Game Scoop! 845: What Was the Point?

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Meld je aan voor je proefperiode van 1 euro per maand op shopify.eu. virtual boy uh with that's what i don't know if enjoying is the word i would use yeah more like mart medina is here i'm here david and justin davis scoop we have a great show for you this week we have a bunch of good emails uh this week scoop nation has questions about search action games there's a hot new roguelike that has caught uh scoop nation's eye but first unfortunately we start with some bummer news uh because just announced today playstation is shutting down blue point games makers of uh many remasters and the remakes of both shadow of the colossus and demon souls just generally uh a really quality you know remaster and remake house that's done virtually nothing but good good things over the past 20 years yeah so this comes from bloomberg confirm the news roughly 70 employees are going to be impacted the closure officially happens next month what's weird about this is this is the quote playstation bought blue point games in 2021 and this is the quote that they provided to bloomberg blue point games is an incredibly talented team and their technical expertise has delivered exceptional experiences for the playstation community we thank them for their passion creativity and craftsmanship all right cool thank you get out the door so they were working you know they did demons the demon souls remake that was a launch title for ps5 in 2020 after that apparently they were put to work on a multiplayer or live service god of war game all the way up until january last year when the project was canceled the studio then spent last year pitching new products projects but ultimately shuttered before anything got moving this is just like suicide squad or batman or whatever it's like they could have been making these great games they were specialized at but they're like nah make make a multiplayer game and then it screwed them it's so stupid buy a studio that has this one thing that they do and do better than anybody else they're the best at it and then like make a live service game oh never mind like either we're canceling that and also we're shutting you down even though we just bought you it's it doesn't make any sense to me go ahead mark that that live service mandate that came out like a few years ago i i cannot believe it ruined a whole generation and but it really did like yeah naughty dog has not produced a new game this whole generation because they were working on factions uh wolverine is probably would be way further along had they not worked on the spider-man multiplayer game which looked awesome by the way that leaked trailer and then now blue point like a multiplayer god of war game instead of making bloodborne remaster like like i mean i think people need to move on from bloodborne get over it it's probably never going to be remade not like come on yeah especially not now but that just seems like They bought Bungie and Destiny 2 is not doing well. I'm worried about the Bungie marathon situation right now. I'm obviously high guard. If marathon tanks, man, I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen to that studio. That's Bungie! It's Bungie! To have Halo and Destiny behind them and then be worried about Bungie. What? Much has been written, so Kotaku wrote a story that's kind of exactly what we're talking about. Everyone talks about Microsoft sort of mismanaging some of its acquisitions. But PlayStation's track record isn't much better, right? They bought Firewalk Studios, who launched Concord, and then that flopped and shut it down. So it's like almost every single studio they've acquired in the last several years has either been shut down or at least been hit with layoffs. Yeah. Yeah, it's just crazy to me, because there's always an appetite for remasters and remakes. and like justin was saying that's that's what blue point does they're they're exceptional at it well you why why not just let them keep doing their thing people have been waiting for like bloodborne obviously but then like infamous one and two like there's so many things they could have remade uh what are some of their shooter games like resistance resistance yeah what i was thinking of and socom is another one people want yeah yeah socom i mean do do we think and i'm not saying this is what I want, but do we think that maybe part of Sony's calculus is, hey, AI can do these remasters moving forward? They could have just remade Shadow of the Colossus again. I'd be fine with that. Just make that once a generation. But honestly, what about just giving them Shadow of the Colossus 2, right? Just do it. Just do the sequel. What stops this studio, though, in this weird situation? I don't think they already have an expertise. We're all talking about what they do. What stops them from being like, okay, we're just called this now. We're going to get an investor. We're going to try to maintain our office space. Can we stay here for three months and then remake something for Ubisoft? Yeah, I know. Or why wouldn't Sony be willing to sell them to someone else? Or let them go independent again or whatever. Oh, we lost Damon. I guess the batteries went out on the camera. Joe, are you on that? There he is. Did somebody just walk in the room and turn off your camera and run out? I don't know. Just gremlins. Just gremlins. They could remake gremlins too. They could? So as a brief history, Bluepoint was formed in 2006. And I didn't realize this until today, but it was two former Retro Studios employees that worked on Metroid Prime. Because they're based out of Texas, right? Yeah, I didn't know that. So it's all, yeah. And in 2006, they released their first and only original game, which was a PlayStation Network game called Blast Factor. It was mediocre. We gave it a 5.9. But that started their close relationship with PlayStation. And after that, they did the God of War collection, the Eco and Shadow of the Colossus collection, Metal Gear Solid HG collection, Uncharted, the Nathan Drake collection. They did Gravity Rush Remastered, then Shadow of the Colossus remake and Demon's Souls remake. Along the way, they also created the engine for PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale and handled the Vita port of that. They ported Flower to PS4 and the Vita. They did the Xbox 360 port of Titanfall. And then they supported the development of God of War Ragnarok. So they just make nothing but good stuff over the past 20 years. That's why it's such a shame. So weird. And I noticed you said we reviewed Blast Factor. I made sure that, Damon, you did not, in fact, review Blast Factor. I did not. It wasn't you. 2006, Jeremy Dunham handled that. He was running the PlayStation team back when we had teams. Anyway, that's bummer news. But hopefully, like someone pointed out, hopefully this team can just sort of reconvene and get back to making remasters and remakes that they just excelled at over the past couple decades. All right, let's check in with the listeners. Hey, listeners. Listeners, remember, you can always reach us at the email address gamescoop at IGN.com, just like Andy from Montreal did. Big Andy style. Andy says, I want to start by saying how much I love your show. I'm eager every week to watch the new episode. I wanted to add a little something in regards to what you guys said about long development cycles. We often lament how long it takes to make a video game, or at least a Western studio to make a AAA video game these years. And he says, as a veteran in the film and game industry, I believe he's an animator, a very long development cycle can be quite detrimental to the livelihood of the devs themselves. Here's an example. You start a project, work on it for four to five years, and then for X reason, you get fired or you move or whatever. You leave the company. You have to find a new job. None of what you did in the last half decade can be shown legally in your portfolio. Oh, I never considered that. Brutal. None of your work can be shown online until the project has come out. That leaves you in a very tough spot. You kind of have to be working on personal projects on the side to keep your portfolio up to date. And that's a lot of work. It's doable if you're single and have no responsibility, but add one or two kids in the mix and a ton of responsibilities. The task becomes a huge hurdle to overcome. Yeah, that's just another reason why they need to sort out and get these long development cycles under control. And then obviously, it's just bad for your soul. Like, let's say the project's canceled, right? it's like well that's you know it's sad anytime you work on something and it doesn't see the light of day but if you worked on it for a half half decade it's like you know we're not on our on this earth long enough for like that much of your work to like not come to fruition yeah yeah i never i never felt old until todd howard told me that fallout 5 will come out one day after xxxx i was like oh my gosh i'm gonna be like 50 when this game comes out todd harrod told you that mark he was speaking to you no yeah you should yeah he told me through an article they're texting look he just you just have to wire on these apple gift cards and then everything's gonna go fine him and fair schneider i just am draining my bank account if you really were on you know this cycle like say you were working on you know gta but not red dead then like you you worked on a game for 10 years and then a game for 10 years like you got like three more of those in your life lifetime before you retire. Not before you die, but before you retire, right? I was doing the cat math recently. I was like, well, I have a one-year-old cat. If my cat lives for 20 years, I might have one more cat after that. Amanda has a leopard gecko that she got on her 18th birthday, and we're almost 40. Wow, that's crazy. He's still there. He's still chilling. He's about to be the oldest leopard gecko to ever live. That's so cool. Is that true? I don't know. I don't know if that's true, but he's getting up there. I think the longest one's ever lived is like 26. I don't know. Never mind. The comment section. Tell me I'm wrong. What was the stat? Like, I see now. I don't know who this quote comes from, but there was a news story going around this week about how some Japanese youth, it was like a study, have less affinity for, you know, Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy and these franchises that kids grew up with and really loved. And it's because their entire youth is going by without a release coming out in that series. Like if you're taking five or six or seven years to come out with something, you're not hitting these kids, you know, frequently enough for them to sort of care about about the thing you make. Please do that for Kingdom Hearts. I mean, we we all love Grand Theft Auto because we got three Grand Theft Auto games on one platform. And it's like I understand that like that can't happen anymore. People expect Grand Theft Auto to be this like insanely good thing. But it's like still they made fans of us. And to add to that theory They don't need to be good games Because there hasn't been a good Sonic game since I was 11 And people still play those games Sonic Mania That one was alright Otherwise The takeaway is I hope Sam's cat Lives long enough to play Fallout 5 And the takeaway for everybody out there Listening is that I thought Sonic was really good When I was a kid The panel didn't I thought it was good we're all just catching strays over here from sand for no reason at all okay they weren't strays they were adoptees of your positions 10 years ago i bet you that i didn't bring it up i bet you that video is still getting angry comments i haven't looked at it recently but people are still angrily commenting on that video you know we get a person every once in a while it's like i'm listening to game scoop from the start you know and then somehow they they made a comment on this one but they're going to get to the episode with the sonic was never good episode and then they'll understand all of this the people i love i love all of them never said yeah i i like all of our fans and i'm glad you're here but the but the going back like it's this is a news show i don't understand what people get by going back to the old episodes well the retro pieces are still retro it's not like going back to watch madmen right like that's a very different thing you think 100 percent of our discussions are discussing something timely from that week i will i will say i before i worked at ig and i worked at a warehouse and i would listen to old game scoop episodes thank you mark there is damon we've been doing this long enough now like we flipped through you know whatever the 1996 issue of egn so two things are going to happen one we are going to run out of old magazines to flip through because they because they stopped making them oh that's true we can somehow, I don't know, we can use the Wayback Machine to flip through IGN from 20 or 30 years ago. I love looking at early 2000s IGN. I think the website looks better. It looks great and it loads just as fast as it did back then on the Wayback Machine. Yeah, true. Alright, we're getting into the weeds. Andy had one other anecdote here. Did you have a plan for this episode? Yeah. Andy says, I'm currently playing Avowed and Grounded 2. I really enjoy these two games. I think Obsidian is among the top studios of the last decade. It's really disappointing how the corporations estimate value in a title. Well, Avowed is great. I'm playing it on PS5, and I think it works very, very good. I like the game a lot. And you should also check out The Outer Worlds 2. I enjoy that game quite a bit. Okay, this is Daniel. Daniel says, since Baldur's Gate 3 has been the topic of conversation recently, I thought I would bring this to your attention. Recently, Larian made it known that they would have loved for Baldur's Gate 3 to come to Switch 2, but the decision wasn't theirs to make. Seems to be a Wizards of the Coast call from what I can tell. As someone who just got the Switch 2 for Christmas and has put over 300 hours into Divinity Original Sin 2 on the OG Switch, I'm quite disappointed. I'm a 35-year-old dad of four kids, and I play in handheld mode 99% of the time. Because of this I seriously considering a Steam Deck to start my Baldur Gate 3 journey You love it Which brings me to my question Has there ever been a game announcement or release that caused you to go out and purchase another console just to play it I remember being 15 years old at a friend's house when I got my first look at The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion in a Game Informer magazine. I had never seen anything quite like it and decided to save up and purchase an Xbox 360 just to play it. To this day, Oblivion will always have a special place in my heart, and few games have delivered the way that one did. The first true HD experience, in my opinion. We'd love to hear what from all you guys are the best and are truly the only gaming podcast around. Yeah, I didn't have the money to buy it because I was like a young adult at the time. But I borrowed a friend's PS3 just to play Last of Us. Like I didn't have PS3. Like I borrowed it, played Last of Us, gave it back because I was like, I can't not play this video game. I don't know if I've ever bought a console specifically for a game. Were you like a like just a massive diehard Sony? I have to play everything Sony makes fan is that why you wanted to put no I didn't even have a PS3 I was a 360 kid back then I love sad dads I just I okay so here's actually what happened so I thought that last of us was the Elliot Page game and I was I you know that's when Juno came out and stuff like that and I was like I want to play that and then I was wrong but I also love beyond two souls so so I really wanted to play it I thought I was uncharted or anything i thought i was the only person that liked beyond two souls i also like that game oh that game's great uh my wife's alarm clock is still uh willem defoe's theme song from that game to this day i hear it every morning i mean we now because of my work and because video games are my primary hobby it's like i'm a day one guy it's been a long time since i've not had any of the new consoles day one but back when i was you know buying them myself and had less income like it was a great feeling it was never like oh one game came out now i have to buy you know an og xbox or whatever it is but like if you would wait two or three years to buy a console and usually you know they only get more expensive now but back in the day they'd be like 200 bucks cheaper and there'd be a bunch of cheap games and the game companies used to release like the budget lines of games like it was the best and like i i have a vivid memory of getting i got the super nintendo in 1996 because the ps1 was already out and so it's like oh i got the console for like 80 bucks and got a bunch of games for like 10 bucks and you have this whole library of like games that like back then the console wars were like such a thing that like as a genesis kid i had to pretend like i didn't want those snes games but secret secretly i really did and then i was able to get them all at once it was that was that was a great summer i mean i was an idiot like i got nintendo power and you just get everything that nintendo power you know looks good right so it's like that's how you did your selection but you know i ended up with a virtual boy somehow so something was hyping me on it now but my obviously like the biggest stories that i have are are culturally like in line with the world like sonic the hedgehog like i got a genesis for sonic the hedgehog i didn't get it for anything else like it was for sonic like that was the biggest thing in the world and everybody was saying the Super Nintendo was for babies. And I was like, yeah, that makes sense to me. This really rings true. But then a year or two later, I was like, well, I really like playing Super Mario World at my friend's houses and Mortal Kombat looks a little better than Super Nintendo. Definitely want one. I want to play F-Zero on the Super Nintendo, I think, was the sale for that. And then I didn't play a lot during the early 64 PS1 years. And then I played Mario 64 a lot at a friend's house. It was great. It was so fun. But then when Ocarina of Time came out, I was like, I needed Nintendo 64. That was the last time I really remember being like, this game sold me on the system. You hit a critical mass of maybe I can just pretend like Mario 64 doesn't exist, but then Zelda comes out, and then GoldenEye comes out. I gotta have it. Beetle Adventure Racing. Beetle Adventure Racing's dope, man. You can spin. I've always, only because it's now been brought up twice on this episode, I'm always curious, because I was like six when this was probably happening, but nowadays, console wars are very silly, right? The Xbox Series X and PS5 are essentially identical and have 99% of the same library. But I'm always wondering what leg did people have to stand on to say Sega was better than Super Nintendo? First of all, if you're going to ask a question, you can write us at gamescoop at IGN.com. Just like Mark did. The proper channels, Mark. Yeah, seriously. The thing is, Mark, when we were 11 years old, you have to understand that the Sega Genesis had blast processes. Sure, yes, of course. But, like, the Super Nintendo library is still one of the best video game libraries of all time. I think that came out of this early game journalism speak. Super Nintendo's library is great, but there's a lot of great libraries. The NES has an incredible library. Notice you're not bringing up Sega Genesis. No, it does. the genesis back in the day the genesis kind of bodied the super nintendo for a long long time it wasn't until like as that generation wound down with the benefit of hindsight like that people like okay maybe the s and s was pretty dope specifically because it had the good sports games yep and that meant everything it meant everything and then it had blood and mortal combat yeah they had blood and mortal combat yeah yeah and they had this edgy uh hedgehog mascot that was much, much faster than this, you know, kind of, by comparison, methodical Super Mario World, right? That's a much lower exploration game. Anybody that knows anything should know that Mario World is far better than any Sonic. No, it was seen as Kitty, and it came out with F-Zero at launch in Pilotwings, and people didn't play those as much, and then there's just nothing for a while. Then there was, like, a Punch-Out and Metroid, and those had trouble, like, getting audiences. Like, it was not, you know what you think? it wasn't until donkey Kong country that people were like, Oh my God, this is incredible. And like, it's, it's, you know, going to compete backwards and like credit to Nintendo for putting chips in their games and then getting them to do crazy things. Cause that there is a few, like the, the super Nintendo library, like in games that they are better, but they are not cooler for, for 12 year olds. Like there's exceptions. Like star Fox was cool, but like they weren't, the games weren't as cool. Yeah. And then like final fantasy, we're now we're like, Oh, what I had final fantasy four. or 2 and 3 at the time. Nobody cared. Nobody played those games. Oh, funny. Because those are regarded as some of the best Final Fantasies of all time still. Some of the best games of all time. Same with Link to the Past and Earthbound. Yeah, nobody played Earthbound. They didn't sell any copies there. And then Chrono Trigger barely caught on. Mario RPG had a lot of it, but it was at the end of its cycle. These are, when you look back at a library wins, they're not wins at the time. I just played Tetris and Zach. Thomas Klinsky and the Sega of America marketing team. How are they going to get people to buy the Sega Genesis? They capitalize on the fact that gamers who were eight when they got their NES were now 12. And they can say, oh, now you're more of a grown-ass gamer. You don't need to play the baby games. You've outgrown Nintendo. Now you need the more grown-up games on Sega. Genesis does what Nintendo... Yeah, I specifically remember the whole, like, broken down car and that's Mario Kart kind of deal commercials and stuff. So then you get to the end of that console generation and Genesis added a CD drive and a 32X add-on. It sure did. And a Sonic and Knuckles cartridge, whereas Nintendo was like, no, we're going to hold out and do these, like, really expensive chip additions to our games. And they 100% won out at that point. Like, by the time the 32X was out, like, they would have trouble selling Saturns. as their next-gen console, because everybody's like, no, I just bought two iterations, and they felt exactly the same. Yeah. And that was all Sega Japan's fault. And then they killed it with Dreamcast. Yep. I mean, yeah. With Game Library, but not at the time. It was too late, though. They could not stand up to the marketing power of PlayStation or Nintendo. Night trap. All right, this is Jeff in Austin, Texas. Says, hi, OmegaCops. While perusing IGN recently, I came across an article for one of the most Damon-ass Damon games I've ever seen, Hunt Down Overtime. The gorgeous pixel art, the roguelike structure, the gore and classic side-scrolling action. I'm immediately all in on this game. Day one, and Damon, I wanted to bring it to yours and everyone in Scroop Nation's attention in case you missed this announcement. Rest assured, Jeff in Austin, Texas, I'm well aware of Huntdown over time because the original Huntdown is a very damey-ass video game. I love Huntdown. After I got this email, I revisited it last night. It's great. So, in case anyone doesn't know, Huntdown is a 2020 run-and-gun game developed by Easy Trigger, which is a Swedish developer owned by Embracer now. And it perfectly nails that scuzzy 80s synthwave aesthetic Terminator Robocop. It's got voice acting. It's got pixelated blood splatter. Lots of little details and set pieces. And then gameplay-wise, it's Contra or Metal Slug or Rolling Thunder, if you remember that Namco game. So yeah. Huntdown is great. And then Huntdown Overtime is a prequel, I think, actually, that's now a roguelike or roguelite. And the tagline says, Every strategic upgrade strips away more flesh and builds a cybernetic fighter one chrome limb at a time. Hell yeah. The description talks about biomes and stuff. So actually, I think it's going to play like Dead Cells, which would be great. Bring it on. So this art looks super rad. I didn't even know that they made a sequel. It's not out yet. Do you say this is out or it's coming out? They're making it now. Early access sometime this year. I think that the name Hunt Down Overtime, you could take those four Hunt Down Overtime and rearrange them in any order and you would make a game title that was probably pretty dope and worked. time hunt over down yeah i just like to imagine that the first game takes eight hours to beat and so now it's you know now we're in overtime so now we just say biomes all the time that's the thing we've been doing biomes yeah yeah it's like all the background's different you're in a new biome yep well because what grass here what did what did nick call it last week the search action games that was calling metroidvanias that we are yeah but that's different than dead cells style biomes though right well that's more like the rogue legacy where you're like i'm gonna go upwards and it's the attic i'm gonna go to the right and it's the garden yeah but i think metro so metroid a metroid game like super metroid yeah we could say those are all different biomes right well that's that's that's like just using that term like the word is but i feel like it's been become a game term to imply that there's some kind of rogue attune to it but maybe i'm thinking about it wrong the most i think about biomes in the context of minecraft and like other kind of like crafty open games of like you know going to different biomes so they're adding new biomes and it's different than a level because you know you don't complete it and that's right well speaking of all this stuff our next email comes from matt jones overlord of the super fans he says dear dami and the scoops per this search action discussion in last week's episode hold on Wait a second. What? You're just going to breeze right by Damien the Scoops? The coolest band name ever? That's us, right? We're Damien the Scoops. Damien the Scoops. That's great. I love it. No notes. Per the search action discussion in last week's episode, I propose that when it can't be called Metroidvania, it should be called Explore Action Games. Explore Action Games. That's good. So with God of War, Son of Sparta released, and me recently finally playing Prince of Persia, The Lost Crown, because it came to Game Pass, I started thinking about other older franchises out there that could make for great exploration games. Here are some franchises that I came up with. That was Matt talking. So Mega Man says, I read up that there may have been attempts at this in the past, but how has Mega Man not had a bunch of games in this genre? Each robot master has its own biome, their own power. you get their powers use them to unlock new biomes finally arrive at wiley's castle to use all the newfound powers to beat the boss this seems like a no-brainer i agree i agree let's get capcom on that it's a good idea contra this one would probably be more metroid-esque as opposed to castlevania but why not have bill and lance fight through different areas to get to the vile red falcon's lair all the guns they normally get in the original game fire laser spread etc can be unlocked after beating certain areas or bosses then those guns can be used to unlock new areas yep that sounds good too we'll put konami on that one and then sonic the hedgehog he says Okay, I'll admit this is more to get a Sonic Mania pun, or I'm sorry, Sonicvania pun with Sonic Mania. But Sonic usually goes from zone to zone, collecting Chaos Emeralds along the way. There could be an interconnected world where Sonic needs to get Chaos Emeralds to unlock new zones, fight Robotnik at the end. With his time traveling in Sonic CD, you could even put a Rewind ability in one of these Emeralds. Plenty of opportunities. So what are the franchises the Scoop crew thinks could use an entry in the Explore Action genre? This sounds like my nightmare because I don't like Metroidvanias. I'm way too old for Metroidvanias. And so this idea of turning all of our games into Metroidvanias, I'm way too elderly for that one. What if we didn't call them Explore Action, call them Action Plorers? Would you be more interested in that? Why is there this video game? So even roguelikes are named by, you know, Rogue, right? That's where they come from. And then obviously Metroidvanias and Souls-likes. it's like movies like i like mission impossible isn't a bond like like other i feel like other genres except there have been several there are john wick likes now oh yeah oh i didn't know that oh yeah is it john wick and just like kind of a spinoff of like the matrix though like not a spinoff but like i mean like the fighting style no no he fights kind of like one man this like one man unkillable one person unkillable thing like it's um one keanu he has no they made two nobody movies and then there's the sisu one with the world war ii era dude he's just he the nazis can kill him he impossible to kill king kingsman kingsman yeah although those predate james bond like yeah they they you know so anyway they answered the original question in mario maker 2 there this whole sub-genre of mario levels that i liked that are metroid like they're these kind of puzzle box levels where you know you're stuck in a room and you need to do a specific thing and go a specific way to get a fire flower and then you use the fire flower to get into the next space that's It's like Mario versus Donkey Kong a little bit. Yeah, and then there's these little Metroid-like semi-linear puzzles of figure out where to go and what power-up you need to sort of break out of this space. And I enjoy those, and I would play either an open-world 3D Mario or a Metroidvania-like 2D Mario. Yeah, there's other ways to reshuffle these levels or biomes. Biome Commando, which we only talk about on this show now, and it has biome in the name. And if you remember that has a map screen, you can go back to previous levels and do things with things in them. It has a map screen, panels, and so does Mario World. We can use a little bit more of that type of game, I think. They don't need to be corridor-based connected areas. It is kind of cool to revisit things with more weapons and do stuff like that, but then have a cool other way to shuffle up those levels. Biomic Commando. Biomic Commando. I can see one perfectly. think of a game like Prince of Persia, The Lost Crown, but it's Tomb Raider. It's 2D Tomb Raider Metroidvania. Lara is very acrobatic. She can be jumping around, flipping around in a platformer Metroidvania game. I can see it. That's a good idea. Let's put Crystal Dynamics on that one. What's the Dung Beetle pinball game? Yoku's Island Express. Think about a game like Yoku's Island Express, but yeah, just like that. Just another one of those. What did that developer go on to do? Which one? Yoku's Island Express? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who was that? So this is by Villa Gorilla. I bet even Mark would like that much. I think Devs react for it, but I don't remember if I played it much. I don't know. It's a good one. Okay. This is Ron in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Just wanted to shout out and say y'all have been a lifesaver since having to return to the office full-time back in February this year. GameScoop helps make at least one of those commutes bearable. Writing in to let Justin know that after playing nearly every Metroid and Castlevania over the years, I finally dipped my toes into Super Metroid, and it doesn't disappoint in the least. Game is a blast. Playing this back in 94 must have been incredible. No wonder Justin loves it so much. I also can't get enough of that perfect sound the bombs make. The bombs do make a really good sound. Yeah, I mean, Super Metroid, you know, it is like modern Metroidvanias have more interesting movement options. You can mantle up on ledges and stuff like that. Like Super Metroid is my favorite game of all time, but it is getting old enough now that if you didn't play it when it was new, certain stuff about how Samus moves and how you flow through the game, I could see sort of frustrating gamers that have a more modern sensibility. But something that the game absolutely gets right, that it still outclasses many games released now more than 30 years later, is in its atmosphere and its vibes. And that this alien planet that you're exploring, you know, feels like when you're in the wrecked alien spaceship. It's like it makes sense how these areas fit together as you go deeper and deeper into the planet. It's more hellish and there's, you know, lava everywhere. And like the way that those biomes are laid out is kind of like has a logic behind it. And there's there's a there's a wordless story being told with the way that Samus is sort of like, you know, pursuing your goals in a way that a lot of other Metroidvanias aren't quite as thoughtful about their environmental design, I would say. Yeah, absolutely succeeds on vibes. It's crazy that like this is it was a Nintendo made game back then that had a totally different feel from anything else Nintendo had ever made. the time right from the title screen it's like whoa this is a very different sort of mood piece from nintendo dead scientists i yeah i've shared before that like you know when i played super metroid i was playing it on an old crappy crt and i did not know those were dead scientists until i just i didn't i couldn't see them on the title screen clearly enough and then i played it you know later on a more modern television was like oh i don't know what you're referring to i It's on the title screen? The title screen of the game is a scene where a Metroid is broken out, and there's dead scientists shooing around the room in pixel art. Oh, yeah. Poor little guys. The energy sucked out of them. Yeah, that's what you see right there. Very, very, very cool game. We're talking a lot about Metroidvanias and old games this episode, and that's okay. This is Talon in Alaska. Talon points out that he's 28 and says, My brother-in-law gifted me a handheld emulator for Christmas. I need some recommendations from my favorite oldies. Hold up. Are we the oldies? Are we his favorite oldies? That can't be right. We're the Damies. Or no, we're the Scoopies. You're the Damon. Damon? No, we're the Scoops. Damon and the Scoops. Mark is too old for metroidvanias, though. That part is true. Way too elderly. for that one. Alan says, I'd love to hear some personal recommendations for the NES, Super Nintendo, Game Boy, and Nintendo 64. I've already saved buying a Commando. Not to worry. I just finished Super Mario RPG for the first time. I'm lining up to play Super Metroid, Link to the Past, and Star Fox 64, three of my all-timers. There you go. Just random suggestions? Make it thoughtful. Here's my hot take about the N64 generation. I think Diddy Kong racing is better than uh mario kart 64 yes and i also i don't know that i'm going to say it's better but i replayed both mario 64 and banjo kazooie recently and like i think i'm like oh banjo might be better than mario 64 no like i mean i would i would have never have said that until this most recent replay i i mean i i i can see the take i'm just like i didn't think that you would you would ever say that yeah i think i didn't think anybody would ever say that but here we are it's the world i live in now that once once you get to that click clock woods man there's a there's a mod of donkey kong 64 that um lets you swap characters on the fly so you don't need to go back to the character swap pads and it legitimately like it honest to god makes that it makes that game go up to two points on like a top 10 review scale because the way that the game worked before is you would see a collectible that only one character could collect and like a that's already really shitty and bad but like be they did it on purpose where you would need to be one character to unlock a door and then in that door would be another character's collectible and so then you would have to go back and switch and come back and so being able to swap on the fly in the modded version is um it makes that game actually really good man i remember going through the things tooth yeah this is a great game yeah thank you yeah very very great game playable on Xbox too. Listen, on NES, I would recommend Shadowgate, which I talk about quite often, one of my favorite games of all time. And I realize it's not going to be for everyone. It's a point-and-click adventure, but it's a game where you, it's an 8-bit Nintendo game where you explore a creepy castle in first person, and the music is fantastic and has a great personality and sense of humor. So I just, it's just like a really, really cool piece that stands out for being unique and original on the NES. There are two other games that are like this from the same developer, but Shadowgate is way better than Uninvited or Deja Vu. So I'd love to hear someone who's 20 years younger than me what they think about Shadowgate. Go ahead. Well, there's a bunch of series on the NES that are pretty good overall. The Adventure Island starting with 2 is really good. And then Mega Man starting with 2 is extremely good. So don't miss those. They're also really good with safe states, which is nice. but um yeah generally things made by nintendo are worth revisiting so like if you go and just like look up all the games that nintendo made like check out what they made for their like black box releases early on like balloon fight and clue cool and stuff like that because there's elements of nintendo games that have maintained throughout their entire existence that even go back before the nintendo that just are part of their toys and stuff like that and it's just fun to delve into for that reason so i recommend that and then there's a bunch of licensed games that are fun to just look at just to be like, what? They made a game based on this? Damon and I used to love putting on The Predator in The Office or any movie that they made a game for. Check it out. It's funny. It's usually pretty cool. There's 8-bit versions of the Jaws theme song and the Gremlins theme song and all that stuff in the NES games. Gremlins 2 is pretty good. That's a pretty good game. Yeah, it is. It's also a home improvement Super Nintendo game. That game's pretty awesome. Yeah, the dinosaurs. It's really rare. There's Full House Tournament Fighter. I would always recommend the Castlevania games, specifically three and four. Yeah. Very, very good games. But I also think one holds up as like still one of the best side scrollers ever. Yeah. Castlevania is an easy win and very playable on those like handheld smaller screens. Yeah. What the heck game is this? Konami. What are we looking at here? It's Home Improvement. Yeah. There it is. That is Tim the Toolman Taylor. You're on a set. that's a dinosaur like tomb raider reset and so you're fighting through with your staple gun smart this is a fast paced game or heidi it's a rare game uh on game boy i would recommend donkey kong 94 yeah that's the one that's it's it's it's so good oh cool game was a little rough to revisit myths and monsters the kid icarus game is kind of neat i mean i never played that one that's yeah that's a good one too i have a weird take but this is probably just because of nostalgia, but I actually prefer Game Boys Link's Awakening versus the Switch version because I just remember each screen in Link's Awakening and that, you know, it's like the screen scrolls and you're like, yep, I know what screen this is. I remember playing Link's Awakening on Switch and not having that same type of like I didn't like it as much, right? Because the screen moves with you. So it's like you don't have that like, I remember this screen. It's like, because, you know, when we're kids, we play these games over and over and over. So I would always suggest to go back and try this game out. I love it. I mean, Zelda Oracle of Seasons, Oracle of Ages are two. I was going to say underrated. I don't know. They're pretty appropriate. Yeah. Two of the two of the best Zelda games. Yeah, I think I never played Minish Cap, but I think a lot of people like Minish Cap as well. Yeah. I replayed half of that game over Christmas break and I forgot how much the cap is like a real asshole. He's just very snarky. was Minish Cap also Capcom? Yeah. It's just crazy that Capcom has made three Zelda games. Okay, all of that brings us to Video Game 20 Questions, but maybe Justin needs to excuse himself or does he want to hang around for five minutes? I gotta go because I have a band concert. It's not for me, for one of my children. Okay, good luck, gentlemen. Mark, you're going to hard carry, right? Oh, yeah. Pack it up. I got this. Make a good face to leave us on to Justin and Godspeed. Okay. Wait, wait. No, he's not frozen. When's he going to freeze? You have to disconnect. There you go. Very excited to be here. Oh, I love it. Our suggestion this week comes from Ash, who says, Hello, Damon, Sam, Justin, and whoever else is lucky enough to be on the best podcast in the world this week. My name is Ash. I'm a 42-year-old father of two young boys, ages 6 and 9, from Whitehorse, Yukon, which is right beside Alaska. And I'm a lifelong gamer. I've been listening to your show for over 10 years now. Thought it was finally time to write in. Recently, in the last year or so, my oldest son has been listening to the show with me, and his absolute favorite thing is Video Game 20 Questions. so much so that he constantly comes up with games to make me play video game 20 questions with him my my suggestion this week is redacted for redacted because it is the game that i've redacted more than any other game and with that let the question begin i hope it's i'm wondering if it's repurchased i i had to put a tab over justin's face i can't i can't do it sorry can you read the redacted part one more time no oh man i mean you just want to hear it as it was it's just oh yeah yeah redacted that was got redacted yeah my suggestion this week is redacted for redacted because it is the game that i've redacted more than any other game and i think it's repurchased oh yeah yeah could be oh so it's probably skyrim is the only game you can repurchased that many times. Did this come out after 2010? Nope. Not Skyrim. Okay, let's see. Not after 2010. Did this come out this century? Yes. So between 2000 and 2010. Okay. Was this game exclusive to one platform? Yes. Was it a Nintendo platform? No. Sony? Yes, that's five. Okay, so we are in the PS2 PS3 era Did this start its life as a PS3 game? No PS2, okay, is this game first party? No It could be PSP or Vita True that, true that Did this start its life as a PS2 game? Yes Alright Not first party Alrighty Japan question yeah yeah was this game developing Japan no man nope hmm well that rules out a lot yeah especially the exclusives yeah Like Final Fantasies Kingdom Hearts And it wasn published by Sony Is that right? Right. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Let's see. I'm thinking Grand Theft Autos. Stuff like that. Let's see. did this game have more than one game in the series on ps2 yes that is 10 oh oh that's interesting does this does this series have a game that's yet to come out that's been announced no not gta no not gta well they weren't exclusive i mean they were but briefly they were Is this game still only on Sony platforms? This game is still only on Sony. This game. Okay, so it's a game that's part of a series that eventually probably went everywhere. But multiple of the same series were on the PS2. Who would have developed a game like that? This is confusing. yeah I'm thinking like Tony Hawk but I think Tony Hawk was everywhere I think it was like even on 64 and stuff yeah if there was like one that was just for PS or something like I mean sports is kind of likely here yeah yeah is this game like sports adjacent yes could also be racing need for speed stuff like that yeah is is this a game that you ride something around on four wheels no oh it's not racing or skating yeah that's great what what what maybe it's not wheels at all maybe it's snowboarding or skiing or yeah this is interesting yeah uh is there a do you do is there any sort of vehicle whether powered or unpowered that you that the humans move around on this game no that's 15 okay so at 15 we've determined that it's not a drivey racy extreme sporty game of that nail but it could be just a regular ass sport game mm-hmm i did say sport adjacent but i mean i don't know what else i would mean if it's not a sports game is this a game about a oh maybe it's like a wacky golf game although those are always japanese though yeah like everybody's golf and and what's what's that series from hot shots golf is this based on a uh uh non or i'll just do it the other way is this based on a team sport no hmm a couple more questions three more questions not that I think Damon would choose Madden 04 but still um yeah boy what do you do when you're not in you know when you're doing something sporty but you're not playing a team sport or riding around by yourself on something. Yeah. It's PS2, so this is before PlayStation Move. What's up, Damon? The question that Sam asked was, is there a vehicle powered or unpowered that use something around? Oh, yeah, yeah. So it could still be skiing or snowboarding. Maybe it's a snowboarding game. Yeah. Were the SSX games, were those PS2 games? I don't know. yeah me neither i i well well i know that 1080 was the 64 exclusive right right yeah is this a snow sport game yes yeah i don't think i like i don't think i can get this i mean it could be if it's a series was around though maybe you can help with that but like i can only think of like ssx tricky but like i don't know like is that the first one and is that one ps2 exclusive that's That wasn't a 64 series? I don't know. 1080 is? I thought 1080 was, yeah. Okay. Hmm. I feel like we got to do the cheating question. No, I mean, that won't really help us with this, I don't think. Well, I mean, I guess it would. Yeah, I guess you're right. The cheating question is, have we mentioned the game in the past one minute? No. Have we mentioned it at all? Yes. We have. Okay. I guess it's SSX tricky. Could be. or just SSX. Maybe it's just called SSX. It could be. I don't know how to narrow that down. Don't you? How many questions do we have left? One question. Is this game tricky? Is that what you want us to ask? It's a very question you ask very often that would solve this whole situation for you. Oh, is this the first in the series? Yes. Is this SSX? SSX, yes. We got there. Yay. I can't believe it. I'll be honest. I didn't know. Oh, God, Justin's back. I didn't know if Tricky was the first one in the game. I didn't know if there was. I vaguely remember that being a modifier. Got it. SSX, it was a launch title for PS2, and it still, it never came to any other platform. It's still just a PS2 game. It looks like it has a good frame rate. Yeah, it looks great. So what was the redacted thing without all the redacts? My suggestion is SSX Snowboarding for PS2 because it is the game that I've started over from the beginning more than any other game. And he has an exploration. My not-so-fun reason for starting it from the beginning so many times is not because I love the game that much, but out of necessity because when I bought my PS2 on day one from my local game store, they only had SSX available and no memory cards. So every day I would come home from school, start the game over, and try to get a little further than the last time for over a month until I was finally able to get a memory card and end my Groundhog Day-like suffering. Yeah, but you would get really good at it. Yeah, he kills that first stage. I was the same with Final Fantasy X. I would get to when San attacks the ship, and then I would just pause it and pray that nobody turned it off or anything. That's so great. Because I didn't have a memory card, because we just didn't know. That is the meanest thing. Well, thanks, Ash and the kid. That was a good one. Really, really good one. Yep. yeah i think tricky is the second one and that came to other platforms but this game is just a playstation maybe even gamecube i think that one i think so too yeah i think it came to all three um this looks great who developed it it's ea they developed it published yeah yeah wow crazy it looks like a japanese game for some reason but yeah it's cool but ea montreal though so if you had asked if it was uh made in right right right right uh let's see who is this good good olympics pick too. I've been watching the... I watched Downhill... I don't think it's called Downhill. It's called freestyle, snowboarding, women's the other day, and it was incredible. The builds they make for those are incredible. I used to love the Olympics so much and always watch the Olympics, but now my TV viewing habits have changed so much. We just don't ever have the TV on, and I just never think about it to go seek it out. I have to change everything to do that. It's been completely out of mind. But we've been putting on the gold zone or the best of or wherever they are. Like on Friday nights when we're getting ready to go somewhere. It's been fun. I've been enjoying it. Plus, it's in Italy. Everything they show between things, I'm like, why am I not there? Usually, I love the Olympics. It'll be here very soon. A couple years. Crazy. Ash says, thanks for all the great insight into gaming and all the fantastic weekly entertainment you provide. I look forward to your show every week. P.S. Get excited for Season 2 of Paradise next week. Now, that's how you do it. Believe it. It's been a little over a year. and season two is here that's how you do a house of the dragon like yeah seriously i remember the characters and the situation what happened yeah i know it's like i don't need to like when when severance season two came out and went back and watched season one i don't have to do that for paradise i'm good yep ready to just watch season two let's go that'll be really good uh so thank you for the suggestion viewers listeners if you have your own suggestions for video game 20 questions Oh, my God. Joe Bird. Email them to me at the address gamescoop at IGN.com. And that is all the scoops that we have for you this week, except for an important message. It is Humble Bundle's 15th birthday, and everyone is invited. Celebrate 15 years of connecting fans and gamers with good causes with the Humble 15 Time Capsule Bundle, featuring games from the very first Humble Indie Bundles. Right now you can score OddSparks, An Automation Adventure, Kill Night, Inbound, Bionic Bay, Mark of the Deep, Lugaro HD, Samoros 2, Osmos, and And Yet It Moves. This all supports Child's Play, an organization that donates toys and games to children's hospitals worldwide. Head to HumbleBundle.com through March 11th to start playing today. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Justin's giant face. Thank you to Jobert and everyone working behind this episode to make this episode possible. my name is Damon this is IGN Game Soup and this weekend I'm going to play Redacted Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. so damon did you watch the slay the spire trailer no oh man we should do a live reacts a gamescoop live reacts i saw it very good i think what march 5th is early access date well the big i don't even i mean i guess it's not really you're not super spoiler sensitive the big feature that they showed is that it has four player co-op oh well i don't want to do that but that's interesting i mean i had the same reaction i was like that's sick i'm never gonna do that but That's sick. It shows like four hands, like four cartoon hands, like picking, you know, in like the between mission events that happen. Like what choice do you want to pick and stuff like that? It looks cool. It has it says as co-op specific cards.