[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I hit a point where I'm like, what am I doing? Like, this is designed for this, it's not designed for me, my type of player, it's not designed even for this wholesome, or even ongoing gameplay experience, cause it's just about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That monetization, it's built for a completely different audience, right? Like it's like they know that this game is gonna do gang, it already has, I mean look at the numbers, it's done gangbusters numbers with casual audiences, I assume audiences in other countries who just mostly play mobile and who are


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, culturally more down to put money into a game. So I'm like, what am I doing with this? And also this isn't for me. That doesn't make it any better, but that's, that's the wall I hit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Come back with zero concessions and only doubling, doubling down on what they, like there was probably no hesitation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It just feels like, oh wow, this is uncompromisingly free to play shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My thing is that there's gotta be a better way, because I feel like it, like especially for this Diablo thing, like they make a shit ton of money, but they hurt their perception, they hurt the perception of Diablo, there's more skepticism from that core community that's going to buy the next Diablo game, the PC players who are super sensitive to this type of stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, like, there has to be a compromise, right? Because it's like, Nintendo has finally like went into mobile and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, you know, like why couldn't there be like a Diablo mobile game that actually really celebrated Diablo and just got you a little excited for Diablo 4. Like maybe it was a fun prequel dungeon crawler. I don't know. It's not going to make as much money, but it could, it could strengthen the brand a little bit and be a fun diversion, a little marketing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I said the exact same thing in my before you buy. I said 20 bucks for a kick ass little fun mobile Diablo. Totally sign me up coach.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I speak, I speak about it to, like, I know the people who watch my stuff, so they're kind of in a similar frame of mind, so I'll only talk about it, like, how we're talking about it now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's the fun inside baseball stuff, which I have no problem talking about. You know, like even if it's the top story, I'm like, oh cool. I'm not covering it just because, because it's actually interesting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think promoting is kind of like an easier question for me because I just, we just don't do any game promotion or app sponsorships or anything like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I mean, so for us, it's like the before you buy for Diablo Immortal did pretty well, but we very quickly were like, well, okay, but like, we're not going to do a bunch of like build guide videos, secret tips and tricks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's cool. No, just cause it's not our thing, it's our audience doesn't like it, neither do we, so. Sure, sure, sure, sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Honestly, this conversation is probably going to be the last time I really think about it. I don't know if you guys have, I know, like, something like, I try not to write off games, but like in this instance, I'm not really looking for a comeback story. Tell you what.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, amen to that. Moving on, uh, let's talk about Fallout 5, a phrase that I didn't think I would say. Uh, so, in an interview with IGN's Ryan McCaffrey, uh, Big Rod Todd Howard, the man himself, fancy jacket, shiny boots boy, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pretty much, yea, the seagull, which we will get to. Uh, he said that Fallout 5 will be made by them, Bethesda Game Studio, after Elder Scrolls 6 ships.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The way the timeline works out is that they are working on Starfield. Starfield is going to come out. Their next thing is going to be Elder Scrolls and then the thing after that is Fallout.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Prophecy is fulfilled once again. The cycle continues for them. Uh, so it's probably going to be a long time from now. Probably, you know, no earlier than 2030. Everybody's thrown out crazy, crazy years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think I'm done with hearing about things that are so far away. First it was all their scrolls, now it's this. Uh, Lucy, how do you feel about that? I'll let you go first.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So with Fallout 5, at this point, would you guys rather see a different studio make it? If they were to outsource that, what would that look like? I would like to see a creative new set of hands on, I mean it worked out with New Vegas for a lot of people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So next up is, uh, the Steam Next Fest, which, uh, I didn't really participate too much in that. It wrapped up last week.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's where hopefully discoverability happens and wishlisting happens and sets these things off for success. So, Ralph, I know you jumped in hard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So where do you guys just, uh, the rest of you guys, like where, how do you guys find indies? I typically just kind of find them through word of mouth. I, I'm, to be honest, I'm not, I'm not the best at, you know, seeking out resources for them. I just hear people talk about them and I go, oh cool, maybe I'll check that one out. It's not the best system, but do you guys do anything better than me?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're right, I do say that now. There's always something. Ralph, uh, I want to promote your video. Uh, it's really good. It was great. Great video. So if you could at least give for people listening or watching who didn't watch that video, which you should, youtube.com slash scale up. Is that your?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is, that's, cause some people have like weird ones, it doesn't work. So yeah, so if people haven't checked out that video, can you give us like the spark notes, maybe like a top three, like the shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's how good it is. Good, because I only like Golf Story, an excellent game, and, uh, the, the, the Mario Golf PS1 mini golf minigame. Oh my god, that's- I didn't even know that. It's manual now. Okay, okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that was fun. And then there was one, it was a mobile one, uh, where it was kind of like endlessly generated levels where you just pull back and you let go. What was it called? Oh man, I'm gonna have to look that up. Uh, anyway.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, so just to, just to wrap that up, if we're talking about Steam and we're talking about Indies, uh, do you guys think that they can do more, uh, from a storefront or curation standpoint to a actual just Valve Steam behind the scenes standpoint?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think there's room for, like, kinda with what Gerard is doing, where it's like, if you've played this, or if you like this, you might like this, like, I found a little bit of success in, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, uh, it's funny that you mentioned Nintendo Showcase, uh, let's just jump into that. Nintendo showed off a bunch of stuff, a lot of stuff, really quickly. Uh, so, we got a list, maybe I'll just rattle through the list and you guys chime in if there's anything you really think is worth, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She can play on Switch, what is it like October or something? Now's your opportunity. Also, Lorelei and the laser eyes. I have a quick gripe about Switch ports that I'm scared of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Check it out. Uh, we also have uh, Pac-Man World Repack. We have a game called Blanc.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We have a substantial look at Return to Monkey Island, which has a new art style and everything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was surprised by it. I very much just really really like that old style of art and I think that should be like celebrated and brought back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The developers clearly wanted to change it up and they have some passion in this new style, like just, just seeing like some of the developers and like everything, uh, the voice actor of Guybrush like tweet about it and I was like, alright, cool, whatever. I'm also not a raving ludic, so I don't care.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, we also have, uh, a new look and a release date for, uh, Mario. Uh, sorry, accent. Mario plus Rabbids Sparks of Hope.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anyway, save that for another podcast. Uhm, we have Little Noah, Scion of Paradise. We have a game called Rail Grade. We have RPG Time, The Legend of Right. We have Sonic Frontiers, A Brief Look. Oh boy, how much time do we have?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We also have Doraemon, Story of Seasons, Friends of the Great Kingdom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, I don't know what that means. Uh, Minecraft Legends, uh, we got a little look at that, which is pretty cool, an expansion of the Minecraft brand again, and it makes sense to be there. Uh, Dragon Quest Treasures, Captain Velvet Meteor, the Jump Plus Dimensions, you wanna talk about AI written titles? Yea, Jesus Christ!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it could be. You never know. Uh, we have Harvestella. Yes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Harvestella sounds like Italian Harvest Moon or something, I don't know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But last but not least, uh, we have Persona, the collection, also coming to Nintendo Switch. This was announced, uh, previously Persona getting a big jump on everything. So now on Nintendo Switch, it's official Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5 Royal. That is huge news.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Nintendo Switch hasn't been my main machine ever. It's always been like the thing I love for certain titles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but with every single event and presentation, the amount of things added to the library, like just to play, you know, for the non Steam Deck people, like I'm like blown away where it's like, if you just have Nintendo Switch, there's a lot of stuff on there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's, that's good. And I think the Persona games obviously like that's a, that's a lot of game. So I'm excited for people to dive it. Nintendo people have been waiting long enough. They deserve it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so we don't know how to transition things here. I'm the host this week, but I can't do anything very well. But we're now here with our special guest. We're very excited. We're trying to always get


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] New people on here, more people to talk about. Uh, today we are joined by Suzy aka the Sphere Hunter. Uh, she is a YouTuber and a streamer who we've been watching for a long time and hopefully some of you guys out there have been as well. Uh, if you haven't


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Links in the channel or, uh, just Google Sphere Hunter if you're listening on the podcast version. Susie, how you doing? What's up?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes. So uhm. This is good. I've always been drawn to your content just because I...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I love Resident Evil so much, uh, from playing the first one and being like terrified of it to getting the toys and like playing with the toys as like a weird little kid, nobody understood me. Uh, what was, what was your real introduction to the series? What, what sparked this obsession?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I saw you just jump back into Resident Evil 2 and 3 updated, uh, for PS5, Xbox 3, uh, Xbox One. What's the deal with the PS5 version? I saw some issues you were posting with Resident Evil 2. Did they fix that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Actually, what's the, what's the Jake Gyllenhaal meme? You know what? Third person mode for everybody. Uh, the third person, uh, option for eight is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't expect it. Did you, did you expect that? Did you see that coming?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We will not show you his face. Like, you know what? Stick to it. Whatever. Fine. It's weird.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He went from generic guy to kind of like a little bit of an anime guy in Code Veronica and like then he was like tough guy and fine. It's been a journey for him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I feel like I'm, I'm at that too where it's almost like I want them to do something completely new and different but


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bring back old characters, but not where it's like how they did with Village, where it's like you get a sprinkle. Uh, but I also don't want something that's overly just like, hey, remember this? Remember Jill Valentine? We gave her the hat again. Like I don't, I don't need something like that. I still am in love with this stuff and I like, I want to see.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because clearly they're all still alive and out there. I want to see what's going on. There is still so much room for them to make cool stuff, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not, not saying that Seven and Village aren't awesome, but like, will you still think of and remember Village and Seven, like, and the weird stuff they did?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, uh, moving on, Suzie, what are, what are you looking forward to playing for the rest of the year now? You got like the second half of the year technically.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just, I hope Bayonetta squeaks out this year. I need, I need my, my hair mom badly. I feel like that would be a perfect game to like round out the end of the year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I expect a deep dive Callisto protocol video. I feel like you are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I think that's a great advertisement for you and your content. So for everybody who heard that joke and is dying to know where you are at, where can people find you on the internet?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, just the spear hunter. Well, Susie, thank you so much for popping in. We'd love to have you back anytime.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whether it's Resident Evil or not. So we'll see you soon. Well, we do have, uh, new games. Fun fact, we've been playing a lot of new stuff. Uh, so we're going to run down the list of, uh, games that are


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ouch at the time of you listening or watching this video. Uh, the biggest thing to drop, uh, I think for some of you guys is neon white. Who played neon white?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Another release since we last met is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Shredder's Revenge. I'll start, I love this game, it's excellent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, it is exactly what I was hoping for. It is scratching that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And now with Ninja Turtles, it's got the Nickelodeon thing, so it is like fully Ninja Turtles, like we're talking April O' O' Neil, Casey Jones.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All the turtles, like all this cool music, they got licensed tracks like Wu Tang is involved and it's just a straight up old school brawler. It's a pixel brawler and it's got couch co-op and drop in and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Little bit of like, it makes it feel a little bit above an arcade brawler where it's got a little bit more depth than the movesets. It's also got like a pretty...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't want to say forgiving, but maybe like flexible dodge where you can backflip backwards with the press of a button. And if you time it right, you can actually backflip and then fling yourself back and hit an enemy. So there's a lot more movement around the screen. Uh, and there's a lot like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a lot of like destructibility stuff and it's got, uh, it's got hoverboard scenes that are like, you know, very much of that, of that genre.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, it's really what Gerard said with like the taunt and the ability to keep it in your back pocket and the dodge things and like the grabs and the throws and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Little extra combos that just make it feel a bit newer, a bit more like there's a bit more to it and less just like harsh arcade style where it's just like, screw you, we want you to die, we want your quarters.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nothing is worse than being greeted too with the, like when you start out, you're like, oh cool, Ninja Turtles, you start the first level, you know, you immediately get punched in the face and a little Xbox up pops up and it's like, oh, uh, challenge failed. You didn't complete the level without getting hit. It's like, okay, maybe one day I'll try that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But everything about it, like it has so much love from like-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know the differences in the turtle characters to all their individual taunt moves to the way the levels progress and you go to a new screen and you come across the enemies but they're just like sitting there picking their nose or they're like working at a newsstand and then they jump out of the newsstand like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's so many little bits of flair to that, to the music, where did you notice in the, in the little like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, uh, Mario Brothers 3, like, world select map, uh, in the music, every once in a while, it'll do, here's in a half shell, but it'll do it with the car, horn honking, I think that's like the funniest thing ever, like little tiny things like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, it's really good for that. Like all, just like, smile time. 100%. That's a corny phrase, but yea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Somebody here has definitely touched that. Oh boy. Take a guess. Yes I have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But aside from that, for years it's been like everybody pretty much thinks it is. It's pretty obvious. It's pretty obvious.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm hoping that maybe something can happen and they end up being able to fix it, spruce it up because it would be nice for a good kind of solid


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It deserves a bit more love and care.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, another game that released is Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes. So I played this, uh, kinda, kinda brief just cause I didn't finish it. I just put up like first impressions. Uh, it is a Warriors game with Fire Emblem. So I didn't really play too much of the first one. Uh, I spent more time with this one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it clicked, you know, I was like, oh, this makes sense. Like the marriage of these two.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Genres. The run around on a battlefield and slaughter a million men with a pole staff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a, it's a really good mix, and it serves as kind of like a what-if, kind of cool, fun thing, spin-off of Three Houses, which I, I did enjoy, like, the characters and the story from that, but I'm not the biggest


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Into that gameplay? So for this game, where I could get a similar type of strategy RPG experience and character based experience, but then just the raw gameplay is me just mercilessly like summoning a tornado to kill a battalion of soldiers, dynasty warrior style.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, it's nice. It really, you know, I'm not like a ride or die fire emblem person. I know people that are, uh, but I was, I was pretty into this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ah, I feel, I feel like you have to have some, some hook, some hook into this and some, like you have, you have to have a little bit of skin in the game for it, where I think the Zelda ones are a little bit more like, I don't know, Zelda. This I think is like a little more required reading or requires genre knowledge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yeaah, it's something. Don't write it off. I'm quick to write off these games, these spinoffs. Uhm, and I'm glad I jumped into this one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They really, yeaah, they really do, kind of, like, it almost makes sense for them to do this, more than like, the last Dynasty Warriors game was not received super well, like, this is, this seems to be like a cool thing that's working for some of, uh, some of Koei Tecmo, it's a sick collab.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm just surprised that Square Enix was like, yea go ahead dude, make some more.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, I was just surprised that Square Enix was like, yeah, go ahead. Let's, let's keep supporting this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I like People Can Fly, and I love, like, I love how they build gameplay, and like, I like the way...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Outriders shoots and how the abilities work and stuff, like I wanna, like what you were saying about how if it was in a different format, like I am so there for that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Escape Academy and Cuphead, the delicious last course DLC, which I'm jumping into for a video, but I haven't started that yet, but I'm looking forward to that. So those are the major game releases of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our little podcasting period. But there are still a couple games that we've been playing. Uh, specifically, uh, seems like me, Lucy, and Gerard have been playing the Quarry. Gerard, what do you, what do you think of the Quarry, man?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's way less active, right? Like, but what did it for me, uh, what made up for it with me was the fact that it was like moment to moment to moment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Making a decision. I'm picking a conversation approach. I'm picking what to say in conversations. So where there was a little where I was like disappointed. There was way less like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cool action. Alright, so I should get this out of the way. It's our second episode. I like UTEs. I like all that bullshit. I will, I understand accessibility. I think people should have options to turn it off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where's all that cool dumb stuff? But at the very least I like that it was like pretty rapid fire picking choices and stuff. Like it was like a choose your own adventure, like turn the page type thing. Like really. Like games say that, but this one felt like they really did it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That makes it stand out where it is like this like fun love letter goofy good time. It still has scary moments.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it's not always heart pounding, it's more entertainment factor and it hit right with me for that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I was, I was more in it for the actors. I really like the characters and the actors doing their things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, no, Detective Pikachu is normal, but I've seen other, like, his comedy where he does that type of just dry, like, what? Like, that's his whole thing. I like it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, uh, I would still recommend it, like at least if you like these types of things. If you liked heavy rain, not heavy rain. I mean maybe if you liked heavy rain, but until dawn. If you liked until dawn, definitely like this is, this is like that, to be reductive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's what we've been playing, so uh, let's wrap this up with our uh, little segment we've been working on. It's called On This Day, featuring Gerard himself. Uh, would you like to take this away, man? Kick it off?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 2003, I was in what? I don't even know. I was like 13 years old. Uh, I had a friend who was so excited about this game. Dude, you gotta play it. Oh, it's so awesome. I went over his house and played it and I was like, this isn't good, man. And I didn't yet have the language to explain why, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was the first time where I really clashed with someone where I was like, this is, this is not good. This is a crappy licensed movie tie-in game with like one-note gameplay. Why do you like this?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, uh, thank you guys for listening to episode 2. Uh, like we said at the, the,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think the start of the last episode, uh, feedback is appreciated. We'd love to know what you guys think. You know, this is still early, uh, but we are having a lot of fun and we hope you are too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, this is an every other week podcast, so keep your eyes peeled. Again, we are on all the major podcast platforms, so...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Click the follow button or the subscribe or whatever. That helps us out. Uh, giving the podcast a thumbs up helps us out and leaving hateful comments on the YouTube version. Uh, the video version definitely helps very much.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, so I would just like to say thank you guys for listening, choosing to put us in your ears for two and a half hours. That's pretty sick. Uh, I'm Jake Baldino. You can find me on the internet. Lucy, what about you?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In conclusion, thank you guys for listening, watching. We are Friends Per Second. Tie your shoes and go to bed, alright? I am.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm gonna, I'm gonna give some insight as well. I'm gonna give some insight as well. They came there, I'm fairly sure after topple the pilot sailed all around.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And while he was charting, he ended up going straight up into Cyrodiil and all of the area around there. And it was interesting because he saw


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, for sure. And I mean, they traded, what, the ability to read and write for the Eight Isles. Like basically, Cyrodiil


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's basically like a battery, you know, that they can carry around with them. And more than that though, if you think about, instead of them attacking, but defending their cities, if they've got wells, like, you know, you can just have mages standing around, kind of just, you know, pulling unlimited magicker in for defense, for killing people, like, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I mean like, you know, if you, if you look at their descent into worshipping Daedra, I find it really interesting. I mean, obviously the pull there is to get more and more power.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's a shame though because eventually it kind of turned into cruelty. It wasn't just power for the sake of advancement. I mean, a lot of these ancient civilizations were the most advanced and could have been great if they didn't, you know, disappear like the Dwemer or kind of bring their downfall upon themselves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By devolving into kind of- I mean, if you throw away your moral compass,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can justify, you know, using the Nidic people to kind of do your work for you. No, it's not a good thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But obviously it's effective and it works to do that. But when you get to the stage where, you know, they're doing torture, and they have their gut gardens, and they have the wailing wheels of Vindarsal or Vindasal, however you want to say it,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Things get a lot more, I guess, wasteful.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they're kind of talking about their slaves and their ghosts saying to each other, oh, you know, what do you think of my slaves? And the other ones like, yeah, their skin will, you know, be a great texture and color for, you know, your flesh sculpture stuff that you're working on this kind of torture Daedra inspired arts as they were called.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, you know, it's like, yeah, it'll rival the wailing wheels of Vindas, or ha ha ha ha, you know. Uh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, but, it depends who you listen to. I mean, I'm not the biggest fan of Lady Cinnabar, nor, uh, Frastus of Ellen here. You can find them both in the Ebonheart packed base arguing with each other and dissing each other. But she says, you know, if you cherry pick kind of, yeah, the aliens sound so bad and, and so on. Uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yea, I think there's truth to the idea that a lot of them weren't. But I still think plenty were. I mean, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think Paladin has some of the coolest stuff, like even eating the neck veins, that's so intense. And then sh- and then shouting a name that hasn't even been known of yet, you know, from the future.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just think that's so cool. Oh, by the way, by the way, sorry, sorry to interrupt, but everyone check out All in All's animated opera.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I mean, what did they expect worshipping Adra who, you know, many of them talk about, oh, be good to one another, be kind to one another. And they're all like, yay, let's worship them. And then also worshiped Adra who would completely fly in the face of those teachings.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, it was kind of easy, but maybe because I'd played so much Oblivion, you kind of have like a god character, because to be fair, you know, the gatekeeper of the Shivering Isles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the lore, the gatekeeper is meant to be like unkillable. You have to go get real meaner, the creator's tears and poison your weapon with it and all this. But if you come in at a high level, you can just shoot him down with like three arrows and not even do that part of the quest. So you have to keep those kind of things in mind.


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[Assistant] Yeah, the other alien kings came and they killed him and then they dismembered him into 8 separate pieces because they were obsessed with this number 8.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which palinal was supposedly present after he died? Yes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well it is interesting that they chose to have the aliens there, I mean the aliens had actually run an empire, whereas the slaves had just been slaves, so you know, regardless of your natural ability, there's a lot of experience still, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and then the second they figured out how to run things themselves. See you later.


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[Assistant] Oh, not particularly, I think I'd get started on a tangent about the whole towers theory and it's not this video.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's kind of involved in Elder Scrolls Online as well with the White Gold Tower and the Tel Var Stones, which are basically like, you know, they're saying they made the towers from these and they have magical powers and that the Daedra are kind of chipping away at the tower and removing these stones for some kind of purpose. Um, so there's that as well.


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[Assistant] Who knows what they were called back then? I mean, heaps of people had different names back then. Like even Alicia had a different name.


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[Assistant] But they weren't exactly practical. I mean, some of them is just the main hallway will fall down into a spiked floor. Like you'd have to dance around that if you were living there all the time. There's not exactly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In, uhm, Oblivion, they're quite small and underwhelming. One of them is the one where the...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, lady corrupted by Umbra is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, for sure, for sure. If you play Elder Scrolls online, like I was running around there the other day and it almost feels like, as you were saying before Shrek, I feel like I'm going into like the princess's kind of like, you know, domain. It's very fairy tale. Like it doesn't feel like any.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Edgy alien older scrolls, like, kinda stuff to it. It's still very cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, but uhm, yeaah, just different vibes to some of the books and old lore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think he explained the similarity in the first sentence anyway.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're both ancient Merseyside.


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[Assistant] I think your imagination does most of the work for you when you read such a poetic kind of story like that. You know, you kind of create your own idea of who these people were in your head outside of just what you would see for example in Oblivion when you kill them.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, that's the good thing about Elder Scrolls Online. It actually did offer some clarification on the specific Daedra that the Ayleids are said to have been making deals and working with and stuff because before Elder Scrolls Online, there weren't that many specific mentions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, there are rumors that there are other aliens still out and around, but like, you know, it's all unconfirmed and, and mystery.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a fun theory, uhm. Wasn't much of a meme though, was that the meme?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They talk about, didn't, doesn't Mankar Cameron talk about like kind of remaking himself with Mehrunes Razor or something?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you know what I mean? Yeah, it's the same as Pelennor. Like, Pelennor sounds way cooler in these stories that, you know, inspire imagination. If you actually went back and like learned the truth and learned of the embellishments, perhaps it just wouldn't be as interesting.


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[Assistant] Revivalist could just mean the culture, doesn't mean he has anything to do with it.


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[Assistant] I mean, he becomes a bad guy. Spoilers, but he tries to kill you.


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[Assistant] He goes down into the Ayleid ruins, sits on the throne and says, you know, I'm reviving the Ayleids. You're about to witness the glorious rebirth of Ayleid civilization and then summons a bunch of undead saying arise my people and turns on you.


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[Assistant] You could talk about their magic. I mean, they were very, very good at magic. They were said to have invented the alteration school of magic as it is known and categorized today and shape-shifting and all this kind of stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I dunno if it was the creation of alteration in that moment, but I do believe that happened.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they'll probably powerful necromancers as well, given like if we're saying the liches are them, there's plenty of liches around.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they also had, you know, in Skyrim, uh, Calixto's trying to, uh, bring his sister back from the dead. The Blood on the Ice quest. I've been dealing with this quest way too much recently for the Flesh Magic video. And he's got in his journal this, um, Alid transcribed text about kind of reviving


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, a body with all the ingredients you need and stuff like this. You know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know if they've got a typo here. I'm pretty- Isn't it rotted unites under- Anyway. But it says translation from Altmer text as interpreted by the Ayleids and first transcribed by Altmer. Provenance and authority unknown.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've been doing too much of this smark as it happens stuff recently.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, but also, you know, like things like, like, um, series and stuff that you like that kind of like, you know, reducing quality over time and you just like, don't cry cause it's over. Smile, cause it happens.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's different, it's different from the memory stones of like, used in Hammerfell, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, I mean, there's a picture here of an alien memory crystal in Elder Scrolls Online.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Haramir of Copper and Tea, the Flower King, Niluchi, and Umriel the Unfeathered.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, I, he's, Pelinal's an interesting fella. He's hard to understand, but you know one thing for sure, and that's that he hates the elves and always has.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, well there's that as well, but maybe we'll save that for a Pelinal podcast one day for sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's been, it's been an hour. It's been a good chat about the aliens.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Know that people do the same for me as like, as like I do for you, where it's like they wake up, they go to Kinda Funny, and they just listen to whatever video's there. Cause that's what I tend to do for like, I listen to whatever the, uh, uh, uh, was it, before you buy, that is like up for the day, right? Or I listen to like whatever the skill of video is, that's up in the day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This, like making content, podcasting, video games, cause like I, uh, in 2016 it was that I actually started a website called OK BEAST.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All the video game content that I could, I started that website so I could get a job in the industry, essentially. I wanted to work at an IGN or GameSpot or Kotaku or whatever site would hire me. Uhm, and like even that desire is spanned back before that, right? It was for me, it was in college where I was like, dude, I w- I wanna do...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Full-time video games media work, right? I want to work in video games journalism or wherever they'll have me on the media side. And that was when I was in college, so I'm talking like 2012, 2013, and I-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I quickly had the rude awakening of if I want to work in the industry, I gotta have a portfolio and actually do work that I can show people than hire me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because in my head, I was like, oh, I'm going to the University of Illinois. Oh, I have a communication degree. I can use that and people will hire me. And no, it turns out that I need to be actually doing the work if I want to do the work professionally. And so in 2016, that's when I


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Watch, watch the content, listen to the content, uh, I had partnered with my homies, um, Alex Van Aken, who now works at Game Informer, Moises, who does work for, like, Pace Magazine, and a group of us that, um, all wanted to make content together because we're friends.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, you know, we started doing that stuff together, and the more and more we made content, the more and more we built a following. And that then ended up with OK Beasts becoming a thing that, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dude, that was wild because I, I didn't know how to process it when I saw it in my email because I saw, I think I saw like an email and the subject line was like, you know, D23 or it was like D23 something and I was like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, cool, like I'm getting a press email from D23 and I click it and I'm like, oh, okay, no, it's like, this is probably an ad thing. They're wanting to collaborate with kind of funny for D20. And the more I read it, the more I'm like, oh no, they want me to host their game showcase.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, done, like I'm not hosted a showcase to that degree. I had done some stuff before for, um, you know, I did one, one, uh, hosting gig for Skybound, uh, and I partnered up with a homie, Janet Garcia, and we got to like co-host a Skybound game showcase, which was like more indie stuff, more of this, uh, like board game stuff, even stuff that they're working on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the Disney thing, I read that and I was like, D23? Holy cow, that's huge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, you know, in talking with them, the first meeting that I did, cause I like, I set up a meeting later that week.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in that meeting, they were talking about how they wanted me, one, because they saw that I did the Skybound thing, but then also, uhm, you know, they had people there that had watched kind of funny games daily. And the way that they viewed the D23 Disney Marvel game showcase is, hey, this is headline driven, this is headline focused, we want somebody who,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Understands news and understands how to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Communicate news and understand what the big points are in terms of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hey, we're hitting this game. This game is going to come out this date. Like we need you to understand what the important aspects of this are. And it was kind of, it was, it was a good kind of marriage of yeah, I get to do this every single day for kind of funny in the form of kind of funny games daily or our video game news show that has a podcast. So it's an hour every single day of talking about news and headlines. Uh, but then yeah, taking that and get to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Add in the personality side of Kinda Funny, which is, hey, you know, bring the jokes, bring the energy, bring who you are as a personality, and put it all on the table. Uhm, and so yea, talking to them in that first meeting, I was like, cool, I understand what you guys want from this, and yea, I'm so happy that they saw me as a person who could give that to them. Sure.


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[Assistant] I'm gonna open up the PlayStation version of the game and see if I can get in there. And if you rewind back to earlier in the week, I had, uh, played some matches of Overwatch 1 on Monday because it was the last day of Overwatch 1 and I was like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know what, man? It's the last day. Let's, let's send it off with a bang. Let's have fun. You know, this piece of history right here. And so fast forward to me yesterday, right? The launch day of Overwatch 2 trying to play on my PlayStation. I booted my PlayStation and I'm like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, on the back end of the PlayStation 4, for whatever reason, for Overwatch, right? It is just the same game, and so they hit a button, and it's just an update to the original Overwatch, since they sunsetted that one, and they're implementing this new one. But like, I don't know if this is a PS4 back end thing, but for some reason, whatever reason,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I thought it was a bit more focused too with the 5e5 versus the 6e6. I think it's the thing of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Depending on your role, as I heal quite a bit, I like playing Lucio or Mercy sometimes, or Baptiste. And when I'm a healer, I think the 5v5 is actually a pretty good shift because it is a, oh, I can see where everybody's at on the map, like I can keep better track of my teammates, there's not as much going on. And then even for the other roles, I think it,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Having an easier count of, okay, no, I can kinda get a vibe of what my whole team is doing at the same time. It's a bit easier with the 5v5 versus the 6v6 and I think it helps a lot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and yeaah, I spent the entire day yesterday trying to play, I couldn't do it. Tried it again today, I couldn't get in. And I'm hoping it gets solved soon, but uh, yeaah, I've not gotten to get my hands on, uh, the newer characters. I did play during the preview sessions that they had, um, earlier in the year, and with that I got to play like the new push mode. And I actually did like that mode, and I like-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I like some of the modes that they cycled out because they took out, I believe it was two point capture, which is not like a, it's not a fan favorite mode in Overwatch, uh, but playing push.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I kinda dug it, right? It kinda felt like a fun game of tug-of-war. I was bad at it when I played it, and I think that's just the, okay yea, that's my first time doing it, but, you know, I could see that developing as I go and as I play it more. I could see myself having fun, uh, the more I get into that mode.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm somebody who's a bit lapsed, right? The years 1 through, let's say 3 or 4 of Overwatch 1, I was in it, I was playing all the time, I would log on whenever I would see my friends on, and I would have weeks where I'm obsessed, right? Then I'd take time off, but it would always be that game that...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Never got deleted off my dashboard. You know, I'll like take breaks to play God of War or whatever the single player games that I wanted to play were at the time, right? But then, always I would have Overwatch there for the time that my friends would hit me up months later to go, yo let's play some games.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But in the last few years I've not been that heavily invested into Overwatch and I think part of that comes with the wind down of content for it. But I think another part of that just comes with the fact that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not many big changes have happened, and I think for me, Overwatch 2 should be the, hey, this is the big, this is the big change that brings you back in. This is the thing that's going to, the entire Overwatch audience is going to show up for, and is going to play, and they play it like it's Overwatch 1 again. And I think, you know, there's the argument that, for Overwatch 2, right, the way I've been looking at it,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is as Overwatch 2.0, that's what I've been calling it cause it feels like a 2.0 update as opposed to a


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think that's good and bad, right? I think it's bad in the sense of what Jirard's talking about of like, yo, what if this was like a fighting game where, cool, let's get rid of half the characters and then introduce a bunch of new characters, right? Introduce a bunch of new maps, have it be this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When it's so iterative like this, right, I feel like you're- I look at Overwatch 2, and when it's playable, I imagine it's gonna be...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The best Overwatch has been, just from like a micro-update perspective, right? Hey, we've been iterating on this for years, we've been looking at Overwatch League, we've been looking at the requests from the fanbase, and we are doing this, this, and this, right? We are, you know, we're finding the meta, we are adding in a couple more characters to help smooth things out, and this is the, graphically we're doing like these small things to make it look better, and I think there's the argument that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Overwatch as it currently stands is probably in its best form, but I think when you're talking about the way the audience receives it,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The launch Overwatch 2016, for me there was nothing like it. I feel like everybody was playing Overwatch. I feel like everybody was enthralled with Overwatch. I feel like everybody was like, yo, Overwatch is one of the best things on the market right now. I don't know when the last time I had a conversation with somebody like that was about Overwatch. And I don't think Overwatch 2 was ever going to get to a place as it stands right now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To where we're back at that level of hype for Overwatch. I think the hardcore Overwatch fanbase...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Get there with like Overwatch League and things like that, but just in the general public sentiment of Overwatch. Overwatch 2 isn't, I don't think we're getting back to that place, uh, which concerns me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I hope it's not a Halo Infinite situation where it comes out and for that first week we're like, yeah, we'll watch this back and then it's just that thought of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, like what's more, like what else you got? And we're just like, no, that's what we had, you're not happy. No, what else you got? Where's the PvE? Where is this? Where is that? It's the same thing as like Halo not having Forge and not having campaign co-op and these, you know, highly requested features at launch or even in year one, right? That's kind of how I look at with PvE for Overwatch, which is


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Playing Overwatch 2 this first, uh, week in the preview build specifically, and not having that stuff, I'm like, aw man, alright, this isn't as exciting as I want it to be. It's fun, it's Overwatch, and it's like, it's slightly better looking Overwatch with some new characters that I like, but I don't know if it's enough for me at that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's also, I, I find it, I find that choice weird because they already kind of have a anti-smurfing tactic. Uh, they talked about this, I want to say last week, uhm, they have, uh, what they've implemented called a first-time user experience where, uh, like, if you're new to Overwatch, if you have a brand new account,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You essentially have to like, you have to play and I believe beat 50 games before you can even jump into ranked.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a bit overkill in a way that reminds me of like the DRM processes where it's like, okay, I get what you're doing here, but maybe let's tone it back a little bit because I don't want to be always online for this thing. This kind of strikes me the same way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think the tough thing is figuring out how to balance it and make the current battle pass model fun. Because as somebody who played a lot of Overwatch and as somebody who actually did like the loot box system in Overwatch, I think overall as a concept loot boxes aren't great.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In games that are especially aimed at kids, that becomes a terribly problematic thing. Uhm, and so I think with that I'm, I'm fine with the shift to, to, to Battle Pass, but to Ralph's point, right, Halo Infinite, I think had a terrible Battle Pass because you did not feel like you were progressing at a fast enough rate, and I don't think the rewards in that Battle Pass were, were, were great enough. I know plenty of people though that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Good rewards, but then also objective systems that keep things engaging, right? Where I, I don't play as much Fortnite as a lot of the friends that I have. My friends though will, I'll hop into a game with my friends and they'll go, all right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, I found myself actively digging that system as well, because the, the battle pass was going quick enough, and then also that had another objective system where it was, alright, play the DC character, alright, now do a neutral special five times in one match, and I was engaging with all that stuff, uh, and I enjoyed it, and I think you get that hit of, cool, you got a battle pass that you're,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're constantly making progress and you're getting currency so you can take that and buy whatever cosmetic thing you want. And I think it's enough, uh, like damage from different directions. Damage in a good way, right? It's enough.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] stimulus from different directions that are telling you, hey, you're earning this thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That makes it feel like I'm progressing like a traditional video game, right? Like being to the old man yells at, yells at cloud thing, right? I think we feel that because we're so used to, hey, if you want all the characters in Smash, just play until you get all the characters in Smash, right? Like if you want to unlock this thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just play until you unlock it. I think going back to the Battle Pass system kinda invokes that feeling a bit. And to Overwatch, it's gonna depend on...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How, one, how quickly you're moving through the battle pass, but then also.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How are the rewards? Do I feel like I'm getting good stuff out of this battle pass? Is it fun to work through the battle pass? I think the system inherently isn't bad in the way that I think the loot box thing can be considered as bad, but it is easy to make a bad battle pass in the case of Halo Infinite and other games that we've seen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't even touch it. From the get go I was like, I'm not fucking with this man. I don't trust stadia. I don't trust it as far as I can throw it. Uhm, anything part of that comes with...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even, even to ask people to don't, don't buy it on Steam for 60 to 70 dollars, a platform that's to download your game and actually own your game and not play it through streaming, which isn't, like, streaming as a, as its own proposition, I think,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's value in streaming from the sense of it being an additional aspect to the way you play games. X-Files is great because guess what? I can come home, play that same game on my Xbox, or then turn on my


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Samsung Galaxy, or Samsung Galaxy, Samsung Smart TV 2022 later, and stream the game from there, or I can go to work, and then like if I want to, during my lunch break, get my phone, boom, turn on xCloud, play it there as well, right? Like, that's the proposition, and that even comes with the Xbox Game Pass.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where I can play, I can pay a small fee, right? Or like, I can pay $15 for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And just have a library of games there, right? As opposed to buying games for $60 piecemeal, where I can do that on any other platform, uh, that has way more benefits than at Google Stadia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They had that, they had like high on life originally was supposed to be a state of the game, and like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was no- where was the first party line up for Stadia? That's the thing that buns me out as well. Like going back to where Gerard mentioned the big dick energy of Google. It is like-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Honestly, pardon me, it's like thank god they didn't get any like exclu- they didn't buy up a developer or any exclusive developers because like lord knows what-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What would happen if Google were the ones to buy Bethesda and they're supposed to work on a bunch of Stadia games that we never got them because of it closing. Thank God they didn't do that. But on the other hand, like, why the fuck didn't you do that? Why the fuck weren't you acquiring developers? Netflix has done a better job of acquiring developers, putting out their games on their platform than Google has for Stadia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They, I think they way overestimated what they could do, uh, in the space, and they just way failed, uh, and it's unfortunate to see because I think a world where we had a successful Google Stadia that did all the things right, or even a Google Stadia that was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just in, uh, G-Force, NVIDIA G-Force Now, where it is, we're partnering with PlayStation or Xbox or somebody so that you can play these games through the cloud. I think there are so many different ways that Stadia could have gone to where it would have been successful or pretty cool at the very least. And they just, they just fumbled it. They, they dropped the ball.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think this is goodwill for just Google, the company, but I will say, I think in a decade,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, good on Steam Deck. I got two, uh, that I want to shout out. I'll start off with the game I played on Steam Deck, uh, which is Inscription. Uhm, so that, that, that's one that I started late last year when it first came out, and I played like four-ish hours of it, and I was like, oh, okay, I see what this is, and I bounced off, but then I would keep reading people online being like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yo, this is the greatest game ever. It's one of my favorites. All this game is game of the year status. And I'm like, really? The card game? The card game that I played? That's the game that we're all going crazy about. And so with it coming to consoles this last month, I've taken this as my opportunity to actually give it another shot, because it's in the zeitgeist again. And now I have this big beautiful device called the Steam Deck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whoop it out. Gotta whoop it out. Now that I have this, I wanted to give it a shot on this. And let me tell you, all you guys that are like, this is one of the greatest games you've ever played, you are absolutely right. It is a fantastic video game. I got very hooked on Inscription. For those who might not be aware of what Inscription is, it is a roguelite card building card battler game where


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're, eh, you like show up in this room that I kinda describe as like escape room-ish, right? It's like half card game, half escape room. Uh, you show up in this like really creepy room. There's this guy who is in front of you who's like kinda like faceless but also kinda ugly whenever you do get glimpses of his face. And he's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's kinda working as your DM in this rogue-like campaign, and so you sit down with him and he's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, we're gonna take you through the woods and you are doing the uhm, if you ever played like Slay the Spire or like many, many rogue lights, right? You're going down specific routes to like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Either, you know, it is the, do you want to do this, pick a random card game, or do you want to do the next battle, or do you want to, uh, pick up an item, or do you want to, like, there are these different icons representing different parts of, uhm, or different activities you can do as you traverse through this, this map. Uh, and so it's essentially, it's essentially a really fun,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Roguelite, which was a really creepy vibe, and with a lot of weird crazy shit going on behind the scenes to kinda add this flair of mystery.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I, when I tell you that I could not stop playing this thing, for how good and addicting the card game portion of it is, uh, I am not a card game person, uh, when it comes to card games, the one that I really loved growing up was Yu-Gi-Oh!, and that was about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And playing Yu-Gi-Oh as an adult is hard for me because there are so many rules and so many like-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so yea, I am not a card game person and I even tried things like Hearthstone, I slayed the spire, I tried a lot and I couldn't even get into slaying the spire that much. Uh, inscription I think just has this secret sauce of, it is pretty simple to understand but then the game does a good job of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We steal your cards every now and then. And I'm like, wait, what? Like, you can't do that. But then the game kind of gives you the facilities to overpower yourself on the way to those boss fights. And it really becomes about like, alright, how the fuck do I get?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Absolutely blew my mind, where I was like, okay cool, this is about to wrap up, and then all of a sudden, oh wait, no I have, this is so much more than what was recently advertised, and so, absolutely adored inscription and playing through it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I originally, to that question, yes, 1000%. I originally got really hooked on it based on the card game, and then once I got to like the back half portion of it,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was just enthralled with it through all the other portions of it too, right? Like the escape room elements, the weird twists and turns it takes to use story-wise, like the random shit that pops up where I'm like, oh, what the fuck is happening now?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The game builds on itself in a way that I don't think you would ever call or ever expect. It gets crazy. And so that stuff really helped pad it up to, okay, no, now this is one of my favorite things of all time. But like before it even got there, just the card game itself, I couldn't get enough because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It makes itself attainable, right? Like, my first time picking it up, uh, this last time around, I want to say I got to the second boss before I died and I was like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I can keep doing this. I can get to the end. And then my second time through, I made it essentially to, like, what I thought was the last boss. And I was like, oh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, it's right here. I can do this. I can do like it. It sets attainable goals for you. And once you blow past those attainable goals, it then opens up something else where it's like, okay, now I gotta, I gotta see this through. It does a good job of giving you that carrot on the stick.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but yeaah, the card game by itself, I think is fantastic. And I, even though I beat an inscription, I keep going back for just the card game. Like, I just want to play through this roguelite, uh, just to, just to get my card battles in. And so, I really enjoy it for that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's easy for me to kind of see gimmicky shit, right? Like when I, when I pick up my dual sensitize, I'm saying this is somebody who hosts the PlayStation podcast. I look at the touch pad and I'm like, why do we even have this anymore? Like nobody's ever used the touch pad. Nobody programs for this thing. Using the touch pad on the steam deck to play inscription felt so right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I did not think that was going to be the case. I never thought I was going to use the touchpad on this thing aside from like, you know, doing shit on the desktop. But if you're playing it on, if you're playing inscription on the Steam deck, it's, it's the default control because you want the mouse cursor movement.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it felt so natural to the point where I'm like, even if they gave me just a regular control stick and buttons option for inscription, I wouldn't play it that way. I think if playing it, it feels like it's built for the touch pad. It's ridiculous how comfortable it is and how great it is that way. So shout out to that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh yea, Tinykin. I don't know if you guys have messed around with or like if you guys have looked into Tinykin, but like it's a really cool indie game with a really cool art style. It came out last month. It's on Xbox Game Pass for people who can check it out there. And it's basically a...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 3D platformer that has like a lot of Pikmin vibes, uhm, you know, you're playing as this like little spaceman man who has like these little critters called Tinykin that follow him around and you go around these 3D platforming levels.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Collect Tinykin, and the different color Tinykin have different abilities that they have, like you have the red ones that explode if you throw them at something, you have like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Other ones that stack up on top of each other so you can climb them. You have others that will help you move, uh, big objects. Uh, it's like, I'm somebody who I've not played Pikmin, but I assume Pikmin works in a similar way. At least we're playing Smash and fighting Olimar.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tinykin in a weird way is my Pikmin, where I'm like, this is fucking awesome. Is this what I've been missing out on this whole time? Cause uhm, all like, collecting the different Tinykin, using them to like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Solve challenges is really fun, but I think really the star of this game is the level design. Each level, like the whole game takes place within a house, but each level is a different room of the house and so like, you go into a room and there are these critters that have like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you're going through and the levels are constructed kind of like, uhm, like Banjo-Kazooie levels or like DK64 levels where it is. You are...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exploring and doing whatever comes natural to get all the collectibles to then come back and do the thing. Uhm, and the level design for me has just been delightful to play through. I beat it all in like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is amazing to look at, uh, throughout. Uh, and yea, it's just a fun time. So if you're looking for a platformer that kind of invokes Banjo-Kazooie, highly recommend Tinykin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, I've always loved FIFA, uh, FIFA has been like one of my favorite sports games, uh, and honestly like one of my favorite games growing up especially, like back in the day, it was...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Me and my friends used to play fighting games in FIFA, right? Like those were the two halves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Us, like, on a Friday night being like, alright, what are we doing? Yo, let's play FIFA, but first let's go to Walmart. We're gonna buy the white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. We're gonna bake them and play FIFA.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it was like, it was such a time, but also like, FIFA is such a fun game, especially if you're into soccer, of course. I think that you can probably say the same thing for any sports game. If you're into football, you're probably mad, and if you're into basketball, you're probably 2k. But for me, FIFA was the one, especially playing it with friends growing up, where it was we played 2v2. And so,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In FIFA, I don't know if it's still like this because I haven't played 2v2 FIFA in a while, but with each pass you make on offense, it would alternate who's controlling, and so you would really have to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe seven years. Uhm, I'd come in maybe periodically where it is, you know, like, okay cool, keep it 2020, I'll play a little bit of that. I'd play for like maybe a few days or a week and then pop out. Uhm, I think 2020 had the Volta mode that I liked a lot. And so I played through that campaign, but I was also like, that was a day or two. Uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In FIFA 21, I didn't play that much, but in FIFA 22, I would say it's probably the most I've played FIFA in a long time. Uhm, and, it's for a few reasons. Uh, one, I don't know what's in the water with the mechanics of FIFA 22.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've like been more engaged with it just from a gameplay perspective. There's something about, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Getting, getting a goal in this, in this iteration of FIFA that has me like hyped and excited with each goal that I've not had in a while. And I think maybe it is like there's a, I feel like there was a shift in the physics systems. I think with this jump to the current gen, um, we've gotten far enough in, uh, like the way FIFA controls to where it feels.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, these characters feel real, right? Like when I get, when I get a ball, like each touch feels like its own.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, where are they called? Fuckin', uhm, uh, something FC. So the soccer, the soccer team. Uh, yeah, Richmond.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Richmond FC, thank you. AFC Richmond, yeaah. They added that from the TV show Ted Lasso. And I'm a big Ted Lasso fan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. And so that was the thing that originally got me to boot up FIFA. I was like, okay, I want to do one match as AFC Richmond and I played online as them and I lost in the way that fits for AFC Richmond. And after that match, I was like, Oh, that was kind of fun. Let me do another match. And I just kept going with online seasons with that. And it's been, it's been such a fun way, uh, doing it that way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But then also I've been hopping a little bit into Volta, and Volta is basically FIFA Street, but just built into FIFA proper.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, in years past, like in Fever, oh yeah, like it's, it's crazy because it's literally just Fever Street. Like you even added in like arcade-ish, um, like super abilities in this iteration, where if you press R1, if you're on defense, you can get super speed or you can do like a super shot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like they've added in arcadey shit like that, but they started doing it a couple of years ago, and with it there was like a story mode that you do and all this stuff that like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Made it feel like a proper FIFA Street game, and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In this new iteration for few 22, they don't have the story mode, which bums me out a little bit, but I've still been doing it. I've still been playing it anyway, just cause it's a nice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Refresher from just traditional FIFA. It's like a different way to play. That is, hey, you might be in a stadium with walls and so the ball bounces off of walls, right? Like it is 5v5 or 4v4 or 3v3 depending on how you want to do it. Uhm, and it's just a really casual fun way to interact with the game. So I've been enjoying the Volta mode, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, like overall, I've just been into FIFA this year in a way that has gone beyond past years and I don't, I can't tell you entirely what it is other than it's more fun this time. Like, I don't know, I'm just having a good time with it, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Try it, try it just for Volta, I think. If you're not a FIFA or soccer person,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I think the learning curve for this latest one might be a bit stiff just because it can be pretty slow and it can be pretty like, man, I really want to get this pass off and none of my passes are getting there. I'm so used to it that I think I've kind of surpassed that, but Volta?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's fucking dope. I love it as a mode. It's really fun and there's stuff built in there to where you're essentially building your own team. You start off and you create yourself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like, you name yourself and you name whatever your team is, and the more you play, the more you can unlock better players and better stats, and like, there's a skill tree for your character and all that shit. Uh, it's really fun, and it's a really laid back way to play, so if you're looking to just fucking around in the game, highly recommend that mode.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but yeaah, you can find us on youtube.com, so it's kind of funny games. I host our daily new show, kind of funny games daily, that happens, uh, every morning at 10am pacific time, and so if you want to catch...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, an hour long dissection of video game news and headlines, then check me out there. I'm also on our PlayStation podcast, VSLUXOXO. Uh, that comes out every single Friday on YouTube.com. It's kind of fun to games and on podcast services around the globe. Uh, so you can find me there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I feel like, yeaah, it's inevitable that that happens though, cause you've got these rights, they're hugely valuable, no one has really taken a proper swing at exploiting them so to speak, other than Peter Jackson, who did a phenomenal job, uh, just an incredible, and like, I went back and, I mean, I watched them every few years, watching them recently, you just, the Lord of the Rings films,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, there's nothing like them, and I don't think there will ever be other films like them ever again. They are such unique.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's no other movie that feels quite like Lord of the Rings. It just, it has this almost stage production like quality, this intimacy to the way it's constructed. But oh man, anyway, point is that yes, we're definitely going to see more of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Other things and they're not gonna have anywhere near that same commitment to the source material, not the same love and care. Uh, it's just sadly inevitable, which it does bum me out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, I, look, I dunno, uh, uh, uh, uh, what major...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] New IPs have really broken through in the last 20 years. I mean, we can't say MCU because MCU is old IP that they've managed to, uh, give a new lease on life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I agree with what you're saying in terms of that retro through line with Embracer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For what I've seen of EmbraceUp, and I think we should always naturally be cautious when a big multi-billion dollar company starts buying. Oh, always. Obviously, right? Of course, absolutely, goes without saying. Having said that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This company does seem to be saying the right things. Uh, recently the CEO was asked like, what's next? And the CEO is like, well, fuck NFTs. We're just going to make some video games or something to that effect. Like really just sort of laying that down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I do believe that the way they've been talking is very much about like they do believe in...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can you please, next time I come to the States, I really want you to give me a cart, a crate of this stuff. It's called Moxie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you paid to import this stuff, right? Like it gets imported from Maine specifically to your house, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But cereal is a thing though, like cereal is very reviewable. It has a really cool box, it has toys in it. I mean, I guess, you're right, you're right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Actually, yes, that was far more interesting than any most game reviews that go out is the soda reviews. I totally agree with you. I would definitely watch Jake's Soda Channel. Uhm, anyway, what were we talking about? What were we talking about?


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[Assistant] The racer group, that's right, the companies, and they're buying stuff up, and oh, anyway, that's right, they're saying the right things, and they're committed to video games, and I kind of like that, uh, even the fact that they've


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They bought up the Western operations of Square Enix, Eidos Montreal, um, Crystal Dynamics. They talked about resurrecting, uh, Legacy of Cain and Thief and like Deus Ex obviously is very much on the menu. I don't know, man. I just, I am interested to see whether or not they can deliver on this because as I said, they're talking the right talk right now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I think that came, that confirmation that came some days after, cause it was rumored just by virtue of a few things the CEO said.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, rip aspire, which is very sad for them because that was a big deal. It was a huge project, a big step up for them who they previously worked on ports or whatever else. Um, a big deal and they worked very hard on this. They obviously presented their vertical slice and were apparently


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Excited about it and feel good about it. And it went so badly that they eventually just lost the project altogether and they're now in the market shopping for other projects to work on. So that is very disappointing for them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, Shry's reporting earlier from a few weeks back was like, realistically this game was going to ship in 2025, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Absolutely not. And I, and I just don't know why, as this is just industry, um, like investor talk, like you don't want to admit to delays until they're firm because you want to make it like, hey, yeah, of course you should buy stock right now versus if you announce delays


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The price goes down. So I don't expect that that stays the same. There's no way they continue to meet their promised, whatever release date it is. I think it's 2023. It was meant to be 2022. It was meant to be this year by the way that game was coming out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So uhm, yeaah, it's definitely, there's no way that should be next year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it was playable as in like a bunch of outlets went hands on with it. No, no, no. I'm not sure if it's playable at the show, but I heard from some outlets, uh, like the Australian outlet press.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, was it Press Start that got to play it? I mean, yeah, I think so. Uhm, I know IGN got to play it, so yeah, it's, it's, it exists to the point where it is actually a playable video game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I do feel as though you don't really hear much.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lots of reference to like Left 4 Dead and all sorts of other, lots of other zombie games, but Deadline doesn't surface in conversation. So Dead Rising doesn't really surface as like a


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It looked awesome. I was really impressed by it. I think it's definitely going for it. Like clearly Bloodborne inspired, but just moving in its own direction. Using that as a jumping off point, but then making a proper jump.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, obviously it is more flashy, more actiony, uhm, it's also not as like gross as Bloodborne is, like it's cleaner, prettier to look at. Uhm, yeaah, the enemy design looks really fantastic with it's kind of like automatons.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, again, very different vibe to the blood beasts and, and, and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It just looks like a really great package and I hope it's great because obviously we've only seen trailers, we haven't played it ourselves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe it sucks. Maybe the combat is awful. I mean, nailing that sort of combat and making the game tough but fair.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is really hard. Very few developers can pull off that equation correctly. Hopefully they can do it. That'd be awesome.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this game is from one of the, uh, previous, the former president of Rockstar North. Leslie? Yeah, yep. So he's got his own thing going now. Got a whole team working on it for five years. The trailer basically looked like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It looks like essentially Fortnite, as in like, hey, we've got-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, yeah, Patrick Soderlund and his like studio, Embrace, uh, what they call Embark Studios, same deal. He was like the number two man at EA and let's like, give me buckets of money. Sure. Here you go. Boom. So it's definitely a thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm really not, I would be stunned if this is not some kind of blockchain NFT thing. It just seems so right for it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ridiculously successful. It is a 60 or 70 billion dollar company. It is the largest video games company in the United States. Okay. So, uh, but we as core gamers don't know anything about that. We just, it's completely blind from, uh, like obscured to us because just for kids, right? So if there was some company


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That came up to an investor and said, Hey, listen, we want to make Roblox, but we want to position it for adults.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Give us money. Then investors would be like, here's all the money in the world. So if it's anything and if this is a total guess, it could be complete bullshit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's anything, it probably would be something akin to Roblox sort of tapping into that, uh, because yeah, that is such a gold mine. If you can crack that code and get core gamers interested in what Roblox is doing, then that is just like, cha-ching.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What'd you guys, what'd you guys think about, uh, the controller, the, the new PlayStation controller?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I obviously Callisto Protocol looks sick. It continues to look excellent and I love the ending of that trailer. That was really nice. Uh, can I just say it's really dumb that the Lords of the Fallen sequel is called The Lords of the Fallen. Like are these guys trying to make it harder for themselves? This game already struggles because it looks like Elden Ring.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wonder, I do, I hope they are able to be quite distinct in their final products because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They are essentially not competing with Elden Ring, but it's essentially maybe kind of in that ballpark and that is really hard, like impossible to follow. So unless they really setting themselves apart by some means, like the lives of P for example, with Bloodborne, like there's a real line there that you see how it's different.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If they can't find that line and go well above it, then everyone's gonna be like, well, why would you play this when you can play Elden Ring? It's like, well, it's okay for more than one game to exist. You know what I mean? But still that will be hard for them to break through.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so just as a background, if anyone missed this, this is Moonbreaker and it is the follow-up. It is the new game from Unknown Worlds, okay. So in the past they did Natural Selection, which is like this kind of co-op horde shooter thing, sci-fi horde shooter. Then they did Subnautica, which is a,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I am really interested in this. I think it's really brave and cool and out there and like good on them. I wonder how this is gonna go because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This looks so niche. I just, I reckon even the art style is so garish and so specific and so particular that I'm sure a number of people are going to be like, oh, that's not for me. And then it's the models don't actually move. They're completely static. And it's, that's also going to make people go, oh, I don't know about that. Plus it's a digital board game kind of thing. Very static environments.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, plus the whole appeal of like painting models, that's not for everyone. This is a very, very unique.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very niche pitch. And so I'm with them and I'm like, I, I, I'm like, I'm, I really hope you succeed with this, but I also am simultaneously really worried that it won't cause it's just so out there that it's gonna, I think will scare people, scare a lot of people off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I mean that's just, the other, I guess the other part of the equation is that subnautica below zero was pretty disappointing. They're really, the potential for a subnautica 2 is massive, because even to this day,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Direction to that, and so uhm, yeaah, I don't know, man. Look, as I said, I'm wishing them the best, I hope it succeeds, but uh, oof, yeaah, it feels like a very risky play.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I feel like that was, they listened to everyone being like, oh, they have to delay this game. And they're like, listen, not only are we not going to fucking delay this game,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're gonna release it on the same day as God of War. Take that. You know what I mean? Like that is, that is what they did. Because like, the marketing department, it's like they're trying to destroy their game. All the marketing to this point has been horrifically bad, and the last decision they make,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But like, in terms of like, hyping up and preparing for the release of this game, is to release it the same day as the biggest game of the year. Like, what is going on? I just... What do you say to that? Like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We live in this world and we see, like social media for example, there's only X amount of throughput on social media. And if all of that throughput is being consumed by God of War hype in a single week,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I saw that new Tales of the Borderlands. I'm nervous about that. I'm not sure if you guys played the original Tales of the Borderlands. Did you guys play that one?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's really, really funny. It's fantastically written. It's really, really good. Uh, this one, I don't know, that wasn't quite giving me the same vibe. Now it's in-house.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's basically big slabs of metal just pointed towards each other in space, silently floating around except for the sound of laser fire. I love it. I actually really liked Homeworld back in the day. Did you guys ever play it? No, never played it. Yeah, really fantastic titles. And so Homeworld 3.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That looks really great. I was super pumped on that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Going in a whole different direction. It's sandy times now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, am I, is it okay if I just keep wishlisting stuff? Cause I saw so much of this that I really liked.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, okay, so, okay, this is, can I just say as well that I have actually not watched the, uhm, because they did a showcase before Gamescom. They did like a dedicated showcase talking about the latest season of Destiny, the upcoming expansion, some other stuff. I have not watched that. So the only thing I have seen for the next chapter of Destiny is that Gamescom trailer, and I was just like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh my fucking god, this is incredible. As someone who's like favorite genre of music is synthwave and as someone who's obsessed with like blood dragon, you know, like just give me all of the neon eighties vibes and you cram that into destiny and you add a new subclass, which is this, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, I'm just ridiculously excited for that, and I mean, I'm always ringing Destiny's bell, but I really do believe it's one of the best games on the market. I've been believing that for a long time.


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[Assistant] And uhm, the, the, the vision for what that next chapter is artistically, it could not possibly be more tailor-made for me. Like, it's like they just made it for me. So, uh, I love it, I'm excited. Plus the other thing they announced, which is very critical,


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[Assistant] It's massive because this really fucking sucked. And at first I was like, when it came, when it happened, I was like, oh, I don't know about this. I'm very skeptical. Like I'll put, like Bungie was saying we need more agility. And I was like, all right, well, let's see how that goes.


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[Assistant] Over time, I was like, no, this is not okay. Like it's, I understand from the perspective of people's purchases, like they've paid for that content and they deserve to keep it. I get that. I do.


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[Assistant] But I'm actually more motivated by a commitment to Destiny's history and the idea that people who come to this game should be able to experience its most pivotal moments and the fact that they are no longer going to be taking that approach to


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[Assistant] Major expansion content, I think is fantastic. It's gonna make it so much easier to welcome people to the game into the future. Seasonal content will still get sons of vaulted, which, I don't love that, but hey, look.


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[Assistant] It's a fair compromise, I understand. Keeping the entire game alive and contemporary.


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[Assistant] Okay, that's a whole other conversation, but really pleased about that.


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[Assistant] And so yea, just super excited for Destiny. As I said, I think it's just in such a great place for those that are currently playing it. Again, I do not...


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[Assistant] Recommend Destiny to anyone that is not currently playing it and one thing they also have announced is that they're going to be refreshing the new player experience. So hopefully that changes and I can, and I can start recommending Destiny to people because right now it's just for those addicts like myself. It's not for everybody else. So yeah.


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[Assistant] I'm happy for him. As soon as I get off this, I'm going to watch the showcase. I'm so excited about it.


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[Assistant] And also don't forget the biggest announcement of the entire show. Oh please. That we now have a competitor.


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[Assistant] I feel so betrayed, really, that Kojima, he is the only person on Twitter that their Friends Per Second podcast follows other than the hosts. And yet he has the audacity to create his own podcast. Like, who the fuck does this guy think he is?


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[Assistant] That's probably why he's so good at what he does then, cause he's not just about video games, like he just fills himself with all this other shit, which is awesome.


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[Assistant] So Lawrence is, uhm, I don't want to say you're the point person on the project because obviously I don't know that, but certainly you've been the most public face of the Steam Deck that I've been aware of in terms of


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[Assistant] Out there being updated that regularly with that kind of communication. That's unheard of. We'll talk about that. Um, but firstly, just wanted to say really huge thank you for joining us today. It's just awesome to talk to you about how, how this whole thing came together. Um, and just hear about it directly from, from Val. Cause like, yeah, it's just super cool. So thanks for joining us.


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[Assistant] Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. Um, so I guess we obviously have a bit of background on who you are and what you're currently doing, but we really don't know the full story. So could you just maybe tell us about like you, yourself, your career, like the little bit of background maybe, cause you were at Apple before, right?


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[Assistant] Well, I mean, whatever, like I mean, interested to know how you got to the, what the career trajectory that led you to the point where you were contributing to the creation of a valve handheld. Like that's pretty cool.


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[Assistant] Ah, that's so good. I love it. So what, so what year was that then that you made that jump? Uh, that was 2015.


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[Assistant] Okay. Yeah. Fantastic. Cool. And so obviously worked on, um, index and I mean, I don't know, we're obviously, we're really keen to talk briefly about the steam. Well, sorry, we're here to talk about the steam deck, but we'd be keen to just talk briefly about that overall process of designing the index and how you found that. And yeah, like what, what was that journey like?


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[Assistant] Is it, is it ever frustrating though? Cause obviously on the one side that's fantastic freedom and it lets you explore things. But is it ever like, ah, I kind of wish this person would stick with that project that they started and they've changed their mind now. And it's like, any of those frustrations bubble up?


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[Assistant] This is true. All right. I reckon we could probably talk about what it's like to work at Valve and what it's like to hang out with Gabe for hours. But I think we should probably talk about the Steam Deck a little bit, which would be cool. Uh, so tell us about the.


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[Assistant] Moment when you got involved. Well, I'm not sure where to start this because I'm interested to know when was like the first moment when the Steam Deck appeared in someone's mind and whose mind was that? And then at what point were you connected with that so that you started working on this project? How did that all begin?


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[Assistant] You've been crushing it there, so don't worry. So just coming back to what you said, so you're saying that AMD had developed an APU in collaboration with Valve or were they, did they do this independently?


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[Assistant] And then you just happen to be like, Oh, Hey, that's a cool thing. Let's make a console out of that. Like how did that exactly go?