Game Scoop! 851: Sony's Surprising Slump

What's up everybody? Welcome to Gage and Game Scoop. I'm your host, Damon Hatfield. Joining me here in studio is Dick Limone. I'm back, baby. We are also joined by Sam Claiborne. Hey, it's good to be here on a sunny Thursday. And hopefully Justin Davis will remain here for the rest of the episode, will not be sucked out of his house by the tornado that an alarm is currently going off for. I like it. Like 99 percent. This is going to stay really funny. There's like a 1 percent chance that that joke becomes super not funny. Think of how viral this podcast would go. And I like if we just see you get ripped from the room. I know I don't want that to happen, but I'm just saying. Nick's like, I'm a content guy. And what I like to see happen, I would like to have happen. Try to bring the mic with you. That way we can get the last like scream, you know? How do we create the Wilhelm Street? Nothing against you personally, it would just be better content. We should have done a T-shirt mic for you this time. Did you see there's an anniversary of Stand by Me recent? This is just pre-show that we're in right now, right? This is the actual show. We're in the show. OK. Well, there's a there's a Stand by Me had its anniversary. And they showed this scene of Vern like trailing a mic like box out of his pants as he's running up to these train tracks. And it's been in the movie this whole time. Oh, yeah. That's great. I've never known it. And like once you see it, it's like not like, oh, wow, I would never have spotted that. Like everybody should have seen that white box coming out of this kid's pants as he trips over and runs up a train track. Yeah, there's in the goodies. One of the boys calls the other boy by his real name and not his character's name. And that's that's it. That's in the movie, too. It's when they're in the basement of their restaurant. That's a good Corey. Yeah, exactly. Vegetable Gremlin, I love it. It's in the movie. We got a great show for this week. We have the latest video game publisher rankings that Metacritic puts out every year where they rank publishers by the quality of games they released. There's always some good surprises there. Publishers who are doing better than you would expect and others that are doing worse than you would expect. We also got to talk about the insane situation with PS5 prices. And then there's some really weird headlines this week that I'll share that maybe you guys missed. Very weird headlines happening in video games this week. But first, a quick PSA. I'm going to be out on vacation all next week. The family and I are going to Tokyo. And I think Nick is also going to Tokyo. I am. But we'll be two ships passing in the night. But do not fret, Scoop Nation. Sam will host next week. So there will be no interruption to your scoop injections. Save some of those weird headlines for me. I like that. OK, all right. We'll have to come up with a segment. Well, we'll see. We'll see. You got to be, Sam, you need to be able to find your own weird headlines. You need to be willing to get a little bit weird if you're going to host this show. Weird scoop. So with that said, but first. I already did. But first, the video game publisher rankings. So Metacritic does this every year. They use four sort of categories that they're judging them on. Their average meta score for all games that they released in 2025. Then they get bonus points for the number of games that have at least a good score or higher, which is a 75 or higher. They get docked points for their bad games. I have a 49 or lower score. And then they get five bonus points if they're if they get a great score, which is 90 or higher. And they have to at least have released five, at least five games over the year. So that's what they're going on. I just want to point out they could have just used the scores as the points and added them up. That's exactly what I was going to say. It's like, why not just use the average? Well, that's not what they did. So I got 28 publishers here on this list. And coming in at the bottom spot, number 28 is Idea Factory. Oh, that's an Octopath, right? Or no, that's Algebra Factory. Octopath is Square Enix. Yeah. Oh, yeah, first of all, but any guess who's going to be the number one publisher for 2025? Nintendo. Probably Nintendo. I was going to say Capcom. Yeah, because they probably put up like two games last year and they were both getting. Now, you have to have at least five games. Did you have five games last year? Let's find out. Anyway, Idea Factory put out six games. Fourteen percent of them were good. Its best reviewed game was Battlefield Waltz for Nintendo Switch, which had a 77. Oh, wow, that was very fast with the B-roll. That's impressive. Well, yeah, Jovert is a professional. But they had a G.I.P. heavy lineup. Stuff like what? Have you even heard of these, Nick? It doesn't scar led salvation. It was it got a really low score. It looks like an Otome game, but maybe that's just because they're all beautiful boys. OK. Coming in next, number 27 was Ark System Works. All right. Six games. Best one was Guilty Gear Strive, Nintendo Switch Edition. She has an 83. And good good reviews for something called Dear Me, I Was. Ellipses. That's got to be a visual novel. Yeah, that sounds like it. But then they had that new double dragon game, which is bad. And a fighting game based on Hunter X Hunter. Oh, a Nen Impact. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So those are about coming in number 26, Nacon slash Datalik. I guess they're the same publisher. Mm hmm. Didn't they just go out of business? Is that true? I don't know. I think they filed for bankruptcy. Did I? I'll look it up. OK, well, they put out eight games. Best one was Hell Is Us with a 78. Yeah, that game was pretty interesting. A lot of cool ideas in that one, but it ran horribly on my PC. It would crash to desktop, but I like the vibe. But low scores for it. What is it? Oh, yeah, Nacon, they did file for bankruptcy. OK, well. They should have maybe they should. This game looks crazy. This is which one? This is Hell Is Us. This is Hell Is Us. Yeah, well, they also put out. It kind of looks like a stranding like. Yeah, they also put out Ambulance Life, a paramedic simulator, which sounds like Nintendo's Seal of Quantity Fair, if I've ever heard it. That sounds like a Gamescom game. And they had Robocop Rogue City Unfinished Business DLC. Oh, nice. But it was scored low. OK, Sam's completely right. That did look like a strand type game. It's a strand there. Number 25 is Microids, French publisher. And you call five games out last year. Best one was a Mara Zone, the Explorer's Legacy on Xbox has an 82. They also had Agatha Christie, Death on the Nile. Those are popular games. Yeah, those are popular games. Is that like a point and click? Yeah, mystery adventure. Yeah, I don't think literally point. Yeah, you don't do that anymore. But it's a walking simulator, I suppose. Yeah. Lower scores for Siberia Remastered, Space Adventure Cobra, The Awakening and Kaku Ancient Seal. They got to rethink these some of these game titles. I remember Siberia. That's wild. I haven't heard that name in a while. OK, here's our first surprise, I think. Number 24 on this list. So pretty far near the bottom is Bandai Namco. Twenty three games released. Geez. Wow. Not only 43 percent of them good. Best one was actually Elden Ring Night Rain. Wow. That game does rule. Can't confirm. I can see Bandai Namco, though they have licenses, so they probably put a bunch of crap that people are going to buy anyway, and it's good business. Yeah, so they put up apparently more games than any other company on this list. And they had Elden Ring and they also had the latest Katamari. But then they've got Tamagotchi Plaza, Cinduality, Echo of Ada and Everybody's Golf Hot Shots, which, yes, that was very disappointing. Yeah, I heard about that. Did they do what's the vampire blood-borne game? The. Dustbloods? That's not out yet. Now, it's never mind the sequel of something. I just had it and I lost it. Oh, good. Cut the vampire the Masquerade. Yeah, the Masquerade. Now, the anime one, though. It's a Souls-like anime game. Code Vein 2. I think was that last year? Did that come out this year? They had Code Vein 2 last year, I think. I don't even remember. They took me a minute. Sorry. OK, number 23 is Anapurna Interactive. Eight games. Forty seven percent of them were good. The best one was Lego Voyagers. And I did not realize that was an Anapurna published game. Wow, good for them. Same. Interesting. I want to play that still. I forgot about that game. Damn. Cute game. Looks good. Yeah, it's a cute game. Very short. They also did Lego Builder's Journey. That's a cozy. I'll play that one. Cozy adventure game, I think. So anybody can just publish Lego games now. Yeah, I guess so. But they had some misses. Something called Tuati, something called Wheel World, and Roguelite Creature Collector Morsels. Tuati was the new game from. From Katamari Creator, right? Yeah, the Katamari Creator. And unfortunately, it looked very cute, had very fun trailers, but did not critics. Didn't really resonate with it. But that one was a bummer that people didn't like it more. Number 22 is Play On. Play On? Play On, yeah, Play On. 10 games released. 48 percent of them good. Anyone guess what their highest, their best 20-25 game was? Play On stuff? No. People may not realize they're the publisher of this game. It's Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. Oh, that's right. Hell yeah. Good game. I remember that now, but I had forgotten. Yeah, at the moment. Something got a really low score. Echoes of the End. Not a good help for them. It was like a two-player, cinematic, third-person action adventure game. Well. OK, here's maybe the biggest. Well, maybe not. This is a big surprise. This is number 21 on a list of 28 publishers. So pretty low, and it's Sony. Wow. But what it surprised you to learn that they actually put out 13 games last year? Yeah, that would surprise me. But then I remember they had that Splatoon knockoff and all that other stuff. So that was Square Enix, wasn't it? Oh, no, you're right. That was Square Enix. Yeah, Foam Stars. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was Foam Stars. RIP, pull one out. Yeah, is it gone? I think so. I have like no sense of time anymore. But that was like two years ago, two, three years ago. Really? That can't be right. What were Sony's bombs? So their best game was the last of his part to remaster it on PC. I mean, they really stat a couple of times each year. Yeah, so that has an idea. They'll still be out. But they had Death Stranding II and Ghost of Yote. Those are highlights. But then they published a horror party game called Midnight Murder Club. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That just seems, I had no idea, and it seems weird. It's a good name. They published a Chinese action adventure RPG called Lost Soul Aside. Yes. People were very excited about that, and it was kind of just mid-reception. And then there were two Destiny II expansions that both got low scores. So they just got dragged down by all that. It's so weird that they're the publisher for Destiny. I mean, speaking of losing all sense of time, like we're in the sixth year of these consoles, the sixth year of the PS5 now. Which is a little bit, we're in the fifth year because it turns six. Sixth calendar year. Yeah, exactly. So Sony's going to win this console generation, and convincingly, they crushed Xbox without releasing any games. They don't need to make a video game. I mean, and I don't mean literally none commenters, but just like, where are all the games? Like no new Uncharted game, no new Last of Us game. The theory that we tested on Next Gen Console Watch this week is that this generation is going to go for another freaking six to seven years anyway, and you're going to get them by then. We're going to get everything skewed because like, how are power people going to afford a $4,000 system? We're just going to have to have inflation catch up to it. Yeah, I haven't actually sat down and done this, but I want to look at how many games Sony published on PS4 compared to PS5, because it feels like they're like, many, many, many. But when you look at lists like this, it might actually be so much more than you think on board. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. There is some, they do Astro Bot. Yeah, well, that wasn't last year though, but yes. Well, I'm just saying it's a PS5 game. Yeah, yeah, one of the best PS5 games. All right, at number 20, ahead of Sony is Atari. They're back. Because this is their big comeback year. Atari's back. They put out 10 games last year, 57% of them were good. None of them were bad. They all got good scores. I'm glad you didn't review any of them, right? Their best one was, see, expansion stuff like this, it gets included, but people reviewed it. It's the Atari 50 anniversary celebration, the Namco legendary pack, which has an 84, I met a critic because people reviewed it. Good for them. That's awesome. I gave the base game a 10. That game is really fun. They put out a lot of reissues, remasters, compilations, not all of them work, but they've got, they include games published by Night Dive Studios, Infogrames, and Digital Eclipse. OK. They own all those. Did Night Dive do what System Shock was that last year? Or System Shock 2? System Shock, yeah, one of them. One of like remakes or something. All right, number 19 is P-Cube. Seven games released, 67% of them were good. Best one was Irakura Aria for PC, which has an 83. Yeah, much better than Sony last year. Holding them back were some duds like Beyond the Ice Palace 2, which is a sequel to a nearly 40 year old Commodore 64 platformer. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, Jobert, can you scrub back to that B-roll? Uh-oh. Wait, about to get it. Just 10 seconds ago. What do we, is it before this? No, it'll be with the next line, I think. That tickles. There it is. There it is. That was it. It looks very House of Fata Morgana visual novel, which people can't seem to get enough of. That tickles. What's with you calling him Tutsis anyway? My feet made me smile. Ooh. Tutsis are globally known as feet, right? Yep. Yes. This is a Commodore 64 game. Not this one. This is the Macquarie Aria, not Beyond the Ice Palace 2. Yeah, OK. Good night. This is a sequel to Stripokr on the Commodore 64. Or please stay with me. Justin, I think PQ has just found a niche. Yeah. This looks nice. Oh, look, the Resident Evil style maps. Room turn red. Turn the room screen. OK, number 18 is a publisher I've never heard of. I think they're pretty new. Clear River Games, they're out of Sweden. They released a handful of decent PS5 and Switch games last year. Seven games total. Oh, this is what it is. Their best game was Operation Night Strikers, which is a collection of Operation Wolf, Operation Thunderbolt, and I think Operation, well, Night Strikers, yeah, just Night Strikers. Anyway, Space Gun, old arcade games. They get lumped in. And because they play it safe and just do a collection of old games, they get ranked higher than Sony. Night Strikers just got a remake, right? Like our new entry, I believe, came out late last year or early this year. I remember the usual foundry, or John Veneman, was all over it. I love that getting ready scene in Operation Wolf. It looks so good. That's amazing. OK. This was an era. Big sprites. Yep, big sprites. So pretty. So good. I played this game a lot when I was a kid. Oh, man. The fake 3D with the sprites is so cool. Oh, that's Space Gun. This looks kind of sick. Yeah. This looks like a new game, right? No, I think that's an old arcade game. Anyway, the listeners have no idea what we're looking at. Number 17 is Marvelous slash Exceed. Put out seven games. 64% of them are good. The best one was The Hundred Line Last Defense Academy on Nintendo Switch, 1985. People love that game. One day I'll check it out. They also had a. It seems like a Nick game. Story of Seasons, Grand Bazaar, which is, it's basically Harvest Moon, right? Yes, yes. But they also put out less successful stuff. Like Damon X. Makina, Titanic, Scion, and a Dungeon Crawler mashup game. And mash what? With restaurant management, Cuisineer. Sounds like the delicious in Dungeon. Yeah, that sounds really cool. Cuisineer was a good name. Space Gun's a 1990 Taito arcade game, Blight Gum game, and it looks amazing. Cool. It has graphics like I've never seen before. Like it's like pastels that they had in Super Nintendo. Oh, man. Got to look into this game. Number 16 is Don't Nod. They put out five games. 69% of them are good. And the best one was Lost Records, Bloom and Rage, Tape One, which is probably an exciting expansion. I played that. I was going to say, I remember you talking about that, Sam. It sounded cool. Wasn't it episodic, though? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's, you know, what's their big game? Life is Strange. Life is Strange, yeah. So it's like a Life is Strange, but it's about like a little bit more of a, there's like a rock and roll theme because the kids are in a band. And then also it's in like a kind of a Twin Peaks. They are kind of Twin Peaks-y. So it had that code for it. I also think that they developed that and then Square Enix published it. And then this was them sort of doing their own thing, I believe. That's right. That is what I recall happening there, but I might not be right about that. All right. I love this one. Number 15 is Konami. They're back, baby. Whoa. We keep talking about how they're back. They put out 10 games last year. 68% of them were good. Best one was Gradius Origins. Wow. The Gradius Collection, which included a new game. Yeah, yeah. An actual new Gradius game in there. They also had Silent Hill F. Silent Hill. They had Metal Gear Delta. Mm-hmm. Bolt-Bangers. Got it. But they had a Yu-Gi-Oh compilation and Eden's Zero and Survival Kids. I have zero issue with it, but I've never heard anyone pronounce it Yu-Gi-Oh, which is crazy. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm not even... It's Yu-Gi-Oh, but I was like, whoa, it took me. Sorry, I was a big Yu-Gi-Oh head back in a day. So it's just one of those things. It stood out to me. It caught my ear. It's animated GIFs, so I should have known better. I should have. Yu-Gi-Oh's Mansion. I'm really curious where Sunsoft falls in this list of ancient video game publishers, including Atari and Konami. But I don't know if they put out five games. I don't know if they'll make the list. Number 14 is Devolver Digital, everyone's favorite indie publishing house. Put out 12 games. The only publisher brave enough to go up against Grand Theft Auto is here. Yeah. 60, the 69% nice of their games were good. And best one was Ball Pit. Yeah. Dude, but there should be. So it's like, and I guess I'm kind of, we were goofing at the beginning on the kind of convoluted, metacritic, you know, scoring system of like, you get bonus points for this and that. And it's like, just take the average of your scores. But it's like, maybe you should get even more bonus points if you make something that's like a game of the year, candidate or winner. It's like surely like ball pits, like a generational game. Like it's so good. It should get them more than just five bonus points. Other highlights were the tallest principle reawakened platformer called Shotgun Cop Man. Oh, yeah. That one's really good. That one's really, really good. That's a video game title. All right. Mitchell has some really cool gameplay of that and it got my attention. This is news to me. They published Monster Train 2. Whoa. I like it. I like them even more. Yeah. I mean, think about the choices this developer made to or not developer, this publisher made to find like cool games and put them out there. Like that's that's the dream, right? For publishers. Yeah. So Shotgun Cop Man is from the crew of my friend Pedro. Yeah. But the platforming is done via the shotgun that propels you. It's great. Right. It's like a rocket jump, but shotgun. This game looks. Is this also the N plus people? That's what it looks like. It's not them, but it's clearly evoking that style. Yeah. Yeah. I like that game a lot. Devalver's Big Mish was Big Miss was Tron Catalyst. Yeah. That was a Mike Bithl game, I believe. I believe so. Yeah. What type of game was that? I don't remember. Yeah, I think it was I want to say I don't I don't want to say because I might be wrong. Yeah. Tron Aries. That was quite a movie. I want to play number 13 is Koei Tecmo. Nine years. The game tour was in it. Dynasty Warriors Origins. Was that last year? Yep. That is on that. Nice. Which is apparently well received. But their best game was Atelier Riza Secret Trilogy Deluxe Pack for Nintendo Switch. You know, one of these days I might check out the old Atelier Resa. Yeah. Dynasty Warriors Origins and then Ninja Gaiden 2 Black. But its biggest dud was Warriors Abyss. I guess it attempted to add a roguelite element to Dynasty Warriors. No. With mixed results. That sounds kind of cool, though. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. And here we are. And number 12 is Nintendo. Wow. We pegged him for number one, maybe. Number 12. But they put out 18 games. The best one was Tears of the Kingdom Nintendo Switch 2 Edition. Ninety five. Perfect game. Yeah. Charts. Breath of the Wild would be there as well, I would assume. Yeah. Yeah. That's up there as well, too. And obviously they had Mario Kart World, which even though it was disappointing, still very good game. High scores, eights and such. Donkey Kong, Bonanza. I think we gave that a 10, right? What do you think? There are two games that Nintendo got really low scores for last year. Oh, oh, the Wheelchair one? Drag Drive. Drag Drive, yes. And. And. Was there a Kirby or Princess game? Or was it the Princess feature that was the year before? That was the year before. Everyone forgot about the Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour. I like Welcome Tour. Welcome Tour. I spent money on that. I like it. Totally. It's. I played it to you. You don't need to defend welcome. It's cool. You think it's something that Nintendo should have charged money for? Why? I mean, I didn't say that. Don't put words in my mouth. I'm just saying it's a well made, well constructed thing. Number 11 is Ubisoft and everyone is just flipping their tables now that Ubisoft is ranked higher than Nintendo. AC Shadows. But they put out eight games and they have 81 percent of them were good. The best one was actually the from the ashes. That's a pressure from the ashes expansion for Avatar Frontiers. Yeah, I heard good stuff about this. But they put out Assassin's Creed Shadows and the Prince of Persia, the Lost Crown and then also Anno 117 Pax Romana. The Lost Crown was last year. Or it looks like Janer. Oh, my gosh. Wow. Yeah. I can't help but notice we haven't got the 2K yet. Yep. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah. But. It's hard. Like five games is like kind of a high ish bar, depending on what type of company you are. Yeah. You have a turn third person goes crazy. This looks cool. All right, we arrive at the top 10. Number 10 is Raw Fury. They put out nine games. The best one is Blueprints. That's nice. Blueprints last year. They also did the say on set Blake Manor. I've heard nothing but good things about that one. And then a point and click detective adventure, Kathy Rain to Soothsayer. But their misses were post trauma and a deck builder called Knights and Tide Spaces. Post trauma is a horror game, I believe. Number nine is like Knights and Tide Spaces. That game looks so cool. I don't. We didn't get a good review. Bummer. I like the original. It's like a deck builder rogue like, right? They call it a deck builder. OK, number nine is Dot Emu. They put out eight games. The best one was Absalom, which I played just a little bit of. And it seems like I would like it if I put more time into it. They also had Ninja Gaiden Ragebound. Oh, I love that game so much. Yeah, great game. And then Cross Blitz, some kind of a RPG hybrid game. Yeah. And they include their alternate label, the arcade crew. Their misses were a deck builder called Shuffle Tactics and a first person shooter called Abyssus. Cool name. And here you go, Sam. Number eight is Electronic Arts. OK, battle feeling. Pretty good year. Twelve games, 79 percent good. Best one was Split Fiction. Well, oh, wow. Yeah. Geez, I forgot. I got those last year, too. I know. I know. All their sports games get good scores, except for NHL. Oh, that one should get good scores. Yeah. Battlefield was well received as well. I enjoyed Battlefield quite a bit. So since neither. What's that, Justin? Oh, just better video game company than Sony and Nintendo. Well, since Nintendo, neither Nintendo or EA are number one, does anyone want to revive? Pick a different. Well, hold on. EA was rated the worst company in the world 15 years ago. Remember that? Yeah. That was great. What could be number one? Maybe I have a hard time. I'm the same as you. Like, I can't remember what came out last year. I don't know. Xbox. I don't know what would be. Would it be my Xbox Game Studios or Xbox Game Studios? Xbox has to be up there, but because they definitely put out more than five games. Bethesda, do they count or do we just kind of Xbox there? That that's the activation. Let's read on to find out. Number seven is Sega. Seventeen games. Whoa. The best one being Sonic Racing Cross Worlds with. Yes, I've been playing recently with Kingo. And it's very near Mario Kart quality. It looks really fun. It's very close to it. It's everything is exactly the same and it plays like you would expect Mario Tartu and Kart, including the drifting. The only thing that's different is when you drift, they don't do a little hop. And so I miss it so much. That little hop is so, so. Game feel, man. It's important. Game feel. It is game feel. They also did a snowy Art of Vengeance, which is great. And Justin, they had two point museum. Yeah, the two point games are great. I didn't play museum. I bought it. I don't remember if it was in a humble bundle or what, but I bought two point university for, I think, literally three dollars. And, you know, because it was like some 90 percent off sale. And then I played it for, you know, 20 hours. Like it was great. I loved it. But Sega apparently had underwhelming releases like Warhammer 40 K, Space Marine, Mastercrafted Edition and a very buggy football manager, 26. Which I don't know why Sega is publishing football manager. They always have. Always. Well, yeah. Okay. Number six is Take Two. There they are. Nice. Seven games. And actually the best one is just because of the narrative around this game release, it's funny, but it was Borderlands four, at least on Xbox. That has a 90 on Medicare. Yeah, got good scores though. Everybody ended up liking it a lot. Big deal. 90 on Metacritic. Wow. I wouldn't have guessed that high. I mean, I mean, you know, I knew it was well liked, well received, but that's very high. A big comeback for Borderlands. This says they take to a generally positive reviews for all of its 20, 25 games, not named Mafia the Old Country. Rude. But you like that game, Sam. Do people not like that game? It was great. We want to get reviews. I thought I got good. What's the Metacritic score? I'm looking it up right now. It has a 73. Yeah. Actually, it's a seven, which is not green, not good on Metacritic. Ah, has to be 75. That's interesting. I can't recommend it enough. It's a great game. Okay. Number five is Microsoft. Okay. Wow. Which it does include Bethesda, Activision, E-Puzzard, everything. Highest rated game, Forza Horizon 5 for PS5. They put out 21 games last year. Wow. Actually, Microsoft's two highest scoring 2025 games were PlayStation products, Forza Horizon 5 and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on PS5. Those were their highest scoring games. But that also had Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, three and four, Out of Worlds two. The lower scored games were Black Ops seven. And then apparently the Indiana Jones DLC was not great. A vowed was up there too, right? Well, it was last year. They don't mention it. But yeah. What the heck? I think we gave it a seven though, even though I liked that game a lot. Yeah. Man, how good, how good was Indiana Jones? Unbelievable. I know. That's a video game. I know. It's crazy. I mean, my hot take, I don't, don't hold, let me, let me just think about this. I'm going to say it and then I'll validate it later. But like, I think Xbox has put out like much better games than PlayStation. This generation, they've certainly put out more like it. I just, I'm thinking about like, you know, I, because like in my, like, I'm like, how good was Forza? How good was Indiana Jones? And then it's like, oh man, like even like, I know all the discourse around it, but I thought Halo Infinite was really great. You check the list. I like the campaign a lot. I still play Halo Infinite to this day. It's always downloaded on my computer. I bet Starfield is better now. I'll check it out in like April when the DLC comes out. All right. The second wave of it. Number four is Thunderfool. They put out six games. 90% of them were good. The best one was Islanders New Shores for PC. I played the original. It's very cool. A very sort of peaceful chill, you know, it's a puzzle game where I don't know how to describe it. Like you're, you're building a little town and then it's sort of rogue-likey where like you don't get to choose what parts of the town that you build. And so it's like meditative and peaceful, but like you're plopping down houses and plopping down businesses and you score points for putting them in. That looks cool. I didn't know that's what this was. They're kind of like making arcade scoring out of a sim game. Yeah. Yes. That's kind of awesome. Yeah. And then you build them. So you can play it a couple of different ways. You can just be like, I want to make something that's aesthetically cool or you can min max like, no, I really want to like absolutely min max. Maximize my points. It's got a style going for it too. Was this on phones also? Uh, I don't know. I played it on steam. It was steam deck. Thunderfall also had lost in random, the eternal die. That was like a spin off or a secret. Oh, well, no, I played the original then. Yeah. Cause I didn't realize that wasn't the same thing, but I was on game pass. Okay. The top three. You arrive at the top three and number three was Capcom. I thought they just had monster hunter wilds. I don't remember. That was their best reviewed game last year. Wow. They put out seven games. Seven? Yeah. But they were held back by Onimusha to samurai's destiny remaster. That's cause the kids aren't used to PS2 games nowadays. I guess not. Yeah. Obviously they're off to a very good start in 2026. Yeah. What else did they have besides those? I don't have the full list here. They had to be like a Mega Man collection or something. Oh yeah, maybe a collection. Well, or does that publish by digital clips or something? No. This year we have still Pragmata. We just had a high rated monster hunter and then there's probably a Mega Man this year, right? Dude, I cannot. No, I think Mega Man is going to be next year. But that said, yeah, I think so. But Pragmata was that, Justin, what was the, has the Japanese title and it's kind of a tower defense game. Oh, Kunigami? Did I just say that? Yeah, Kitsugami or something like that. Yeah, yeah. Was that a cool one? It's like a Pikmin like. Yeah, I think that was two years ago. Two years ago. OK. Kunitsugami. Kunitsugami, there you go. That looks great. Yeah, fun game. I don't know if it still is, but I played that on Game Pass for a long time too. Did they publish Dragon's Dogma? Dragon's Dogma is Capcom. Was that last year? No, I think that was two years ago. I can talk about two years ago. I think so. OK. Wow. All right. Number two is not a publisher I'm familiar with, but they had 100% good games. Five games all had good scores. It's Gamirror games, formerly known as Gamera games. They probably had to change that for legal reasons. It's a Chinese indie publisher. All five of their games had green scores. The best one was Absalom, the PC version of Absalom. Oh, interesting. The whole name. What else? Which means the number one goes to Square Enix. Whoa. Nine games. 100% of them good. The highest rated game being the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth for PC. PC, yeah. But also more Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games. Even its worst scored game, Saga Frontier 2 Remastered, was still good. Dang. One of these days I'll get more. Square Enix like selling off companies and contracting and stuff last year too. Like they're not publishing. Two Raiders and Western stuff anymore. I think it's been a while. They got rid of Crystal Dynamics a long time ago. Like they sold off that and like the Eidos Montreal. I feel like they've been telling this story that they're always disappointed with sales. I mean, and that could be true even with good scores, right? But yeah. They should just add Tifa. Yep. It's as easy as that. You heard it here first. Tifa DLC for every Square Enix game. Moving forward. They actually heard it here second because I said this last week also. Just give Tifa her own game. But after the Bouncer 2 Tifa edition. They also, they published Power Wash Simulator, which was a real bright spot last year. So there you have it, the publisher rankings. And in case you're curious, previous year's number one ranking the year before was Sega, number one, then Capcom, which would have been after the year of Resident Evil 4 Remake. And maybe that was Dragon's Dogma 2. That was a Dragon's Dogma 2 year, I believe. And probably a smaller Monster Hunter that got a great score. The year before that, 2021 was Microsoft's, the year of Fort's Horizon 4 and Halo Infinite. Then Sega, 505 games, then Capcom, Bethesda, like EA, Sega again, Nintendo, Take 2, Electronic Arts, Microsoft. And then 2010, the first year they started doing it was Take 2. For GTA 5. OK. Except GTA 5 was. CD Projekt never stands a chance. The year they put out the most games, they put out like Gwent at the same time as Witcher. Yeah. Yeah. Ready to launch your business? Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs. Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run and grow your business with easy customizable themes that let you build your brand. Marketing tools that get your products out there. Integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time. From startups to scale ups online, in person and on the go. Shopify is made for entrepreneurs like you. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup. Let's talk about the price of a PlayStation 5 today. The data we're recording. The data we're recording this April 2nd. The new price of a PlayStation 5 is now $650. A digital edition is 600 PS5 Pro. Wait, Damon, Damon, we need to stop down because you made a mistake. You said $650. There's no way that can be right. Base console. No, I'm talking about for the base console. Yep. Well, I agree that there's no way this is sustainable. This is not right. And it doesn't play games any better than it did five years ago. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah, we're moving the wrong direction. The PS5 Pro is now $900. Oh my gosh. $900. So the digital edition costs 50% more than at launch now. From $400 to $600. No, 50% more. I see what you're saying. Yeah. A 50% price increase on the digital PS5. So I was like, Damon and I had a meeting about this topic for next-gen console watch. And I was remarking, like, you know, consoles don't exactly have a history of coming down in price over the generations and that, you know, do we really expect, you know, a system to ever cost, you know, $500 again? But the Damon made the point that generally within the system's lifespan, right, we do come down. That's what I was saying. That's what I was saying. We're moving in the wrong direction is it makes it feel doubly bad. Like, obviously a price rise and a big price rise is already just such a gut punch. But it's like what we should have, like, you know, a $250 PS5 now. And then they shocked the world by going to 200 on like Black Friday, right? Yes. We're six years in the we. Well, we should have all invested in PS5s and just got a whole garage of them and taken them to GameStop and made $2,500 each one. The we and what like the PS2 dropped to like $99 over the course of their life cycle. Right. Hell, yeah. The red we remember that one. Yeah. So cool. Well, and then it's like, you know, so the Xbox, I think the Xbox series X is. It's that RAM. That's what it is. It is the RAM. I think the series X might also be $650. I don't know if I can be fact checked on that, but like it also had a price rise. But it was it was when the console was already kind of struggling and and it just buried it right like nobody's buying Xboxes anymore. And so all Sony had to do is like, hang on, you know, like, well, we're also going to raise the price of our console, but we're going to wait, you know, eight months to do it. Um, what a bummer. Whatever happened to taking a loss on a console? That's what that happened. Trying to put out a bunch of software. And like who like we're just so quickly like we had this. It was this crazy concept two years ago that now is becoming more normal by the day that like consoles are something that are just for like old dudes. And like, why would you? It's becoming this thing of like, if you're a kid, you play on your phone or you play on your computer and like who wants to own a game console anymore? And like just the narrow minded, like these companies have to look at the big picture and like, if you want your console business. Yeah. Healthy and sustainable. Yeah, exactly. Uh, yeah, that's my whole thing. All these little stands, these playstations are on. I just have never used any of these things. It's really funny to see the little, at least in action. That's why you do it a pair of my, my PS five stand is in a drawer under my entertainment center and then I just, it's just going to be there. Did you see that little clear thing that was on the end? Like it was like baby grand piano. I got destroyed in an unboxing video because I unboxed a PS five pro when they came out and then I pulled out, I was like, Oh, what's this little plastic thing? I've never seen that before. We were like, look at this idiot. He doesn't know what the heck this is. I was like, I bought an OG one, dude. I'm being adult. Just put it in your entertainment console. It's fine. I know. Close it in a cabinet so you hear it go. Yeah. Every time a cut scene happens. It just sounds like a jet. Nick, when you're in a gaming video, never say you don't know if something is either just, is the video. You just don't address it or confidently say something. We're just going to revisit the trauma. Yeah. Say, this is the, this is the summer flange. They heard it. It's the moment. Jober, what do you know? This is PTSD. Why am I even wearing gloves? Well, at least you can get fingerprints on that little piece. Yeah. See, that's why you wear the gloves, folks. I know the games. Goupa. I don't even know why I'm wearing these. The games. Goupa. If you are, I'm bringing this back guys. I have something on topic to actually talk about. If you are a kid and you know, you like video games, your video game curious. A, no one's releasing video games anymore, as we talked about on the show a few weeks ago. If you're a fan of Dragon Quest or Pokemon or whatever, you're going to go from being like, you know, four years old to 11 years old before the next game is even going to come out. And then B, you have to spend $650 or your family does to like have you buy in and play this thing? Yeah. It's it's beyond what people are willing to accept for 40 years. Consoles have cost a few hundred dollars. Atari 2600 with 200 bucks in 1977. 30 years later, 35 years later, the PS4, $400. The Switch was 300. And then the PS5, Xbox Series X and the Nintendo Switch to your $500. Like that's it. There's a family isn't going to be like, oh, sure, let's just get a thousand dollar PlayStation six, like it's way beyond what a normal like nothing but the hardest hardcore gamer would accept to pay. It's pretty interesting. They're just going to. Go ahead, just go ahead, Nick. I don't know. Just to juxtapose the PS3 like console launch price, because it was what, five ninety nine or something. What? The PS3 when they said that. Oh, yeah. But yeah, people wouldn't accept it. You will work two jobs in order to afford this. I was like, now that the shoe is on the other foot, it's a little bit interesting. It's a nice scenario. Yeah. Yeah, I know. Yeah. So I mean, you're just and the kid, the kids still want to play video games, right? Like, you know, the interest in this medium is real, but it's like, they're just going to like what's on my iPad? You know, what's on my Android tablet? You know, what can I play on my school grow blocks in Fortnite? There's no friction to them, you know, pulling up Roblox on a tablet or or or Minecraft, you know, like there's Sony is creating so much friction to get people into their ecosystem. You know, Sam talks about them, you know, eating some of the costs to the console. It's got to be worth it because if you become a fan, we're so weird and tribalistic about our video game consoles, if you become a fan of that one, you're highly likely to buy the next one. Yes. And the one after that, they get you for life if they can get you in. And if you can afford to get into the ecosystem. Yeah. People just buy it like obviously that's Nintendo knows that, right? Like they are trying to get. I know it was an expensive switch, too, but they are trying to get those in houses a lot more than Sony is. Yeah. No, it's this is like, I mean, this is a product of it's like exact time like this month, this year, too, because like because of the RAM shortage and because of projected, you know, just delivery prices because of the oil problems right now and all that stuff that's happening. But like we also didn't really see a period in which it went down because I think because because greed, I guess. So it's like, you know, this trajectory is not sustainable. We're also talking about that way. But it's also like, I don't know how they change it. Yeah. Everything's more expensive. Like you feel we do feel kind of locked in like if we're boxed in now, which is which feels bad. I mean, I think what they do is they change it by not making another one for a long time. I think we're just talking about. I mean, I console watch that's out the same day as this. I'm when I play resident, I'm on my base PS5. I have no feelings of, oh, I can't wait for the next generation. Like I'm perfectly happy playing games that look like this on my system that I already have. I mean, they're going to do the presentation thing that they did this entire life cycle, though, right, where it was just the games released simultaneously on PS4, PS5, and then at some point it will be just PS5 only. Yeah. Or PS6. It'd be interesting to see like so they take out the disk drive and it's like what, 50 bucks off? Yeah. Is that right? Yes. So what else can you take out? Like take out that little stand, make it a square instead of looking like a really stupid George Lucas car and like, you know, and just try to like pull out things that would make this system cheaper. Like take the power supply, but outside of it, you know, like I know it's a redesign, but like that's the forward thinking that needed to be happening here is like, what are the things we can piecemeal out to make sure that this goes to $400, you know, in six years? It's crazy. You need a smaller one, you know, you need to you got to you got to make these changes. Six with one stick of RAM instead of two. One stick. I mean, we talked about Nintendo like the switch to is expensive, like $450. That's a lot of money for the for the console. But they, you know, they announced the price of their console and then, you know, Trump announced all the tariffs and then Nintendo said, hold on, we need to talk about the price of our console. And then after a period of deliberation, they came back and said, no, we're not raising the price of the console for now. It is going to. Yeah, for now, we're going to launch it for $150. And so, like, you know, I'm sure that was a very fraught moment for Nintendo. We'll never know. We'll probably never know like what that costs the company and like how kind of tricky, you know, those discussions were. But but they, you know, this is a company that's been around 100 years and is making decisions because they'd like to be around and successful for another hundred years. Yeah. Got to have kids play in your games. Yeah. Here's here's the thing. The best selling consoles of all time sell well over 100 million units. PlayStation 2, the PS4 is well over 100 million. PS5 is almost at 100 million. If consoles cost a thousand dollars, they'll sell 10 million. Like you'll just never have 100 million selling console ever again. You'll completely shrink your audience. And the only people who could who are playing your console are affluent hardcore gamers. It's going to be a really small group of people. You know, one other reason why you you lower your your console's price over the years is that the second hand market is undercutting you. And you're trying to make more systems still, instead of just having those ones in circulation. And that's, you know, clearly not going to happen either. That is, yeah. Feels bad, man. It does. Yeah. OK, let's move on to some of these weird headlines, which I think are more fun. Who remembers Jallico? I remember Jallico. Yeah, they made City Connection. They made City Connection. And now a company called City Connection has like the rights to old Jallico games. Lots of eight and eight and 16 bit games. And then they did a bunch of sports games like Bases Loaded. So three new Jallico sports games have been announced this week, including two Bases Loaded ones. And this is why it's so weird. Yeah, this is why it's so weird. So let me pull this up. Two. Two Bases Loaded, except it's called. OK, publisher, Hollow Indie and developer, Clover Lab. I'm really I'm reading from Gamatsu have announced Hollow Base, a pixel art baseball game based on the classic Jallico title, Bases Loaded. Dude, I miss this completely. That sounds sick. But what? It's a Bases Loaded pixel art game where you play as a hollow live or like it's a Japanese V VTuber. VTubers, yeah. Yeah. So it's weird. They're all they're all hollow live VTubers. Yes, the players in this new Bases Loaded are all hollow live VTubers, which I guess maybe if you're they have fans and people might recognize them. They will. They took over Dodger Stadium last year one night where there was a hollow live night and I wish I was there in the crowd. Because I was going to see that over. Like this. Yeah, this era of baseball game is like really fundamentally easy to play. So it's kind of cool to like cram it into that as like a shell, because like they're very fun to play with a friend. Yeah, I just think the the second as as you all know, I've played every garlic like there is every vampire. So that's the game and the second best one is a hollow live fan game that is free. Oh, my God. I don't remember the name of it, but if you Google hollow live vampire survivors fan game, I'm sure you'll find it. It's on steam. You can add it to your steam library. It's completely free because it has to be non commercial. And it's amazing. It's great. Well, the the about for this says a full scale classic baseball game. Bases Loaded returns on hollow indie a baseball game where you build a team with hollow live talents, fans and mascots inspired by hollow base and compete in exciting matches. And it looks like a pretty solid game. I mean, maybe it's just I just said it was weird. Right. It is weird. Yeah. That's not the only Jalisco sports game announced this week. They also announced Jalisco sports bases loaded to which this one. Yeah. Sick. That's great. It says basis loaded to second season was originally released for the NES in 1989. Base or wait is where is it? I don't know. I've lost it here. But this is the basic. It's a compilation of bases loaded games. That includes bases loaded to but also Moeiro, Pro, Yaku, 88, Kachit, Kata, Bob, Bond and Superbases loaded and Super 3D baseball. But they call it. I want to put Jalisco sports bases loaded to wow. OK. Maybe we're on the SEO for that one. The 3D one looks crazy. Yeah, like that era of like sprite based sports games is like, look, it's totally nostalgic. They're not like objectively better than what we're getting now. But it's like so arcadey and pick up and play and like so fun and like just takes me back to my youth, me and everybody else. Right. So like I'm totally on board for this. The third one is goal to Jalisco sports. Goal to includes four games, three from the NES and one from Super Nintendo. I guess so in there in 89, we got goal to on the NES. You can see this in your mind, Palace, Tim. Yes, it's very much. It's it's the word to. But in Europe, they got goal numeral to and in Japan, they just got goal and they're already the same year. And then Super Nintendo got Super goal numeral to that makes total sense. Yeah. I remember going to like a friend's house in Iowa and they would have bases loaded, want to play that. And I'd be like, oh, my God, I actually liked bases loaded, you know, even though it was always fine. But like the sports NES kids, I just I just it's just difficult. Can we just play Mega Man X? Come on. 100 percent. I mean, I I've never been athletic or into sports in life. When I was a kid, I wanted to play every every NES game, basically. So I love bases loaded. I liked Technobull. I like Kings of the Beach volleyball. I loved all these games. What about Jordan versus Bird? Yeah, I played that too. Blades of steel. You could break. You could break the rim. Smash it. Yep. OK, little dribble. That was really good. That was really good. Hey, Sainsbury's, we get through so many snacks. Have you got anything to help me save? Well, we're always matching and lowering prices. So hundreds of Sainsbury's fresh fruit, veg and everyday products are price matched to Aldi. And every week with Nectar, you can save money on thousands of the products your family loves so you can snack away knowing you're saving money. Sainsbury's good food for all of us. Selected products, Aldi price match, not in an eye. Nectar prices require Nectar account terms at Sainsbury's dot co dot U K slash Aldi price match and Nectar dot com slash prices terms. Let's check in with the listeners. Hey, listeners. Yo, listeners. Remember, you can always reach us at the email address gamescouped at IGN.com, just like Brighton did, who says hello, Damien and the scoops. My name is Brighton and I'm from the Cincinnati area. I recently finished the is it still fun episode about Resident Evil? Nice. And just finished listening to the episode on Resident Evil Requiem. The games look and sound absolutely incredible to me. I've actually never played a Resident Evil game. With that being said, my questions are what Resident Evil games are worth my time to go back and play and what order should I play them in? Requiem looks so good, but I want to play the other main lines that directly lead into this plot. What do you guys think? I have a funny way to start this that we go into the real answer, but first of all, hey, Cincinnati. But we immediately so we can see, you know, what strategy guides people are playing at any given time. And as soon as people kind of stop playing Requiem, they all started playing Resident Evil 2 Rebag, which I thought was so cool. They went straight to the first Leon appearance. So we can talk about the Leon story, but that would be my answer. Yeah, if you wanted to, you know, sort of lead up to Requiem, the games would be Resident Evil 2, then you do the remake, then they do the RE4 remake, and then you can do Requiem. However, the original Resident Evil remake that we did, it remade in 2022, remastered in 2015, very accessible today. Super fun. It rules. It's a great game. I think I think we already had this conversation somewhere because I remember saying this, but I think it's better to go back to RE1 after playing the two remake or four remake or something. Because even it has it has a little bit of jank. And like you really understand it more when you play another game with typewriter ribbons that makes a lot more sense and with puzzles that are in a police station for some reason. I know why it's because it used to be a museum. And then you go back and play that game. But it's so fun. I think I would like if you want to be like in just all of it and understand it like the series as a whole, I think one remake, two remake, three remake, four remake, skip five, skip six, seven, eight, nine. But that's a lot of I replayed five recently and it was agonizing like a month ago. I wanted it to end, but I just kept going. But that said for RE9, the streamlined version, the Cliff Notes, do the raccoon city saga is what I'm calling it. RE2 remake, RE3 remake. You should just play for remake as well. Because Leon Leon and then Requiem. But I would say I would say RE3 good game, but unessential for this. Yes, but it is nice to go to areas that you go to in raccoon city that you see glimpses of in Requiem, that you don't get to see otherwise. So I think there's a lot there. And I think you have a better understanding of what raccoon city was going through as a whole with in Requiem, whereas to gives you a very distilled snapshot of just one location. Yeah, that's my take. Plus, I think three just don't spend more than like 20 bucks for it. You should be good because it's like a three hour, four hour experience. Yeah. But out of all the main line, Resident Evil's they're all great except for five and six, in my opinion. Yeah, five is they they had two options after they made four. And I remember when at first I replayed five, like a billion times on Xbox 360 and for academic purposes, played it about a month ago. They just chose really doesn't hold up the different. I'm sure it's fine for a lot of people, but they just like, what if we took out all the cool stuff like exploring and item hunting? And what if we just made it about killing, which is fine, but exactly what opposite of what I want for my Resident Evil game. And it felt like, you know, needles in my arm the entire time. I just did not feel good. Really? Playing five free in 2026. But I am a no. Press punches that boulder. It is very funny, though. It is a very funny game. There's a lot of good moments like that. But man, the DLC is good, though, where you go to this the new Spencer mansion. That part's kind of sick, but the rest is bad. I reviewed that, I believe, and I really liked it. Lost in Nightmares is what it's called. Pretty solid. Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. I'm continuing my no healing playthrough of Requiem. I'm in the final stretch. I'm at the part where the final grace section at the end in the arc. That's right. Nice. Totally doable, huh? Yeah, it's actually turns out totally doable on casual mode. And it's still very fun and still actually scary in moments like when the girl is stalking you. But, Justin, you were telling us before the show that you've got what? Over 30 hours in Crimson Desert? Yeah, 31 hours, which I know we've all become used to, you know, content creators and other people. Like we just become kind of a nerd to like, you know, I've spent 150 hours into this game. I've been playing at 12 hours a day, but like for mere mortals like me, that I have a regular job and I have a family. 30 hours is a lot, dude, because that I dad it up. That's like 9 p.m. to midnight every single night since the game came out. And I was goofing on the show so much last week. We recorded early. And so the games opening, you know, two or three hours are terrible. Like they're they're absolutely terrible. And now I just I keep liking it more and more and more. The more time that goes on when I'm not playing it, I'm thinking about it. It's it's been the first game in a long time where I'm kind of like losing sleep. I'm like, maybe I'll just do like one more thing. And like it's got its hooks in to be bad, man. But Nick, I mean, I don't know how much you're playing it or if you played it very much, it's a deeply confusing game because because it's like, you know, like, look, like the quests are bad. The characters, the characters are bad. Like they did patch movement, but it still doesn't feel that great. So it's like, I can't I don't know. It's casting some kind of weird spell on me. I understand this kind of hard for me. It's hard for me to search my feelings and like understand, understand. That's how I felt about Resolul 5. Now I'm in complete agreement with Justin here. I know it's one of those things where I know it's not particularly cohesive in any meaningful way, but I can't help but like exploring the world. I think that's why I'm playing it. I just like to see what's around that mountain. I do legitimately enjoy some of the puzzle stuff because I like the idea of the puzzles being like, yeah, just figure it out. I don't know, man, you don't have to do it. And I really respect that. I respect that. I really appreciate that. They have this like I can't tell. I can't decide if it's good design or bad design where sometimes the puzzle doesn't even tell you what you're trying to do. Like, you know, where it doesn't say like, oh, get the power turned back on. Like that. It's like, OK, now I'm going to go around and turn around how to figure. You know, I'm going to run all around and figure out how to get the power turned back on. It just plops you into a space and then says nothing. And then like, maybe you don't even know there's a puzzle like. And that can be really cool and exciting. And like, you know, every once in a while, I'm like, I'm just going to try this. And like it does something. And I'm like, oh, like that feeling of like it feels like bombing a wall in Zelda one. Like it can feel kind of incredible. But then sometimes it plots me into a space and like, you know, there's some weird dragon statue and like the game clearly wants me to do something. But it's like I can't even figure out what I'm what problem I'm trying to solve. And it's like, is this good or bad? I don't know. But it's interesting. Like I haven't played anything like it. The game does not teach you all of that you can do within its given space. And I think that's to its biggest detriment because there's areas that you can revisit from earlier, like you have to go here as part of the main the main line of the story that you just assume, oh, I never have to go back there again. But I decided to and I poked around like, oh, wait, there's like stuff to find here that is doesn't tell you it and it doesn't indicate any meaningful way. It does not communicate with you. And occasionally you will stumble across stuff that you're like, how was I ever supposed to find this? Like normally in Zelda, right? You learn the shorthand of the original Zelda that there's one bombable wall in every single screen. You kind of intuit that after a while and you get conditioned to it. This game does not teach you any meaningful way that there are secrets within secrets and stuff like that, which is exciting if you are the one percent of players who will find said secret. But otherwise you miss so much stuff in a way where I guess ultimately it doesn't matter because nothing kind of matters what you find in this game. It matters in this game. But I do. There's no. But but like I like finding it. I think it's also like this illusion that the game is so expensive looking that I'm like, wow, the graphics go crazy. I love this. Like I like looking at this game and existing within its spaces. But it's like it does feel a little bit better, though. I will argue against Justin there. I do think I don't want to vomit when I move cliff every time now. It feels better. He doesn't move like Red Dead now or it's like not that kind of game. It's very there's so much stuff of like, is this good or bad? I don't know. Like there's there's, you know, like collectibles and secrets and weapons and things like that don't have like a shimmer or don't have anything on them. And so you can just walk right by some badass sword and you don't know what's there. Like you can't pick it up. And like on the one hand, that's kind of cool and interesting, exciting. Pay attention, like be immersed in this world and look at the cave. And is the skeleton holding a weapon you pick up? Like there's not like a visual signal. Like you just need to clock it for yourself. And so it's kind of a good thing, but it's also like kind of a shit thing. We're like just the the the friction. Like the game just fights you a lot in a lot of different apart from the bosses. I feel like trying to just pick up items to Justin's point is also kind of its own battle where I'm like, no, I just want to get this thing that's tucked in between these things. I know I can grab it, but the UI is fighting you constantly. Like we I've played this game every single night for hours for 10 or 11 or 12 nights now, and I saw a Reddit post that was, hey, like I'm trying to figure out how to breed animals on my farm. How do I get these animals to breed? They're not breeding. And I've never seen a farm. I've never seen a farm. I don't have any animals and I don't know what that Reddit post is talking about. It's like, what even is this game? I saw another I saw one mission is like, well, OK, I'll tell you this, David, I've played the game for 30 hours and I've never even come close to the Crimson Desert. Yeah. OK, what is the real place? It's a red desert. Yeah. And like I've never and like there's there's like there's elephants and stuff in it. It's like it's this whole other like not only have I not gotten to the Crimson Desert, but if you look at the map, I'm not even anywhere close to the Crimson Desert. Like it's unbelievable. I have seen some footage that looks like it's just a different game where there's like someone riding a dragon parachuting and like the dragon gets like an anime transformation and gets like a suit of armor. I was like, what the heck? And I was like, this looks cool. But how much of the game do I got to play? You guys are lucky because they have a few months to develop that part of the game before you get there. I saw another Reddit post like there's a whole there's a whole steampunked zone in the game where someone said that their current quest was to clean a bunch of solar panels and like that's what they're doing in the game now. And I'm like, I just can't you can tell me you can tell me anything about this game. I would believe it. I would believe it at this point. Like, so I don't know, man. Like we I have to give I have to give one more anecdote of like this game just seems to run so hot and cold of like I'll do the most amazing cinematic optional boss fight that has like interesting voice acting and interesting lore behind it. And I'll be like, oh my God, like this game's so good. And then like the very next quest I did, this happened to me last night. So I'm 30 hours into the game and I got a quest that tutorializes the fast travel system and like how it works. Like you step on these little pads in the world and it activates a fast travel point and I have fast traveled a thousand times in this game. It's at the it's at the end of this quest line and the quest is like, you know, you're doing quest for this noble and he's like, well, my scouts found something like weird. I think it might be like a weapon. Go check it out and you go check it out. And it's like a fast travel point and you go back to the guy and you tell him, my God, no, it was nothing. Don't worry about it. And like that was the whole quest. And I'm like, why? Like it's just so baffling. Like for every single thing that's like it's beautiful and like fun and immersive, then it does something else. It's just completely inexplicable. Did you see him trying to get on that dragon and dying? Yeah, I was like, well, that looks like, yeah, it started to look cool. And then it was like, oh, you know, he can't get on. That's the mount. Yeah. It's like time locked and all this stuff. Anyway, I like it. I like it. I just finished, I just finished chapter six was where I am in the main story. If that is going to mean something to people listening to the show. So there's a certain type of commenter on IGN that thinks we're so mad that people are enjoying the game. But no, Justin and Mark Medina and lots of people on staff are having a great time with Crimson Desert. I mean, even I don't like, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I'd have to, again, I'd have to search my feelings. Like my personal score might still be a six. It's like a six that I'm kind of addicted to maybe or, or sometimes I think it's like a nine that I kind of hate. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what I mean. I used to play bad games on the PS two all the time that I was fond of, you know, that's fine. You can like, you can like Castlevania on the Game Boy. Yeah, that's the. I like Castlevania 64. Not the GBA games, you mean. Very quick extracurricular extracurricular activities. I've not seen the Mario Galaxy movie yet. I'm seeing it tomorrow. Very excited. Sam, I know you saw it. No spoilers. I saw it. Thumbs up spoilers. Thumbs up. There's nothing to spoil. There's not really any plot to the video. Vignettes of Mario and everybody shouting just from whatever everything I've heard. If it's, you know, if I'm going to be watching Nintendo references, the movie with my six year old who loves Nintendo, I can't wait. It sounds so fun. You have nothing to worry about. It's awesome. Okay. I love sitting through it. I don't, you know, like it's there wasn't enough depth that I want to see it again to make sure I didn't miss anything because you really don't. But it really is Nintendo references the movie. But there's some it's interesting. Like so it starts if there's just deep cuts that like when I know this sounds cool and I'm saying it. There's deep cuts that only game scoop people are going to get. But I'm also they are also really expensive to put in there. So like why? Like it's just really confusing. Like everybody's going to get the Smash Brothers references and there's stuff like that. Like the very like the illumination, the illumination intro has like the Minions. One of them gets a hammer and is like breaking a logo and the other one's planked it on a keyboard. No child for 35 years has has heard that Donkey Kong Smash Brothers. They've heard or they have heard in Smash Brothers. But yeah, maybe, maybe as like the deepest Smash Brothers cut, but it's just like, that's just like, why choose that? Yeah. It's weird. And then, you know, you've all seen that like warts in it. That that part, if you look at it, it's in a casino. And why is that in a casino? Because Super Mario Brothers 2, when you start a level or read a level, I mean, you get apart the doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, where it rolls the little slot machine. So they made a section of this movie around that. Like and then like, you know, the bosses from Mario 2 are all in there. These ninja ninjas and stuff like all of this. Like that stuff's not in any Mario game, like Claw Grip and Mouser and what it's just, it's just surprising. And then I'll give you one other example. Again, like this is enjoyable for me. I'm just like confused. Another example is a Rob as like a background thing in it. And the joke is that Rob moves really slow and it makes a noise and it goes. That's what Rob does. A hundred percent. So you would have had to own a Rob, like my man, Damon Hatfield here, have hooked it up. Yep. Have played Gyromite with it to like get why that's in there. And now it doesn't matter because the joke lands for all these other ways. I'm not saying these jokes are bad. I'm just surprised that like all of this effort went in to like match these things up. And I just, I just thought it was an interesting take from it. But just in general, it's a gorgeous 3D animated movie that just goes from thing to thing to thing with a bunch of characters, you know, and you know, everything's just entertaining. Yeah. I could not be more excited to see it tomorrow. However, I did see Project Hail Mary. Ah, I want to. Yeah, which is great. Super, super, super good. Have you seen that, Justin? Oh, we're going this weekend. OK, well, it's great. No good season. It's just a very. What's that? One more thing, a throwaway line in the Mario movie is you'll I'm hooked on the brothers, like Toad says that. Yeah, you'll be hooked on the which is a reference to the Super Mario Brothers rap from the Super Mario Super show, which was in the first movie as well. Here. That brings us to video game 20 questions. And this week, I thought I would ask Jim and I if some were playing 20 questions, what are the most useful questions to ask? Jim and I provide some responses. I don't know if they're useful. What would you like to hear what Jim and I thinks? Just a couple. Does it know we're asking about a video game? Oh, yeah. I mean, it also knows all of your names and the types of questions you tend to ask. What the heck? OK. Jim and I says if you're trying to play like the GameScoop crew, the goal isn't just to win. It's to narrow down the search space as efficiently as possible using a binary search strategy. You want questions that split the entire history of video games in half. Here are the most. I say this all the time. Here are the most important questions to ask. So questions one through five are the big filters. And Jim and I says these are the non-negotiables. If you don't ask these early, you'll be wandering in the dark at question 15. So was this game originally released on a Nintendo platform? This is a classic scoop opening. It immediately separates. It immediately separates the Mario Zelda Pokemon world from Sony Xbox and PC. Except no, it was this game originally released on a Nintendo platform. Could be Resident Evil Requiem. Yeah. That's not Jim and I. That's not very useful. What is this game released after the year 2000? Again, it's right. That splits the Nintendo 64 generation in half. Maybe not. We have a whole lot of time, but that is a normal opening. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. It's a bold gambit. Nailing it. Does this does this game feature a controllable human character? That one's actually pretty good. We've asked that. Yeah. Yeah. Questions six through 10. Once you have the air on the platform, you need to find the gameplay loop. So like, does this feature combat? Can you play this game with other people or was this game developed in Japan? Questions like that. Can we, how about we all just take, let's just do it. Let's just do this. Let's use these questions. Okay. And then I have, I actually have some email I need to go answer. And so we can just let Jim and I do 20 questions. The end game questions 16 through 20. This is where you go for the kill. Jim and I says. Unless we've already won. Is this a first party title? Was this game developed by Studio Name? Does the title of the game contain the name of the main character? But Gemma, I says examples like Zelda or Halo. Wait a second. Hold on. No. What? What? Mr. Halo. It's Mr. Halo. We all know. Tack in the power of juju. That was the game. Pro tip for Game Scoop fans. The cops often get stuck because they forgot to ask about remakes or remasters. If the answer says the game came out in 2024, it might be a remake of a 1998 game. That's the last. I guess that's true. Jim and I calls us the cops. I don't know. Anyway, let's see if that was useful to you. I don't know. Our suggestion this week comes from Mike, who says long time gamer, newer game scooper. My suggestion for 20 questions is redacted for the redacted. Let the questioning begin. All right. Well, was this the. I didn't bring up Fair Day again. What was the first Gemini question? Was this on a Nintendo console? How did they word it? Was this game originally released on a Nintendo platform? Was this game originally released on a Nintendo platform? Yes. Oh, maybe there is a thing. Bifurcated video games into two. Exactly. Asking binary based questions. Yeah, what was next? Search scope. What was the next question? You want to know the next one? Yeah, what was the next one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're going to do it. Was this game released after the year 2000? Was this game released after the year 2000? No. All right. The next one is this an indie game? What's up? OK, have we been doing games like have we been doing? Have we been doing 20 questions like maybe 10 years? Yeah. So the interesting thing about that is the 2000 question because it becomes more and more like it's in balance now, roughly, right? Like 26 years is around the start of video games, like close, but like it was not in balance 10 years ago. So I don't know. That's it. Like there's just more and more games. It gets harder over time because more games are coming out, Damon. Right. Right. It's a good day. Was this the game? It's no, no, no. Don't ask. It's from before 2000 on a Nintendo console. Oh, so not an indie game. We can skip that one. What was next, Damon? Is this an indie game? Oh, by the one after that? What was after that? Is this part of a series? All right. Is it part of a series? No. Oh. Ice climbers. Did this come out as an arcade game at some point? No. Was this on the Super Nintendo? It sounds like Quest 64. Not Super Nintendo. That's five. Same question in ES. No. Is this question in 64? No. Was this was this on a color screen handheld? No. So that means it's a game boy on the original Game Boy. Yes. OK, so. A game that's OK. It's on the Game Boy. Not part of a series on the Game Boy. That's all we know. We did not follow Gemini's advice and now we're in the now we're in trouble. Well, I'm in the dark at question 15. Oh, I'll bring it back to Gemini. Do we play as a human? OK. Oh, he's got to think about it. No, I don't have to think about it. The answer is yes. But just remember. What that could possibly mean. And that's 10. It means that it could be like a strategy game. The character you're playing as is human. OK, that's the character. Game or Sam, what that's what that's what the significance of that is. Character you are playing as is human. Maybe maybe it's like Arcanoid where secretly aren't you in a spaceship? Yeah. What's that called? It's called. Break. What's it called? Break out. No, no, no, no. It's an alleyway. It's called alleyway. Did Nintendo publish this game? Yes. Oh, OK, OK, OK. Is this a. Puzzle game? No. Nintendo published Game Boy game, not part of a series. That question actually was a little bit clutch. You play as a human, but not necessarily. It's like the first run of games called like. Baseball tennis tennis. Yeah. But that's very clearly a human. Yeah, that's a good point. OK, I retract my question. It's not a puzzle game, so. I don't know the OG Game Boy library that well, I mean, you know, besides all the obvious Nintendo games, everybody knows. I feel like there's a game where you like swap pieces to let me know. That's a puzzle game. Yeah, so much so much was I mean, pick cross and stuff like that, right? Yeah. Oh, does this be a racing game or something? Yeah, go ahead, go ahead. Well, I don't know. I can't even think of a racing game on like Excitebike. Well, that's a series, though. Mm hmm. That's what I'm saying, man. There are many. There was an Excitebike. What do we have? How many questions that's 12. Is this game have a. Can't. Well, it's not part of a series, but is it silly to ask like if it has a contemporary version? Like if there's a yes. OK. That yes, that is silly. Yeah, well, that's a series then, right? At that point. Yeah. What would what did Gemini suggest we do? Well, how about this? Can you can you see your can you see the human character while you're playing? No, yeah, no, it's not bad. OK, sick. Are you piloting? Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. No, you go. Gemini at this time in the game, Gemini would ask, was it a launch title? Does it have a Medicare score of 90 or higher? Is the main character a mascot or does the game involve guns? Then these are helpful. The shooting part is helpful. You can't see your character. So that means I mean, it's Game Boy, so it's not first person. Unless look, either it's chess or like something weird like that or, you know, or you're in a vehicle in the game. Yeah. I'm having a hard time thinking of like racing games apart from Excitebike. Are you piloting some sort of craft in this game? Yes. I mean, I mean, is Alleyway not a puzzle game? No, I don't think so. Really? Yeah, I don't. I don't I don't know. I wouldn't count that as puzzle. I don't think I would. Count that as a game. Yeah, it's just not an arcade game. Does this game is this game kind of modeled on an arcade game? Meaning what? A specific arcade game? Yeah. No. That's 15. Because, you know, Alleyway is modeled on Arkanoid. Maybe narrowing down the type of vehicle or break out. Yeah. I just I can't even think of any Nintendo made, you know, car games, space game, car games on the Game Boy. Does this game does your craft feature wheels? No. So it's maybe it's like a spaceship or a boat. Battleship. Lancy in there. That's all we've got, right? Yeah, it's got our space. It's a space shooter, I think. Was there like a like a like a Gradius or something? Not a Gradius. I mean, Nintendo would have published. Weird stuff like our type. Balloon fighter. Was there a balloon fighter on Game Boy? There was a was a brood. But that's a series. It's a series. Yeah, there's a lesser known balloon fight on the Game Boy. Everyone always knows the NES one. Your hint is that I I own this game. Played a lot. But today I would not have known that Nintendo published this game. That's yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, so that I don't know what the encouragement is to broaden your thinking beyond games that you know are Nintendo games. Yeah, it is. I think I think you're probably right, Sam, but they probably published the Game Boy version of like, you know, Gradius or our type or something like that. Space game. Is this game? It's just hard to think of this. A space game is over your ass. Yeah. Yeah, good. Is this game set in space? Yes. Two questions and a guess. Is there like an Asteroids or a Galaxian or Galaga on the Game Boy? Or like a cute shooter, like Stinger or something like that. Because like Galaga would have been was that Namco? So like maybe Nintendo published the the Game Boy version of it. But it's not Mall of After Arcade. And everything we're talking about. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Everything we're talking about is a series so clearly. Yeah. So like a one off spacey game. Like I just don't know if I know the name of it. Like what it is. I mean, I can't like so it's like I'm curious about like, is it vertically scrolling or horizontal scrolling or is it single screen? But I don't know that that helps me. Like, am I allowed to ask? I always forget the rules regarding regarding the metagaming of it. But are we allowed to ask like, is it a one word title? I don't know. There's no cops, man. You can do whatever you want. Is generally we avoid the alphabet and stuff like that. We didn't we generally avoid questions about the alphabet. But we do sometimes we do ask about. You know, the title of the game or something like that, but not often. Yeah, like is it is the character of this game and its title, which is a fun question. I don't know. I don't think I know this game. So it's difficult for me to get. What's the shooter? Oh my God. Yeah, I don't know either. Something. Is the name of your vehicle the name of the game? I don't know. OK. It's not to bin. Yeah, not not to bin confirmed. Um. Is this a well known game? I thought it was better known than this. All right. Maybe we're just blanking, man. Well, we got one and a guess. One and a guess. I'm trying to think of any Japanese named shooter type space game at all. And I just don't know. But it could be a pinball game too, I guess. Good. Well, if your paddles and spaceships. Yeah, but we said you pilot a vehicle. Yeah, another thing I did in Crimson desert desert last night was I fought a tank. Like with a gun. You can call in an airstrike. OK. OK. Like it's an artillery strike. There's cannon station nearby and you want to shoot it with a special arrow and then they know where to rain your cannon fire. What else could it be? I don't know. Do you shoot aliens? Yep. All right. Yeah, I know this game called it's called alien. It's on the tip of my tongue. Is it? It's not aliens storm. Yeah, I have one kind of on the tip of my brain too. And then I'm actually not completely sure I'm not just making it up. Hey, I'm going to go alien is just a Sokoban game. Right there. That one that might be a Hanko alien. I think that's just a boxing pushing game though. Like maybe maybe alien storm is a video game or maybe that's something that we're just it's a false memory that's like doesn't even exist. I know this. I have one in my head of like something that's like striker. There's like this strike something. But then maybe I'm just thinking about desert strike on the on the SNES and I'm not really sure operations, but I can't I can't I can't remember. I don't know. I mean, is it Hanko alien? It's not Hanko alien. Justin got so close to solar striker. No. Solar striker. Solar striker. Solar striker. Developed and published by Nintendo. I think the only shmup Nintendo's ever made. Yeah, this looks sick. I liked it a lot. Well, they made shmups in the arcade. They made a couple of them pre Donkey Kong. Wow. Yeah. Space Invaders likes this very manageable. Gameboy. Gameboy. Remember. That's what I'm saying. This would be glorious heck when I was playing this in 1990. It was called Solar Fox is one of them. I think it's maybe the name of the solar striker. Solar striker developed by Nintendo, not just published by them. I know. It's really odd, right? It's actually Gunpei Yoke. Oh, wow. What I'm going to look up the father of the game. Father of the Gameboy himself. Honestly, Super Striker sounds like a Super Nintendo game. Solar striker. Solar striker. Even more like a Super Nintendo game. I would have guessed this were a game. I mean, the fact that this is a first party developed Nintendo game, you know, and Nintendo, like all Japanese companies, like people work there their whole career. Like I can't believe there's not references to solar strikers. It's not a trophy and Smash Brothers. Yeah. Like, you know, mini a mini game. So I don't I don't recognize the Gameboy box art from America, but I do recognize the Japanese box art and it's amazing. Okay. Well, if Joe, it can really, really cool. Maybe he can pull that up. Wow. Yeah. I never heard of this game, but yeah, it looks cool. I had this game and yeah, you're a human. They're aliens. I mean, all the pieces were there. We just didn't know the name. What are the peas do? If you more guns power up. Yeah, got a power up. Oh, wow. What's an impressive boss? This looks cool. Yeah. That's a whole screen. Yeah. Screen filling bosses. I mean, this looks like one of the bosses in like Life Force. Yeah. Yeah. This looks great. I would have guessed that. Is it a short game? It's very short. Yeah. I think maybe six levels. Nicely attempt. Thank you for the suggestion, Mike, in an undisclosed location viewers and listeners. If you have your own suggestions for video game 20 questions, email them to me at the email address gamesgroupandidgin.com. And that's all the scoops that we have for you this week. Again, I'm off next week. I'll be gallivanting around Tokyo with my kids. So keep, please keep me in your thoughts and prayers. But Sam will be hosting the episode next week in my stead. So thank you, Nick. I'm going to book off. So I remember that the Game Boy, the US Game Boy art there. I don't think I've ever seen the Japanese box. The Japanese box. Isn't it cool? I love that stuff. The logo is much cooler than the Japanese box. Yeah, it's really cool. Thank you, Nick. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Justin. Thank you to Joe Burch working behind the scenes to make this episode possible. My name is Damon. This is Ijin Game Soup and we're out. Thank you. Wait, my mic wasn't on and I had a joke when you are trying to sell your car and it has hail damage and you're just hoping for the best. Would you call that a projectail, Mary? Okay, I got there. It was a long walk. The sirens are going off again. Yeah, I can hear them. Yeah, I can hear them. I told Jamie just got home and I told her I said, I'm going into GameScoop. Let me know if I need to take a show. Yeah, the scoop must go on. Yeah, he died doing what he loved. I can scoop from our bunker if I need to. RIP, Justin. What do you do? Do you have an earthen covered basement? I mean, I wasn't joking about the bunker. We have a tornado room in our... When we bought the house, they called it a tornado room and we've been calling that ever since, but it's like in our utility room, there's another little room inside that that doesn't happen. So they really do make houses with that. I don't think they made it that way on purpose. I think it's just this weird kind of bonus utility storage. Is it a pretty new house or is it like an old... Yeah, it is. That's really interesting. You could retrofit that into a panic room then? Yeah, for sure. It's surrounded by concrete because it's the basement and then it's just this concrete room in our utility room. I'm looking at the weather. It's getting crazy. I mean, is it already stormy or is that not how tornadoes work? Yeah, no, there's like a huge storm cell that's about to move through. So it is looking a little bit dicey, but it's fine. I'm going to scoop and then Jamie will come tell me if I need to. I mean, for the first time in my life, we got a tornado warning in San Francisco, first of all, but I'd never got them in Arizona either. They're called water spouts when they're in the ocean and we got one in Daly City and it was moving this direction. It was forming. That's what the earthquake type alert says. Forming water spout conditions are forming off of Daly City, California. It was like five in the morning and I was like, Helene, do we actually react to this? Should we actually... I really can't tell. But it turned out we did. We went downstairs with the cat and we have a lower area, but everybody was kind of talking about it all day. It's like, yeah, this is something that can happen. What? Yeah. I know it's a very scary thing, but seeing a water, hearing the words a water spout is forming is probably evoking the coolest imagery possible with like Lincoln Park playing in the background and stuff. Yeah. I mean, it's a whirlpool above the ocean. Yeah, that sounds sick. I mean, I was going to say it sounds like something you would fight in suplex in Final Fantasy 6. Yeah, that's typhoon, bro. That's a whole something. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, totally. And then that's the type of thing that like sends like showers of fish to like some other state. Oh, yeah, yeah. Which I heard about a lot as a kid, but I don't think it's happened. I thought it'd be something I dealt with more as I grew up. Yeah. It's like quick sand. Yeah, exactly. It's like quick sand. Not nearly as big a problem as I was led to believe. Yeah. But weirdly, my wife the other day was like, oh, did you see the thing on Instagram about quick sand? It's really scary. I'm like, I haven't been scared of quick sand in 35 years. It's really scary. Show me what you're talking about. Is this real? And it was like, you know, somebody like slogging through like, you know, very wet sand. It's like, yeah, they're trying to get quick sand back, everybody. Why isn't anybody doing anything about the beauty triangle? Just letting all these ships disappear.