Marathon Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify. And start hearing... Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash Kinda Funny. If you want to get our shows ad-free and our exclusive shows, go to Patreon.com slash Kinda Funny. what's up everybody and welcome in to your kind of funny games cast for tuesday march 10th 2026 i'm your show host snow bike mike and today i am joined by two incredible kind of funny co-hosts and guests today of course to my left in studio it's fran marabella the third What's up, everybody? Thanks for having me. Fran, I'm so happy you're here. I can't wait to talk about this game with you because we got a good one to talk about. We're getting into the deep. We're getting deep into it. And, of course, our special guest joining us remotely is Jerrica Hanna from JK Games. Hi, Jerrica. How are you? I'm doing okay after the long weekend of Extraction Shooters, but I can't wait to hear what either one of you have to say about Marathon because I have no clue either one of your thoughts yet. I haven't went on the internet too much about it, so I'm just ready to dive in. You're feeling beaten up from the runs? Oh, yeah. You can't see the black eye. I had to cover it up. Yeah, virtually. A lot of virtual black eyes. Day one, I was getting tossed around. Day one, I was getting tossed around. I had to feel it out. Day two through three, Fran, I'm up right now. My vault is full. Oh, okay. I'm bullying some people out there for loot. I'm feeling really good. I'm feeling really good. Of course, you get the little tease. Topic of the show today will be our marathon review. So far, of course, we are one week in to marathon since its launch last week. And I'm very excited to talk with both Fran and Jerrica about the game and their thoughts and impressions so far after one full weekend with it officially now out. Fran, before we start, you know, a lot of people wanted me to ask you, what's up with this cup above your mug? You know, I need I got a little double down here. I am covering my coffee cup with a Dunkin' Donuts paper cup. I just like to keep it nice and warm, Mike. You guys had no, like, little lids to put on top. You know, I'm a bit of a fancy man. Blame Roger for that. You know what I mean? Roger's in charge of all that. He's the coffee man. He loves coffee. No, it's not normal to have lids for your coffee mug. You know, it may not be normal, but it's smart. I don't want to drink cold coffee. So you know what? Sometimes you just got to be your own person. This is making a difference, huh? Sometimes I swim upstream, dude. What do you want me to do? You sure do. I'm excited. I can't wait to get you guys' vibes, of course, on the weekend of Marathon. And also, just like your Bungie touchstones, of course. Bran, I used to listen to a lot of Destiny talk with you and your crew about Bungie titles and Destiny 1 and 2. By your team, Jet. I'm very excited about that. But before we do that, of course, this is the Kind of Funny Gamescast. Each and every weekday, we gather around this table to talk about all the biggest reviews, previews, and topics of opinions in the video game world. Of course, we couldn't do this without you. So if you're watching live, be part of the show by super chatting on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games to say hello to Fran, just like Arturo Tron robo bartender has. He says, Fran thumb, shout out to Fran, best squad mate in the biz. Well, thank you for kicking off our super chats already. And of course, thank you to those who support us over on Patreon.com slash kind of funny. A big thank you to those Patreon producers for the month. Carl Jacobs Omega Buster and Delaney the Psalm Twining. Thank you all for the support. Let's start the show with topic of the show. Your topic of the show will be our marathon review so far after weekend one of launch. Of course, Marathon was developed by Bungie. Release date March 5th, 2026 at a base price of $39.99. Available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X. And S, of course, for all of you keeping up with Marathon and the Saga, it was originally planned for September 2025 launch. Then Bungie delayed the game in June after Alpha Feedback. So we've been waiting for a while. Of course, it feels like it's launch week, but really it's like launch week and a half because they also had a server slam the week prior before this. So it kind of rolled into like one long week, but it is the official weekend launch of this game. Yeah, we've only had the final game with all the classes and Rook working and everything for since. But we've been in Towson City for almost two weeks now. Oh, totally. And even then, like, it's funny you bring it up, but I played the play test back last year. I've literally probably put in 70-plus hours all between everything, but in the actual game, I'm only, like, 25, 30 hours, the final. Let's catch up with everybody before we jump into the topic of the show and give our thoughts and impressions of Marathon. I want to get to know both of our co-stars here. Of course, Jericho, I'll start with you. Give me a little background on your Bungie games, some of your Bungie favorites. And then, of course, let's talk extraction shooters. Are you big into extraction shooters? Is this your first? How many have you played? What do you think about the genre? Yeah, so, like, me and Destiny go way back. I've been part of Destiny 1 and 2. Destiny 2 more so than 1 just because of how difficult it was to hop in with friends and do raids. but since then a little bit easier um but destiny 2 i've played every pve pve encounters are probably my favorite thing from destiny i dabble in crucible obviously do iron banner um and i think that's one of the coolest things that i've personally been like addicted to destiny for just the uh plethora of things you can do in that game depending on what you want you know it's always it's always been like i was big on world of warcraft back in the day um and as world of Warcraft, but with first person guns. So it was a match made in heaven. So I've been part of destiny, um, since I guess it's inception and everything else under that is like, man, I put so many hours in the destiny to Pantheon that I almost wanted to die. I was really close. I don't know if you know what Pantheon is, but I do have the God Slayer title. It almost killed me. Yeah. So I I have a pretty close-knit group of friends that play every so often. I haven't been hot on it too lately. Not as much stuff going on. I got my lightsaber in the Star Wars expansion that they had. But, yeah, I'm really dialed into Destiny and how, I mean, I came to Destiny because it was a new Bungie game. And I think that's going to be a topic of conversation today. Like, you know, what other Bungie fans are hopping on a marathon and maybe they don't have an experience with an extraction shooter or even Destiny for that matter. I will say like for extraction shooters, me personally, not my thing. I'm not an extraction girly. But my Destiny crew that I usually raid with and stuff have been playing the crap out of Ark Raiders. And I was finally like, all right, I got to do it for science. I need to play this weekend. So I played Ark Raiders and Marathon all weekend. Very good. So now I should have like a touch point for comparison of like Marathon versus Arc Raiders. Okay. Okay, Jerrica. You're getting your extraction shooter on this weekend. We love hearing that. Some great backstories with, of course, Bungie. Fran Marabella, I don't really have to ask you about Bungie and your love for it, but I know it. Of course, if people aren't in tune with Fran Marabella III, FM3 underscore on Twitch. Of course, Fireteam chat and the Destiny podcast. I mean, you've done it all, Fran. Yeah. Been around Destiny a long time. You're right. Talk to me really quick about Bungie and Destiny. And then most importantly, extraction shooters before we begin on this game. Yeah. I mean, I think it sets the stage. One, just because I've been on a lot of Destiny coverage, people sometimes assume it's like, dude, this man loves this game. And like, I really enjoy Destiny. I've covered it a long time, but it's never been like one of my favorite games of all time. Right. There's two different things. Like it's live service. It's been ongoing. I just like the feel of Bungie games, and maybe that's the best segue. I love their gun feel. I was a huge Halo fan, and so to see what Destiny 1 was and then what Destiny 2 became and all the stages, I sort of just got wrapped up in it. But I definitely like Bungie, the feel of what Bungie does. I often have talked about the Bungie magic, right? Or just like it's the feel of what they do. And they've changed over time, but from Halo through now to Marathon. and, well, Marathon originally, but they've had a lot of... I hope you're doing well. They've had a lot of feel. What's going on? Where is it? He's checking B-roll. He's pressing buttons. Oh, he's right. I heard the voice of God in the studio. You let it happen. You let it happen. He'll chime in. So anyway, in short, have followed Bungie a really long time, obviously been on Destiny, but that doesn't mean that that's like my top game. And then Extraction Shooter Setup. Actually, if people don't know this, it's fascinating. It was during the pandemic. I decided I was going to try Tarkov, and that was back, you know, probably 2020, 2021. And I refused to use any online guides. I'm like, I'm just going to play this. Yeah. I'll tell you what, Jerrica, I don't know if you checked out Tarkov at all yet. And that is really the roof over the house that is Marathon. Of course. I logged in on that thing. Yeah, years ago. And let me tell you, I was afraid to start a match. Like, I didn't understand if I was going to lose my entire vault, you know, bag and all that. I didn't even understand how to get it. I didn't know what a scav run was. And, but, but they really set the tone and Bungie followed that. and I'm sure we'll get into it, but I can tell you, I loved the intensity of Tarkov. It was a bit like the Dark Souls of that genre, and so I really like it, but I've never been addicted to these or anything like that. You played a little Hunt Showdown as well? I checked it out just for reference this year, but I didn't play it a ton. I probably played for like five to ten hours kind of thing. Nice. Yeah, of course, kind of funny best friends know that I made Nick Survive the Gauntlet. We did a week to two weeks of just nothing but extraction shooters, So I found every extraction shooter under the book and I made us try them all just so we could try and see what it's like. We did fall in love with Escape from Tarkov. We liked that intensity, that like feeling that it could go wrong at any moment. And we have been chasing that high. I have not felt that thrill of the, oh, at any moment I could be shot in the leg and this could go only sideways immediately. Like Escape from Tarkov. Tarkov is like actual constant pain, you know, in your brain. And almost you feel like when your leg breaks in the game, you can almost feel it in real life. It's rough. But I would also last note that, of course, Ark Raiders I played a couple hundred hours of. Yes, Ark Raiders were coming, of course, hot off of an incredible fall into winter break and now New Year with Ark Raiders from Embark Studios, which has been absolutely killing the game and really bringing, I would say, extraction shooters to the forefront of a wider general audience as well, right? I think people know about Tarkov, but it does seem like the hardcore of hardcore play that. And like Ark Raiders, I felt like really broke down the wall. Like, hey, let's get everyone involved and give it a try. And it feels like it did just that all winter long. Yeah, I'll just say this at the top of the show. I mean, Marathon is not like Ark Raiders. It's got a bag and you extract stuff, but from gameplay moment to moment, it's so much more casual. And I mean, it can be rough out there occasionally, but the point is Marathon is closest to Tarkov and Destiny and Halo and Apex even. Yeah. Well, let's talk about, of course, Bungie and their newest game, a return to a game. Of course, Marathon here. Like I said, release date was March 5th. To give you what launched, what came at launch with the game, you have three maps on Talseti 4, which is the giant world. You have one perimeter, two is Dire Marsh, and three is Outpost. Kind of going beginner, medium, and advanced. Yes. Of course, Outpost does not unlock until player level 12 is reached. Each one has varying different environments, biomes, world. Of course, Outpost has a really fun one that I really dig called Heat Cascade, which is kind of an environmental hazard that you have to move around the map with. There are seven playable shells, which is your player character class, we'll call that the start. Six of them are your normal classes that you can squad up with one to three players with. And then the seventh class is the Rook, which is a solo scavenger only, which is going to be very exciting to talk about. Of course, they launched with six world factions. Those give you missions, contracts, shops, and upgrades. There's 28 weapons at launch, which is a crazy number out there. I've only probably seen a handful. Same. When you think about 28 being out there, the Codex is the world lore along with challenges to earn unlockable gear. It also has a reward pass, a.k.a. a battle pass, that has free and paid tiers. Six pages of free and paid tiers unlocked via the silk. And I'm going to tell all the best friends out there, if you want a little quick, Gamescast, helpful game hints that Andy Cortez always talks about. Your silk does max out at 140, and it will not go over. So you need to spend that in your rewards pass, whether it be free or paid, so you can earn more because it doesn't go over. So every time you're playing, you're earning. But if you're just sitting at 140, you're not earning. So get over there, spend those game points. And then, of course, the basic extraction shooter, Load up. You'll select your shell. You'll load up in the vault. You'll buy anything from the faction armory, and you'll jump in with trios, duos, even singles. You have some fun. That's your rundown of what is available at launch. Fran, did I miss anything? Are you going to mention the cryo archive? Oh, let's, well, just, yeah, let's talk about it, Fran. Tell me about it. Yeah, without getting into it, I was just going to say, last but not least, so you've got three maps, and it is true, progressively difficult, but the fourth one is in the process of being unlocked. Of course. And maybe we'll talk about it, but just know that they're on. There are four. There are. I'm not used to these sudden. I'm sorry. That was supposed to be the tip thing that played earlier. And then I pressed it. And he's pressing the thing. I think Kevin's messy with me. I promise you I'm not. He's excited you're here. He's excited you're here, Fran. I am very worried and scared it's going to happen again. It is hard to say on my train of thought. Anyway, Cryo Archive is the fourth map. There are four maps. But this one most likely is more dungeon-like in the world of Destiny. We don't know yet. but they do say that it has puzzles and frost vaults, I believe. Yes. Is how they refer to it. Raid-like mechanics, which is exciting if you're a Destiny Raider out there, but not out yet, but we'll see that very soon, which will be exciting. Fran, I gave you the rundown of what is here at launch. I talked about the base price, the release date. We are coming off of the launch weekend. I know you've put a ton of hours in. I've been watching you over on Twitch.tv slash FM3 underscore. Let's talk about your impressions so far. If you want to put a review score on it, after your first weekend, but let's just talk about how's your experience been. Give me the rundown. Good. And also, Kevin, if you're on the B-roll, my YouTube channel now is FM3Plays. It's my recent marathon stuff. YouTube channel. Nice. That one was a bit old, which is fine, but same diff. But anyway, sorry, your question again was. Your impressions, thoughts, and opinions of weekend one. Yeah, I mean, let's just level set on that, too. You know, it took the first 24 hours to unlock Outpost. for the third map, right? Or you had to get the level 12 if you were playing at launch. But we've had to do some wind-up. But I'm really enjoying the game. It's the short of it. And as I kind of hinted before, I love that it kept quite a bit of the brutality of Tarkov. And it does not pull any punches. And I think there's a ton of conversation out there about, oh, is it competing with Ark Raiders? And what does it mean for live services? That is very different than if you just look at it as what it is. In a way, right, it keeps that Dark Souls Tarkov brutality. And I like, that's one of the things I was surprised about it. There's no casual moment in it. Like you get in the very beginning, maybe there's a early perimeter map you can play before you level up and like a small intro. But in general, you just like in Tarkov, you're constantly afraid to lose your gear. Eventually though, you get quite a bit, but man, I love the gun feel, the visuals. I am playing on PC. I have a RTX 4090 and it just, it's a beautiful experience. So I also just love the visuals and the sound and everything. So early impressions or early review impressions, I should say are very strong, positive. It's nice. I like that. Jerrica, after weekend one, of course you balanced both of them. You would jump in between this and our creators. Let's talk about marathon. What are your thoughts on marathon after weekend one? i think i might have a unique like lens going into this because literally i shared earlier my favorite things about destiny are the pve elements and that's definitely not what marathon is um so i'll say this like my first impressions in terms of like the first thing that stood out to me that both the gunplay how the guns feel and even the look and visual identity of this game is like it is destiny i mean bungee dna um to a fault so immediately like if you play destiny like you're going to recognize and feel comfortable shooting all the weaponry in this game um but on the flip side and sort of a balancing act because even as a destiny player i'm always wanting to harp on what's another thing they could put on the ui to make it hard to get to this thing and I have trouble finding this. Where do I go to pick up this? It's a little bit more simplified now in Destiny, but it's still an abundance of information. So with Marathon, I love everything about the style and the aesthetic. Like I think it truly does stand out from other live service games like it in this space. Like it stands out. It doesn't look like another one of these games that sort of look like each other. Is this something new? What makes this, like it stands out. Like, and I love that for it, but at the same time, the UI integrating that aesthetic of it, as we'll probably talk about, like, especially for the onboarding process is intense. There's a lot to read. There's things and mods that I don't know what they do, but I got to take a second to read about it. And I got to figure out how to get to, how do I upgrade my vault? Because I'm already full, just like Destiny. My vault is out of space. so some things you felt at home with if you were like me and just hey this is bungee's new game i want to see if i can get into extraction shooters can i get into this as a bungee destiny fan um and i say gameplay wise so far yes but onboarding and trying to figure out is this game for me has been a little bit of a challenge for sure yeah that's an interesting different perspective like knowing that again just to make sure i heard it right you mostly love pve stuff you're not like into games that much like apex and other shooters pvp wise right yeah i'm not i'm not a sweat you know i don't go in to getting sweaty yeah but you like the pve side and it's it this game is very much not that but coming from that angle it's really interesting yeah and also coming from arc raiders which was very much like hey there's a lot of pve here and the pve i think on the arc raider side is a little friendlier compared to the pve on this side where it is those robots are going to chase you across the map they are actually quite punishing if you let them group up on you and it is a more delicate balance of danger as opposed to kind of the thrill of looking at some of the arc out there and arc raiders saying oh i could take down a hornet or a wasp maybe something could get after me if i get let it get out of hand but this side of things it's like these blue robots the unsc or whatever when they see you you got a problem on your hands yeah don't mess around and there's there's big pve escalatory moments. And again, we're going to see even more of that when we get to Cryo Archive. We'll probably talk about how Outpost is rough. But then, as soon as you engage with them, not only do you have a problem with the bots, but you know people are coming for you. Because you know I got my sweatband on, Fran. Yes. And I'm sweating. As Jerrica just said, right? The moment I hear a gunshot in the game, you best believe I put a ping down to let my team know, and we are making a split second decision of we're moving towards that or we're moving away from that and that's the thrill of course of extraction shooters right of like we talked about this in Ark Raiders in Ark Raiders the people with the place with the most valuable loot is the people in their backpacks right and so that means in this game I'm coming for your backpack as well and it is a thrilling moment of those blue robots the moment they start shooting at you and you start shooting at them that is a couple of seconds of engagement where you have to go I have to take these guys out and now be ready for a third party of Mike and his crew are going to jump on me, which I really find thrilling and fun in this game. Yeah, tell me if I'm getting ahead of us at all. But have you guys gotten trapped in one of these, like, hack rooms where you get trapped with the PVE enemies? No, a hack room? No, tell me about that. Have you, Jerrica? Like a red room. I feel like we sort of did. It was the first time because I was like, eh, what's happening? Because I got locked in a room. I feel like I triggered something. Yeah this is where the game is interesting commenting on PVE stuff Like again perimeters pretty much like well you got a couple types of bots you shoot them up and maybe they have a blue shield and then you get the Dire Marsh and it like maybe a purple shield I don't know if that's the exact breakdown, right? That's how it kind of escalates. Slightly increase it. But then, you know, there's like a room with green lasers. That's the one that hacks like you. I've been in there before, Kay. And you got to clean it. There we go. If you do that, it'll like seal the doors, and all of these bots start coming at you, and you get hacked, so you have to have like a blue, it's a clean but anyway you have to clean your software to get rid of the view and it's an intense moment yeah then stuff in outputs there's even more of that stuff there's also like special keys to get out of extractions or into rooms and so the point is there is a pve element that's really interesting but it's always with the threat of pve oh big threat is right i think yeah when i come down on my weekend so far it is the thrill of the threat right this game is brutal day one I was walking out there my first ever run I walk out it's just Mike Solo boom I get hit by one turret it takes me down to half health two more steps later there's another turret it kills me I get frustrated I go what the hell right match number three I jump in poison spore poisons me I bleed out right then and there I'm uptight match number four I jump into Solos kids invisible in a bush murders me I get uptight right but then I started to find the thrill I started to find the fun and i really enjoyed it like jerica said the world that bungie has created is unbelievable right it is coming hot off of destiny it's a cyberpunk-esque world i mean the visuals the cinematics that they have for each faction that stuff is awesome right tau seti is beautiful and dangerous i love the three worlds the biomes that feel each unique and different right the mountainous feel of outpost with the four big outposts and kind of like a cool resource grinder in the middle with the pipe then you go over to dire marsh and it feels wet there's this giant invisible wall and the anomaly ship that's sucking things up into the sky you're like oh this is wild and then you go to the final one which is outpost my apologies and it's like oh this is so cool that it doesn't want me to be outside because there's just giant fire rain that comes right i have to get pushed inside which means boom we're all going to collide in here and it's like the three maps have been fantastic i'm excited to see the fourth with a little more raid like puzzle solving will be super fun uh but i've had a great time with it i think the thrill of the fight whether it be npcs to fellow uh runners out there has been a really good blend of like challenging difficult fun i do feel like time to kill is very quick where it's like if i get to jump on you i haven't seen many fights flip where if i get to jump on you you can really turn it around on me it does feel like if i get the jump I win the fight which is unfortunate but I have noticed if you're smart enough you can let your teammate die reset back up and you can take on a three-on-one and win if you're smart enough to outplay them but I haven't seen many turn a fight around after getting hit first shot so actually I think this is a good point to bring up and curious how you guys feel you know we're out here doing a review and I personally like to me I'm like whoa review already you know but like of course like we can have a review in progress or review whatever you guys feel but i think important to all the topics we're talking about like there's so much still to learn and understand another thing that i'm sure jerica could appreciate is like you haven't even seen the builds yet when we're going to start seeing build videos in a tarkov-esque game but then there's like all this stuff you're learning that i even i don't fully understand like as an example you you made me think about that huge square ship right that was when you're talking about where it locks It's a lockdown. And you have to get in there. You have to have one of those green envelope software pieces. It's called antivirus. And you have a certain amount of time to get in. There's better loot. I've barely even been in there. So there's a lot to, like, learn. And I think in what you're getting at there, I think you are going to be able to start countering people because what's going to happen is these games do that, and you can appreciate it. Eventually, everybody's got a blue shield. Who's got a purple now? Who's got a gold? But the time to kill is much different when everybody's rocking blue. and like we just haven't even unlocked that like i can't buy a blue shield yet um eventually i assume that will come and be common but we're pretty far away from it i do appreciate that right now weekend one it does feel like you can jump in with a free loadout and still get kills right it does feel different in a game like arc raiders where i jump in with a free load and it's like oh he has a level four gun he's running me over no matter what i do because the rattler has eight bullets in it and that's not enough to kill someone in that game yeah but on the flip side But here, it's like a free loadout can get a kill. A free loadout can get you running and get you going. And that's all that matters at the beginning, which is fun. You got to get the training wheels going before you take them off. And yeah, I agree with Jerica. The UI is a mess. When you first jump in, it's a mess. There's too much. It's too convoluted. I appreciate after weekend one, I know where I'm going. I know what I'm looking for. But all the icons in the vault all look the same. You really have to do the Fran, read up on them. You got to spreadsheet them, which is fine. But it's like at the beginning, it is just a lot to take in. There's a lot of menus that you got to navigate to get towards X, Y, and Z. It's overwhelming. That's the fun part about this is there's a lot of depth to it. That's going to take some time to learn. And so weekend one, it is overwhelming. But at the end of it, it's like now I know what I'm doing. I know where to go. I know where to get my contracts. I know where to buy. I know what I'm looking for challenges-wise. I know where I really need to navigate to. Yeah. My short view of that was the same. Like the UI is overwhelming. I totally understand why people's first reaction was like, this is, some people were like, this is broken. It's messy. I think it's a super loud design with all the color, like you're saying, but eventually you, your brain starts to process that. And I will say, yeah, 25 plus hours. A lot of that, I just don't even see anymore. And like, you could even appreciate this, right? At first I was like, how do I cycle through the factions and then get the contract and then go to upgrades and get, but then now I don't even think about it. And then there's all these little shortcuts even too, but it's, it's all over the place in the sense that they have like menus and sub menus. And Jerrica brought this up to like destiny does that where it's like, wait, the directory of tabs is different in this menu. But like, once you get used to it, it's not that bad, but it is absolutely overwhelming at first. Yeah. And of course, another one that I really have enjoyed and come around on, but I still, it's a new world to all of us, right? So like doing these missions is exciting, but it's like, go find the bio researcher lab chemist jacket or something weird. And you're like, I don't know what that is. And now you're like running around this area, waiting until an emblem pops up. But then when it's my third time doing it, I'm like, oh, Kevin A. Sacks, it's this red computer in this corner. Or we know that there's a giant file, giant like pillars outside. That's what we're looking for. but it's been fun when it's like a new world, all new vocabulary to me. Right. And it's like, I don't know what that is. And then you have the panic of exactly what the game wants you to do. You're in this new world, go find it. And now you're just running in circles, trying to look for the objective that you need to complete. Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, there's actually, there's quite a bit of quality of life in the game, quality of life in the game. Things that surprised me of like, Oh, they had, they put this in there that, you know, I have to think of some examples, but I'm reflecting more again on like Tarkov dude. And like, it's, it shouldn't really be the excuse that it is overwhelming and it's all over the place, but like try to play Tarkov. Oh yeah. I mean, I don't know if they finally, I think they finally put maps in that you could see in the game, but like literally, you know, you had to have a second screen up. And even then there's no directions. I would print out the maps for Nick. Yeah. And I'd say, here's where we're trying to go. Like, keep this on your desk. And when I, all I wanted to say about that, I don't know how to phrase this, but we're in a weird place. Curious if you guys agree. We're finding things to complain about, and it's valid. But why are we being so soft when some of the things we love most in games is like, dude, Dark Souls, Elden Ring, Tarkov. Like, dude, wait, this is what, you know? And you figure it out, and the learning curve, that's like what makes games so awesome, isn't it? Where you're like, oh, I get it now, even if it's painful at first. So I like that about it. You know, again, I think some things are confusing, but once you start learning the ins and outs and, you know, I have so much more to learn, it's really rewarding. I think that's when you hear the 180 from me, right? It's like alpha, beta test weekend, server slam. I wasn't hot on this game. Well, I was hot on alpha. I really liked the engagements compared to our graders. Beta test weekend, server slam. I wasn't hot on this. And then, like you said, I think it's the learning curve. Once I dove in, I'm like, now I'm eager to learn. I'm excited to find the mysteries. I'm excited to solve those puzzles. And like, that's the fun part about this game is it has that. And of course it has the bungee roots, right? It's like coming from that team. They're going to make these fun ideas. They're going to try different things. And I'm excited to, you know, pull on the thread and go search and look the quality of life with the contracts and linking up with your friends and seeing their contracts on your screen is so helpful and so much fun of like, I can't tell you how many good times I've had with Andy and Kevin. Now it's like, we all kind of started at the same time, but we're all on different contracts. But like I'm reading out of like, I'm on three or four with new Genics. Where are you? Okay. Well, I'm doing this one for whatever faction. Okay, cool. Let's jump in. And it has it all listed for us. So I know you're completing yours. I'm completing mine. Hey, let's work together on this. That's been fantastic. Yeah. That's like one example. If you go into your map, into the contract, you can see the other players contracts, but then you can hover over the objective. And when you hover over, it says on the second floor of complex is where this bioprinter is. and like stuff like that you don't even know is there until someone tells you but it's actually really nice that it's there um sure jerrica can relate we've been doing a lot of talking and i want to hear from you no no no like i'm sorry no go jr discord delay um i would say like literally i feel the value you're getting for 40 dollars is totally worth it i think you are getting more than what you are buying for this game i think the challenge is going to be another and i'm gonna be honest like i'm also having a really good time and what's hooking me is those little wins that i'm getting and then slowly getting better slowly understanding picking up um you know different quests and figuring out like what because i've been playing a lot with my girlfriend too like me and her playing and getting a random in there like and trying to what's the right path for me and her and then who whatever stranger joins us us having failures and successes there and then me bringing home the loot is like i'm getting i i enjoy extraction shooters like i that mean that's the thing i appreciate about dusty is a loot grind getting something bigger better faster shinier and being able to come back and use that um i do like the risk of reward of where i could lose it at all because i think it's it sort of helps me not feel like every loss is the end of the world because like i'll have chances to get it back um but i think like the contracts the contracts i was calling them quests the contracts that you're getting like following along those for new players the onboarding is this what i don't want people to shy away from is just making sure it's really transparent that hey you're gonna have to take the time to get better at understanding this world understanding the shells that work best for you. Because once you do that, you do find the reward. And it does feel really good. Now, I'm a fan of this game. I might never be great at it, but I'm going to keep playing. It's fun. I'm enjoying my time. That's exactly, it's funny. You read my mind. I was wondering, I was like, I almost was going to ask you, do you feel like you're forcing yourself to play it because you were going to do this review and you come from the Destiny side, but you said it's got you hooked or interested? Yeah, I'm going to keep playing. I want to at least get to some checkpoints where I haven't made it to Outpost yet. And based on what you're telling me about these, I've only been... Outpost is cool. Sick. Outpost is cool. Outpost is where I've been up till now. And yeah, I just encountered that one room with all the lasers. And I was like, okay, I love the evolved location within these areas that could be more challenging. And I'm like, okay. but also oh i'm so used to being a fast-paced hunter in destiny so i'm playing um you know it's it just left me the double jump the cool chick yes vandal that's all i've been really playing for me feeling comfortable with moving in this world uh but i i have to stop myself and like really listen to my squad and like be focused on communicating because like you just can't dive in obviously you got to be able to use the skill sets of each shell and i think that will also be an issue for new whether you're new to extraction shooters or you're just wanting to try this new bungee game is like understanding how to play with others as well because that's the skill set that you got to learn and understand and like knowing what the other shells can do as well fan before we go to ad break are you hot on this game right now after the weekend where do we stand We're not doing review scores right now. Are you hot on this game? Absolutely hot on it. It's so much more polished and just it's got its hooks in me in that bungee way that, yeah, I want to play a lot and there's so many games to play and that's going to be the challenge. I like that. I'm just right there, Fran. I am very hot on this game. I'm having a lot of fun. I worry, what will I do after review? Because I want to play more of this. But man, Pocopia, I put down Pocopia for this. And I played this all weekend when Pocopia screamed, help me. And I was like, I can't. I'm so deep into this right now. And maybe we'll talk about this after ad break, but the grind is probably a big part of the discussion for me as well, because it relates to being hot on it is how much grind can you handle? Okay. Well, we're going to talk about the positives and negatives from our first weekend, right after a word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. When we started kind of funny in 2015, boy, let me tell you, I had a harsh lesson in what it takes to run your own business. We were the hosts, writers, producers, art department, tech support, garbage men, and so much more. We needed help, and that's exactly what Shopify does for millions of businesses right now. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. From household names like Aviator Nation, Chubbies, and Death Wish Coffee to brands just getting started. Shopify is your commerce expert with world-class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond. Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com slash kind of funny. Go to shopify.com slash kind of funny. That's shopify.com slash kind of funny. Welcome back, everyone, to your kind of funny games cast where we're talking all things Marathon from Bungie after week, weekend one. We're going into week one, but it's weekend one. Fran, Jericho, I want to talk about the positives, the fun that we're having. I want to highlight the fun, and then I want to talk about some of our critiques after that. Fran, hit me with anything. What do you want to talk about? What shell have you been running? I said I brought up before. We have seven playable shells, each one unique and different themselves. You have the Destroyer, which is the combat specialist made for offense and defense, has a deployable wall on its arm, has a missile barrage, which is very cool, has thrusters, tack sprints. You have the Vandal, which is the combat anarchist enhanced movement, which Jerrica brought up, that has amplify and disrupt cannon, which is a speed boost and a damage dealing push projectile. there's recon which is the intel specialist who has the echo pulse and tracker drone that's a sonar pulse and a micro bot that's for built for tracking you have the assassin that's a shadow agent that it has invisibility systems smoke screen and active camo which i'll tell you that smoke very difficult to see inside oh yeah that can change the tide of a battle if you're good with that one then you have triage who is the field medic all about damage mitigation of course has a reboot and a medic drone. Reboot is a quick revive for a downed teammate and deployable med drones to teammates. And the really fun one is that med drone actually goes into one of the traits called shareware.ex, which is share benefits from all medical consumables with med drones crewmates. So you can throw out your med drones to your teammates, and if you use a Stimpak, the teammates use the Stimpak, which is very cool. And then, of course, number six is Thief, the Covert Acquisitions, which is pickpocket drone and grapple device. I've been playing nothing but Thief. I love the Thief. And then seven is Rook. I'm going to pause Rook. We're going to talk about Rook after our favorite ones. Because Rook is a whole different thing. So let's first go around the table. What shell have you been using? What do you like? Fran, I'll start with you, because I know I think you're dabbling with everything. Yeah, I would just put out that I'm, man, there's a lot of depth as you just covered, and I like to dabble. That being said, I kind of end up feeling triage a lot because other people, yeah, they want to play thief, you know, they want to play assassin or whatever. So I tend to feel a lot of triage and I don't mind. It's fun. As a note, too, that quick revive is also an EMP. So you can shock enemies or shock runners, you know, other PVP folks. So you can use it as an offensive. So I tend to play that or the Titan, as Jerrica could probably relate to with the Destroyer. Destroyer, okay. And so a lot of these, well, not a lot, but a number of these classes are about the mobility. Yeah. Right. And so as, as destroyer, what I like is you can double tap shift while I'm on keyboard, but you start running fast or you can double tap jump and like boost jets. Yes. Like you'll see people doing shotgun plays where like you're over there, Mike, but behind a box, you know, and as a Titan or sorry, as destroyer, you're like, you boost your heels behind them and you like float around behind them with a shotty hit them in the back of the head. it's pretty amazing to see the combat still evolving and like we've seen some nutty thief stuff sorry oh yeah so it'll be interesting to see as they balance this out but those are two i definitely like okay jerica what have you been running around as is your shell probably the worst one from what i'm trying to learn to play this game is the vandal because like i have no patience and i'm just zipping around and i feel like this shell is like the definition of speed and chaos and the game already has too much of that so maybe it's me playing as a vandal but i do like being more agile in this world because like to what we're understanding here and what we're talking about like it's just it's moment to moment and anything can happen so unpredictable so like i just want to be able to react faster i feel like because that for me it was a little bit of uh it was a little bit of a whiplash like realizing how some of the shells can feel like a little slower and I feel like I can't get around as fast because like I'm just so used to because it feels so much like destiny gunplay and everything else like it's sort of jarring for it to be a little bit slower for me so like I latched on to Vandal um my girlfriend Audrey's been playing as the thief a lot which I've sort of been wanting to dabble with um lately because just like there's been so many moments where I feel like she's able to save us and then I'm like well, that's cool. Maybe I should be triage or the thief just to be able to have some balance to the teams that we're squatting up with. But, yeah, maybe I look more towards a support role because – and then someone else tells me when to go. I like that. I get safe here. The team comp is important, of course. I've been playing exclusively thief. When I jump into these games, I like to focus on one so I could learn the ins and outs and then move on to the other one. And I only picked Thief simply because it had the coolest cosmetic in the store. Oh, all right. That sounds like... The White Rabbit was a sick skin. I bought it for $20 and that shows my shell from this point forward. And you know what? I came up big because the Thief is a ton of fun. It has a grapple hook, which is a perfect get in, get out, whatever you need, like mechanic that I love. And it also has the, what do we call this right here? The pickpocket drone. So the drone, I've been using for just strictly eyes, but the fun part about the drone actually is it has this pickpocket mechanic and the thief is all about pickpocketing and target acquisition via your most valuable weapons and items. So when you go to drone mode, you can actually pickpocket from afar from the drone and pull out the highest rarity item that a player has in their backpack or a backpack on the ground. You can even close doors with it, which is pretty wild. There's also an x-ray vision, which mixed with the finer things. More items in your backpack gains more weapon and handling, and grappling hook recharge, that's the finer things. And then the x-ray vision will ping everything around you, and any box of loot, it will tell you what the highest rarity item is in there. And if you have eyes on targets, you'll actually ping an enemy and be able to see them but you have to have eyes on targets So the thief for me so far has been perfect for Intel and being able to get in and out of fights really quickly which has been great. Cause I've been playing with my friend, Kevin, who has been either triaged the medic or mainly the smoke assassin. So it's like a perfect blend of, I usually see someone. I'm like, Oh shit, Kevin, they're coming. I grapple hook out to like higher areas. So I can get the high ground and then we'll pounce on them together, which is fun. Yeah. Thief seems, I'm curious if any character is going to come out overpowered, but if you haven't seen with Thief, you probably have, right? You put claymores on the drone and float them around. Just seems like a little broken. And I've also started to see people starting to swing on the drone. That's cool. Somebody else will be the thief even and pull them across the map. And people will figure out how to like swing around it. That's pretty nuts. Wow. Yeah. The grapple hook is very much similar to, Fran, help me, Apex Legends. Yeah, Pathfinder. We were talking about it. Because, yeah, at first you're just going to kind of shoot it and don't use it to pull you up. But, yeah, there is a lot of give where you can kind of whip it sideways and get momentum. You can kind of use it like Batman and kind of grapple yourself up even to higher locations. So it's all about how you use it. But I've found so far that kit in particular is the kind of style I want to play. Seems deep. Yeah, I saw an eSports player that came, I think, from the Hale community. Vosky, I think it was, but he sent his drone because someone was kind of down around a corner, so he sent the drone out and he was able to, yeah, curve around like you're saying, swing up like right in their face, and he actually did like I think it was like a no-scope sniper type shot it's pretty crazy some of the stuff you can do it's been fantastic, so those are the six shells, I'm glad to hear that you guys are playing them the really fun part about this is, you can of course play solo, right, when you go in you click on your own shell, you fill out your loadout click no fill on the side and it will take you into solo only lobbies which is great, I've really enjoyed that I played my first day exclusively solo and I had a good time. Now, sure, there were some snow bike mics out there getting a little sweaty, maybe sitting in some corners, but it is fun when you are playing solo. There's a big threat out there. You can play with two people, no Phil or a random Phil. They do have Prox Chat, which not used as often as you would think. We've definitely had some good team chats. We've talked with maybe one or two other teams, but not many people are using Prox Chat right now in my world. Have you been hearing any Prox Chat? No one's safe. I don't trust anybody. So no, I don't want to do, I'm scared to use it. Yeah. You totally should in, well, in solo, if you think it'll benefit you, you can. And also, you know, I know plenty of people like you, Mike, you'll just lie to him. I'll lie right to you. You'll be lying. You'll be baiting them into places like just like triggering people can also be pretty effective. But, but I, I mostly have only used prox effect. We'll talk about it later with Rook, but it's good to be a Rook and have prox chat, but it's useful in solo and teams. It's awesome that they added it in. I saw a clip of somebody just screaming. Did you see this clip floating around? It was like 50,000 impressions on social. But somebody was screaming as if they died in real life because somebody killed them. Those moments, they add so much to the game, right? Yes. It's just funny. It's just fun moments. Let's talk about that seventh shell. This is a very interesting shell that you can't play with others. You can play exclusively solo. So it's called The Rook, The Solo Scavenger. When you click on the Rook, similar to all the other ones, they give you a rundown. And this is what the Rook says. Solo only. Limited loadout. Contracts paused. Restricted zone access. Requires season level three. Moves, recuperation, and signal mask. You can restore health and mask yourself from enemy AI so they think you're one of them so you can move through areas freely. Now, the Rook is very interesting. Kind of gives me scavenger vibes from Escape from Tarkov. Fran, I've only played the Rook once. Did you play it a lot? Yeah, yeah, I've played Rook plenty. Jerrica, have you played Rook as well? Not personally. Okay. Well, that'll give you the straight dope real fast then. But Rook is very much like Scav style. A little different in, well, I mean, it's similar to that. Yeah, you do get a kit that if you get out with it, you get to keep those items. But the main thing is, I describe it as the janitor. So you're going in about 60% through the match already or 40% or something like that. but just to like pick up some quick money, quick gear, you're probably not going to go out and try to kill things. And you also, most importantly, you cannot do contracts as a rook. Yes. So that's a big difference. You can't just be like, oh, I'll be a rook, but I want to work on this contract. No, it's literally go in, be the janitor, find some coin. And yeah, sometimes you come out big because you'll find a bag and it's just a runner that left like a blue shield in it or a really nice gun. It does happen. And that's the general idea. And I will actually say, once you understand that, you can just get in and out five, six minutes if you want and get really valuable stuff that really eases the gear fear that I think it's easy to have where you're like, dude, I'm broke. I have nothing. Do a few rook runs when your vault's getting dry. And it's way more friendly than Tarkov in that sense. That's cool. Okay. And Zeke speaks super chats in and says, and you can upgrade your rook with faction capstones right there. I haven't seen that upgrade yet. So if you're working on your faction upgrades, there you go. keep an eye out. I do want to move on to factions as well, because I brought up, there's six of them, right? So you'll have your intro one, which is Cyber Acme, which is a great intro. You get hit with the AI, but super cool cinematics on all these. They're so cool. Lady Gaga with the goo lion, that's a crazy one from Traxxas. Yeah, I'm calling that Lady Gaga with the goo lions. Crazy combo. I think that's the voice of Aeris, by the way, Jerrica. Very cool. Yeah, yeah. Makes sense. So yeah, you'll start with Sayak who introduces you to all the five factions and then you'll start doing missions for each one. You'll have a fun blend where you'll be jumping from one. I do like that it's like one contract per run. Let's focus you. Let's keep you aligned. And as Jerika said, I think that's the best part as a beginner jumping in, right? I think for me, I come from the Battle Royale kind of arena shooter where it is. I'm just trying to get sweaty and bang into you. And I think you got to kind of drop that as a beginner and go, hey, the training wheels are on. Let me focus on my contract. It's going to take me to different zones. and those zones are going to be high populated areas with other players that are probably doing similar missions where you'll bang into them or you can avoid them. But like the goal should be, hey, focus on this. It's going to take you around the map. Then you'll exfil. You'll earn rewards. You'll level up so you can buy more stuff in the shop. But I think at first, if you're jumping in as like a new player, follow the contracts. It will lead you along the path of the gameplay that they probably want you to play. Yeah, it's funny. The first contracts for SIAC, like you're saying, are the onboarding. You know, there is an official onboarding that's like just sort of basics. And, but I don't think, yeah, people are prepared for the, if you don't know the genre, the idea of just like looting around a building for stuff. And again, it's overwhelming at first. You're like, why do I need this microchip, this, this, you know, unstable gel that you're like, it seems almost nonsensical. And I think some people will find that very uninteresting. And that is, again, it brings us back to like Tarkov. This is so much what people love about Tarkov. And like, you're just probably not going to like the game if you don't, you know, like those things. Maybe Jerrica, you comment on that. Like, I know you deal with a lot of items in Destiny, but like, you know, you're literally picking up like all sorts of nonsensical items at first. Do you feel that were you interested to do it or did it seem like you just wanted to shoot the bots? I think not at first until like I had contracts like leaning into certain items I needed to upgrade and progress. And I think that realizing that and sort of doing those to help me get familiar is what sort of like helped me understand that. And after a while, like now I'm feeling more confident. Like I don't need, there's certain items I know I don't need. And I've started using like the tracking. Yeah, you can track it. Yeah, so that's really helpful. But at first, yes, a little overwhelming. But just know, like I say, like trust the system. Keep going through your contracts. Yeah. Slowly things start to make more sense. so yeah it's it's just got a big skill ceiling a high skill ceiling and and that's what it's all about you're gonna have to like that grind and and that's why i pointed out we're still like in the early part of it and that's that extraction shooter mantra right that is the name of the game you're gonna drop into a world and your goal is to loot and scavenge and bring that stuff out to upgrade and get stronger and yeah at the beginning when you see it you're like well what is all this right what is this weird larva bug like i don't need that it's like turns out when you go into the upgrade panel it's like oh well you need eight of those to upgrade this you're like damn it like i've been selling those i don't be picking those up like yeah what am i doing jerky brought up you and fran tracking items what do you mean by that school me maybe i'm missing out on a you are there's a couple big laying on there jerica do you want it well i was looking for something bioed for my vault space because like i'm like how i have i missed it i missed it like just and i'm like collecting all this stuff i'm a hoarder of things which you know, I'm sure Bungie hates me in my vault all the time. Now I have to buy more space, but I have these very specific things I need. And I was just missing them when I was out in the field. So that you can track them. Exactly. So the function, there's a couple of things actually that, again, there's this quality of life in the game that Tarkov, I don't know if it has now, but certainly didn't then. But as an example, you go to your factions and when you're hovering over those upgrade items, so you're like, oh, I want eight more slots on the vault. I want another row. You press on keyboard. It's the R button. Track salvage. You're going to track every item for you automatically. When you're in the game looting, what happens is, and this is a, it's just like Tarkov, but extraction shooter mechanic. When you start to reveal the bag, it's all fogged out, right? You can't see anything. And it starts, there's a loot speed. You have to upgrade. But what I'm getting at is when you track stuff, and, like, I don't know if any other extraction shooters do this. You'd have to tell me at this point. But it's a yellow eye. so as you're going out all of a sudden you'll see these blinky highlights you're like oh it's stuff i'm tracking i need and it makes it makes it so much more accessible but there's so much of that muscle memory to learn yes and then even like i even forget this is there when you start tracking stuff i don't know what the button is on um controller but if you press escape on the front menu you usually pull up everything you're tracking um oh and it's actually sorry it's in the game too you press escape and it shows everything you're tracking that's rad there's a lot of little what i appreciate see i haven't found that on controller oh i need that you got to find that jerica see i haven't been doing the tracking what i appreciate is when i hover hover over the item it says hey this is on perimeter and outpost this is where it's at and those things and so at least i know the general area so it's like hey it's on outpost south outpost or north relay south relay i'm like okay cool i want to be there right i'm going to find this there so that's good to know exactly one extra level yeah you want to do both and that's exactly it you you start getting into the game, you're going to be like, what do I want most? Do I want revive speed? Because I'm heavy on PVP. Do I want loot speed? Because whatever, it's burning me up, whatever. So you can really start to dial in what you want to track. And that is the way to play, by the way. Think of playing other, even just RPGs. If you're not tracking a quest, you're going to be at a disadvantage because then you're just bringing out too much. And then you were hinting at, you're like, oh, I left those behind. I've been seeing those all the time and you're like i could have all this extra vault space like i didn't know i needed a non-stable diode um so yeah definitely get into the depth of that if you enjoy the game it makes it so much more quality yeah uh jerica fran i want to talk some more what have i missed on the positive side of things that we want to highlight before we start flipping sides and talk about some of our critiques and some of the things we don't love okay uh i mean look i said it i think is the setup at the beginning. The positive side is just the quality of production. And again, you'd have to tell me, you went and played all the other extraction shooters. I just, I'm like, wow. Yeah, it feels like super high quality audio, super high quality visuals. You know, it is very much the extraction genre. And I think that's the part that people are struggling with. But dude, it's quality. And when, yeah, when you get to the outpost map, I wanted to ask you, did you have a wow moment? The third map, outpost. like when I went there I was like wait wait wait this is huge it's beautiful it's immersive I mean honestly that map I'm still processing it's a huge leap beyond the first two did you have that I think the quality I think you nailed it the quality of all of this is outstanding right and that third map is something special when you finally get to it and for me it was the environmental hazard it was the fire rain coming down of like me and Kevin were running around and like clearly it's a map designed of like it wants you inside It very much feels like Stellamontis in Ark Raiders, which is the final one where it's like, hey, you're going to clash, and you're going to be in these tight corridors. That's what this felt like of like, hey, you see this giant factory? That's cool and all, but most of the time you're going to be inside, and there's going to be threats in there, and I really dug that. There's so much to learn in there still. Have you seen where the fire or rain comes from yet? From above? The missiles coming down? Yeah, I saw that. I didn't even notice that at first. It was sick. I thought it was just raining ash from the sky, but then I was like, wait, this map is cat, like the, the labs or whatever. They're trying to keep you out by shooting this ash into the sky. It's pretty sick. Oh man. We had an extraction there. Jericho was crazy. We were, we clashed with something. There's like this moment where you start steamrolling where it's like, we took down one team or we took down another team. You're like, we're unstoppable. Kevin A-Sex. Like no one can stop us. We take down another. We got, we found this one kid just walking by himself. Got him ready. Like it feels so good. And then we got to the end. it's like we need to extract kid hits the button what happens fire rain and we're just all sitting underneath the roof like looking at the extraction watching doors like waiting and it's like this intensity that you don't feel anywhere else because now it's like we're on pause but other teams are coming to like they do a great job limiting the extractions on the outpost where it's like there's only one and it's like okay most people are going to come here right it's like here they come and it's like oh we had a blast on that loved it it reminded me of uh cut their momentum keep pushing you know that is a little iron banner destiny for you start rolling but anyway i was gonna say there's so many little things again as you talk about it like for people who haven't played the game again i feel like the most rewarding part about it is what you start to learn and master and i feel like an absolute novice still after 25 hours and just to use an example, you're on outposts. I just realized that last night, so if you get overheated, it shows you the debuff in the corner. It's actually a two-minute overheat, and I was triaged, so I threw my drone out, and it exploded immediately, and I was like, wait a minute. I just, I thought I cooled down because I went inside, but I was still overheating. There's all these little things, so you would have to pop one of those purple mechanics kit to cool your hardware down, but there's a lot of little things like that and some people are going to absolutely hate that management um but that's frankly again it's very tarkov like there's all these little things to boost your agility and again we're at the beginning like i have not rolled blue shields with a bunch of goodies let alone purples let alone whatever's going on with these exotic you know or gold prestige buffs i haven't looked into it because i want to be surprised but that's probably what's going to come out of cryo archive um so look we haven't just seen the beginning of the depth i think and the people that get into the game and love it are going to be those people. You want to grind for like a hundred hours or 200 hours and master this stuff. That moment when you look at your loadout before you go in and you start to really fine tune what you want, right? Like make sure I got my shield buff on. Okay. Here's the three power buffs on the bottom. What do I want? Oh, I'm not using melee damage. Take that out. Right. Oh, I want a little bit more on the heat sink. So I'm not, I'm not slowing down on running. Right. It's like, I love that game of like Jericho brought it in. It's like at the beginning, I'm like, I can't lose any of my stuff. This is all important to me. I can never lose this. And now I'm on like run 20. And I'm like, I'm going to find the best loadout and we're going to risk it all. And we're going to go forward because now I am that little extra step more powerful than you out there in the battlefield. Hopefully that takes me to the next level. But I appreciate it. It's like, hey, it's anybody's game out there. And they can quickly roll over you if you think you're the top dog. And by the way, am I the only one like stabbing bots, the feeling and the sound are like so good. And they, all the iconography is brilliant, but even like finishing enemies, like the feeling of the, don't you feel it's super high quality and getting the health back to you as well. That's just the feeling of hitting the, the finisher button. And you like, I forget the animation, but it like sucks the life out of it. So cool. All that stuff. I love you. Had your life sucked by the tentacle monster up in the sky. That thing, dude, get that thing out of here. First few nights. I'm just constantly getting sucked, which doesn't sound great, but you know, it's just like, help me. I'm screaming at the game. balls. I'm going to help. I'm getting sucked. I'll put that on comms and then you'll get two bots. I'm like, I'm getting double sucked. Help. You just got to embrace it. Jerrica, what are some fun things that I have that we have missed that you want to highlight? I think, you know, just bring, you know, I love, I love Dusty because I get to play with my friends. So like bringing in like just two folks you enjoy playing these games with has been probably the most rewarding thing so far and just like finding those wins with them. Like just the teamwork element is always what drives me to keep playing destiny and then getting loot and is this a little bit of the same thing it is um i think just the the pvp quick turn of events of being able to get good as they say is going to be the challenge in it but the reward just also the reward and when you finally get to exfil with some finally finally find some good stuff just feels so great um and i yeah if anyone's gonna figure out how to make this game last a while i think it's bungie because they've done a great job with destiny in my opinion he's had its ups and downs but very quick to change a system or figure out for next season what needs to happen weapon balancing like those things that we feel like that might not feel great right now in terms of balancing of whether whether it's players weapons um environmental things like that is thing those things will get fixed by bungie like they'll figure it out so like i don't know like i'm a fan it feels fun to play to your point like i feel like my 40 dollars has not been wasted and i'm just really eager to see how it evolves and like what could come from marathon wait what other modes can we expect to see that haven't been shared already so it's exciting it's fun i'm glad i'm glad it's good i'm glad that you're enjoying it yeah for me uh it's the production value yeah fran like you brought up like i am wowed at the beginning of this with all the cinematics into just the beautiful world of tau steady into the gunplay that you know is so tight and so good with bungee right and like extraction shooters are fairly new for the general audience right and it is a tough nut to crack of like learning it living it breathing it of mastering it it's like that is a whole lifespan like you brought up with the learning curve of like you know shout out to one of the jabronis out there in our audience i came off of the service slam was like i'm not hot on this and the kid just wrote get good mike and i was like you know what jabroni i will and i've had the time in my life because of that so whoever you are thank you because i spent the time i took the time to slow down and say okay mike like let's learn this Let's try this. And I found the fun. I found the rhythm and I found the good times. Yeah. So interesting. Like you mentioned that 180, but I didn't realize it was actually that big. Like you really were down on it. And like once you start to feel the mastery. Yes. When we played the server slam, I felt like the game was too slow. We were doing 15 minute matches that we'd only bump into one team. Sure. I felt like we were running around the maps and it was empty. I felt like the AI was too strong and we'd get run over by them. or I felt like the time to kill was so fast that teams would get the drop on us and it would suck because I would die and I would lose. And the hardest part about an extraction shooter is there is no respawns. You do have to reload into the game. You have to reload out. You have to jump back in and do all the steps you're doing. And so there's this giant punch to the face that you kind of got to get back up on and be like, all right, let me try again. And that is one of the hardest parts of this kind of genre and battle royales in general. It's like, there's no respawn. You're not going to try again in a fast manner. You got to really commit to doing it again. Yeah. And I would just really stress again, like these, you know, we're early on and that's why we, you know, we'll talk about our final thoughts at the end of the show. And I'll be like, dude, this game is evolving. These games evolve. You haven't seen, we haven't seen it yet again, when everybody's running purple shields or whatever. And I have like very little good gear. I was just thinking about like scopes. I have like very little. And when I've had the opportunity to put on a blue scope or just to see the production value in the game, but also use the actual scope. Like I haven't had a thermal scope, but I've seen them and they are OP. You know, there's just all sorts of little things that in the depth of the game that I know, I haven't even seen yet. And I'll be really interested to see how that evolves. Let's have some fun. Let's jump into some super chats. So I want to round, round down the show with some super chats and then just some of our, our thoughts, our critiques and then we put our final thoughts our final touches on it Guitar hero arrow writes in with the Super Chats and says put in 20 hours with an open mind just not finding the fun Very let down as a fan of the originals. Bummed the IP was used for this. What's your history with the OG Marathon and thoughts on this as a reboot? Fran, Jerrica, do you know about the OG Marathon? Did you play any of it? And what are your thoughts on the reboot? I played very little of the original, but I mean, that was the precursor to Halo. And I really look, I know why they use the IP. Yeah, I easily see the the argument is put simply. This is we all wish that they took this and turn it into a Halo ask marathon campaign. Right. I wish it had that as well. Or was that me? Of course. But that's not what this is. But now that the job is done, I think it's really cool. and they're tying a lot of their worlds together, which they kind of already had, you know, between Marathon and Hale and stuff. So, like, I don't have a real issue with that. It's that I also want the campaign at some point. Of course, of course. Right? I don't think it's a problem, and we're seeing the lore now in the game, and it's pretty sick what they've done. Jericho, any ties to the OG Marathon? Not at all. I know a little bit, like, the history behind it, but, you know, impacting my decision to play wasn't a factor. yeah I have no ties to the OG marathon I don't even know about it so it's all new to me I'm loving the world and the lore and yeah I mean there's a piece of me that like sees these incredible cut scenes learning about the world it's like oh man like they would make a crazy cyberpunk sci-fi game and it's like you know I can't I'm looking at what I have right now and I'm still having fun with it yeah I mean I think we'll see it in this cryo archive but the one thing that is good that they were inspired by it and used it is like marathon was all about being kind of creepy horror-esque like first-person shooter vibes and like you get even as colorful as this world is it's pretty like scary and ominous and we see that the maps are increasingly so so yeah mike likes music writes in and says extraction shooters are the new battle royale we have so many of them now what has slash can bungee do to innovate in this genre i actually just disagree with Go ahead, Jerika, please. Well, I was like, I mean, after my weekend of like, what extraction shooters can I play? And the reason why I haven't played any that much is because I don't think there are a lot. Unless, yeah, correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think, like, Arc Raiders is the only thing that's standing out. Tarkov, like, those are the two I think about. And like, that one moment from, God, it just left me. Division. It wasn't actually the, it was like an extraction mode that I played. Like that was my touch, touch point. So I don't, I think, I don't think there is enough. And I do feel like they are doing a lot already. That's much different than anything else. I think it's in its own lane and the genre, which sounds great. A subcategory to some extent. Yeah. I think it'd be a longer discussion of like, why did we arrive here with marathon as an extraction shooter? But Mike, I would actually ask you, you did this recently. Like, what are the extraction shooters? Yeah. I'm actually, you know, I'm on the opposite side. very much like Jericho where it's like I don't think there is that many extraction shooters. I still think this is a new open market that people are diving into. There's history with extraction shooters especially with Escape from Tarkov. We point to the division with the Dark Zone which was like a very fun different thing at its time but when I look at the extraction shooter market there's actually not that many right? I don't think that the Hunt Showdown is an extraction shooter actually. It has extraction like but yeah I do not call it an extraction shooter. The Cycle Frontier is shut down. That was one. We still are waiting on Exo Born, which is one that I previewed out in Vegas a long time ago. Gave you guys a preview of. Yeah, it's not. That one didn't drop. And then, of course, we talk about Escape from Tarkov, Ark Raiders, and Marathon. Those are the big three that I have. Did you touch Grey Zone or Delta Force? Oh, yeah. I didn't touch those. That's an interesting one. And yeah, when you talk about their extraction shooters of Grey Zone and Delta Force and then Call of Duty had DMZ, right? And I think that this is kind of a different class of those. I haven't played much Grey Zone, so great pull on that one. But I still think that's like this is an unexplored place that people are wanting to find gold in. And yes, you are seeing that happen right now over the past two years with so many games trying to try a new mode. And I think it's just like you're coming hot off of Fortnite and Battle Royales, which have dominated the market for almost 10 years. People saying, I want something new. And now developers going, OK, well, what is new? What is different? What can we try? Or they just keep making you Battle Royale. So I think we're still early in the extraction game. Yeah, I think you could have a long conversation about like, wait, I wanted let's assume we wanted a PVP focused game. What would you want Bungie to do? Sure. Different discussion. but they made an extraction shooter. And all I would say is there's not that many that are done well with, especially this level of quality of life, production value, the lore, the cinematics, whatever. But then like, honestly, like I just personally don't know other than Tarkov that feels like this sort of brutal and like challenging. I haven't played, you know, a gray zone or Delta force or whatever, but someone brought up dark and darker, a little bit different vibe, but I like that. Well, no, no dark and dark. It's just a, it's not a shooter. It's medieval. Yeah. I would call it more hack and slash with some like spells, but it's true. It is an extraction game and there are, there's more extraction games. And I would just circle back to the, like what I said about arc race. Sorry. These games are just completely different. Yes. They share some very similar stuff, but the gameplay loop is the field is completely different. I mean, what can Bungie do or has done to innovate in this genre? I think that's the exciting part is Jerika and Fran are brought up with the raid system from destiny and how destiny really captured that idea of like solving puzzles on the fly with a group, right? And I think that's where this team will probably double down on the next map that we see. And I think in the future is they will start to have world that you will solve puzzles in dynamically and differently throughout each map that will be something special, right? It's like whether it be writing on the wall that leads you to one spot or it is, hey, we know that these are the five things that we need to do to unlock the special room. I bet you will see that happen a lot moving forward. which will be something special in the genre. Yeah. I mean, right now we are seeing a little bit of that. What Bungie does innovate in, right? Like they have a community driven event. There's panels in the game that nobody knows exactly what they're saying. And they're unlocking a real ARG website for the cryo archive. And you're seeing cameras of the fourth map that are being unlocked by the community as a percentage of like, so there's, I don't even know how it's done exactly, but you'll see a panel in the game that's doing something. And then eventually you'll find one that's saying something. And then you got to go to like another panel and everybody's starting to connect these dots. And then you have to input this information. I think on the website, you're unlocking the fourth map meeting bungees done this a lot, but they're letting the community actually unlock the fourth map. And I, I don't know if there's going to be a world's first type thing on that either, but I think they are innovating in that sense. I don't know if the other ones have done much of that. Yeah. So, um, yeah, I mean, you're feeling that bungee sauce there. Jeff writes in and says, got over 20 hours of marathon and loving it. The intensity is fantastic. Rock solo runs, uh, Rook solo runs plays like survival horror. Lore and story is deep too. Yeah. We highlighted that. We enjoy that as well. Yeah. I got to play some more Rook. I don't know. I like playing with my crew. I'm having so much. Yeah. So, I mean, it is good to reinforce like, if you want that experience, solo is the one that you want to feel horror and scared that playing solo is rough. Uh, street shadow writes in and says something I think gets, missed marathon is pvp ve and arc raiders is pve vp this is an uh intentional and can really decide how you view the game overall i'm loving it yeah i mean i think we're mixing up the letters on that just to have a little fun but it is like i do think the focus is more player versus player with environment in the background as like you said straight shadow of like i think in arc raiders me to sell it to Greg. It is it's very heavy player versus environment with players as a threat in the background as opposed to I think Marathon is kind of that next step of like PVP you are going to clash here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean our creators most often can be a lot more friendly or you can find ways to get in and out of there and there's a lot of cool PVE stuff. Yeah. Zeke speak writes in and says super late to the conversation but I've been mainlining Marathon since release and really digging it a game a game for everybody is a game for nobody yeah i saw that yeah i thought that was a fair like it was kind of what we were talking about right that deeper mastery yeah it may not please everybody and like the genre may not be for everyone and that's okay like we're not we don't all like the same games like some people will absolutely hate dark and darker or they just might hate call duty multiplayer you know like that doesn't make it bad but this one's gonna it's gonna be more narrow and i think that's again a different discussion well i It is a different discussion and a bigger discussion because Tristan does write in kind of following that. I see so many toxic opinions online, even desiring Bungie devs to be fired. It seems so many opinions become fashionable and it's so depressing. I love this game and I hope it survives. Fran, you and I have pulled you aside. We talked about Steam DB and Steam Charts, right? And that seems to be the latest trend in the video game online conversation is pointing the charts saying, oh they don't have enough players this and that and then there's always the conversation of well there's two other i mean three but there's two other major platforms xbox and playstation that this is on right you can't always point to just numbers here but it does seem to be the fashionable thing and i know friend you've been in this industry a long time you've seen it evolve grow and the conversations change the conversation now seems to be if you're not dunking and being negative you're not in with the fun conversations you're being mean yeah uh yeah I mean, if you haven't followed, people are just posting screenshots of Steam concurrence and stuff. And like, all I will say, I mean, I could go off, but it's really reductive to the game discussion. I love discussing game play. I love discussing the game loop. And what does it matter what the concurrency is unless you're having a problem matchmaking? And even then, like, you shouldn't even have to go look at that. Either the game's working or not. There's way more than enough players right now. or, and you brought this up, but I'm like, I think it's very rare that someone's like, oh, am I marrying this game for the next six to 12 months? Some people do do that. And it's a fair discussion if you invest your time and like, maybe it gives you some insight on that. But again, I'm like, why don't you just, it's 40 bucks, you know, like not everybody can, can spend all the money in the world, obviously. And I want to be sensitive to that. But my point is like, if you want to marry this game, sure, you can look at the steam concurrence, But otherwise, can we please just talk about the game? And we can focus mostly on you either like extraction shooters and this brutality. It's Apex meets Tarkov meets Destiny, whatever. And it has nothing to do with the fact that it was this many concurrence this weekend on Steam. And like you said, I'll leave it at this too. People just don't understand that sometimes, like you see, let's say 100,000 people on Steam. That's a simultaneous number. That's not a unique daily number. It's not a unique monthly number. We don't have that. It's also not engagement. and some games you get in and out in six minutes this game you're in there for 30 minutes engagement time and and the way that people behave is like that's a whole different number that you'll never see but uh i i just think it's really reductive to get into that that's all yeah everyone loves to be armchair quarterback is right yes that's my take everyone has an opinion on how they would run the business but as fran said let's talk about the game is it fun let's talk about the moment to moment tell me about that and then if you want to talk about the business side that's a whole another conversation. Yeah. Yeah. And again, it's different if it's having like actual problems or it, maybe it is a bad game. Like, look, high guard is obviously in this discussion and I was the same thing, a big defender of it. And I've seen some of these jabronis in chat coming through even like, is it the high guard dude? And it's like, okay, you don't even know what the high guard dude is. So let me just cover off on that. Look it up. I never said that game was going to be successful. I never said it was going to be incredible. I said, let's talk about it. Let's play it. That's what I'm about. I'm for game discussion, not game cancellation. And, like, yeah, you're starting to get set off here, obviously. Hey, no, Fran, we need more of that. We need to set the tone of we're here for game discussion, not game cancellation. But, yeah, I mean, I never in my life that I think I would see so many people so mad at a free game. It's just like, just move on if you're mad at it. But there is a deeper discussion in here that I think, again, is worth covering at some point. this live service problem and the way people feel treated and like they feel like the developers are wasting their time. Absolutely. There's a discussion we had, but that doesn't make marathon bad. And it didn't make a high guard bad. High guard was definitely an early game. And I wish that it could have gone through more early access stuff. But anyway, marathon is very different and it's quality. Well, here's a fun palette cleanser to finish out the super chats. A.V. That's right. Since and says, snow Mike, Mike, when is the Fran's only apron only cooking stream? I need to know when I need to renew my only Fran's account. Get your money out. I mean, I might have to cook you up something soon because I could use a few extra tips, Abe. Thank you very much. You're the best. Jerrica Fran, we will go around the table one last time. What did we miss that you want to add to the conversation? Any final thoughts to close this out? Let's get out of here and go play some more games. Jerrica, I'll start with you. i think we we got a game here for 40 that has so much potential and still to all of our points earlier just things we haven't even unlocked or figured out that like i think this game for what it's delivering it told us what it was going to be for the most part like it delivered on that and i feel like there's still a lot that i haven't even discovered so like as of right now like i I feel like this is a great game. Like it's got everything I would want from this world, I think in terms of just how everything looks, the factions are really interesting to me. It's got so much character and there's, you do feel that I feel the heart in this. And at a glance, you could look at marathon and think this is just something they're throwing at the wall. I get it. First glance, if you're not dialed into like the production and development of this game, but they really took a took an ip that's been long forgotten and made it memorable like i'm already if i see marathon splat like splat up on a billboard somewhere like i recognize it um it's exciting and i'm so think like i'm glad bungee the team got to work on something brand new like god i feel like i've just been wanting something new from them for so long so um it's a it's a more like a smaller scale thing but like i'm i'm eager to see if it continues the path that's on if it can open up in new ways like i said talking about raid design and uh level progression loot progression like bungee knows how's it how's that knows how to do that and i'm just really excited to see like what they what's the fun thing they do to evolve an extraction shooter game fran anything we missed anything you want to close on yeah i mean i would like to wrap up my thoughts. Yeah, of course. I know you guys do score stuff sometimes. I would just say, look, like I'm the type of person I like to get into the depth of a game. So yeah, not playing a ton of outposts yet, not even understanding a ton of these detailed mechanics like seeing you go from a I don't really dig this game to like, ooh, I'm kind of digging it. That can really change in a game like this as you get into the depth. But put shortly, like this game is not for everyone and Tarkov was not for everyone. And it turns out that Bungie decided to make that type of game. Yeah. I definitely feel again all this extra quality of life and polish and lore and everything that bungee brings to the table and it's all there but it's under this roof of this pretty hardcore extraction giant that's very pvp focused yes and so you're not gonna like it if you don't like those things i think you might even jump in and you might like dig the world is it worth your 40 bucks to kind of like roam around and roam around his rook like maybe but i think a lot of people will find that it's pretty unfriendly out there. It's not like our creators. And that's even a meme, like people going up and finishing people on comms. And they're like, this ain't our creators. And that is this game and you're going to have to like it. So I think they did a really nice job bringing it to the finish line, getting that extra six months versus where it was last year. It looks a lot better. You know, granted that was a play test alpha last year. And that was the same thing I was saying then of like, these things will evolve and change. Look at how much they did in a year. So, you know, imagining that marathon will stick around for at least several seasons. Imagine how it will change. But point is I want to see the depth of it, but from a quality side and review and progress side, I will say this game's absolutely in the eight type territories. It's solid. It's great, but you've got to like the genre. And for some people, they're going to be like, no dude, I hate it. And you're like, yeah, you wouldn't like Tarkov either. Yeah. So I would leave it at that. And I'm really interested to see again, how it evolves and like seeing builds probably and the rare loot that excites people like we haven't even seen that destiny side of it and i'm curious we will and i'll leave it there but like the oh i have to get the backpack out of cryo archive because it does x or y like i don't know if we get there but probably you'll get there and then you'll have that dance of do i bring it in because it's very powerful and helpful but also mike and his cronies are looking you know like that's the fun part about the extraction world yeah and and maybe the last thing i would think is important to bring up is like it is a live service game um it's got a reward pass that you uh need to buy for 10 bucks or something or with the deluxe edition and yeah either purchases right yeah two two routes yeah you can get quite a bit of cosmetics from challenges and stuff out of the codex though yes yes but they're it's a grind and i just wanted to bring that part up too that if you want to get a lot of cosmetics and stuff it is a grind but the whole game is a grind and and um i was just remembering that i wanted to point that out as it's likely a negative for me as much as I dig the game, I mean, similar to Tarkov, it's like, dude, I feel like I have to play this for like 70 to 100 hours before I'm going to be getting these purple shields. Okay, okay. And so you have that conversation. It's like, well, wait, if I can't, in other words, if the reward is I want to feel the power and that's when you really start enjoying it. I mean, Elden Ring can be that way, et cetera. You really got to put in a lot of work and Bungie can be particularly grindy. So I'm taking a guess here, but it might be too grindy for me and some, but some people love that. So, yeah. I've done a full 180 on this game. If you asked me last week, I would have said absolutely not. Now this week, I am really into it, right? And if you followed me here at Kind of Funny throughout the months of Ark Raiders to this, you probably, just like Fran said, right? Like this is right up Mike's alley. This is not Ark Raiders. I am looking for the PVP. I'm looking for the clash. The tight Destiny gunplay and movement feel great. The world and production value is through the roof. I really enjoy it. I'm having fun chasing the high. I look forward to playing it more. And yeah, if we were to put a number on this, Fran, I'm at like really good to great. I'm at like a high seven to an eight, right? Like this game is good. This game is a lot of fun. It's absolutely good. And so it's like, I hope that people who want to dive in have a great time with it. I hope they learn the world and enjoy it. People who are on the fence and they hear this, I hope they hear what Fran and Jerrica and myself have to say. Like, this is a punishing world. This is Ark Raiders to the next level when it comes to PvP, right? It's like, Arc Raiders did so great to get you in and understanding the extraction world. And if you started enjoying that and you want more and you want to try something different, this is a perfect next step, right? I really do think this is like the next 2.0 of what Arc Raiders is of like, here's the welcoming world. Here's where you learn. Here's where you have a good time. Hey, if you want to go even more in depth and you want to get to a little hardcore sweaty, this is the next game for you to try. Yeah. Yeah, it's going to be interesting. I want to see where I land once I've played everything and get to the depth. Like, my favorite games is when you see the gameplay evolve and you get the mastery of it. So to me, again, I feel a novice there, and that's why I don't feel comfortable actually scoring. But it already, yeah, it's absolutely a good game that may not be for everybody. Yeah, no doubt. And that has been your kind of funny impressions review thus far of Marathon from Bungie after Weekend One. Looking forward to more fun in Tau Steady 4. I can't wait to hopefully stream it with Andy and Nick. maybe some more Fran and Jerrica, and we'll see you around on the next Kind of Funny Gamescast. We're not done, though. If you're watching live on YouTube and on Twitch, Nick Scarpino has a very fun solo stream. Y'all asked for it. You said, Mike, we want Nick to play Dispatch. Guess what? For the next two days, Nick is playing Dispatch all by himself, just for you. So come out and support it. Come out and enjoy the decision-making and the fun of that awesome superhero tale. But until then this is the end of the games cast it's been our pleasure to serve you goodbye freeze frame