit a lot of time. I wouldn't look at Final Fantasy 16, especially with how-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We look at it as possibly the JRPG franchise, um, but like you look at how it's evolved in gameplay now, like when you talk about it and when I've heard, when I've read previews talking about Final Fantasy 16,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It sounds more like a character action game with RPG elements, and it's like, what does that even mean? Well, nothing at the end of the day, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] See, I was about, I was about to say, before you, before you talked about like, tone, I was gonna say, it sounds like you're describing The Witcher. Which is like a western RPG, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can also like, take things home from the missions where like, if you find a gun, if you, if you make it out of the mission with the gun on you, then like, you can kinda keep the gun if you put it on the thing. But then if you take that gun back out and you lose the gun, then you lost the gun. So it's persistent items.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's one of the, yeah, how the elusive targets work, where, yeah, every like month or so, I feel like they would add, add a new elusive target to one of the levels randomly, and yeah, you would have to go in and you get one shot to kill this target who's in the map.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's why I like freelancer. Freelancer I think carries a lot of the spirit of Elusive Targets because it is, if you fail, like there are certain missions where if you fail, you fail the whole thing. But I think overall as you're going, if you fail twice, uh, in like a, like a run, like in a stack, then you fail the whole thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and yeaah, like, you go in and it's randomized, right? And that's what Hitman I put up there is one of the ghosts because...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They had to design these levels so meticulously where you have so many NPCs and so much space to work. Like they're like these small open worlds basically each of these levels. There's like almost 20 of them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you go in and you have all these NPCs that all have their own routines that like, a lot of them are voiced and have like these back and forths and have these things where if you follow these NPCs you are getting an idea of the workday.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yea, like, I had one target where I go in, uhm, uh, I start the level and I quickly learn that, okay, the person I'm going after in this level is a bellhop. Alright, let me follow, and they want me to kill the bellhop with a, with a very specific gun.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, being at the front desk with a lot of people around to then going and walking outside with a lot of people around to then going and then serving a guest and then going back to the front desk and then he does that routine over the course of a few minutes. And I'm like, there's no place where I can get this person private to where I can kill them and then also escape. You know, cause that's the thing about Hitman is that you have to also make it out of the mission.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And after a while I'm like tailing this guy, studying his every move, being like alright, how am I gonna make my thing? And I realized that once he gets outside, there's only like two people that he can, that will see him. One of them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, kinda sees him like from the other side of like this bush that I'm at, and this bush that I'm hiding at, there's also a guy that has a sight line of me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So what I decided to do is, alright, I gotta take this coin, I gotta throw it on, like, toward the other side of that person without them seeing me throw it so that they get distracted, and then I gotta, like, take them out with the gun with the silencer, and then immediately beeline and peace out so that other person doesn't see that I'm the person that shot him. And I pulled it off, and it was like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's the perfect stream. I'm playing it on stream. Every single mission I did had some sort of comedic moment to it. You know, like, uh, there was another one where during one of the big missions where I'm not trying to identify who the person is, I sneak into like the super secret base that's below, um, like below the first street in, uh, I think it's like in Chongqing, China.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm in like in this big, you know, test secret facility where everybody's armed and I'm like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a corner, I'm seeing all the different targets that have all the features that I'm looking for pass by and I'm analyzing them to see which one of them has all the things I'm looking for. And after a while, I'm like, I literally can't go anywhere. I'm kind of stuck in this corner with the route out, like right behind me. I see them, I see, I see two of my targets or two of my potential targets take a meeting and I'm like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Surely it's gotta be one of these guys, like it has to be one of them. And so I was like, alright, you know what? I'm taking out this rubber duck that also is a, doubles as an explosive. It's like a proximity explosive that looks like a rubber duck so you don't look suspicious holding it. I threw it at us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It explodes, and neither of them is the guy. And so like, I then had to be like, cause now everybody in this facility is panicking. Now everybody's like, there's been an explosion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I be lying out and I'm like, um, if you, so if you disrupt things too much, they might escort the targets out of the level. Um, and then you'll feel that level if they make it out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so like they start escorting the actual target out and I'm like hiding behind a wall. I'm seeing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, now is my one shot. And so like, they're go- they- they take a right out of the door. I'm on the left side behind the wall. As they all leave out, I then peek out and I aim my gun to try and get that person at a headshot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and so like ideally my request would be for the next switch iteration to become stronger. But I don't think that needs to be a switch too, right? Like that could also be a switch pro situation. Uhm, you know, I was talking about this recently.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nintendo's in such an interesting place because Lucy mentioned that, you know, third parties, third party games, the worst place to play those probably is the Switch, the Switch Thrives.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because of what Nintendo brings to the platform, it thrives off of the first party stuff. The attachment rate for what Nintendo makes for the Switch is insane, right? You look at the Animal Crossing numbers, you look at the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe numbers, and like some of these games are almost like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 50% attachment rate. It's actually insane how high these games sell. And that's the main appeal. And in a weird way, in, in,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The last generation, uhm, you know, handoff from Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PS4, or PS4 to PS5, uhm, there has been talks about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What, you're buying Switch games, like Pokemon Scarlet and Violet sold 10 million units in three days and was the highest selling console, or the fastest selling console exclusive game within that period.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, they don't really need to make another Switch. They could keep doing what they're doing and be fine with it from a software perspective. Uhm, but I just want more power. The thing I'm tired of with my Switch is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Playing games and seeing like the jaggies on like the edges of the characters that I'm playing as. You know, like I think those games could look better. You know, like Nintendo brings it from the art, on the art style side of things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Kirby and the Forgotten- Kirby and the Forgotten Land. I was gonna say Kirby for Midwest. Kirby and the Forgotten Land looks great. Uhm, and Nintendo games, art direction wise, tend to look great, but I think even- even with some of the best art direction,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sometimes you can still tell that the fidelity is a little bit off and so enough power to get us over that hump and I'm good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think me, but like a lot of people honestly have noticed for a very long time, right? Like since games started to get a little bit more fidelity and you started to be able to create characters and you started to be able to see more characters. I've seen a lot of people, uh, in the black community be like, alright, but like what's going on with these hairstyles? And the meme of it is that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In every video game character creation, uhm, in like all the tool sets, it seems like there's always, like cornrows are always one of the premier, uhm, hairstyles for black characters and it's usually like, it usually boils down to only a couple of styles, right? It's cornrows and an afro or cornrows and like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Have been and, you know, are a common hairstyle but not common enough to be


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One of the two or three hairstyles you see, uh, for black folks in a lot of video games. Uhm, and so yeaah, like, uh, uh, there was a tweet I put up that, uhm, at some point I'm probably gonna retweet or quote tweet cause I gotta figure out the right context to put it in, but, you know, I, I, Google, I, uh, Twitter searched myself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From like, about a year and a half ago, I had a tweet about, uh, New World.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause that was one that upset me a little bit cause I was making my character in that game and I hit the same thing where I like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I looked at the lack of hair options for black characters. Cause when I make a, when I make a character in a video game, I always just try to make myself, you know, I just want to see myself represented. And like, I like that type of immersion. I like the opportunity to just like name a character, you know, blessing and try and make them look as close to me as possible. And I found that in that game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, it's been like this for a while, but I think this is one that broke me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And at the time, it was just like, I just had short hair, right? Like short black hair. It's not anything too crazy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can't get really dark at all with your skin tone in Babylon's Fall.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so yeaah, like, I, once we, kind of funny, we recently moved into our new studio, uh, during the fall, uh, and we had the idea of doing another run of The Blessing Show, and I, at that time I was like, you know what, we have the resources, we have, uh, a cool studio to work with, let's finally make this episode of The Blessing Show, and I was like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Four or five months ago that I had that idea and since then I've just been working on it.


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[Assistant] So it was all a learning for me too in making the video. Like I was fortunate to talk to Del Walker who works at Naughty Dog and also designed Deadshot for Suicide Squad and like Deadshot


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[Assistant] In terms of like, character design, and in terms of the hair for that character, like, he looks fantastic. Uhm, but yea, now he works at Naughty Dog, and I got to talk to him, and he laid out things for me that I didn't realize, right, in terms of...


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[Assistant] You know, how, uhm, technology has progressed and how that's allowed for us to, uh, get more detailed and try out different techniques with hairstyle because


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[Assistant] During the PS3 and Xbox 360 era, he cited that as like, kind of a weird in-between era when you're talking about something like hair textures, which would have been just straight up fucking polygons before, you know, on the PS2, right? Now you're dealing with...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, strands of hair and generating hairs, uh, generating hair based on, uh, they call them cards, uh, as opposed to...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And now that we're in the PS5 era, one of the things that I mentioned was Spider-Man Miles Morales and...


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[Assistant] The response to that character upon the reveal of that game originally, where you go on Twitter and everybody's like, Oh, he looks so good. And his hair, like his hair looks fantastic. And there are interviews with some of the character art team members from Insomniac where they talk about,


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[Assistant] For Miles Morales, they completely changed their rendering technique for the game to be strand-based, and that's the thing they're able to do because of how far video games have come, and it's even to the point where...


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[Assistant] The hair rendering for mouse is vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv


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[Assistant] This is a thing that can improve and now you have less excuses than ever to get something like this wrong.


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[Assistant] You know, my friend that I, I cite in the video, um, as soon as they heard that I was making this video, she sent me a big text thread and I was like, can I use this in the video? And she was like, yeah, just don't say my name. That story was so sad.


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[Assistant] For, I would, for what you want, for Lianza, the talking about, yeaah. So Lianza's story is, uhm, uh, is about like, black hair discrimination. Where, you know, I talk about in the video the idea that you've seen, there have been countless stories of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're wearing, uh, a hairstyle in a certain way that might be a common style, but because it's more ethnic, it might not be more familiar to, uh, people that you're working with, uh, on the western side.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lianza, who is the partner to Roger, who is again the editor and co-producer on the video, uhm, she has a story where in high school, during her high school graduation, after doing the walk across the stage, she gets off the stage and immediately gets yelled at.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because of her hairstyle. And you look at the pictures and you talk to her and she's like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, my hair wasn't that crazy. Like, in looking at it, I'm like, no, she has a pretty standard hairstyle, right? She has braided, braided colored hair. Uhm, but she got scolded at, uhm, uhm, because of her hair, even though her classmates, uhm, uh, who didn't have ethnic hair, even though they had colored hair, even though they were doing different things with their hairstyle, that wasn't as big of an issue for, uhm, uh, for them. And that was the thing, that was the moment for her where she was like,


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[Assistant] Oh, this sucks. Like, this is a thing that, that is actually a big problem and it's the thing that made her feel very terrible in the moment. But it's also just not an, it's not an uncommon story, right? Of people being like, yeah, I've been told that I look unprofessional, uh, because of my hairstyle, even though I'm rocking a very natural black hairstyle. Uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yea, like, it's such a sad story, but yea, I think having that story in the video really for me helped cement the idea of like, hey, this hits on a, this is, like, it's not just a...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Professional, like, hey, let's just have her, it's a personal thing for, for so many people. You know, being able to go into a game and make yourself, she taught, Leanne's also talked about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, some of the games that she's interested in, that she likes and like...


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[Assistant] Something like Animal Crossing, where in that game that's a whole game about lifestyle, that's a whole game about...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, you get to customize your character and build your own island and build your own house and do all this stuff. Even that game historically has had big struggles in terms of representing black characters where before if you wanted a darker skin tone you would have to tan in Animal Crossing. Which is insane that you would have to get a tan and


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[Assistant] You know, the process has gotten better since then, right? You don't- That's not the case in, uh, New Horizons, thank god. But, yeaah, even something like that, uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you see, but it was very interesting and very, um, awesome to get Lianza's story and then also like, you know, I had the story from, uh, my friend who texted me and was like, yeah, like I'm working on this fashion game. Our team doesn't have any black folks working on it and.


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[Assistant] You know, that it is such a struggle to.


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[Assistant] We don't know how to tackle this. We don't know what styles are in right now. We don't know uhm, like, like what kind of box braids to put in or what kind of hairstyles to put in or like even how to approach this, right? Like, even though game developers that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are working on these games currently that might be lacking on their art teams, right? Or are desiring to do something that helps, right? Put out work that helps. Even though, even oftentimes they know and they are struggling because, ah man, we don't have any black folks on our team, like we don't know what to do with that. Uhm, and so the video for those who are listening and haven't checked it out,


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[Assistant] It does a deep dive, right? It's a 17 minute video. I compare it to...


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[Assistant] Uh, Patriot Act, Salmonage, right, or late, uh, last week tonight with John Oliver. I wanted to make that kind of video. It is something that is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Approachable, something that I would say anybody can watch and enjoy, and even if you're not into video games, I don't know why you're listening to this podcast if you're not into video games, but if you're not into video games or you know somebody that's not into video games, like I think it's something that's still, uhm, watchable and enjoyable and is still, like, is, is educational, so go check out the video.


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[Assistant] I didn't play much, but my sisters played a lot of, you know, like I had the Nintendo 64 growing up that I had was mainly mine and I was, I was playing 95% of the games on that thing, but there were like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Only a couple of games that I had three older sisters growing up that they would, uh, uh, show up for and they would play. And they were really into Yoshi's story. And so now to this day, whenever I think of Yoshi's story, I couldn't tell you much about


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[Assistant] Anything in that game aside from I, the soundtrack is embedded in my brain and then like.


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[Assistant] The art style sticks out to me as something that ignites so much nostalgia. Cause the art style is so distinct. I was like, that's when they started doing the, uhm, I guess the Yoshi's Island was probably when they started doing the arts and crafts kind of stuff. But Yoshi's Story took that to another level where it is like,


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[Assistant] I don't know how I would describe it, like a storybook pop-up feel. Uh, and yeah, like I get warm feelings when I go back and I just listen to the soundtrack to, to Yoshi's Story, even though that's not a game that I played that much.


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[Assistant] Yeah, uh, thank you so much for having me on, uh, the show. I, uh, I always love joining y'all, uh, I hope. Do you guys have like a highest returning guest? Like, is there somebody that's been here more than twice?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but yeaah, no, thank you so much for bringing me back. I'll do that again, and it's always awesome talking to you guys. Uh, you can follow me on Twitter, at Blessing Junior, and of course, uh, you can follow my work on YouTube.com, slash, Kinda Funny Games, and that's where you can go to watch that new episode of The Blessing Show, again, titled, We Need to Fix Black Hair in Video Games. Go watch that episode.


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[Assistant] We really were, I think for us on the gameplay side, we really wanted to make it feel physical and that meant that enemies should feel physical and also like the player character needed to feel like more physical than what we'd had in previous games.


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[Assistant] On a technological level in terms of like how we use live action and how we kind of blend on the visual side, but even on gameplay side, we've never been out, we wouldn't have been able to do this game that we build now.


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[Assistant] If we tried to do it in the past, we just wouldn't have had the technology to do it. We wouldn't have had the knowledge on how to kind of.


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[Assistant] It kinda came about at a time when, uh, you know, horror's kinda picking up.


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[Assistant] Where obviously we did the Ashtray maze and control was an action game, so we could kind of push the player for a lot of action sequences to kind of drive them through the experience.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How we ended up kind of making that whole, because if you think about it, you actually play through it.


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[Assistant] Pretty impressive guys. If you do not have a TV, if you don't have a TV or a console and you want to play Xbox games as if you do have a console, uh, you can go ahead and play it on the new Samsung TVs and they announced, I think yesterday or maybe a couple days before,


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[Assistant] I think what makes it worse to kind of add to that is that we all have our own audiences. And so our own audiences either severely agree and support us or throw rocks at us and say you're wrong and then kind of create a


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[Assistant] And at the Oscars, there's how many categories? And they definitely have their fair amount that they don't showcase in the show.


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[Assistant] And we're definitely far enough away that the Dorito Pope is long behind us, right?


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[Assistant] At least it's not Schickman anymore, right? How many more times can we see anthropomorphic, uh, razor guy, right? Like... To be fair, I wish he was there. Like, I would have loved to be made a chemical appearance, you know?


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[Assistant] I mean, look, I'm not the kind of person that's still playing PUBG. I'm not even touching PUBG Mobile, but like...


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[Assistant] Almost like a Harry Potter Quidditch kind of game where there's like a, like a basketball hoop with the wampa fruit and you like slam the wampa inside of it.


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[Assistant] They are the kings of not phoning it in. 110% every game they do, which is great.


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[Assistant] When we went to Santa Monica Studios, we got to see all their trophy cases. Then we have some b-roll of the show. Uh, I, I forgot that G4 used to give away the wrestling belt. Pretty cool. And they had two or three of them in the, in the case for, for God of War. So one and two, I think. Yeah, it was like back in 2004.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which I'm so bummed about cause like, I, that's what I was pushing for at the end of the year before G4 shut down. We, we, we had, one of our producers had commissioned a belt for us to have for ourselves.


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[Assistant] What I was going to say is not to discredit from software and what they're doing with Armored Core 6. Because it's been so long since an Armored Core game has come out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it would have been a more interesting approach to just call this Armored Core. Yeaah, totally. Give it a full reboot in the sense of like, hey, there's five other games that no one's ever played.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Those games are, I mean, not, no one's ever played, but like, the current media zeitgeist is not playing, right? When was the last Armored Corps game that came out? Armored Corps 5. Yeah, it's been a long time. Yeah, and like you said, From Software is now From Software, so like, you kinda get the chance to...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hit that reset button and set new expectations. It feels like now because it's going to be armored court six, like there is going to be a level of expectation


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[Assistant] And unless there's gonna be Armored Core Remastered 1-5 ready to go,


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[Assistant] Like people are gonna have to like figure out the best way to get caught up to speed with this game franchise.


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[Assistant] I felt like, I felt like I could have mixed and matched the awards, so like I thought as far as uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, God of War just resonated so much more with me. Uhm, I do love Elden Ring a ton and I put in hundreds and hundreds of hours into the game, but uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, I think when you look at the whole package of what it is, uh, I think there's a lot more in God of War that just felt very deliberate and specific and very...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For me personally, I prefer the more narrative driven flavor that God of War was. But at the end of the day, like, both games are fucking phenomenal. So like, it's almost like they both got A pluses to me, you know?


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[Assistant] It should have come out near the summer.


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[Assistant] Almost every problem I had with the first game.


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[Assistant] You know, unlike God of War, which you've said, and we've talked about a lot, is that like, God of War Ragnarok is a continuation of God of War 2018. And I don't know if that needed to be the case here with, with, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, for Ben West, but I definitely didn't feel like the two really connected as well as I would've wanted them to.


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[Assistant] Yeah, so, so, as someone who was in that camp, I thought the Death Stranding 2 trailer was really long. Yeah. Okay, yeah, sure. And it's not a slide against Hideo Kojima.


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[Assistant] It just felt like, I was like, alright cool, Death Stranding 2, oh we have more, oh okay cool Death Stranding 2, oh there's more, like it just felt like I, and as someone who doesn't know anything about the games, I'm like, I still don't know what's going on.


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[Assistant] I definitely noticed, uh, in the opening moments of the trailer that was really just a nod on the nose. I liked it, is that like the second shot was like of a baby Crip and you saw two handprints and I was like, that's trending too. Like I knew right away, oh that's CS2 right there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then, but it went on for like another 90 seconds, then it was like DS2 and everyone popped and I was like, that's great. I know. He told us.


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[Assistant] So this is the third year we've had the Muppets, maybe fourth year we've had the Muppets. This is the first year where...


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[Assistant] Definitely the best use of the Muppets yet. It was, it was well written, well performed. It, you know, the performer playing Animal knew, like they rehearsed it obviously.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it just felt very specific, very well planned out. It wasn't like, people going, what's a Muppet? Like, it just felt very respectful to both Muppets and to games, so I thought it was great.


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[Assistant] On that instrument is so cool and it's like, yeah, that's Bear McCreary. He did the music for the whole game. He literally plays himself in more form in the game, playing the exact instrument. It's like, it's like seeing the game right there on stage and people are like, invite this guy back to the Game Awards.


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[Assistant] He kinda did this, you know, just like, come on crew, and the crew just went vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv


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[Assistant] So, so I was in the middle of, of the area and what happened was all of us gave


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[Assistant] That's from Ghost of Sparta. That's from Chains of Olympus. Uhm, how is it for the team to like really kind of pay attention to so many games behind you guys? Because obviously you're innovating and kind of rebooting with


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[Assistant] With 2018 and now with Ragnarok, how do you balance that like, alright, we're gonna make sure that we talk about everything in the mythos of Kratos.


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[Assistant] I definitely interpret it as not, not a nod, but almost like a respect to, you know, like, especially when, um,


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[Assistant] When Freya is, is with Kratos in Vanaheim and they're talking about Deimos, I'm like, I would, if you were to tell me that we're going to have a conversation about Deimos right here, right now, to open up a little more layers to Kratos in that moment, I, I, cause I love Ghost of Sparta. So I, I saw that moment, I was like, holy crap, like we're really going there. And it wasn't just like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I got, look, during Thanksgiving, I went all in. I think I put 120 hours, two playthroughs, just to make sure I found everything. And on both playthroughs that-


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[Assistant] It's a masterpiece. The game is just so phenomenal. Congratulations. Uhm, but that one Berserker fight I think took a few...


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[Assistant] It gave me a lot of gray hairs, uh, and it made me, it made me have to take a step back and think like a game designer and go, alright, every other Berserker fight in the game is very one on one or maybe on a one on two capacity, but there's three


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[Assistant] It's like, it's such a, my mind was blown of like, oh crap, I'm not good at this game. So like, how do you, how do you balance that without making the player feel like they're- It's very difficult.


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[Assistant] Within that trios fight, the one thing I learned about myself was that once I got over that fight, every fight going forward,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was such a well earned, but easier experience that like when I fought Odin, I was like, oh, this is nothing compared to the trio fight. When I fought the Berserker King, I was like, nothing will compare to the trio fight. Even when I fought Gnaw, I was like, again, nothing will compare to the trio fight. But at the same time, I earned it and it felt so rewarding to go.


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[Assistant] Yeah, this, this fight was so difficult. The rest are now such a breeze. Even on Gimmie God of War mode, I felt, oh, I've learned so much from that one fight, how to mechanically attack everything else. And now every, everything is just a breeze. And I think...


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[Assistant] Oh, see, my take, and I don't know if this is right or wrong, but I interpret it as like, that's where Kratos could be. Yea, that's right. Yea, because the whole game is, the whole franchise is that everyone says he's the god of nothing.


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[Assistant] And in that moment he sees that panel and he goes, one day I will be praised by all these people and that could be me if I do good things. Thus giving him the ability to move forward in his journey.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hi, I'm the completionist, I'd like what you do, you know, like- That's what I did to Christopher Judge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thought it was very, very s- not safe, but just...


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[Assistant] You know, uh, I, like most of us, broke my back trying to get a video out on time, and I failed by a couple days, thanks to the YouTube algorithms, but uh, yeaah, it was, it was, uh,


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[Assistant] I was disappointed because I wanted more. It's not that the game was bad, it's not that the game was great, I just wanted it to be phenomenal, and maybe that's just me putting unrealistic expectations on it, but I, I don't know, I wanted just a little bit more from it.


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[Assistant] Punch out combat was fun for a while, until it wasn't. Uhm, some of the dodging mechanics were great until it wasn't.


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[Assistant] It, it, it, it felt like there was a lot of, a great blueprint that was ready for us for a future franchise. And I mean, in the ending even, it's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hey, there will be a second one probably. It's very much like seeing the next one.


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[Assistant] Yeah. I just, I just feel bad because I wanted to love it. And the, the, I never seen before, at least in recent years in my eyes, seeing the general audience turn on, on content creators and, and, uh, reviewers so quickly, just from like, scenes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Combat forces you to fight every single thing in front of you. Which means that you are looking at all of these gross monsters all the time. Which means the element of surprise of being scared is very limited. And those moments you do get scared is the traditional jump scare, QTE, story narrative driven moments. Which is great, those moments got me for sure. But anytime a combat scenario


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We were kinda desensitized to what these beings were and of course the death animations were so gruesome and over the top.


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[Assistant] For the first time, for the third time, for the 18th time, but like, then you start to see, oh, seeing it so often, it's not that, not as scary as it used to be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Completing it was a bit of a nightmare for me just because the chapter, there's no chapter select. Yeaah. Which like, not that every game needs that, but you get to the end of the road and you have a trophy or an achievement that's, hey, be sure to collect every single one of these items and you weren't really paying attention. And you've got one missing. Yeaah, or in my case like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wasn't missing, it just didn't spawn. Or like, it-


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[Assistant] It definitely like hinders my relationship with the game because I gave it so much blood sweat and tears and then now it's a different product and shoutouts to Greg Miller for


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, I was, I was streaming and someone was like, Gerard, look at this. And I, I melted down on stream and I put it in my video. Cause after the fact, I was like, you know what? That was a genuine reaction. I think it's funny.


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[Assistant] I will buy the second one. Like I want to see where they can improve. I want the second one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To be like, hey, we learned and here we are. And if they can do that, great. Sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can go first if you want, just games that I really loved. Uhm, Drinkbox Studios, nobody saves the world. Phenomenal game. It was, what a great way to start the year. It was, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Think about fairly often this year, it was a really good time.


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[Assistant] I mean, I feel like everyone who knows me knows I'm gonna be all in on Street Fighter and Final Fantasy. The thing that I am personally most excited for is the fact that


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[Assistant] I am officially entering the game development realm with producing. So I've got three games in production. Uhm, I announced, uh, a couple days ago, or a couple weeks ago I'm producing. Gestalt, Steam Incinder, which is like a Metroidvania steampunk game. Uh, Renane, which is like a beautiful pixel 2D platformer hack and slash kind of game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's those are, I just, the fact that I get to say that, you know, Hey, I'm, I'm producing these and learning how to design and develop games and giving great feedback and working with actors and performers. Like it's to me, that's what I'm just most excited about is to be like, I'm going to jump into game dev and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And see how that pans out and yeah, it's just really, it's really personally like fulfilling thing that I'm looking forward to cause I can help make these teams do their job and then people can just.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Play the thing that I helped make, so that's super exciting to me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I feel like it, it feels like everyone's talking about Star Trek, so like, I don't need to say anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, 13. Well, before we go, normally we would go around and celebrate this, this week in gaming. Yeah, do we have that? No, cause we, it's been crazy. So instead I figured, why don't we just say, not your game of the year, not like the best one, but like, what's the one that stuck with you and why?


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[Assistant] And remember everyone, please, for the love of God, tie your shoes and go to goddamn bed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it's been really wild because there are some people who absolutely love this game and people who are unimpressed by this game. And I think once people started playing it, I think the consensus was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, on that kind of divided in that same regard. So, uh, it is really interesting to see that when the reviews came out and people started to play it, that they were kind of both, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, both on both ends of the spectrum with this game. So there are things that people are going to put more weight into when they jump into this game. And there are other things that the other players are going to care more about that this game comes up short in. So it really comes down to what you prioritize in your experience with Starfield. So.


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[Assistant] And I think that's why we write these long ass reviews, like 3,000 words. We kind of explain why we gave it a certain score because, you know, certain things that Dan Stableton talked about in his review, I didn't...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Necessarily care as much for in mine, uhm, but there are other aspects I put more weight into, so yeaah, that's just, that's just kind of how, you know, people play games and people, how, uh, how we review them as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, there's, uh, Starfield is definitely, it's, it is definitely a Bethesda game. You will recognize it immediately with how they do storytelling, with how characters move, look, uh, just the way quests are structured, whether, the way the world is structured is something we're gonna get into later, which I think is uncharacteristic of Bethesda and actually


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That takes away one of their strengths, uh, in that regard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, this is unmistakably a Bethesda game, and you know, people...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Love those getting lost in that, in that world. And sometimes it's not even about, you know, main stories. Sometimes it's not even about side quests. Sometimes it's just about emergent things that happen in the world. And there's so many of those elements in this game. So...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think I talked to Paris Lully about this too before, is that everyone's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Experience is probably going to be very different, like most people probably do the main story, they'll do the big faction quests, but the things that they care about, the things that they get involved in, the different encounters they might have, are going to be slightly different, and it's going to paint everyone's experience slightly differently, but for me, I try to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I try to do everything, because like, as a reviewer, I feel like it's a responsibility for me to try to see everything. Uhm, but yeaah, it's uh, it's really weird how the formula of Bethesda, which I still love, and I still think that there's value in the Bethesda quote unquote formula, it's just that I don't think Starfield makes the most of it, and uh, the thing too is,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That I've seen them do it better in the past, uh, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I've seen Obsidian do it much better in the past as well with New Vegas and that's something I brought up in my review too is like, I love Morrowind, I love Oblivion, I love Skyrim and the sense of adventure and the depth and the play styles that you can get involved in and kind of like the lore and culture behind the Elder Scrolls is wild and it's fascinating and it


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We should get him on, for sure. Yeah, we should, we should. Huge man. But, uh, yeah, that's something I did mention in my review as well, is that a lot of that personality is missing. And, you know, Fallout has the post-apocalyptic Americana, and the whole history that comes along with nuclear warfare, and there's a lot to tease out in terms of what it's trying to say about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but then Starfield tries to do that in a way that doesn't necessarily have the charisma necessary to like help you buy into that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I look for that in the main quest as like a get into the main quest so you can learn about the rest of the world and interact with things that you find along the way. But the problem is that like the character writing is so stiff, like the performances are like are top notch. They're as good as they can be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, the game is only as good as the script lets it be, uh, so when I'm, like, I don't...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Necessarily care about what these characters are trying to tell me and when they're trying to say like, oh my god, we're discovering one of the greatest things in humanity and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this kind of goes into the exploration thing we'll talk about later is that a lot of the societies that have cropped up in this game and in its lore, I guess, feel very siloed and that's what makes the game feel smaller than it actually looks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's, it's hard to get, it's hard to like be, like invest myself in a world that kind of doesn't necessarily have that personality to help me buy into it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, I feel like there can be, uh, I think there's some people are saying that they really enjoy the story and I'm not here to like tell people like, oh no, you're wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but I think the, there's, there are some bits and pieces that, that kind of show you its hand when, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you learn about why humanity had to leave earth and uhm, how they're able to make life sustainable and how certain cities have cropped up such as like the old west stand in city or the cyberpunk city. There's, there are fascinating bits and pieces there. It's just that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The game doesn't necessarily take the time to connect them in a meaningful way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they just kind of like, like I mentioned, they, they exist in siloed sections that don't feel like I'm feeding into, um, one cohesive whole. And I think that's one of the things like not to keep comparing it to Mass Effect, but like when you do, when I do think about why Mass Effect was so powerful to, on like, and made that first impression is because no matter what planet you went to,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, you run into different races, they're all kind of governed by a similar, like, ethos. They all rely on Mass Effect relays, FTL travel, and the Citadel, and Galactic governments. Like, that's, it's core to how you understand what it is you're fighting for, and all the characters in your party. It's like they're all...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They are, they're all part of this universe where you understand the rules and the history along with it, where uhm, like Starfield like jumps you in and says, alright, you need to understand everything from the jump.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and doesn't necessarily take the time. There is one, there is one side quest, I think, with the UC Vanguard that makes you go through like a museum to show you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it kind of, the rest of the game kind of leaves it at that. And I'm like, damn. Uh, like, if you, if there was a way to integrate more of this in, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a way as a character that I can see that reflected in the things that I get involved in, uh, on like a stronger level than I think they could have had something much stronger than what actually is there. Uh, that's just, that's just how I feel. Like some people are gonna probably be


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Might be even moved by some of the things that this game says. I just couldn't connect with it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that's one of my strong points too in this game is like, you know, you don't have vats because it's not Fallout and you don't have magic because it's not Elder Scrolls. So how are they going to make up for it in


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Combat scenarios, and they have built a game with really, really good gunplay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think uhm, the first couple hours might not impress you, like I felt the same way you did Jake, where I picked up my first submachine and I'm like, oh, okay, I'm working with something here. And the more you play the game, the more you like earn guns that are already decked out with all kinds of attachments and buffs and all kinds of perks.