Game Scoop! 849: Look How They Massacred My Girl

What's up everybody? Welcome to IJ and GameScoop. I'm your host, Damon Hatfield. Joining me this week here in studio is Pear Schneider. Pear Scoop. We're also joined by Sam Claiborne. Hey, Happy California's suburb to people that celebrate. Exactly. It is hot as heck in LA today. Mark Medina is also here. Scoop, there it is! There is a little bit of a difference in excitement and tone in the introduction and the acceptance. That was the number one comment on the last podcast. This is an honor of that. He's my catchphrase for one episode. Temporary catchphrase. I love it. Well, we got a great show for you this week. I finished Resident Evil Requiem and Pear started Resident Evil Requiem. Because Damon asked me to. I politely suggested that he have something about it to say for this episode. Technically, Damon also started Resident Evil Requiem again. That's true. I did start my second playthrough immediately. Mark started playing So The Spire 2 and Crimson Desert is out now. There's all the stuff we can talk about. But first, let's talk about DLSS5. From NVIDIA, which has made some headlines this week. I haven't heard. What went wrong? Surely, for this by now, they have a trailer showing off the latest tech. This is the AI tech that is forthcoming later this year. Apparently, it will give your video game characters completely new faces. Well, I don't know. Hold on. Before Pear goes into this, you need to put out a disclaimer. That we are using DLSS5 on our faces this week. That's why we all look so vibrant. You'll be aware that, yeah, you see this glove? Joey, you had to do the wipe. You had to do the wipe. Oh, man. Look at Sam's edge lighting. It's great, but it's not accurate. He should be lit by the machines. I'm not wearing mascara, but you can see the mascara come across. It's the mascara that the developers originally intended. That's right. It's very slow. What do you put on before going to your mom's murder site? I like how Sam goes, don't let Pear talk, because he knew I was going to say something nice. All I have to say is jokes about DLSS. So let's have Pear say all the serious stuff, and then I'll get back to my jokes. First of all, the reactions are of an early demo implemented on games that are familiar to us. Grace with the power of a green wipe turns into Jack Powers' daughter. There's a definite difference in the face and what it looks like. And yes, you can complain that the artist's vision is being altered by this tool, but it is also a tool. And when I look at the background in this game, it does create a more realistically lit scene from a first impression. And so when I'm thinking about this tech, I've played games. I'm a big Formula One fan. I've played Formula One games and they still look very artificial. And I crave realism in the visuals for my F1 racers. And if they are able to come up with new lighting techniques, whether AI driven or not, that makes the track look more real, I'm all for it. Now, the way they demonstrate... I just think those race cars, they just look a little tired today. That's right. They will apply mascara to the race cars as well. But they demoed it like this, and people obviously had a lot of reactions, because yeah, the characters look different from perhaps what is intended. The big one in Hogwarts Legacy, there's a shot of clearly Max from IGN in Hogwarts Legacy, and then they apply the filter and it looks like a completely different person. So somebody returning to the game, it looks very, very different. But if this is a toolset that developers can use and the artists have control over and can say, this is what I want my game to look like, and they're striving to make a realistically looking... This is the one. There's Max. That's Max. Watch. Magic Maxcon. That is the face of a man who is pushing his mobile gotcha game. And... That's what that looks like. Don't you think it's weird that they add that same cigarette stand to the back of the Hogwarts village there too, that they did in the Resident Evil show? Yeah, no, that's true. But anyway, like my viewpoint is it's technology that allows us... That may, I don't know if it is gone, right? Like we're seeing marketing stuff. Look, this is with DLSS6. So this is way more realistic. Anyway, it's a toolset. It's going to get tweaked. It's going to... If it could be a really impressive toolset for developers to use when they're striving for realism. I just remember that GTA footage that somebody created an engine that just sort of changed the lighting to be more realistic. Like it was a mod and people went gaga over it. Like I feel like it's got that sort of look to it as well. It's not the perfect solution for every video game. I think the developers are going to have to make the decision whether they want to enable the feature or whether they want to leverage it or not. From a technical perspective, getting more advanced lighting for games without the cost of bigger beefier hardware could be a good thing. Yeah, like I think the technology is interesting. I don't really have a problem with using AI to create... To give video game characters more realistic lighting. I don't know why it would give Grace a completely different face. And why that face is very clearly the AI face, the mid-journey face we've been seeing for two years. Yeah, no, I'm totally with you on that. Yeah, they're all going to just end up looking the same. But you know, some video game artists have come out and said that they did not know that this is what was happening. So we're going to see if it's actually like... Well, everybody that participated in this are on the record saying they participated with the Nvidia upgrades. Yeah, but maybe the people who... But they didn't know what changed the faces is what their issue is. They just put out an article about it today. Yeah. You know, I think that backlash has been really interesting because the same, you know, like 4chan in cells that add mods to add big boobs to every single character in every game are out here being like, you changed the face. Why did you change the face? The Starfield ones look okay because every NPC in that game is a charm. I was going to say, like I get the argument that it introduces... Starfield ones aren't bad. I'm not going to say with some of them, but like I thought the Starfield ones look good. I think FIFA's backgrounds look better. Like that, I think that looks better. There is going to be a little bit more of an uncanny valley problem, right? When the lighting is so realistic looking and they have that dead eye stare without a spark in the eyes. But look, this is... And Bethesda games already have that. I mean, you know what I mean? Like there's already these games that have these dead stares and they're already looking terrible. Take demo. Let's see where it goes. Mark, wait till they come for your girl in Stellar Blade. I know. And that's kind of what I'm saying is like, no, she's already perfect. No DLSS can fix her. She doesn't need to be fixed. I'm down with the like side characters, vendors. Yeah, there she is. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know about main characters. Mark, what if you could use DLSS5 to add this character to every character in every... So, what's this character's name? Eve. Eve. What if you could just make Grace Eve? Wouldn't you be happy about that? No, that's a mod. I don't mod games. Okay. We're not going to get anything fun out of Mark. You're not going to get anything fun out of me. I'm too serious. Oh, yes we are because we're talking about Crimson Desert. We got Mark's own third rail coming right up. Dang it. You're going to switch at the station. I don't have any opinions on Crimson Desert. I would like to say that. I would like to see DLSS5, what it does for something like Forza, like a racing game. No, that's exactly it. That was my point. And by the way, if developers are creating the characters with that sort of engine, with that lighting in mind, it is expressing their artistic vision, right? But also, it doesn't mean that suddenly a cell shaded game should be rendered with realistic lighting and all of that, right? I also wonder, like, could it be used on older games? It'll look really funny. Like Metal Gear Solid, where they just have very plain faces. Like, what could it do for that? I mean, in theory, it's not supposed to change the geometry, right? It is supposed to calculate lighting differently. And by the way, there may be inaccuracies, right? Maybe the direction of the light source is actually not correct. And when you're viewing a one-second scene like that, you're like, oh, yeah, it looks more realistic. But when you're playing the game, you're like, wait, why isn't the sun coming from behind now? There's all these things we just don't know from this short demo. But my point was, like, I get why people are worried about, you know, it's a verting artistic vision. And I think that's a real thing and we need to care about it. But at the same time, I don't know why everybody's so pissed about this. I think they're pissed about it because faces look stupid. Yeah. That looks so... Do you think that looks bad? Like, if you didn't personally know this lizard, Sam... I think a lot of people... That lizard looks so much cuter. It's just the AI-ification of everything. Yeah, yeah, not... I think it's just worrisome that the artists are... They're going to be like, well, we need fewer artists because, you know, you could just make whatever and then we'll just use AI and they'll all just end up looking the same. Yeah, but this... I don't see how this replaces people. No. But like, people don't want generative AI in their games and this grace looks like they put an AI filter on it. And Vita says, no, that's not what we did. But it looks like they did. So that's the problem. I think the lesson in marketing for Nvidia is like, don't change grace, man. Yeah. Grace and I... Do not change grace. Leave her alone. ...have been through hell and back together. She is my homegirl. Yeah. Leave her alone. She got... Yep, there you go. R.I.P. Old Grace. She's swan through almost as much blood as Lara Croft and Tomb Raider, that first remake. Yeah. Or that first... Okay, well, speaking of grace, Pear has started Resident Evil Requiem. Yes. Hey-oh. Because you made me. And just to be clear, I actually downloaded it. I pre-loaded it. I wanted to play it, huh? Play on Switch? On PlayStation. 5 Pro. I had it all queued up and then something else came out, which was Fire Emblem on GameCube. Book on GameCube. And you know, there was way more... Fire Emblem on GameCube came out. It was just way more important for me to tackle. And then Pokopia came out and I was actually on vacation. So I couldn't play it. Pokopia's great. No, I like Resident Evil games. I've played every game in the series, I think, as far as... They're not maybe the gun survivor stuff. I never touched that. I am as... I will say, as I'm getting older... Look at Mad Eye Moody. As I'm getting older... There he is. I have to say, I don't love games that put me on the back foot and have me running away. And of course, Damon, this game immediately does it. But only half the game does that. Yeah. So I play it and I'm like, oh, this is like the Indiana Jones game I just played, where you get to explore an area. I was like, ah, giant monster girl. It is... Just that opening section. It's really nicely made. You know, I loved Resident Evil 4 when it first came out. I remember playing it pre-release. And so it's great to have Leon back. I will definitely finish this. It is as weird as every Resident Evil game, like the way the characters interact with each other. And I love it. Yeah. I loved it. I finished it. I actually love the whole thing. I don't agree with those. So the part that you're in now, like the hospital, the care center, that's kind of like the first half of the game. And some people think that's the good half and then the back half is boring or something. I don't feel that way. I like the whole thing. I thought people would be more upset at the first person sequences that you are underpowered and just running away. And like, obviously that's been a part of many Resident Evil games for a while, where you have this sort of unkillable enemy that stalks you. I thought people wouldn't like the first person view on that. You can change it. Yeah. I thought I did not change it. And like when you're running away from the girl, it's so creepy that you can't see behind and can't see how close she is. It's really effectively made. And you can tell like how good and deliberate that choice of viewpoint was in those sequences. Yeah. Mark, do you remember like the scene that they introduced the girl? Yeah. I started my second play through. I just re-experienced it. It's so good because you open the door, dead guy falls in front of you and you're staring at it down at him. She beats it. Yeah, this giant hand just sort of comes out in front of you, picks him up and eats his head. It's so good. Anyway, so I finished it. Sam and Mark, we still need to do a spoiler cast at some point, not today with Peter. Yeah. I immediately started my second play through. I think we just do it right now. I immediately started my second play through, which I never do, but I really wanted to do get the unlimited ammo, the infinite ammo. You're in the roguelike mode now where you're just your farming challenge points. Yeah, you got a farm challenge points. You need 50,000 to unlock infinite ammo. The visuals are really nice. I do wish Grace had worn a little bit more makeup. Well, maybe wait and play it again. It's coming. Six months. It's coming. There. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. So there's kind of two ways to do it. You can either beat the game in under four hours or you can beat it without healing. So it took me 17 hours to be at the first time. So I wasn't really sure how feasible it would be for me to do four hours. So I'm trying to do the no healing run. You bump it down to casual. It's totally possible. Well, you're also doing the no crafting. That's the other thing you have to do. I kind of think I have. I think you have to do either or. How can I not craft and not heal? Well, they're only worth 25 K. So you have to do both of them. Okay. Well, well, I haven't crafted or do casual. Yeah. It's easy. Damon, it's really on easy. It's not. It changes the game. It makes it into an arcade game. You will be fine with the amount. You just use your year. If you got that. I did get the infinite. You don't need that. But yeah, with that, it's pretty helpful. You just go up to enemies. You just slash them over and over again. What about the blister heads? Yeah, you can just by the time that happens, you're running. Okay. You're just running from them. Okay. All right. Well, anyway, I'm back in. But yeah, you won't have a hemolytic ejector the whole time, which is kind of. Yeah. But that's like one of the most fun parts of the game. I know. But think about how great it'll be up with infinite. When you get that, this is so fun because the. You just go, you can pop them with one hit. All right. So Damon, you, I will tell you that you are the cause of my dog running away too. She was, she was on the couch next to me when I started playing. And after like five minutes, she noped out. Okay. Left the room. Too scared. Too scary for the dog. She was like looking at it like this. The noises in the game are really messed up. Like a lot of the noises. I feel like you have to play with headphones for this game. Oh, God. Yeah. But like the spatial, you can tell exactly where zombies and the girl are walking. Also the blood splatter when you attack zombies is so good. It splatters on the walls. It splatters on the floor. And then when, when, when you walk through it, you'll leave blood prints. Yeah. It's awesome. It's crazy tech. Yeah. So am I second play through? I'm back in the care center. I just did my first loop through the West Wing when you go through the kitchen and then upstairs and then pass the singing girl. And then you get the, the gym that gets into the parlor and then the first of the three what it courts that to actually get out of the hospital. That's, that's what I just did that side. And that's where I am. But it's, it's totally. I'm in the basement on my play through two right now. Okay. Cool. Wait, so you haven't finished it the second time, Sam? Mm hmm. Okay. But the hardest part is the grace. I started it the second time where I'm past the hardest part because after that you're a lot of the times you're playing as Leon and you just have so much. It's easy. So it's like, you could, you could just kill the joy easily and it doesn't matter for crafting for Leon. The grace not crafting is a little bit weird. You have to get used to it. You have to get used to using your pistol a lot and your knife, but it totally is fine on easy because you, you regenerate your health and you don't need to use health items anyway. Yeah. You regenerate your health and then when you, when it's a chapter break, like if I go to Leon when I come back to grace, is she fully healed? I believe so. Yeah. Okay. Cool. But even then like half health is fine. Like you're going to be, it's just fine. Like it's, it's kind of a breeze. All right. That's where I am with my second play through a resident evil requiem and Mark, you started playing slave the spire too. I talked about, I guess she got how much I liked it last week. How are you finding it? Yeah. So who's, who's the one with the orbs? Is that the evoker? I don't really know their names, but I know the one you mean. I think, I think it's him. Man, he has so much fun. I'm really, really enjoying the game. Yeah. I, it was like 30 minutes before bed and I'm like, I didn't know what to do. And I was like, you know what, let me just finally get the slave spire game a try. And just like Nick, I, you know, they make you start as what's his name, the iron clad or whatever. Yeah. And instantly I was like, Oh yeah. This is great. This is super good. And every time you do a run, you unlock a new character for the most part. There's five. How are you got? Yep. And they all play pretty different. Like the cards you get are, you know, the, the cards you could end up getting served are mostly the same, but they all have like different, well, like perks and stuff like that. Well, the cards, the cards are, are like, you'll get your strikes and you'll get your blocks and stuff like that. But the cards are tailored towards that character's move set. Right. So it's like the iron clad, he's like, he's like a warrior, right? He did nothing special about him, except for that he gets healed after every battle. He's the only character that, that happens for. But then it's like, you'll go to, um, like this guy, he's being carried on the ground and so like that sword. Yeah. The region. So that sword is something that you're constantly powering up and then can use against enemies. The evoker has these orbs that go off every time you finish a turn and you could do all these different crazy things with the orbs and make it where you're never even attacking because the orbs just do all the work for you. It's really, really fun. Uh, and then there's like a lady with like two daggers, um, that's more about poisoning enemies. Um, the poison builds. Right. Yeah. Right now, like before yesterday, I was just in the phase of like learning the character, seeing which one I like playing as whatever. Now I'm in the phase of actually trying to make builds, like actually recognizing, okay, the game is pushing cause you know, you start with just a very basic deck. Uh, and then it's like, okay, the game is actually pushing for me to, you know, do this like just like a roguelike, right? And so then it's like, you start building cards towards that thing. Um, and man, yeah, I'm having a lot of fun. I installed it on my Legion Go S. It is perfect for that. And I just sit on the couch and I just play, say, Slay the Spire. Are you writing the guy? Mark. No, no, uh, luckily I employ a freelancer named Lynette who has played a thousand hours of the first game. Okay. So she's just kind of solo doing the guide for the second game and she has already played like 15 plus hours of this one. So I'm super tempted. Yeah, it's great. Did you play the original? I played the first one. Yeah, I liked it. Um, my son's like completely, he's got over a hundred hours already too. I'm sure. I, it's just, uh, you know, this other brand new game called Pokemon Gale of Darkness came out and like, yeah, yeah. Tough to find time when these brand new games coming out. You're like Nintendo Switch Online's number one customer. Honestly, I think there are games on there that only I have played. Maybe. Yeah. They're like one person. This game's also super early access, so it's fine to wait. Like there's still a ton of content there. There's a ton of content. Yeah, you'll unlock these. Uh, they're called epochs where it's like, it's basically a milestone and most of them are drawn. Like I would say 70% of them. The art is just MS paint because they're just all placeholders right now. So you're going to lock them, but like very much still an active development. And also I, I don't know how to unlock the last character. So maybe he's not in the game yet. Ovoker was the last character I've unlocked. I think that's all there is for right now. Okay. There's a slot for another one. So no, that slot is to pick one at random. Oh, interesting. Got it. Okay. Take a random character. I didn't know that. Sam Damon is on the guide now. Yeah. He noticed this one thing. Get him on the guide. And yeah, I love it. It's very, very fun. Give it a shot if you are, if you were a fan of the first one or like card building pro likes, it's very cool. I'm not saying Sam would like this one, but he did like, he did an up like in blotcher and there's so many similarities. Just being a deck building roguelike where you know, you're constantly adding cards to your deck, but you need to build it. So you only have like, you have access to your best cards. You want to flush out your less powerful cards as you go along. And you know how in blotcher before you play a blind, you can choose to skip it and for like a reward. Yeah. Right. But then you're missing the rewards you would get at the end of the blind. It's the exact same thing here as you're planning your route up the spire. You can go to an event room. Where, which is in a battle, you might get something good there, but then you don't get the rewards it would get from the battle. So it's all, it's all like that. You could choose to not fight regular enemies and go after a boss enemy. Yeah. He'll, it may mesh out, but you'll get better rewards. It's just so cool, man, because it's like, so you can't really see it on the screen because our portraits are, are covering the bottom left layer. But when you're, when you're in the battle, you'll see on the bottom right, um, see right there, that little book that says a one that's your discard pile. And so you only have like, I don't know, like 15 cards at the start. Maybe. And so you're just constantly cycling through the deck and those cards will, um, those cards can dictate what gets put in one deck, but eventually it's like you want a lot of like a really good card, right? Because once you go through all those cards, which is usually two or three turns, those all get put back into your draw pile. And so it's all about maximizing the chance of getting cards that play to your build. Yeah. Uh, and it just gets really, really addicting. Yeah. But once you get, once your deck gets to about 20 cards, you want to start getting rid of your starting cards. Anyway, I don't know why we're giving a live game help right now. It's very, oh, and Mark, I also think that's all the art right there. I think the visuals are just, massively improved over the first game. You get, you're giving live game help because three out of four people on the show today are from game help. Yeah. This is the game help cast. Well, I know I would say probably three out of the four people listening, probably are playing this game because there's 600,000 people playing on steam. Yeah. It's up to 600 K now. Wow. Insane. Or it was. I think that's where about where. Oh, David, you know what I barely figured out last night? And maybe this was the first game, but I just completely forgot. Jobric, can you pause the video right now? Okay. I didn't know this, but you see the symbols over the snake, the little sword and the, the, you know, that says eight and then the five times two. I did not know that that means that that's what they're going to do next. What? I'm an idiot. That's the whole thing. So I would sit here. How would you play the game without knowing that? I would like, I would like put all, like, I'd be like, oh man, I low on health. And so I'd like spend a bunch of cards defending myself, like to raise my armor and then it's like, ah, they did a, they just did a lower strength move. I didn't know. And then I was like, wait, hold on. Thank goodness. Is that what they're going to do next? And then you mouse over them. And it's like, this character's intending to hit you with a, yeah. That's how you know how much you need to block. And I was like, what? I don't know. Mark, they're just working on this. I don't, yeah. So then it becomes a math game. Then it, yeah, thank God, Lynette's on this. Cause man, I would be like, guys, the things it doesn't tell you. So then it becomes all about math. I'm like, okay, I'm going to take this hit, but like, can I minimize it? Can I kill him before he does this? So then like, do no, and you'd like all of a sudden you got the notebook out. You're like, all right. Yes. You know, 2019's Slay the Spire. Yes. Okay. Well, what a video game. Tell us about another game that you're an expert in, Mark. Crimson Desert. Oh boy. Crimson Desert. I didn't know that. The sword costs damage. Dude, dude, so you can walk in the game. I didn't know that. They don't tell you. But how do you run? Like Red Dead style, baby. You got a pump, right? You got to tap a button. Yeah. So Crimson Desert is a video game that I like quite a bit. Yeah, I like it. I like it a lot. I think it's very addicting. I think it's very fun. The story is, I'm not even going to say the story is bad. The story is nothing. There is no story in this game. There are things in this game that just, they never get explained. It doesn't matter. Spoiler for the first five seconds of the game, your character dies and he just comes back to life. It is never explained. It doesn't matter. Who cares? Your goal in this game is to get the gray mains into a camp with you, right? Like that's your main goal. Cliff is, he's basically a witcher who will just do anything for free. With anything you need, he will just do it. He is more than happy to take on any many menial tasks that you give him. Which is like very MMO like, right? Like he's just, what do you need me to do? And what will you give me for doing it? I have no qualms about anything you ask of me. That said, the combat is very fun. I think it's very fun. I think exploring the world is super fun. There is something around every corner. You cannot walk more than, CD Projekt Red has a 45 second role where you have to find something interesting in your game every 45 seconds. This game is like the 10 second role. There is something to do around every corner, which is great, but it makes it where you never progress. I think the powers are very Zelda like. Tears of the Kingdom specifically, you get moves ripped directly from that game, which is the Ultra Hand and stuff like that. And they control almost identically like they do in Tears of the Kingdom where you can use the D-Bad to kind of like move the object around and push and pull, stuff like that. I love those kind of puzzles. They're not as clearly, they don't really explain how to do them. Like things aren't as easy to figure out as like Tears of the Kingdom, mostly because of just how the world is, you know, ultra realistic. So things are just like you're like whatever. I don't know. I really like the game. I think it's super fun. And but what I'll say is if you play the game and you don't like it, that's completely valid. And I get it. And I agree with every point you'll make about why you don't like it. Like what would you say? Is it some some people are hoping it's something like Dragon's Dogma? Is there anything like that? No, kind of, maybe not really. No, because a lot of the a lot of I'm going to go with no. A lot of the stuff you fight, you're just so. So what this game does is when you get new, a fight like he's in right there, what the game will do very, very early is it will just throw waves and waves of enemies at you. Ladies, it is not uncommon for you to be fighting 20 to 30 people at once. That is just how the game works, because the combat's very easy. Something else to note about the something else to note about the game in general is Cliff does not control how you think he can. He looks like an Assassin's Creed character. He's not. He moves much more closer to an Arthur Morgan. He's very heavy. He you have to like tap X to run. He has a weightiness to him. That is that is that it's not how it appears on screen. Seems appropriate, given that he's heavily armored. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so, yeah, you're not just like sprinting around and doing so because you'll like run out of stamina super quick. You you are very heavy character. The combat's also a little strange, six, a little bit of getting used to. You you have a light attack and a heavy attack. You're not mashing those buttons. You're just holding them. So if you hold our one, that's, you know, those are the combos you're seeing. Is this person is likely just pushing one button. So is that the art the MMO roots? I mean, like when I first saw it, I put it high up on my wishlist because it looked the trailers and what I saw at Gamescom looked like a combo between Witcher 3 and maybe Breath of the Wild, right? Like there's a lot of high flying traversal stuff. But the game is much closer to an MMO in single player, right? It's super. Like you could tell this started as an MMO. Yeah, yeah. From the creators of Black Desert Online. You could tell that this began and then they were like, because you'll unlock a second character very, like very early, like chapter three. Her name is Damien. And I'm sorry is Damien. Her name is Damien. Damien Hathild. And she is useless. Like she's cool. They as, but she's cool to play as, but like she does not talk. Most of the main missions you cannot do with her. They say these are cliff's missions. She's useless. Why is she even in the game? I don't know. Maybe I'll find out later. But when you get her, there's no point to play as her. And in my opinion, that's like MMO holdover of like different classes. Or like, or like they looked at Assassin's Creed shadows and they're like, they tried to go into like one of the dungeons and got the message that, you know, now we can't can't play or something. And they're like, we got to do that too. So is it accurate to say the moment to moment combat is dynasty warriors and the boss fights are Elgin ring? Kind of. That's what it looks like to me. No, no, no, yeah. Kind of. I wouldn't say dynasty warriors in the sense of like your dynasty where, you know, you're swinging and you're hitting five, six enemies at once. That's not really how this plays. That when you are engaging with an enemy, you're typically engaging with that one enemy. So if you're holding our one and you're doing your light attacks, you are hyper focused on one enemy and you're going towards him. Now, if somebody runs up behind you and starts to swing their sword at you and you push L one, which is the block slash Perry, you would your character almost like Assassin's Creed or Batman Arkham like will turn and Perry their attack. And now you're engaging with them. So almost more closer to an Arkham, but not quite like that. But boss fights are quite. Bosses are like Elden Ring in the sense of like they have patterns and stuff like that. The bosses are not fun. Look at this game. Look at the Talos fight. They're not cool to play. Yeah, this is Dragon's Dog. Now, so here's another thing I'm going to pivot to really quick. Stuff like this. This is not one of those games that gets fun after 10 hours, 20 hours, 30 hours. There's videos going around on Twitter of Cliff doing these insane things, insane moves. You are not seeing any of that until you are 80 or 90 hours. None of that is unlocked early. Mitchell, one of my co-workers, has played the game 75 hours, and he has not seen a single magic spell in this game. Yeah. And now a reviewer still mostly plays as it did when he first started. And our reviewer Travis has 110 hours plus now. 110 hours when he wrote this sort of review in progress. And he says, I don't think I can I can. Issue my final review because like I there's too much I haven't experienced that. I want to, you know, I want to get more clarity on. I want to see what the end game is like. I mean, his point was his point was that the boss battles are just not that fun. Like they feel out of sync and out of balance. They're not with the combat. Yeah, because this looks cool to me. I gotta say. This does look cool. I don't know when this happens, but this does look pretty cool. No, they just like it's it's just you know, it's Dark Souls without any of that kind of like Dark Soli Polish, right? Like you're just kind of like mashing the dodge button and trying to like see if you can kind of read the tells of what they're doing. They've also nerfed a lot of the bosses. So it's it's it's tough from a standpoint of like how much we've played. This game is still very much an active development as well. They are changing things constantly. When we were playing the game, when we were first hand at the game, we. Key items took inventory space. You had 20 spaces of inventory. There's no storage in this game. And they went back and right before launch made it where key items no longer take inventory space and they added 30 more slots of inventory. This they are very much. I think this game is good now. I think it's going to be pretty good in a month. And I think in a year, it'll probably be great. So they're going to know. I had to think. I think that they are still very much an active development with this game. I think it's enough for them to sell it. I think they're going to keep changing things because they have made for I'm not talking about day one patch. I'm talking about there have been four major updates since we got code two weeks ago that have drastically changed things about the game. Made it easier. And there's a lot of conspiracy theorizing that, you know, people that don't like this game are people that are bad at it. And that's just it's just it's irrelevant. It's like they're playing a different game than you will ever play. And this is not the first time this has happened. This also happened with Elden Ring. Mitchell played a much more difficult version of Elden Ring to write a strategy guide for anybody here will ever see. They nerfed Radon. But you're saying it's possible. You're saying journalist mode is the hard mode is generally hard mode. Yes. And then another thing that you should be aware of beta tested the game. The normal people. Yeah. Another thing you should be wary about is that, you know, we said, hey, we can't fully score this game. We're 120 hours in. There's clearly so much more to see. Plenty of people just slap a score in this game without saying anything like that. And there's no way that they be just we know with the limitations on those people where and it just seems, you know, like extremely unlikely that people would have got, you know, past the points that a lot of the people we're playing with got to. So it's kind of weird right now. To be honest, it's not even theorizing. A lot of them say in their reviews that they haven't been. Yeah, yeah, or that. Yeah. So that's unfortunate. And I there's a funny anecdote. So we had a so we make these, you know, big interactive maps for games. And one way that you can make a big map is you can like make the game easier by turning on cheats and then run around the map. So we had a co-worker doing that. And again, not for review or anything critical or anything like that. They're like doing a job. Just man, which involves, you know, running around in a game. And that that editor got much further than most people probably on earth has have gotten and was would have to fight these late game bosses with cheats on and with infinite health and they would take 40 minutes. Yeah, he would just he would just prop up his controller, holding against the R1 button. And he would just walk away because your character engages. And so as you slash, they'll kind of move forward. And that's that's all it took. So he was cheating. He had cheats on. Yeah, but that's just showing you and you can't do much. Like it's a it's a it's just showing there's probably some some major balancing issues with the game right now, because once people get to that, they will probably bounce off of that. It's not like Silk song. We're like, well, clearly somebody handcrafted this to like make this perfect boss fight that you're going to want to try a million times. It's more like, can you make enough hamburgers to grind out this boss that has no obvious like, you know, cool strategy or anything. You just you just have to outlast it. Like that that that ain't that ain't great news. And our reviewer will will will definitely be reporting more on that. Yeah, a big narrative right now. This, you know, I'm not very much into discourse for social media when it comes to stuff like this, because people will the game releases. And at the time of this recording, it releases in two minutes. They will figure it out for themselves. But what I will say is there's a lot of like, oh, journalists scored it low because they didn't, you know, the game doesn't hold your hand. It's not about that. It's not about holding. We gave Elden Ring a 10. That game does not hold your hand at all. It's not about a game holding your hand. It's about a game breaking its own rules constantly. And that happens. You have a Zelda like glider. It works almost identical to the glider in this game where you kind of turn into a crow. Um, it's a it's a very short glide that you run out of stamina very quickly on. And chapter four, you fight a boss. The tool, there's no tooltips or anything. The boss is flying around. Game does not tell you that suddenly your glide is a fly. You push it and all of a sudden you can fly. The game doesn't tell you that. So it's not about like, oh, it doesn't hold your hand. It's about it literally breaks its own rules and then just doesn't tell you. And then you're like, what am I supposed to be doing here? And then you're like, oh, what the heck? Like it's very, very, very strange. You know, I don't think it's going to be for everybody. But if you like open world games where you can just run around and do a million different things, I think you're going to love this game. And that is what I like doing. I love the look and I love the creatures. I mean, that's what attracts me to it. And like, I can handle a little bit of jank. Like honestly, if you go back to the earlier Witcher games, they didn't feel great. Even Witcher three's combat doesn't feel amazing, but that game sold me because of the world, the immersion, the monsters and the side stories. Every side quest is like a freaking chapter from a book and it's self-enclosed and in many ways, that's what sold that game to me. I'm not going to get that here. But the combat is much better in a game like, you know, freaking tears of the kingdom or something. So if this is if it's if it's more about immersion and world, I'll probably have a good time with this. I'm worried about like I want the immersion and world, but I am worried about getting gated every once in a while by like something that has nothing to do with what I've been doing. Like I've not been working on beating up my character for a boss fight. I've been working down another path, but it sounds like you're still gated by those boss fights. Oh, my phone just lit up. Crimson Desert ready to play. Sorry, boys. Goodbye. Yeah, that that does happen. This is this. It's weird. It's also another weird thing that Pearl Abyss has said this is not an RPG. What? This is the most RPG game of every flight. They're trying to distance themselves from it being a MMO RPG. Yeah, this is an RPG. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That stop listening to what PR people. I actually I actually have an issue. I have an issue with that, right? Like we run the IGN Games Database and we assign genres to games and we often make changes over what people list on Steam. On Steam, sometimes people will genre spam their games so that they show up for many, many searches, right? Like famously Nintendo, when it had no role playing games on the N64, kept calling Ocarina of Time an RPG, at least in the West. That's an action adventure. There's one RPG in the in the Zelda franchise early on that was Zelda, too. So it's like, yeah, like it sometimes it doesn't. It's not the developer who speaks the truth. And some people say like they would know. It's like, no, they don't know. Like you don't level up. OK. Like there's no like, oh, my cliff is level 14. That's not how it works. Your gear, your weapons, they all have numbers. They all have upgrading. You upgrade your sword. It did 14 damage. Now it does 16 damage. That's an RPG. When you do level up, you basically just get what's called an abyss core and that you those are your skill points. Putting things and skills to raise your stamina. Now my stamina, it was 180. Now it's 220. That's an RPG. Yes, Cliff himself is not level 20, level 30, like an assassin's creed. But everything else is RPG. Like it it's an RPG. Games are so mixed up all the like nowadays. It's like there are games with RPG elements and like you just got to you just got to make this is an open world RPG action RPG in every sense of the world. It's half fishing though, right? So it's half of the fish with it with with the with the dash of fishing in this footage there in this, you know, the battle is having happening over this puddle. The reflection is amazing in the puzzle in the dude. So graphically, all right, one of the prettiest games you'll ever play. Holy smokes. This game is gorgeous. So I'm playing an incredibly well optimized screw Unreal Engine 5. Stop making your game in Unreal Engine 5. Wow, this game is not Unreal Engine 5. Oh, I said every episode. This game on my 50 70 Ti. No DLSS, none of that. I'm getting native 65 frames, 4K, everything set to cinematic with full ray tracing, everything. It's gorgeous. It runs so well and looks so good. The reflections are incredible. The foliage is insane. All of those trees can be cut down. It's nuts. How much like it can be interacted with. You could cut down that tree, pick it up, use your ultra hand to throw it. You can do whatever you want. So we were unable to play this game on console, by the way. So like I'm really interested in seeing how that turned out. And I have not heard, you know, negative stuff about it. I think somebody got it exclusively for PS5 Pro and tested it. And that's the only indication I have that it even exists for those consoles. See, that stuff makes me nervous, whatever. But yeah, it's. Yeah, well, this game is optimized for the new PSSR to if you're playing on PS5 Pro, so it should. And Digital Foundry did do their full breakdown for for this running on PS5 Pro and they said it runs great. Oh, sure, there's going to be frame dips, but that's console. I may have to play it. It looks really incredible. I mean, it's really fun. I'd love to know other people's opinions of it. I want to know people's opinions on it that aren't working on it for game help because for game help, this game has been miserable. So I'd love to know what people that are just playing the game for fun think because I think it's really fun. All right. Spoilers, I haven't really been playing it for game help. All right. Let's check in with the listeners. Hey, how do listeners? Listeners remember, you can always reach us at the email address gamescouped at IGN.com, just like Ro in Ottawa, Canada did. Ro says, I just started playing Mio, Memories in Orbit, on Game Pass. It is a beautiful game with awesome music, traversal and platforming in combat. Anyone played Mio? Great boss fights. I would call it Silk Song Light. Over the years, Metroidvania and Roguelikes. Have become my favorite genres. Wondering what each one of you would pick as your favorite modern Metroidvania, say 2010 and beyond. We're doing this with Mark. Oof. You know I'm on the show, right? I would say for me it's Metroid Dread. It's Silk Song. Metroid Dread. For me it's Metroid Dread. I mean, I think that's a copa. I really like Prince of Persia too. I thought that was fantastic. Yep. Prince of Persia is mine easily. Easily. No contest. Wait, what about the Dung Beetle one? Well, how modern are we going? That's like 10 years ago. You said 2010? This is Roguelikes, yeah. 2010 and beyond and after that. What was the name of the pinball Metroidvania? Yoku's Island Express. Yeah, yeah. See, I like that game a lot, but it wasn't like, I ran into areas where it wasn't fun. Like I got a little frustrated in that one and it wasn't because of like Dread. I got frustrated with some of the difficulty of the bosses, but this one, I just sort of got lost sometimes a little bit in that world. So I didn't think it was that. Like it could have gotten a little bit more tweakage, but you know, like if you happen to be into Metroid... I listen to other games and not as much as other games. I did better than Axiom Verge. Yeah, I did too. If you happen to be into Pinball and Metroidvanias, I don't know anybody like that. It would probably be your... Yoku, besides the pinball stuff, it's really cute and charming. The way that they integrate the pinball stuff into it is really funny and the Dung Beetle is funny and the people you meet are funny. He's a mailman, right? He has to like deliver mail? No, it's a good game. I like that one. Yeah, that was one of my... I would say the Ori games, like they're pretty. Yeah. They have really good music. Sam, did you pick your... I just looked at a list. I just looked at a list of the top 25 Metroidvanias and I have not played any of those games. What? I saw that Shantae on there, which is weird because Shantae is not a Metroidvanias. No, some of them are. Shantae is. Really? Well, they had Half Genie Hero and I don't think Half Genie Hero is a Metroidvanias. I'm sure that one is. I think they're all Metroidvanias, actually. Yeah, the USGB. I love those games. This is great. Shantae is really good. Yeah. Yeah, no, I famously do not really play Metroid. What are we missing? What's in IGN's top five? Well, it wasn't from IGN. That's from another website. That doesn't even exist. I didn't know that. What? Other websites? I shut out Bloodstained. Yeah, I never beat Bloodstained. You reviewed it, right? Yeah, Bloodstained is great. It was really fun. I gave it an 8 out of 10. Yeah. The new Castlevania might be the best Metroidvania on the time. Hopefully that's out this year. But speaking of that, OK, what? Hold on. Sorry, can I answer Sam's question really quick? So we did have a best Metroidvanias list. So number one. Hollow Knight. Hollow Knight. Number two, Will the Wisps. Number three, Silk Song. Number four, Animal Well. Number five, Guacamelee 2. I actually really like Guacamelee. I really liked Animal Well. I thought it was really cool. Keep going. What's six? What's six, seven, eight, nine, ten? I closed it. You didn't play any of these, Mark. Mark, you seriously didn't play any of those. I'm too old. Wait a second. You're looking at me and you're saying you're too old. He's the youngest one here, but he's too old for Metroidvanias. Too old. Metroidvanias. All right, Bloodstained Ritual of the Night. Steamroll Dig 2. Oh, I love that one. Prince of Persia, Lost Crown. Axiom Verge, Cave Story. Number 11, Yopas Island Express. I'm not a cave story guy. But out of those, I think we picked out the right ones. Some of those I wouldn't I wouldn't recommend at this point. Even Axiom Verge 2, I think was better than Axiom Verge. I think that's on a popular opinion, but I still wouldn't recommend it. There's a lot of these games go way too Metroid by the books. And if you do that, it's a little obvious. And I don't think it works as well. Bloodstained is awesome. And the NES version of Bloodstained is really, really fun, too. That's not a Metroid game. Steamroll Dig 2, though. Yeah, that's probably my favorite just traditional Metroidvania game. Of this time period. I forgot. I forgot about that one. That's definitely in my top. The digging mechanic, it's like, what if Mr. Driller had fun for more than two minutes? And it's a crazy evolution. The first game had randomized environments. The second one is a true Metroidvania with like handcrafted levels. So it's just so good. Wonderful. And then they make all these other Steamroll games. Let's maybe bring the focus back. The last one was fun. But how about Steamroll Dig 3? How about that? Yeah, they're doing it. That's absolutely cool. The other one I would throw on there, if the panel will allow it, would be Dead Cells, which is not a traditional Metroidvania. Yeah, that's interesting. I do love Dead Cells. I mean, I love, yeah. Too rogue to be Metroidvania. Procedurally generated, but you do find, there are items you find that will unlock areas in future runs. True. So, I don't know. Yeah. Good mix up. Well, then I'm going to put Minishute Adventures in there because it is, I know it's supposed to be a Zelda-like, but Zelda, but, but, you know, as in terms of a 2D game that you find new areas and have to go back to other areas to open them up, it is structured the same as Metroid and Zelda were the same type of game, but they were one of the sideways and one was top down. That was the distinction at the time. So where we go from there is a little bit messed up because we started, we just decided that Castlevania matters more. Minishute is on Switch now. Yep, you can play there. Yeah. I played it. Fantastic. I played it on Steam Deck. It's, I mean, it's linked to the past with a little twin bee ship, basically. Oh, I love twin bee. OK. What's that called here? Stinger, right? Stinger. Yeah. Wow. This is Parker from Seattle. I am currently watching an old gamescuba episode on YouTube, which I know the panel has agreed is a crazy thing to do. Justin told me that's not allowed. Not correct. Not correct. It was just Justin. I think he's been corrected. There is nothing strange about that. He regrets ever saying that. Yeah. Watching old gamescuba episodes. On episode 410 from October 21st, 2016, Damon, Jared, Sam and Justin were reacting to the announcement trailer for the original Nintendo Switch and making some predictions for Nintendo's next console. At the five and a half minute mark, Sam said the following. You know what's really exciting? Oh, I should have had a clip. You know what's really exciting about it is that you could potentially couch it in some sort of cardboard-like thing and play virtual avoid games on it. That's kind of predicting. So that was what Sam said. Hey. I'm in a big lawsuit about this right now. I want my money. Predicting both Labo and the newly released virtual avoid accessory. Pretty insane prediction to stumble upon from almost 10 years ago. That's amazing. But to be fair, I think when Sam said it, he said there's no way in hell. Like, I don't think anybody would have predicted Nintendo would acknowledge the existence of virtual boy, let alone make a $100 accessory to play it. I think we can all accept that Sam talks enough that a broken clock is right. That's right. That's what happened to him. I have a better- Miyamoto watches scoop. That's what I'm taking. I have a better rate than the broken clock. And please, once again, somebody tell my wife that many years ago, I said something and it was totally right and came true. Have you been enjoying your new virtual accessory, playing it every night? It's one of those things where I really like it, but I just can't play it for a long time because it's so uncomfortable. You guys are both such marks. I have to nail it to the wall so that I can stand upright or something. That was the problem. The virtual boy, they shouldn't have been a wall accessory that you stand in for. You lean into. Just put it in the corner. I should be at Toys R Us. They made kiosk that you would walk up and kind of just like kind of nestle into like that. It should have been a virtual wall. Yeah, not a boy for the tabletop. You're just describing a TV. The thing about this thing is like the games are actually better than you think they would. Nintendo games, you know? Yeah. And like Wario especially, it's like that's a really good game. Yeah, they're releasing some of the cool other ones too. Mario Clash is coming. It's a cool Mario Brothers game. It's good stuff. Yeah, but I take this everywhere I go and we have play dates in the in Dolores Park here and in the Mission Everybody Comes Ophrin says, I got next game for Teller O Boxer. It's a cultural moment. Like it takes the eyeballs and like it's actually 3D when you play. Is it 3D? Why do we have Mark on this? I'm just asking. I've not played it. It's a virtual boy. I just I would know if it was like actual like if they actually. Shut up, Bear. What do you mean? The whole gimmick was 3D. I'm playing the role of the audience. I knew the answer. No, the audience is more informed. The audience has played a Metroidvania, Mark. I guarantee you everyone in the audience who has played this fire knew what those numbers were above the enemies. Mark, tell us more about the. Tell us more about the Godfather 2. Tell us more about the Godfather 2. I'm starting. I'm starting to learn I might not be a gamer. Just to get Mark out of the I found from under the bus. Going back to what the reader was saying. And by the way, people are posting videos of us a long time ago and that's really funny. But there's a at the time in the office before Oculus or kind of like right around that time, they would issue cell phone cardboard boxes that you could wear in your face. Right. And that's exactly where I got that idea from is that we had one of those like floating around and what it does is it bisects the phone. You each your eye sees the different screen. And that's exactly how the virtual boy accomplishes 3D in this format. The new virtual by selecting it. The old one did it through a mirror that flicks back and forth 120 times a second and bounces a single dot of light on it instead of it's just absolutely. It is the most technologically advanced way to give you a headache. Like it is really impressive technology. Yep. Okay, Mark, I heard you mentioned Paradise Season 2 so we can do extracurricular activities. I was just trying to get out of that. But I have not started yet. So you started. No spoilers. Now hold on, Marcus. Paradise Season 2, a TV show. Technically it's streaming on Hulu. Does that make it a TV show? I don't know. The only good TV news out there is that Tokyo Diner after a hiatus of like almost a decade is returning with new episodes. Thank you very much. The best TV show Netflix produced the season. It was Japanese TV before. Nobody who listens to this show has ever heard of it. And it's fantastic. No. What about the wine one? The what? The wine one. You like that wine? Drops of God. Manga adaptation. It's very good. It's got a second season on Apple TV. You guys are not going to like it because it's for cultured people. Wow. Is that a fermentation joke? It's good. That one, it's in French, English, and Japanese. So good luck. Okay, Mark, I set you up. You didn't say anything about Paradise Season 2. Paradise Season 2 possibly better than Season 1. I think it is insanely good. It is so good. I can't believe it. But it doesn't have the gimmick reveal. Okay, don't say anything. Don't say anything. But it still follows the format of every episode is like 60% flashback. It still does that every episode. All right. Yeah, it still does that every episode. So except for the first episode. The first episode is like introducing a character. So it's just, oh no, that one's still flashbacky too. But yeah, there's that. And then from then on, then the rest of the show. Like when you watch the first episode, you won't see a recap of the first season. Don't be alarmed. That's because the first episode has nothing to do with anything that happened in Season 1. That's very lost, right? Yeah, it's very just like. I get to watch an episode about this character in the past. Think of it as episode three from last of us, Season 1, where they had that like. I don't know which one that is. I know. It's the Nick Offerman kind of spin-off. The best episode. Okay. Yeah. That was fantastic. That is basically this. It's like it has a lot to do with the world, but like it is, it is, does not address anything that's actually happened in Paradise. Then in episode two, then it's like, okay, here's a recap of episode one. Also, that guy that they just showed, his name is Link, and he is named after the video game character. Excellent. Very good. Well, that's the second big reference in Paradise to Nintendo. Yeah, yeah. Oh, they're not done. I'm not going to spoil anything, but they are not done with the Nintendo references. It's the crux of the final events of that season all are about a video game system. Yeah. About the week. And they are. Should have been at the week. How far are you through the second season when you realize that twist for the first season? Look, wait, they're in a bunker? Hold on. Okay, I will say. Don't spoil it. I got halfway through. So I got halfway through Night of the Seven Kingdom, and I was like, wait, is Egg a Targaryen? Yes. I was like, oh. Let's get a third big spoiler in here just to make sure Mark's week goes great. I'm also watching the pit, and the pit is fantastic. Okay. The pit is good, but I can't watch it. There's nothing to spoil about the pit. It's very good, and it's just. Isn't there a video game thing in that? No. Do you guys watch Steve Carell the rooster? Yeah, I know. It's so good. Oh, I've heard good things, but no. It's pretty good. I've heard it's great. It's only two episodes in. I've watched them both twice because I made other people watch it. So then I had to see if I could. It was a great rewatch already. But yeah, it's the really the production crew behind Ted Lasso, plus Steve Carell, and then a little bit of an HBO gloss over it. Amazing cast. The cast is so funny. They're so great. His daughter's great in it. And yeah, it's just it has Jamie Tartt. Oh, cool. Doot, doot, doot, doot, doot. Jamie Tartt. Oh, yeah, there is. There he is. Oh, there he is. Yeah, there he is. And he plays. Keela. Keela. Yeah, he's great. I can't wait for you all to watch it. We'll talk about next week. All right. I'll watch this tonight. And then, Sam, you also saw Project Hail Mary. Oh, I'm so jealous. I did. Is it out now? It's one of my favorite action movies ever. Did you see an early screening? Wow, early screening, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's out for everybody listening, though. They can go see it right now because it's out when this episode comes out. It's, dude, it's so I love the book. Actually, Pear mentioned because like I was a little burnt on the author's second novel, which I believe was called. Artemis. Artemis, yeah. I like the Martian. And then and so then Pear was like, actually, the third book is really good. Like like the week it came out, I think you told me about it. Read it, couldn't put it down, loved it. And I thought this would be the worst thing ever to adapt to a movie. And it's so good. I thought they would screw up. They need to find the right people and they need to find the right CG and they needed to do it all right. They cast Rocky great and they cast Grace great. They're just amazing. Oh, yeah. I know. I thought they would screw this up just with the CG stuff. What this movie is, is it's a big series of things that I don't want to give away because the plot is great. But it's a space movie about humanity going to the stars for the first time. And a bunch of like scary, great, thrilling action things happen. And there's also just like like very unexpected twists. And then throughout the whole thing is this emphasis on like humanity can solve problems like Star Trek has, which like feels especially, I think hopeful and unusual for this time that we're in right now. But then also things go really wrong with those plans. And it's it's great. It's like it's like Armageddon. If Armageddon wasn't dumb. Yeah. Yeah. Is it the same author as the Martian? Or is it just? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's a third goal. Andy Weir. Andy Meir. Yeah. Andy Weir and who did the Martian Artemis, which is the second one he did. Yeah, we've got a on our YouTube channel. We have an interview with him. He used to work for Blizzard. I did not know that. I think he got fired from Blizzard actually. Really? And then pursued his writing career. Yeah. He's just knows technology really well and is is really tuned in with pop culture and video games. But not in a ready player one. I got to mention everything kind of way. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he what he did come from a background of that being the ready player one of science though, right? Yeah. Well, you know, this plant is mainly made out of carbon. So I need to make a high nitrogen soil. So I'm going to make that with poop. Like that was like the whole like conceit of that. And there's a little bit of that and a lot of that in this book. Very moderated for the movie and in great kind of kind of, you know, scenes with the character thinking and stuff, but doesn't explain it, you know, and then you see the results and so the other thing this movie does is that they did a bunch with practical sets in this movie and like the anti-grab and stuff is like really amazing and Ryan Gosling, by the way, unbelievably funny. He's just funny and he's good at delivering lines and every joke falls. So it's like one of those Indiana Jones type action movies where your central lead is so charismatic that everybody's smiling the whole time until it's scary for a little bit and then smiling it. It's like a Disneyland ride. But what I was going to say real quick is that this game or this game, this movie has a bunch of space scenes in it where they do the full silence. So the theater was dead silent. Oh, I love that. Oh, that's excellent. Some of the most absolutely tense, messed up things that could possibly happen. Well, a person that has no idea how to navigate a spaceship, especially do a space walk is doing. And everybody was just like holding their breath and just watching. And it was a theater experience. That's great. We are keeps remaking this old story called Robinson Cruiser on Mars basically where it's like you need to, you know, the lone guy needs to figure out how to solve all these big problems. And then he's got this sort of like James Bond level threat above it too in this movie. Yeah, like in the book at least. I've got tickets for IMAX for this weekend. Oh, cool. And so this is another like set of flashbacks in it. And I'm just going to say that then say my next thing, which is that it also has a lot of like really interesting like buddy comedy stuff in it and like things that you would not expect. By the way, that's a great character from the bear that shows up, which is just really interesting. Oh, cool. But yeah, it's really, really good. An actor. I mean, cool. I'll see that for sure. Yeah. All right. Can't wait for y'all to see it. All right. That brings us to video game 20 questions are suggested. This week comes from Corey L from Herndon, Virginia, who says, hi, Damon. Game scoop is my favorite podcast. And I've been slowly working my way through all the episodes in chronological order over the last couple of years. And now I'm only about one year behind. Every game scoop episode is evergreen. That's that's just that's what it is. Nobody does this for any other podcast. So it's all I'm going to say. One of the reasons I love the show is that you and I have a lot in common. We both have young gamer children running around. My oldest daughter is about to turn six. Our tasting games almost always lines up. And most importantly, we're both big horror film fans. That last one. I'd like to make a guess. The game is R type three. That last one is why I got one. Apodox. Why I was surprised to hear in an episode from last year that you've never seen any of the saw films. What? Imagine my shock. I'm writing to ask if that is still true to this day. And if so, how do we go about fixing it? Well, I'm no mind reader. I feel fairly confident that you'd love the series. It certainly has its highs and lows, but the first several films are fantastic. And the original is damn near a masterpiece. I suspect those that haven't seen it imagine something comparable to Terrifire. But I think it's much more like it's contemporary hostile and Wolf Creek, because it does not skimp on the suspense, dread or atmosphere in the way arts outings do. Anyway, please give an update on GameScoop if and when you check the series out, assuming you haven't already in an episode I haven't gotten to yet. Thank you and pass my gratitude to the rest of the omega cops for all the years of entertainment. Wait, so he's not even listening to contemporary episodes. So he's but he's worried with what we have to say now. He's going to hear my answer in a year or so. No, I said I've never seen any of the saw films and not out of very similar to hostile. I don't want to make the listeners sad, but I just don't like them. I'm like, I would say the first three are worth it. Don't go anymore after that. Yeah, I get I get what people like about them. They're really suspenseful, but they're like at a level that I'm like, yeah, tap out. But I like terrifying. So I might throw stuff. It's more about is more about the mystery of it all. It's like figuring out who did what and getting hit at the end with this like. It's got a little. The stream was kind of like it's got a little torture porn angle to it. Yeah. Yeah, it's like hostile in that sense, but like hostile is just torture porn. Where saw is like there's actually but after three, then it just goes off the rails. You should watch one. Let us know what you think. I will. What's grosser the pit or saw? Saw. Really? Because the pits pretty gross. Yeah. It's gross. Dude, there's a part where Chester Bennington is like glued to a car seat and he has to like reach for something and like rips his back off. All right, I will start with the first one. I'll just start with the first one. Yeah, just watch the first one. Carrie Oles. Corey L also included his game for 20 questions. So with that, let the questioning begin. I remember being in it. You might be able to use that and that not what you've just learned from him to help. And this is not so okay. Like when you're a kid, I grew up in Arizona, you get in a car and you sit in the car seat and like that's where you get the idea for that movie because you're like, trip. Yeah, yeah, it's that. I hope this is not the fair day option of 20 questions. That was tough. It's not very. I feel really dumb for not ending up. Damon, let me ask you. Let me start off with this question. If I took this game to a GameStop or any game where I can trade in games and get money, would anybody get excited over this one? I would. Okay. No, but I'm like, would I get some cash for it? I don't know the actual value. Oh, okay. I don't know. All right. Okay. Fair. If you want, I can look it up and then you get out. Nicely figured out that there's a boxed copy of this game, so it's not all digital. Okay. Is this pre-2010? Yes. All right. It's a lot of years in there. Should we ask if you can make RPGs in it? Because if we'd done that last week. The one question we forgot to ask. Do you play as a humanoid character? Yes. Okay. Did we get the, wait, do we have an era at all? We don't. Before 2010. Before 2010. The pre-2010 era. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is it from last century? Yes. Oh, okay. So. Oh, wow. So, Nintendo PlayStation, Super Nintendo backwards, Saturn. The not manhunt. Not manhunt. Oh, I see you were thinking of the Saw stuff. Okay. This is like you. Yeah. I feel like we've had like Splatterhouse and stuff like that, right? Have you guys guessed that? Is this a spooky game? Not a spooky game. That's five. Oh, okay. All right. Boy. Yeah. Did this game come out in the era of the ESRB rating? No. Okay. So before. Was this originally an arcade game? Yes. Did it, did it originally, was it originally controlled by a joystick in the arcade? Yes. Yes. But I mean, my mind was going to like any of the sort of Friday 13th inspired horror stuff. But like if you're saying like not a spooky game. Not spooky. Spooky means like not horror at all. It's not just no ghosts. Like it's Casper a spooky game. This is not a question. Not a question. Yeah. Yeah. It's Casper a spooky game. It's just from before 1983, the video game Crash. No. Okay. What's the mansion game, maniac mansion? Is that an arcade game? No. No, that's a, that's a point and click adventure. Was this developed in Japan? No. And that is 10. Wow. Okay. Arcade game. And it was not before 1981. It's between 1983 and the ESRB ratings, which is 1994. 83 and. Too old for Metroidvania is too young for this game. So. There's not a lot of companies that made arcade games in America. So it's NES too early. Super NES age. Genesis. Yeah. Master System. But had to be an arcade. Game boy. But also arcade. All those are Japanese. Did this have an NES version? Yes. There you go. Okay. Is it that scary game on the Magnavox Odyssey? Greatly narrowed down. Yeah. And it's not chiller because that used a light gun. It's also spooky. Yeah. Well, with that, I guess we technically haven't, you know, asked that. We asked if it was like scary. No, spooky. Oh, we did ask if it was. Are you kidding? Literally. The guy said he wants something spooky. Yeah. Yeah. Well, like, yeah, that could be, that could, you know, anything like it could be Castlevania, but it's not, you know, yeah. Castlevania was this. I think it is. Exody. It would not be. Anyway, is it just developed by Atari? No. And it's not Japanese, you said. Not Japanese. Okay. So like, we'll make arcade games that be like Midway during that age. Yeah. Williams Midway. Was this a Midway game? No. God damn it. Whoa. Atari Midway Valley Williams. That's Midway. But he wouldn't, I don't think he would count that. He would know. He's a smart boy. Maybe it's Cynestar. What about American Sammy? Cynestar is very spooky. American Sammy. Yeah, that's true. No, that's true. And it also didn't come out to the NES. I'm thinking like, you know. Ghostbusters. Yeah, it could be based on a license. That's spooky. Why are you picking spooky stuff? Because it is spooky. It is not spooky. No, it's not spooky. It's not spooky. Or you're returning to this question a third time. Mark, not spooky. I keep, yeah, I keep getting lost. Mark, I want you to take out a pen and write not. Not spooky. What do the numbers mean? Yeah, you put the numbers, base. My brain is melted, bro. This has been a week. It's all good. Should we narrow it down to genre, maybe? Spooky. Yeah. It's spooky. Right? I mean, like NES is either, I mean, most of it is shooting or platformer. Licenses, I think would be likely, but that would be like LJN or something. I don't know. I don't know. LJN. To get ported, though, and be an American company is very, very unusual. Very unusual. I'm just not familiar with what would have been in arcades around that time. Yeah. The 80s? Williams. I mean, we're at the tail end of... What about Dragon Slayer? Dragon Slayer. Very different game from the arcade to NES. That is not spooky. Except for the skeleton. It had a layer. This game is not spooky. Well, when you died, when you died, you became a skeleton. Yeah, it does have spooky parts. Yeah. There's... There's... Gauntlet. Well, that's Atari, though. Yeah. No, everything I keep thinking of, I keep going through all the games in my head, and everything is either Atari or is Midway, at least. How many questions do we have left? Oh, did this game have... Seven. Did this game have two player? Yes. Gauntlet could be Gauntlet. Was it Co-op? Yes. That's 15. Contra. So that's a Konami game. That's Konami. That... I think there's like... Not Sunsoft. Oh, gosh. Sunsoft is happening. This could be later. No, I know. So I'm trying to think of the companies that would make this stuff, like Gun... The Light Gun games? Capcom crap. No, it's not Light Gun. It could be a licensed game like an Alien or Terminator or Revolution X or something like that. They're all those... Oh, you mean all those Commanders? So those... Those are actual gun games. The sit-down ones? Yeah, I'm just trying to think what would have gotten a poor like Punisher or something. Yeah. Like something that would have been an NES game. But most of them are from Japan that I can think of as well. Yeah, a lot of them are. Yeah. Is this a licensed game? No. All right, well, that settles that. And it is... You play as a humanoid character. Two player Co-op. Two player Co-op. And yeah, I mean, it can't be like the berserk... We don't even know if it's violent. Battletoads? You might just be pushing... Who made Battletoads? Trade West. Well, Trade West, but yeah. Yeah, Rare. Yeah, that's right. That's the battle toads ever in the... Or Double Dragon, yeah. But that's Japanese. That's Japanese. But Battletoads is not. That's a good one. A brawler. When you pause the game, does it go... Was that a real question? I don't know. I want you to open up every round of 20 questions with that question. Hey, you always start the show with a song. How many questions do you have? You're welcome, buddy. We have like six left or something, right? No, you got three questions and a guess. Oh, so yeah. Oh, God, we start through some. Should we ask if you burn Rare again? Should we just ask Rare again? Well, the arcade version... Oh, this is the... We're guessing the NES version. I mean... We're guessing whatever. There are arcade versions of Battletoads. All right, is this a Rare game? Meaning, was it made by Rare? Yeah. One version was. That is Battletoads then, no? It is Battletoads. Right? Because you play as a humanoid character. Yeah. Oh, that's right. You don't play as a toad named Pimples, Zitt and Warts. Well, he's humanoid, no? They're... Yeah, they became humans. They walk up, right? I think that qualifies as humanoid. So if it's not Battletoads, Rare for the NES. I mean, they made like... They made 60 games for the NES. Man, they made all sorts of... And this would have been a port that they... Killer Instinct is not that old, right? That's 90s. But it could be that because we stretch... No, I mean, I... That's not NES. We know it's an NES game, but it could be a game that had a pretty bad NES. Or just totally... I'm not that familiar with NES-era stuff. And I know Rare after that. You could ask if it came out in Super Nintendo also. Funny games it did. That's... But that's not going to help us. We're narrowing it down with Rare. So one of the versions was made by Rare. Should we ask if it's a Battletoads game in the series? I mean... No? I... I feel like the humanoid question... Eliminated that. Eliminates Battletoads. To me, that's what that did. When I ask humanoid... If we want to go down that route... Like... Like... Isn't E.T. a humanoid? Do you have feet in hands and a head? E.T.'s got like... He's got a little belly. He's got a little peri-peri feet. A little belly. He's got a long neck, but he's a humanoid. I'm calling E.T. rule. Like Jabba is not humanoid. He's slugged. Well, but in the new movie... Slugged. We got Jeremy Allen White, punching people. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, I think only Sam knows the NES era really well from us. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you want to think... If you think it's a Battletoads game... To me, it sounds like... But like, I can't think of anything where Rare made one version... Other than Battletoads. Yeah, they did for like Digger T Rock and like... What the hell is that? All this stuff. That's made up, Sam. It's just stuff that they did. They got... They got... They might have even made like the port to PC or something. Wait, did they make... Oh god. Even in games or something. There's... Oh, there's a... I can't even remember. It's killing me. Have we mentioned this game series in any way yet? No. Oh, it's not Battletoads. Oh, no. That brings you to one question and one guess. Oh, no. We're doomed. Um, yes. I hate causing dead air here while thinking, but there was... I recently looked at a Rare version. a rare game where they made an adaptation. Pirate something. One of the versions. And I think it was LJN. I would think that that rare handled, what version of this would be new to everyone. So I don't think that's the rare part is not gonna. Well, I was working on like obscure games database stuff. I mean, I think just like a co-op game coming to the NES from arcade is the crucial thing here. It's just hard for me to come up with a game that's not made by the companies we've mentioned already. So I think it's like some kind of like Rambo thing or something like that. Yeah, James giving a lot of eyeballs. We are on such a losing streak. And I don't know, man. Co-op, I mean, usually in co-op games, you're running around shooting with your buddy, right? Yeah. Did they make Rambo? Like a, or a commando? That's licensed. Okay, so there's a bunch of these. There's like a- What's a- A-Kari Warriors? There's commando. There's gun-nack. I don't know what they're all called, gun smoke. What are we, all this crap. It's probably a-Kari Warrior. Lock it in. I don't know who made a-Kari Warriors. Let's pack it up. Rare made one of them. I don't know. Is this a game where you run around shooting stuff? Oh yeah. And that brings us to the last question. Which has to be a guess. Yeah, I think it's a- Is it a Kari Warriors? That was developed in Japan. No, not a Kari Warriors. Whoa! This is the 1988 Arrest Him Up, Nark. Oh, Nark. Oh, God. Oh, look at that. His gun's not even in his hand. Joe, you gotta show the arcade version. This is the NES version, which was handled by Rare. Oh yeah, yeah. The arcade version was Williams. I thought we eliminated Nark because we asked if it was Midway. It's not Midway, it's Williams. Oh, you are Slyfark. I told you, I told you. I would have got this instantly. Yeah, I convinced myself it was that Midway. Oh, it looks so good. Oh, it looks so much better. It's a litter- Wait, hold on. What was that animation of him getting in the car? It's literally a Midway arcade classic. You know, it's like- This is the same photo digitization tech that would end up in Mortal Kombat. Yeah. Me, 10-year-old me walking by this in the arcade, this blew my heckin' mind. Yeah. Heck yeah. And the fact that- Look at that. I played this. It just melted to the street. Yes. Not the best gameplay footage. Look how fun this is to constantly drive into the dumpsters for those not wanting- Dude, you gotta rock a launcher. You shoot enemies to the rocket launcher and their body parts just fly over the screen. It's great. This is crack for me. We should have gotten Nark. This looks like the i5. So, I think it's pretty accurate. For those not familiar with the arcade days, but Williams, it was Bali Williams before that, became Williams, became Midway, became Atari games. So, that is the same development house out of- What are they, Milpitas? Are those protesters? Yes, Milpitas guys. I get it. This is- Well, Atari's a Milpitas. Midway's in Chicago. Yeah, that's right. It was in Chicago first. Anyway, look at that. This came to the NES by way of acclaim, and they were apparently very worried about this hyper-violent game coming to NES. I've got the instruction manual here. So, the first page says, Dear gamers, we had acclaim our preli or were pleased to present Nark, the first video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System with a strong anti-drug message. Ah, okay. Nark takes gamers through the supreme larger-than-life war on drugs with exciting colorful characters, such as Max Force, who wages justice against a number of sordid enemies. And although the fast-paced action in Nark is sometimes extreme, it conveys what may often be the harsh realities of the drug environment. Yes, it's a documentary. Nevertheless, it is a fictitious representation of how the battle against drugs may be won. Yes, a killing machine walking around with two machine guns and a rocket launcher, mowing down every drug dealer they see on site, is one way the war on drugs might end. That's right. It is actually up closer to reality now. Minus the clown, minus the clown. He's just an ice age. He's a car. They definitely, the enemies are throwing needles at you. Yeah, they throw, I mean, they throw needles at you. That's what they do in real life, too. They're trying to turn you into zombies. I like how our Nark just picks up all the money, too. It says, all nude. This is just in an arcade game. Any kid can walk by, all nude. Well, this is where these video tapes... This is where these videotapes... Adults congregate, though, Damon. That's because it's a documentary. Yeah, the clowns. Oh, yeah, you can burn the bodies. They burn away. All in one. Put that lady down. This game is great. There's so many. Can this just say Kinky Pinky? Maybe. Designed by Eugene Jarvis. Whole little ball. Oh, man. He's not our defender and a robotron. And all sorts of llama-related software. Watch out for those street walkers. Anyway, Nark, nicely attempt. Thank you for the suggestion. We're on a four-week losing streak. We should have had this one. Yeah, this is bad. We should have had this one. Thank you for the suggestion. Damon, can we do Mario 64 next week? Corey L. from Herndon, Virginia. Mario 64? Yeah, that would be great. This was still a Verde option. This is not Verde. It was totally very mild. This is mild. No, we learned that Verde means it's not a game. Sam will appreciate that you don't kill the dogs. No, you just shoot them small. You go. Turn them into puppy. They're puppy form. You give them more a new lease on life. They're all drugged up and then you shoot the drugs right out of them. It's a vision of what could happen if you shoot up a dog. Yeah, OK. Hey, listen, it's time for a brand new month of gaming. Jump into the Humble March Choice Bundle and score an amazing lineup of titles. Right now you can grab Tempest Rising, Chance of Sonarm, Sworn, Etrian Odyssey 3 HD, Bread and Fred, Zero Hour, Small Land, Survive the Wild, and Hard West 2. This all supports the Malala Fund, an organization working for a world where every girl can learn and lead by breaking down the barriers that hold back the more than 130 million girls out of school today. Head to HumbleBundle.com through April 7th to start playing now. And that is all the scoops that we have for you this week. Thank you, Pear. Thank you, Sam. Mark. Thank you. Thank you to Jobert, working behind the scenes to make this episode possible. My name is Damon. This is iGen Gamescoop and round. Attention, dark one. Oh no, the knife, man. 511 in progress. Let's go. You're busted. You're busted. Wait. You're busted. You're busted. Oh no, the knife, man. Oh no, no, no, no, no, the knife, man. In the comment section of Game Scoop, we've been hyping Jobert up quite a bit. So I'd love to do a iGen Live Jobert reveal. Oh yeah. It could be really fun. Oh yeah, yeah. I was thinking maybe he's using AI filters on his face. It was out of focus last week. It's just DLSS5. Yeah, it's DLSS5. Let me add some eye shots. Sam all of a sudden just has phobio hair. So Sam, our thumbnail is going to be sloppy grace with the headline, look how they masquerade my girl. It should be look how they masquerade my girl. This is why you crowd source. This is why you crowd source. Fuck, that's good. I don't think people actually get that, but it's funny. Oh, they would. Maybe a step too far. Did you hear the title of Nexon Console Watch I came up with this week? No. I remember it's DLSS5. Our face is fixed or fucked. Yeah, I did see that. Sam, your talent's all wasted on game help, man. Someone on YouTube said he thinks- Well, I insert myself. Someone on YouTube thinks he genuinely thinks Sam is one of the funniest people on the Internet. I think Sam's really funny too. Someone said that. Well, if more people would take my legit opinions as jokes, then I would get away with a lot. My favorite is like how mad people get when- Did you see the Game Scoop thread this week? The Troll Born comes out. Huh? I just, I forget what it was. There was like a 60 comment thread on the Game Scoop Facebook group that was like, Sam thinks this different thing about this thing this week. And everybody's like, please stop posting this. I can't remember what we talked about last week. We didn't see that controversy a lot this week. Probably Donkey Kong hate again. Oh, I said I liked Pocopia a lot, but I thought Slay the Spire was- Oh, you go on. No, no, no. I said, I thought it, first of all, I said I'm never going to play this game and it looks boring. I didn't say anything about the quality of the game or about it being boring. I just said, I'm not playing it. I have sense sunk at about 10. I'm not playing it. I'm not playing it. I'm not playing it. I have sense sunk at about 10 hours in the Slay the Spire and it is taking over my life. All right, I'm adding it to the run of show. But I played Blotcher. It's so fucking good. So there's that. You played what? I played Blotcher. Finally? First time? It was great. Yeah, it was awesome. Fantastic. It was in November. Oh, I see. Okay, well, that's hardly- It was such a good game. Hardly news. Yeah, I was- It was big news at the time. I was late on Blotcher and then completely loved it. I was like, should have listened. It was so good. Yeah. But would Blotcher fans like Slay the Spire too? I'm a Blotcher fan and I love Slay the Spire too. I like the first one. Blotcher is better. Blotcher is probably better, but not by much. Now who's speaking without playing the game? I believe the game that I played is better than the game I have not played. I mean, like- I've seen that take a lot from Crimson Desert fans. Yes. I mean, we still haven't played the game. So it was like, this game's clearly a nine. I'm like, I'm sure we've played it. It's out in 40 minutes. 40 minutes. What a weird time to release a game. What a terrible night to have a curse. Yeah, it is a little bit weird. It's like kind of- A terrible night to play a game. Yeah, it's a worldwide launch, I think, based on Korea time. Maybe I should- Mark made his second biggest mistake in his entire life, mentioning that he thinks that metroidvanias are not for him in a really weird way. He said he's too old for that. And the first biggest mistake he made in his entire life is being on this show today to say what he really thinks about Crimson Desert. Saying Final Fantasies are not sequels got me in some pretty hot water as well. Oh, God. I just say bullshit, man. Sequentially numbered. Did it have nothing to do with each other? Yeah, they are not sequels. Seven is not a sequel to six. That doesn't make sense. Justin Davis. Wait, what series? Final Fantasy. He's saying Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy. But then people swoop in with 10-2 and that's SIDS and everything. That's- yeah, there's a couple of sequels. That's a sequel. Okay, I'm with Medina on this one. This is a rare moment. 13-2 and Lightning Returns are sequels, but 11 is not a sequel to 10. You're right. 12 is not a sequel to 11. The first Final Fantasy ever is a sequel because clearly there's supposed to be a game called Fantasy out there. Oh, God. This is a layout. Okay. Swish! Damon, you gotta start the show. This is the show! Until Jobert says go. Or the show where I'm gonna leave. I know it happens. What happens is that Jobert waits and waits for us to get all the jokes out of our system. Yeah. Just so Damon can edit this into the end of the episode. Yep. I know. I see. I see what's happening here. Jobert is sitting back there watching- We just have to- MMA nights. We just have to stop being hilarious. Watching his flugtug.