Infinite Scale - A podcast about Video Games
Listen to William Chandler, Chris Crossley, and Christopher Merced discuss the games they're playing, the news, and even (TOPIC).
Infinite Scale - A podcast about Video Games
Infinite Scale Podcast #83 - Carry the Zero
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We're back! This time we talk about how much we love paying more for game consoles that came out years ago! Awesome!
So what's been going on?
SPEAKER_12You know what I do every day? Tell me. I I I wake up and then I look for a job. Well I go to the gym and then I look for a job. And then I play video games. And then you look for a job? Uh and generally, yeah, I'll check my emails for jobs. But most of the time there's no jobs there. And then I apply for more jobs, and then I go back to playing video games. So that's always pretty cool. Mostly the video game is just deadlock. And the jobs is usually just like LA night.
SPEAKER_11You just you're trying to become LA Knight? Is that is he hiring?
SPEAKER_12Well, I just watch I just watch uh no, I don't think so. You know who you used to be a gay porn actor? You're trying to become a gay porn actor? No, but I mean like it's not out of the question. I'm not like attempting to do it right now. I guess anything's really on the table.
SPEAKER_11I see. So you're you're hoping to make the transition from uh uh gay porn actor to uh front-end developer. That's why yeah, I see like LA'll be the LA knight of web dev.
SPEAKER_12Yeah. I I I in my in my mind, I think a lot of what's missing um from front-end developers is a sense of uh charisma, you know? That is definitely true. And if I were to put that on my resume, you know, like right above my um my social media platform that I built out, then they would see that I'm basically like the whole package.
SPEAKER_11What uh did you take any humanities classes or anything?
SPEAKER_12Or technically, yes. Okay, but it was just like I'm pretty sure the only real humanities I took was like philosophy 101. I can't think of anything else that I took that was like humanities.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, famously no annoying guys come out of philosophy 101. That's that's uh the most well-adjusted people. Yeah, I um I only ask because I feel like I feel like the biggest thing in tech that's missing is people who actually take and value humanities classes when they're blitzing through college to try to get to a job that pays them $200,000 a year as soon as possible. They're like speed running, speed running the uh save up enough money for retirement by you know, whatever. What's that? Uh where you you just work for 10 years, but you save like all of it and then you retire. What is that? It is like a movement. I don't know. It's called it's got like a term for it. It's like uh shit. I can't think of it. No, no, no, no. 10 years when you work somewhere for like a long time and you then they pay you afterwards. They yeah, you get a retirement package, basically, and they continue to pay you. Almost no jobs have well, that's the only academia, I guess, has that these days. Uh yeah, no teachers do. What the hell is uh work and save everything? Everything and retire early. Typing with one hand is really hard. Don't ask what the other hand is doing. Uh oh yeah, it's called FIRE. It's called it's an acronym. Financial independence retiring early is a money strategy that's sweeping the nation. Uh it's not easy, but it is simple. Earn more, spend less, and use the difference wisely. Build a baseline of financial security with the difference first, then use it to invest for your future. That way you can't.
SPEAKER_12Yeah, but those people are fucking weird.
SPEAKER_11Those people suck. You don't want to be friends with those people. Um yeah, fair. Here's the top post on the subreddit right now. 346 updutes. It says thoughts on depression fire?
SPEAKER_12True. Yes. No, those people really are like they have they're mentally unwell people. Single male here.
SPEAKER_11Mid 30s. Most people planned to fire, but I didn't. One day I just gave up. I stopped showing up to work and got fired. Previously, comp 400k. Jesus Christ. Didn't look for another job, just stopped doing anything, stopped dating, stopped exercising, stopped cooking food. I just wake up at noon and scroll on my phone until 3 p.m.
SPEAKER_09What does he do all the other hours of the day? Okay, you wake up at noon. Stop that you scroll until three. What do you do after that?
SPEAKER_12I was literally just about like before you read that, I was literally just about to say those people are fucking like mentally unwell and they're setting themselves up for a life of failure after they're done doing that. Because they're lit, like their whole life is built around just saving up so that they can retire. So when they retire, they're gonna have fucking nothing. They're like literally going to be husks of human beings.
SPEAKER_11Yeah. Top comment, top comment. I think you sound depressed and should use some of that money to find a good therapist.
SPEAKER_05Um you can do that. Well, I would need a job first.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get the job, but I mean, like, start off in start off in Gay porn, then go to web dev, and then become the LA Knight of Web Dev and post on our fire about how depressed I am. Yeah.
SPEAKER_12I wouldn't be depressed, I'd use that money to go travel the country because I'd just be following SmackDown and Raw. Yeah. That is I'd be I can just go city to city. That would actually be sick, I'm not gonna lie.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, I would enjoy doing that. Instead of becoming like one of those people who does like uh remote work like in like a beach in Cabo, you're like doing remote work from every arena.
SPEAKER_12Yeah. Raw is that, yeah. Yeah, I would absolutely do that. Yeah, yeah. Do remote jobs generally like force you to stay in the location, or is that only like I don't even know?
SPEAKER_11No, I mean, no, as long as you get the work done and the job doesn't require you to be somewhere at a specific time, no one gives a shit. That'd be sick.
SPEAKER_12That's what I'm gonna do.
SPEAKER_11Sometimes they do though. I mean, yeah, every job's different. But like for me, it's like I mean, I just need to be able to be on the meetings that I'm supposed to be on and have phone calls, but like I'll like sometimes I will travel out of the country and work from wherever that is if I have stuff, you know what I mean? Like, I mean, I don't think they would be thrilled if I was permanently on a six-hour time difference, but like, but you know, occasionally, yeah, I can't. Yeah, but I'll be I'll be like plus or minus like two hours.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_11I mean, in the US it's easier because it's like like when I fly home to Florida, I have a regular work day, you know what I mean? But yeah. Um anyway.
SPEAKER_12But but yeah, to to your your point that you were originally making, it is it is true that people who are more well socialized have a much easier time getting these these jobs. Like they're because you you don't find a whole lot. You'll you'll find tons of people who are like really good at coding, but you're not gonna find people who are very good at socializing or working together with other people. I've gotten yeah, I've gotten very, very close multiple times now to uh to getting a job, and I credit it basically just to that, essentially.
SPEAKER_11Yeah. Yeah, being a likable person, this is actually a this is this is a good question. What's more valuable in the workplace, being liked or being good at your job? It's being liked.
SPEAKER_12As long as you're not a shitter, you know.
SPEAKER_08If you're a shitter, then you can't be helped. Realistically a mix of both, but that's not what you're asking, I guess.
SPEAKER_11Uh let's say, okay, what what would be a more of a detriment if you're the best guy at the job but no one likes you? Or if you're a average to below average performer, but everyone likes you? What's more valuable?
SPEAKER_08Where where I work, I mean, being bad at your job is gonna cost us a lot of money, so. Yeah. I don't really care if I like you if you're doing a good job.
SPEAKER_11But what if they have like, because you are you're not on the line. What if they have your job? What if it's you?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, I mean. Some people probably don't like me, but I'm really good at my job.
SPEAKER_10Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_11He's testing the theory in real time.
SPEAKER_12Any any job I've ever had being liked matters so much more. Yeah, it really basically it's a good thing. You can get away with so much shit.
SPEAKER_08The people that need to like me like me, and the people that don't need to like me, I am not concerned with. Yeah. You're fine with them not liking you. They're not gonna work here in five years, so it's like, yeah, I don't care how you feel about me. Yeah, because you'll be firing them. No, I won't. But it's not my own.
SPEAKER_12You're gonna get the other guy to fire them.
SPEAKER_08It'll happen with or without my intervention, I guess. They're not gonna that like there's just I don't know. There's people worth putting time into, and there's people that's not worth putting time into.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_11Speaking, speaking of not worth putting time into Crimson Desert.
SPEAKER_08We're back.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, yeah.
One Big Happy Steam Family
SPEAKER_08Crimson Desert. Uh I think I'm all in. I just played two hours and I was ready for you to not be done with Resident Evil so I could keep playing it. Hell yeah. Well, I mean, you'll you can get back to it right after this. I will, even if I have to buy it myself.
SPEAKER_11No, I don't worry. I'll uh oh yeah, because we're sharing two copies amongst like four people. Uh yeah. Wait, I have a question about that actually. Steam Steam, plug your ears. Okay, we're sharing all these copies. So there's we own two copies of Crimson Desert, but there's four of us playing it. If I load up, let's say someone's playing my copy and I load up Brandon's copy. Let's test it right now. Do I okay? Yeah, load mine up and then see if your saves are in there. Because you were playing Brandon's, is that what you were doing?
SPEAKER_08Or I was playing Brandon's because he had the pre-order pack.
SPEAKER_12Okay. Theoretically, we wouldn't have to be.
SPEAKER_08I was also curious about this. If I booted up yours that doesn't have the pre-order pack, do I lose the pre-order content? Do I just start over? How does it work? I don't know. All right, I'm gonna switch to yours. Theoretically, it would all be local with a backup in the cloud. That's what I was thinking, but I I I'm not sure. I I'm kind of scared. I don't want to fuck with Mossberg on accident.
SPEAKER_11Well, no, it'll it will it will stop you from playing. So, like the other day, two people were playing Crimson Desert at the same time. It told me I couldn't even launch the game. It was like you it was like you're you someone is using your copy, you can't play this right now.
SPEAKER_12So you guys wouldn't even be able to trust it right now then. No, that's not what he's asking. He's asking about the save files. I'm asking to know if you use a different if you use the other copy that you weren't using before, does your save still work from the other copy? Correct.
SPEAKER_11I'm booting the other copy. See, it literally updated in real time. It says in use by your Steam family member crisscross crimson desert.
SPEAKER_08It's booting. If it compiles shaders again, I'm gonna reverse note. There's no way, right?
SPEAKER_12It wouldn't be that yeah, no, because that's all local as well. It's all based off of your GPU.
SPEAKER_08Alright, you're correct.
SPEAKER_12See, from your Steam family library and used by Crossley. It doesn't say that Mossberg's using it.
SPEAKER_11He's using the other copy, he's using Brainerd's copy. Oh, I see. Everybody wants to use Brandon's copy because he got the pre-order DLC. What is the pre-order?
SPEAKER_08Who knows? Probably just a cosmetic or something.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, I think I'm pretty sure that isn't.
SPEAKER_08Here, I'll check right now. Okay, I still have my armor. And you're saying you're using the one that you were using before. No, I swapped over to Chandler's.
SPEAKER_11Oh, oh, I see. Okay, so it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, basically. It seems to not matter, at least for this game. There could potentially be well different circumstances. I bet because you already claimed the armor.
SPEAKER_11Voting in is trippy as fuck. Sorry. Yeah, it hurts, it hurts my eyes. I bet because you claim you already claimed the pre-order armor, they can't take it away from you. You just wouldn't be able to claim it on my save. You know what I mean? Right, right. Or on my copy. That is really funny though. So so it doesn't matter. You can you can use your saves on any on any version that someone has. That's good to know.
SPEAKER_12Yeah. A save is just a referenced file, isn't it?
SPEAKER_11Well, yeah, but because it's like a weird like difference in amount of content, I thought maybe the licenses would be incompatible. But I get what you mean. Yeah, I mean, theoretically, Merced is correct that it shouldn't have that big of a thing.
SPEAKER_08But it'd be interesting for like a game where one of us has the DLC and one of us doesn't.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Uh like let's say we all had Liz of P, Merced bought the DLC.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_12And the save is in a Lies of P DLC area. How does that work?
SPEAKER_10Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_08That is that's a good question. Right. Something like that where there's a drastic difference in content. Um or something. Yeah. We'll see. We'll we'll we'll live it out in real time. Yeah. Eventually, yeah.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, there's always there's always that fun experience in modern society where something that should work easily and make perfect amounts of sense doesn't and annoys you to no end. Um, I believe we called those first world problems when we were young. Um we're back. You know what it is. Um I I had the news first because there's not a lot of it, and I figured we could talk about games after. The main thing the main thing, there's there's two pieces of news. And and I'm itching to get to the first one
Who Watched the Xbox Partner Showcase
SPEAKER_11because I think that uh it's kind of hilarious. So um I haven't talked to a single person who watched the Xbox partner preview. Did you guys even see because I I was working, so I didn't watch it. Did you guys even see the um the games or anything? Any did you see any news, anything that got announced from it at all?
SPEAKER_08Nah, give me a stream, brother. This is all real time learning for me. Okay. I saw a YouTube short of kinda funny shitting on the entire presentation with uh no context.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, I mean they're they're PlayStation people anyway. So I mean that they have Xbox people there.
SPEAKER_08Do they now? Okay, interesting. Yeah, yeah, they have uh they have a few Xbox heads.
SPEAKER_11So thanks again to Nextlander.
SPEAKER_08Majority PlayStation.
SPEAKER_11Um Thanks again to Nextlander for setting this up. Uh this thing that that lists everything that got announced. Um okay, we're going to we're gonna go in order, I think, of the good shit. Uh because there is one trailer in particular that you guys have to see. Have to. I was already excited for this game. Dude. This trailer, I'm not even kidding you, completely won me over for this game. Okay. We're just gonna wa we're just gonna well, we're just gonna watch the whole thing, okay? All right. I'm not even joking. I they could have not shown anything else. And I just that I mean, I I watched this and I was like, this is they don't have a release date for it yet. This we think it's by the end of this year.
SPEAKER_08Uh who's making that RGG, dude. Who sorry, what is that? Who is the Yakuza Studio? Oh, okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_11Uh, what they're called. Nice. Uh this shit is hot. Like the the the most sauce I have seen in a game trailer in a long time. Like, since that first marathon reveal trailer, crossly, that you and I went like ape shit over because the music and the fucking the way they cut that shit together. Yeah, true. That dude, the this this is rivaling that in terms of I understand now the whole vibe. I understand what they're going for, the the the art direction, like the freeze frames with the big block text and everything. Yeah, the all the draw, the percussion only, like sharp cuts of different types of gameplay. I mean, it's clearly a Yakuza game, like in terms of like lot of lots of little mini games, lots of just fist fighting and stuff, but the vibes different eras is interesting.
SPEAKER_08I wonder. Yeah. It's it's interesting, yeah. I'm worried that'll be like a 200-hour long game. Of course it will. Have you even completed a Yakuza game?
SPEAKER_11Uh I completed Yakuza Kiwami 1, the remake of the first game. Nice, dude. Thank you. Proud of you. Thank you, thank you. Um so that was probably the middle, like I I sped run the the the uh serious Sam. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh dude, you're gonna be really disappointed. Don't worry. This guy's a serious Sam hater. Okay. You really want you really want me to do this to you? Yes. Do it to me. Do it to me.
SPEAKER_10Okay, alright. Shit.
SPEAKER_12Fuck. Oh my god, roguelike elements. Yeah.
unknownLook at that.
SPEAKER_11Another red.
SPEAKER_08That's what it criticism.
SPEAKER_11I I like Devolver Digital as a as a publisher. Uh a whole lot. That game looks fucking terrible.
SPEAKER_12If I see cards, I am out immediately. If you show like fucking big three of fucking whatever to power up your shit, I'm done.
SPEAKER_04Holy fuck.
SPEAKER_12This is the laziest slop shit that you could possibly do with your fucking video games in 2026. Like, it's so stupid at this point. Holy fuck, I hate it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. Yeah, it's unfortunate.
SPEAKER_11Yeah. Uh the only other things, uh, so obviously I'm not gonna bore you guys, but the stalker 2 expansion got announced. Um, it looks really good. It's it's gonna be great. It's already a great game. It made me buy the ultimate edition of Stalker 2 on Steam just so I could because I played it on Game Pass originally. So I bought the ultimate edition on Steam just so uh I could play through it again and then be ready for the DLC. Um that's really cool. Then we'll do let's let's do this. Do you guys do you guys ever play Hunter the Reckoning for the PlayStation 2? It's set in the Vampire the Masquerade uh universe. Um remember this at all. This is mostly like a cinematic trailer. It's it's a very clever little thing where this guy who's I guess clearly yeah, this is like literally an NYPD car under a train track somewhere in Brooklyn. This looks like the beginning of Resident Evil.
SPEAKER_08You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_13You never know.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, kinda, yeah, actually.
SPEAKER_13Um the thing that changes you forever.
SPEAKER_11So they do this like thing where you're like, oh, this guy is uh about to get fucked up by whatever is hiding in this dark, dark place. He's like, what's going on here? You know, like um. But they do a cute little thing for its prey.
SPEAKER_00There's nothing here.
SPEAKER_02Oh god, what's he gonna do to her? The bad guy.
SPEAKER_05No.
SPEAKER_11That's pretty cute. We have learned. We like that. Um and we I mean, we all know cops are vampires, so um that's cute.
SPEAKER_12That's why you have to invite them into your home, they're not allowed in until you tell them they can. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_11Uh who invited that guy in you want you think? Anyway. That's his home. Oh, got it. Okay. If you're if you're a cop, I do so like would that make you worse at being like a SWAT officer because you you couldn't break it, you couldn't kick the door in because you gotta be invited.
SPEAKER_12Um yeah, those aren't vampires. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_11SWAT officers are not vampires. Um there is some so this the existence of this game actually got leaked. Because the developers of this are actually the developers of that RoboCop game that came out like a year or two ago that people really liked, but was like kind of a basic thing. Um They also did a Terminator game that people really liked. Uh, another first-person game. Um, this is the the leaks kind of suggest.
SPEAKER_03I'm a vampire.
SPEAKER_11Uh the leaks kind of suggest that this is um gonna be closer to bloodlines. So like an RPG, basically. Uh but it looks it looks cool, and I'll take studios m taking wild swings at random shit that people, you know, like they don't make too many fucking um vampire the masquerade games these days, you know what I mean? Like, there's not really a lot of that stuff. I mean, you've had a few recently just because people were trying to capitalize on you know bloodlines and all that stuff, but I mean I'll take more of that stuff. And as a hunter, you know, obviously you're you're hunting down the vampires and the werewolves instead of usually all the vampire games you play as you know, the vampires rather than the hunters. So it's it's kind of interesting, but um that one that one got me. Just just oh by the way, just so yeah, let's go game cube. This is what Hunter the Reckoning looked like.
SPEAKER_02I don't know that your brain is trying to process the horrible fact that oh my god, it's pretty good.
SPEAKER_10Classic. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_11Um back when life was was simple, you know. Is this all just an escort mission? Uh I remember almost nothing about this game, but no, I think it was like basically like levels with different like little kind of semi-open zone type objective stuff that you had to do. But no, there it was like mission structure from what I recall.
SPEAKER_08These animations are crazy. A remake of this is gonna be sick. Yeah, hell yeah. Imagine fighting these with today's technology.
SPEAKER_11Dude, they should uh yeah, they that's that's what they should have done in the run-up to announcing the new one is just threw out threw together a quick remake, remaster, get this bad boy going. I my memory of this game is that it was basically just like uh the Lord of the Rings movie tie-in games. It does look yeah, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, that's Hunter the Reckoning. Um, I think that game's gonna be sick. Um it's not a remake. It's it's just set Hunt Hunter same name. Yeah, I guess to be clear, Hunter the Reckoning is the name of the tabletop game. That that all of the the property that all this stuff is based on. So Hunter the Reckoning is a tabletop uh spin-off of Vampire the Masquerade. Vampire the Masquerade is is obviously the one where you play as vampires and is the origin of all that stuff. The people who hunt the vampires are obviously the hunters in that universe. Somebody made a spin-off tabletop game in the I guess it was the eighties or nineties called Hunter the Reckoning. And the GameCube PS2 game literally just took the name and just called it Hunter the Reckoning. Um, and so now this is called Hunter the Reckoning. Death Wish is the new one. They're saying it comes out in 2027. Um, Teon is the developer, they're the ones who did uh Robocop Rogue City, the Terminator Resistance thing. Uh, these are good, by the way. Uh, if you if you Robocop Rogue Rogue City in particular is really good. Um the Terminator one Rogue City Unfinished Business, a DLC or something? Yeah, it's a DLC. Wow. Um, this has one of the most satisfying uh animation systems for shooting a guy straight in the head and watching his head blow off and him ragged all through the air. Um uh published by NACO, which is really funny because if you've been paying attention to the news, I didn't bring this into the news section, but Nakon just declared bankruptcy. Oh wow. So uh they had some credit structure issues. This was before this trailer even came out, so I don't know what's going on with that. Okay. Yeah. Anyway, that's uh I think the last thing I'm super interested in talking about here. Have you guys been playing paying attention to this expanse game at all? Um no. I'm actually aware of it, but I don't know too much about it at all. I don't know what the newest, I guess the newest video is usually at the bottom.
unknownLet me see.
SPEAKER_11Probably okay, Xbox Partner Preview. Okay, this is the one. So we don't need to watch this whole thing, but nudity. It's actual content. So it was like uh this is Owlcatch game thing made sense. Yes, in the sense that it's a mass effect, they're making a mass effect. With the expanse? With the expanse. So this this is Owlcat Studios, which they made um the uh uh Pathfinder games, Wrath of the Righteous and the Kingmaker, and then they also made that uh uh Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader game that was a CRPG. This is their first time making like a big budget third person one of these. It's it's literally everything they say, all the marketing, everything they're talking about, they're literally just like we're making a mass effect. Like that's belongs to Belters. That's all it is. Um It comes out next universe. In the Expanse universe. I didn't become a wait for my enemy. Oh. Um I watched the first season of the Expanse and thought it was perfectly good.
SPEAKER_08Do you know if this is like those characters? I haven't watched it. Is my friends uh my understanding those characters or it's just in that world?
SPEAKER_11My understanding is it's in the world and relates to like it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility for some known characters to show up, but I actually I I don't know for sure.
SPEAKER_08Okay, um like you're not playing the main character of the show, no.
SPEAKER_11No, like that. No, okay. It's not like that. No.
SPEAKER_13Um we have to find our own answer.
SPEAKER_11I am just such an RPG sicko, I will absolutely happily play this. I mean, I don't care if I even didn't like the expanse show, I would be into it. Um cat, great studio, by the way. I mean, that Rogue Trader game basically catapulted them from relative, you know, PC RPG obscurity into like people know who Alcat is now. Um so uh this is I think I don't know if they have it in this video. They announced during the um partner preview that there's going to be an a closed beta for this. They're basically doing early access, but they're not calling it that. I don't know. Okay, I don't know why. It's basically going to let you play large chunk like a large chunk of the game with uh kind of pre-made characters rather than a created character. And I guess they're looking for feedback on stuff. I don't know. But it starts next month. So that's interesting. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe they're trying to polish some things up. I think they've historically like if I remember correctly, Rogue Trader was an early access for like a year. So they must have liked that process. Um that's pretty much it. I guess we could look at this really quick. I it's it's not easy to tell from the font and styling of this like thing, but this is an alien. They're making an alien game, is what they're doing. Um I do not know. Rebellion.
SPEAKER_02Where is everyone?
SPEAKER_11Which I was under the impression that rebellion closed down. Seems to be a theme. Yeah, I'm actually gonna look it up right after this. What who I think maybe they got um embraced by the embracer group.
SPEAKER_08These aliens don't look like aliens. They look fucked up, right? I like that.
SPEAKER_13Well, that speeds.
SPEAKER_11That was it? That was it. Wow. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Oh, oh that wasn't it. It's gonna be the thing. Oh, it wasn't. Okay.
SPEAKER_08Wow. Yep. I didn't like that as a fan of Alien. I need to see an alien.
SPEAKER_04I felt the xenomorphs.
SPEAKER_11Uh, there were some. It was in that section where he's shooting at all the things crawling on the wall. But um, yeah. Who owns? Yeah, they made sniper elite. Who owns Rebellion these days? Oh, they made Atom Fall. Duh. Forgot about that. Forgot about that.
SPEAKER_12Sniper Elite games.
SPEAKER_11Yeah. Yeah. And they did, oh, that's why they did the original like Alien vs. Predator PC games back in the day. The ones that people really liked, like in the 90s and 2000s. Okay, closure of Derby Studio. Okay, yep. Yeah, they made that really bad for Alien vs. It wasn't that bad, but it was only it was kind of bad. Uh blah bah ba. Yeah, they had a good they had a good time with the sniper elite. Sniper Elite 3. Okay. No closing or anything. It doesn't. So maybe they've just been around. Yeah, they're just chilling. It's been working on this. I mean, I really liked Atomfall. I thought that was a great game. So um good for them. Good for them. Um anyway. So that that was the Xbox thing. Uh it's just funny, I guess, to me, that no one gave a shit about it at all. Um and there were some like new games announced. And more importantly, uh they had the the that was the biggest look at the expanse game that anybody had seen, so that was like a good one. And uh that Stranger Than Heaven trailer just just fucking rules. So it's not even the worst thing to come out of a like a game studio announcement video or whatever, but it's it's just people are just very mad at Xbox right
What is an Xbox
SPEAKER_11now. Um I also did see they killed that um Xbox marketing campaign, the This Is an Xbox campaign that everybody was mad about. Did you guys see that?
SPEAKER_12I like that campaign. Did you actually yeah, I thought that was a good direction to go in for them.
SPEAKER_11Well you're the only one. Well, I don't know why. I mean it didn't matter to me at all. I'm one of those people who doesn't fucking give I mean they're they're just more yeah, I didn't think it was a particularly offensive campaign. Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Well yeah, I don't know. I guess Merced, here my quick perspective is you thinking it's good while also not being the target audience or ever gonna buy an Xbox is like, well, what does that even mean? But that's the point.
SPEAKER_12My PC is an Xbox, that was the whole point of the campaign. Yeah.
SPEAKER_11All the people who were the most mad about this were people who valued Xbox as a console more than as a platform brand. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, I think there's people who are still very like console war brain children, brain dead children, and they they really like feels like we're going back that way.
SPEAKER_08If Sony stuff is true, console is more expensive, households are only gonna be able to pick one and then feel like they have to justify why they bought that one when one is clearly better in time, yeah.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, I mean, in the case of in the case of this, I think Mercedes right in that it was a pivot away to to create Xbox as a as a brand that could exist on any device, right? That was Phil Spencer's big bet. That was what everybody talked about when he got let go as being like his big failure or whatever, was basically making Xbox not a console that people wanted to own anymore. Um in my mind, what he saw was what every tech company saw other than other game studios, which is media as a service. That's that's really it. And rather than own everything, you just rent everything. It's Apple Music, it's fucking you know, uh Netflix, it's all that stuff. That's what that's what Phil Spencer saw. Let's just get a piece of that revenue. It didn't really work really kind of specifically because the high cost of the subscription combined, well, now, right? It's $30 for Xbox Game Pass. Yeah, but it made sense. I mean it was the perfect storm of failures because it was basically AAA game development costs have ballooned to $300 plus million dollars, according to Jason Schreier, for every single game. That means you're making at most two games a year, right? And then the other thing is um the time it takes to make these games takes you 10 years, eight years, you know, five years to get a return on that investment. You they needed to increase the cost of the subscription in order to offset all of these in-house development bills they had to foot and all this shit. So, I mean, it just was bad luck. I I think there's just a lot of things that have come together to make this not functional. So it seems like what Xbox is doing now is reversing course. They're gonna try to do the Sony thing, they're gonna go back to having a console and trying to really invest in uh maybe even exclusive content for the console. I don't imagine they ever go back to a world where their games don't also release day and date on PC. But I guess anything's possible. But I mean, I think they'll continue to do that, but they may step away from releasing games on Sony like they have been doing, um, which would be interesting. But we'll see. Yeah, the new CEO basically said, hey, uh, you know, I ordered that that campaign be killed in the crib. Um, which is cool.
SPEAKER_12I don't know. I feel like it's gonna it's gonna take a miracle, it's gonna take a freak of nature to get people to even think about jumping back onto the Xbox wagon.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, I think they would have to if they want to keep the game.
SPEAKER_08Their IPs are gone, like what IPs are they gonna use? I was about to say they'd have to have a fucking banger library and then maybe lower the price of Game Pass, maybe Game Pass box.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, I mean they could um they could try to add value to Game Pass through other means, but yeah, I I agree in that the cost is too high, that's why most people canceled, and there's not enough games coming out to support the cost, right? Um yeah. That's that's really as basic as it gets in in consumer terms from a corp from like a company perspective, probably they're just really rethinking strategy right now. They're going, well, what can we do in the near term? Um, and more than likely it's try to recover some of their console people they lost uh over the years. But how do you do that? It's a good question. Hey, what
How much should consoles cost?
SPEAKER_11happens if Microsoft decides to release an a game console that is two or three hundred dollars cheaper than the PlayStation equivalent?
SPEAKER_07Not gonna happen.
SPEAKER_11I don't know, man.
SPEAKER_12You need people, you need people in the ecosystem, people need to jump ship. That's gonna be a huge uh sticking point for a lot of people.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, I mean that's true, but I guess just it would be a compelling argument, right? Like more compelling than anything that's happened recently. If they were if they were able, if they were able to release a next gen platform cheaper than the PlayStation, like let's go back to what happened with PS3 and Xbox 360. I don't know about you, but when I was a kid, one of the reasons I got a 360 instead of a PS3 is my mom was not gonna spend $600 on a fucking PlayStation. She didn't give a fuck what a Blu-ray was.
SPEAKER_08So yeah, I I mean I just don't know in that world, I feel like it's gonna be like if we're trying if we're if we're getting to that argument, I think it'll always be Nintendo, right? Nintendo will always be the like, okay, well this is what we can afford.
SPEAKER_11I mean it depends on who you are. I mean, I yeah, on some level, yes. I mean, as a kid, I valued the games that I could get on the other platforms more than what I could get on Nintendo. Now, that was back when Nintendo platforms weren't always getting third-party releases on day one, like they are now. But they're still not getting everything, you know what I mean? Like, like if you wanted to play Crimson Desert, your options were PlayStation or Xbox or PC. There's no Switch version of that game. You know what I mean? Like that. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I in my mind, yeah, if you're a certain child who prefers family friendly stuff, sure. If I if you're 10 and or under, that's probably an absolute, yeah, you're gonna get a Switch. If you're 13, you probably want a PlayStation, you know what I mean, or something like that. I don't know. But who right, but I I don't know.
SPEAKER_12It's it just it you're you're right, but in my in my head, I just can't imagine like people people have the ecosystem that they live in, right? Like for for PlayStation, and that's where their friends play on and all that kind of stuff. And I don't know if $200 and $300 is gonna dissuade them from like asking their parents for like, you know, I'd rather get this instead and I'd rather get the Xbox instead.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, and I think ultimately it usually does boil down to a household usually just can get one, and regardless of which one it is, it's like, yeah, you're gonna get one of these, Timmy. Yeah.
SPEAKER_12I mean, technically, people made the switch from the Xbox 360 era and then everyone switched over.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, right. I mean, it did happen.
SPEAKER_11Can happen anytime, I feel like. And they did, they got some people back in this in the early days of the series consoles. Like Series S, Series X were good consoles, they were powered well, and they had a good library of games for a while there. Um Xbox One was really the low point, in my opinion, for them. Um but I do think that yeah, you're right. I mean, people only become more entrenched in the platform that they have. I guess I'm just thinking like, okay, so this news story directly related, Sony announced last week they're increasing all of the prices for the second time in a year, right? Um I just want to make sure I'm not crazy. In 2020, when we bought a PlayStation 5, it was $499. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, it was $500, yeah.
SPEAKER_11Okay. Now, six years later, that's not cheap, but six six years later, for the same exact for the same exact console, you're expected to pay six hundred and fifty dollars. I mean, who's doing this? Who is doing this? It doesn't make any sense to me. It just I can't even imagine.
SPEAKER_08Who will save us?
SPEAKER_11It's a hundred dollar increase on top of the fifty dollar increase they had already implemented. This is old tech. You're two years away from an upgrade. Why even bother with this? Just leave them at the price they were at. Are are they really still making that many of these?
SPEAKER_12They're increasing this price across the board, right? This is gonna be for all countries.
SPEAKER_11Uh well, yeah, so these are these are all of the different currencies. So 650 in the US, 570 pounds in England, 650 euros. The the Europeans are getting fucked because one to one euro dollar, that's not fair. They're actually paying way more. Um, they're paying 1.13, you know, whatever. Like like one 1 dollar is 1.13 euros. If you add that compounding, they're paying a shitload more. The Australians are paying a thousand Australian dollars, and uh Japan is 98,000 yen. Uh is that right? No, what is this? What the fuck is this?
SPEAKER_10Is that yen?
SPEAKER_08I don't even know. Whatever.
SPEAKER_10That is yen, right?
SPEAKER_08I if that's yen, that makes no sense, right? Oh yeah, see it must have gone from 80 to 98,000. They just forgot the zero. I see. They forgot the zero, yeah. Yeah, I see.
SPEAKER_11Yen to USD, what is that? 614.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_11So they're getting a better deal. I mean, it's from Japan, so it kind of makes sense. Anyway. The thing that it makes me even more crazy is the digital edition is now 600, which is like it was like 450 or something at launch. Right. I mean, it's now more expensive than the disc version. The PS5 Pro is is almost a thousand dollars. More expensive than the disc version was when it came out, is what I mean. Oh. Um, a hundred dollars more. The PlayStation 5 Pro is almost a thousand dollars, nine hundred bucks. The portal's going up as well. It was 200. I think when it launched, it was like 150. Maybe I'm wrong about that. But anyway.
SPEAKER_08This is all the controller's going up. Is it really? I'm asking, are the controllers going up? I think this is everything. Because I need to buy a controller now if they are.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, I I I wanted to get that uh edge controller, so I think I'm just gonna do it. Because I'm tired of I don't know. I'm a little tired of I've been using that Starfield controller since that game came out. Remember? I think it might have actually it might have actually shipped sooner than the game was released now that I'm thinking about that. I think I was using it for a few months before that. But it's a beautiful controller. I'm a little bit tired of how loose the buttons and triggers on the Xbox controllers are. I kind of miss kind of miss the uh dual sense uh ergonomics a little bit. The only thing I don't like about Sony controllers is the analog sticks being right next to each other. I really prefer the diagonal, but anyway.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, I don't relate to that at all. But teach their own, my good boy.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, this is crazy. I I just I I that's I mean, we can move on. I just feel insane reading this.
SPEAKER_08Have you heard about the GameStop deal that Brandon told us about? No, what is that? You can trade in your regular PS5 towards a PS5 Pro and get $350 off. That's a terrible deal. You can get a PS5 Pro for what? What is it, $700 minus $300? Well, that's pretty good.
SPEAKER_09That's a good deal.
SPEAKER_11Oh, before the before the price increase takes effect?
SPEAKER_08The hike hasn't taken f effect, right?
SPEAKER_11Yeah, it's on the 2nd of April, so in like four days. Oh, geez. Okay, yeah, we don't have much time. So you would get it for what 300 bucks? Is that what 200 bucks? 350?
SPEAKER_08That's like a deal.
SPEAKER_12And then after I'd take that deal.
SPEAKER_08After said thing, you get PS5 Pro for 550, which isn't horrible, but that's like buying a whole nother PlayStation, more than a whole other PlayStation. Yeah, exactly. It's like, I mean, you'd basically only do it if you're convinced the rumors are true and really want to play Sony's future games in that high higher level, but I'm not fully convinced the PS5 Pro is worth it. I just don't even like the jump in performance. Yeah, like the amount of the amount of the price, I just don't think it's even a noticeable upgrade.
SPEAKER_11The amount of effort I would have to go through to box up my PlayStation, wipe it, get it ready for sale, take it to the fucking store, get a new one, trade that, get bring that home, fucking hook it all up, download everything, do the whole thing. It's just not worth it, man.
SPEAKER_08I I'm not even joking when I say I don't know where a GameStop is anymore. Yeah. I'm not gonna die. I was just about to dox myself by pulling up maps. Um the one I used to, the one that was closest to me closed down years ago. So I'd have to live.
SPEAKER_11Let me type this in on my phone really quick. I actually don't know of one. I used to live when I lived in in my other neighborhood in Brooklyn, there was one within walking distance of my apartment, and I believe it's still there. It was next to a Mexican restaurant. Um but that is now too far away. So but okay, it's actually it might have closed. Did it close? Oh shit. It might have been in that huge wave of like closures. Yeah, they it's not there anymore.
SPEAKER_08But I really don't think it's a bad deal for anyone that was interested in a PS5 Pro. I don't think this is like a thing that moves the needle if you didn't care about it, you know? Yeah. If you were like, this is something I kind of already wanted. Yeah, yeah. And at that point you don't need your PS5 anymore anyway, and it's like, oh, I can get a full 350 off. I mean, that's a that's a decent deal. Um if you're interested in that.
SPEAKER_11I wonder, I'm surprised Best Buy, does Best Buy still do trade-ins?
SPEAKER_08Uh not to my knowledge, I think they stopped. But um Best Buy's cutting like a lot of their physical inventory, period.
SPEAKER_11You can get the Halo soundtrack from Video Games New York. Nice. What is D-mastered? Like it sounds like it did back on the Xbox instead of that's very funny. And it's green. That's actually kind of sick. I need to go. Dude, if y'all ever come to New York, we're going to fucking video games New York. It is in midtown, not midtown, it's like I don't even know what neighborhood that is. Like Lower East Side-ish, Soho, maybe. I don't know. Anyway, it's in it's in Manhattan and New York, and it is a fucking tiny place, but they do all kinds of crazy shit. One time I was in there and there was a guy dropping off his Game Boy Advance SP to get the new better L C D screen put in it. Like it, I just crazy shit. I mean, it's it's awesome. So uh anyway.
SPEAKER_12I I've always I've always felt like in another life I would be one of those people, one of those weird people that makes those uh like recreated um fabrications of old consoles, like people who remake like the NES and then have them like preloaded with uh you know all those old games. Yeah, that should have seems like so fucking cool to learn.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, and it sucks too because there's like a lot of fake ones now, so you could be like the guy that makes legit ones. Yeah. So if I if I sorry like they were uh yeah, the TikTok era has brought over like a whole new wave of like a bunch of fake ones.
SPEAKER_12Oh, that's what um what's his face is getting into, right? Uh uh uh who soldier boy.
SPEAKER_08Oh, I think you're right, actually. He did, yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_11They're like ripoff Game Boys. Wait, these motherfuckers are open on Christmas Day. They're open 365 days a year. The employees must want to kill this guy.
SPEAKER_08Whatever. Well, hopefully they get time and a half of some sort of it's worth it. I bet you they get a choice, bro. I bet you they get a choice.
SPEAKER_11High class retro.
SPEAKER_08We're open every day. Someone has a choice, it's not everyone.
SPEAKER_12Yeah. Well, I mean, wouldn't the best way to do it would be like management has the choice?
unknownOh.
SPEAKER_11Motherfuckers can like not go. Dude, you can upgrade you can upgrade all your fucking game boys. Game boys.
SPEAKER_08I'm calling right now and I'll ask. I'm calling on Christmas, so you're like, hey, did you get the option to have off today? Yeah.
SPEAKER_11Does this guy take care of you? Does this guy take care of you? You get healthcare. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they they actually oh shit, they sell retro tinks. Ooh, that's interesting. Oh no, out of soccer install only.
unknownInteresting.
SPEAKER_11Anyway, the reason I came here is because I wanted to see if they take if they'll sell a PS5 Pro and if they do trade-ins, but you know, they don't this website is clearly not updated, but anyway. I mean they don't they list no consoles available.
SPEAKER_08So yeah, I mean that is another good thing to mention, though. There is local shops, depending on where you live, that you could go to that might have cheaper thing you're looking for and might be willing to give equal or more trade credit towards the thing you're wanting as well. So that's a good thing to keep in mind for sure. The one near me is called Retro Game Trader, and they have a lot of really cool old shit. Nice. Not so much newer shit that I know of, but something old you're looking for, they would have it in like pristine condition for a decent price, which is cool as fuck.
SPEAKER_12I feel like with the with the price increase stuff, it's just really hard to make an analysis on this because I have no clue if like they ran the numbers and they realized that they've just been basically like way underpricing what the market can bear on it. And so they're just like, all right, let's just fucking increase the prices at this point just because of the inflation that's been going on for the past like 10 years. So I mean, yeah. Like I I don't know, like you know what I'm saying? Like, and I don't I don't know if they're like egregiously overpricing it in comparison to manufacturing costs, and like maybe manufacturing costs have risen over the course of the past like what how long has it been? So I don't know. I'm sure they have.
SPEAKER_08Um I'm absolutely sure they have. Especially if like they're probably selling less of them at this point. Yeah. So it's like I don't know.
SPEAKER_11They're protecting the bottom line, it's it's a business decision that absolutely makes sense from a consumer perspective. I couldn't imagine buying a console any like at this point. Like after this increase, the by the way, the last increase was already a bridge too far.
SPEAKER_12Oh, you're talking about like if you were to buy consoles, yeah.
SPEAKER_11If you were gonna buy a console, if you were gonna buy a console, well, first of all, if you're buying it now, you're already too late because they raised the price, you know, eight months ago or whatever. But 50 bucks is whatever though. Now it's gone up a pretty you're but you're already buying old tech. Like, that's the thing. It's been on that console that you're paying $50 more for isn't any better than the one from 2020.
SPEAKER_08You gotta remove yourself from the brain of like us, which I would call us like sicko's, I guess, to put it like really bluntly. Yeah, and then you have to think about like a lot of my gamer friends are still like not even upgraded yet. They're sure they're still on a really old PC, they're still on their PS4.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Like the Siccos got their shit day one, like they're fine, they're they're kind of like laughing and like, what the fuck? But but like now, but even though that's actually a good point.
SPEAKER_12Like, who the fuck's buying a base PS5 right now? It's definitely not someone who already had one before.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, of course not. But it's it's somebody who wants just wants to play Fortnite but better or some shit. I don't know. Like, but the reality is those people also get pissed off these days when a new thing comes out after they just spent a bunch of money on on a thing. So if they buy a let's say they spend 600, what was it, 600 for the new for the base PS5 now? 650, 650. Let's say they spend 650 on the base PS5 right now. When the PS6 comes out in one and a half years or whatever, and they and it's a thousand dollars, they're gonna be like, well, I could have just saved my six hundred fifty dollars for another couple of years.
SPEAKER_12See, that's what's going on in my mind already. Sorry, Crosby. No, you're like that's that's already going on in my mind already. Is like whenever I think, like, oh, price increase, okay. Let's like think, why would I want to get this? Okay, well, it's gonna be for Intergalactic. Well, Intergalactic comes out in about a year and a half. Uh well, at that point, I might as well wait for the PS6. Like, that's literally the the math of my mind.
SPEAKER_11And then are you gonna spend a thousand dollars on a PS6?
SPEAKER_12Like, I don't we'll see how much it fucking costs. I don't know.
SPEAKER_08Galactic that is like what if I don't know how much money I'll be making. Yeah, what if this also means that we're further away from that than we think? Like, I mean, I don't know. I would have thought we were closer until recently. I don't know, it just seems like they're gonna squeeze this generation out maybe a little bit further. I don't like five years.
SPEAKER_11No, I I think 20 like uh December 2027 would be, I think, my bet at the moment. Like that that'd be where I fall on.
SPEAKER_08That feels right to me too. Yeah, like I I super align with that. I'm just like, but maybe not. Maybe they just push the five pro.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, maybe not. I mean, I mean, I don't know if you guys saw the open AI. Dude, $900 for the PS5 Pro. That means the PS6 would have to be a million dollars. I mean, I'm just doing I'm just you know, floating for a million dollars. Carry the zero, you know, do that. Yeah, $1 million. Really?
SPEAKER_08It's like so. It's like that's a hard pill to swallow, right? It's like something more expensive than the 5 Pro. It's either so close in price that it's a no-brainer, or it's so much better that it's like $2,000. Yeah. Or $1,500.
SPEAKER_12It's probably gonna be $100 more. You gotta have that gap there where the consumer just goes, fuck it. I might as well just get the fucking PS.
SPEAKER_08And then maybe that's part of it is that by raising these prices, it makes the next console that comes out next year a no-brainer decision because it's like, what am I gonna buy? The PS5 that's right behind it, but so much weaker. So yeah, maybe that's part of it.
SPEAKER_12Yeah, I mean that's that's basically how they price GPUs nowadays, and it works like a fucking charm.
SPEAKER_11They've got that whole at launch, at launch the PS4 Pro is $399. Then the PS5 comes out, it's $499. So if yeah, I mean, realistically, I guess they're the PS5 digital is only $450, so yeah. So they they could you you could see a world where it's 900 for the PS5 Pro, 1000 for the PS6.
SPEAKER_08What did the PS4 and PS4 Pro get a price increase at the end? No, this is the first time this has ever happened.
SPEAKER_12Wouldn't that have been funny though?
SPEAKER_11It's extremely abnormal. Okay. I mean, no consoles have ever gone up in price until this generation. They always go down, they always release new versions. Remember, remember how many versions of the of the 360 or PlayStation 2 there were? They they just kept making different ones. They'd be like, they'd be like, hey bro, here's the 360, but now it's black. You know what I mean? And they were like smaller and cheaper. Yeah, exactly. It's got a bigger hard drive. Remember, remember, yeah, this is so easy to forget, but do you remember the launch 360 didn't have an HDMI port? I don't remember that. The Launch Xbox 360 was those high definition component cables. Oh, it had it had different colors. Exactly. It had it had red, yellow, white, and then the like fucking orange, teal, whatever the fuck, green that was like the 720p component. Yeah, yeah. You if you wanted an HDMI hookup to your 360, you had to get one of those black ones or the the upgraded ones. It's yeah, and I forgot about that. And we got 1080p unlocked. Yeah, yeah, 1080p became available during that generation. Um wow, yeah, it's just I don't know, man.
SPEAKER_08I you guys remember watching Netflix in the little movie theater.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, hell yeah, dude. I think it was amazing.
SPEAKER_08Why is that not still a thing?
SPEAKER_12We actually went through uh we didn't even realize it, but we went through like um the medieval period, yeah. Where we had the Netflix like being able to watch Netflix with your friends and stuff on your Xbox home, and then they took it away from us, and we weren't able to solve that problem again until you either used Rabbit, which was the web browser version of that, or you waited until Discord had their streaming service back up.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, it was like um It was the dark times. It was like being around back when uh cars first came out, you know? Like like uh like when they first came out, you could do anything, you could just drive on the sidewalks, you drive, they didn't have laws yet. You could drink and drive, nobody gave a shit. Like you were running people over and then driving off, and they had no way of identifying who you were because license plates didn't exist, you know, like that kind of shit. And and and so we lived through that period, and now all of a sudden we're expected to follow all the rules and fucking bow down to our tech corporate overlords and pay hundreds of dollars more for PlayStation 5.
SPEAKER_12Yeah, yeah. It really all started.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, no, now that we've talked through it, I'm kind of in the headspace that they're doing this so that it makes it easier to buy the next console that's probably gonna drop next year. It's like, okay, well, these are more expensive now, so they have no choice but to buy that one.
SPEAKER_12In a sense, yeah. I mean, a lot of it comes from like I I guess it I guess a lot of it is the uh what what is causing consumers, or actually better yet, what is causing the the um the people selling these devices to not fear consumer response anymore because they don't they don't really give a fuck how how people respond at all at this point because it seems as though like the the elasticity of these goods is just like so high in terms of pricing that people are still gonna fucking buy this shit. Like like truly the consumer has the ability, the market will bear it enough to where it benefits the company to the point where they don't care.
SPEAKER_08The wrong goes, lower it.
SPEAKER_11Um let's just do top top selling consoles of all time.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, I think uh they know what they have is also true.
SPEAKER_11Okay. The the PlayStation 5 people want. It's only been six years, but the PlayStation 5 still hasn't overtaken the PlayStation 4 yet. Um my I feel like it's pretty close. Nice. It's getting close.
SPEAKER_12PlayStation 4 was a killer console.
SPEAKER_11I hated that PS4. I fucking hated the PlayStation 4. In terms of library. Yeah.
SPEAKER_12From PS2 to like PS2 and PS4 live and die by their libraries, but what were you saying crossly?
SPEAKER_08They're they're closer in sales than I thought, but I agree. That was a good console generation, regardless if you you know, like it or not, it had so it was just yeah, they killed it. I mean, we all know that, but it was it was a bang.
SPEAKER_12And you had a ton of fucking PlayStation 5 games that existed on the PlayStation 4 for such like an exorbitant amount of time. Like how how recently was it where we just started getting like actual PlayStation 5 only games?
SPEAKER_08I think Ragnarok was like the last one. And that was a while after PS5 release, I feel like, or it felt like a while, maybe not. It probably feels like it.
SPEAKER_11It was a while, yeah. That was like 2023. Um yeah, I mean here's the thing. I I I do think obviously, if you're a business, you're always protecting you you have a responsibility to make line go up, not go down. Which means that line generally represents revenue and profit. You know what I mean? And the reality is revenue is only a snapshot, it's only one piece of the puzzle. It's okay, this is how much money we're bringing in. The very next slide, usually, if you're doing a business presentation, is here's how much of that money we kept. With we didn't spend it, we didn't, you know, whatever. This is how much we we took home. That is the number they're always going to scrutinize a bit more heavily, especially in in markets like this where it's a contracted market, that they're worried about an economic downturn, they want to keep cash on hand. They're saying, hey, the cost of making these consoles has gone up. Sales, you know, we're not selling as many as we were. We have to offset the lower number of consoles being sold with an increase in the price in order to cover both the bottom line and keep revenue at you know approaching a target that we set. I get it.
SPEAKER_12But this only this only works in a market where like the consumer has the ability to pay for the higher price. Totally. No, no, no. Where it doesn't affect demand. But yeah, I'm just I'm just saying.
SPEAKER_11Absolutely. And but that that's basically what I was gonna say next, which is I get all that from a business perspective. From a consumer perspective, w we are more fucked than we've all ever been. Every single item that you could possibly want to own or consume food, coffee, fucking media, uh electronics, anything is so absurdly expensive in relation to the amount of money that you bring in. Like I get a pretty good raise every year. My my my salary goes up every year. It's it's and it's not by a little, you know what I mean? Like it's a it's a respectable amount. I'm not keeping I mean it'd be impossible to keep up pace with the amount of inflation that's happening every year. Um it's just so to me that's the whole thing with PlayStation 6, is I've spent a shitload of money on a computer, and at the time it used to still make sense for me to go, well, I'll still get a console because who cares, right? I mean they're not that expensive and all that. Now that now that a PlayStation 6 is theoretically going to be as much as like a low-level computer, it's like, well, now you have to really choose, actually. I mean, you do have to choose.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. I I do wish I that Sony would just like come out and say, hey, it's true. We're not gonna put any more of our games on PC. Yeah. Instead of it being this kind of like unconfirmed thing in limbo, because that would honestly push me to where I, yeah, I'll definitively buy that PS6 before it gets a price increase after release, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_11So it's like I think that's why they're not doing it, to be honest. I think I think really they're kind of hoping they can leave it in limbo. Some people will buy PS5 pros on the back of the rumors in order to have the better running version of some of the games that are on the horizon.
SPEAKER_08Um I do wish that they would just hurry up and say for me. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, from a a personal perspective, I agree because it would be- Because otherwise, yeah, I'm certainly in the camp of I'll just wait at this point. It's just it's it's just crazy.
SPEAKER_11It's crazy. Anyway, we spent a long time on that. Um That's okay.
Crimson Desert
SPEAKER_11Let's let's uh talk a bit about some of the games we've been playing. Let's start off with something we already touched on here, which is Crimson Desert. Oh yeah. Um I just want to hear uh so I put about five hours into this. Crossing about two hours. I just want to hear crossly, what made you what what got you interested? Because I feel like you were not super excited prior to the release of this in the way that some other people we know have been. What was it they're okay?
SPEAKER_08I think this YouTube short I just think sums it up pretty well. This isn't the specific thing that got me in, but just sort of seeing the chatter, the clips, you know, and uh I think this this short kind of sums it up pretty much.
SPEAKER_11Can I is there a way that I can Okay, cool. There we go. Jesus, I hate YouTube shorts. Okay, let me start from the beginning here. Let me go back. Okay.
SPEAKER_12Have you noticed that YouTube runs like shit now? Yeah. Yeah, it's actually. You have to pay for it to run more.
SPEAKER_01Combat has the usual swords and hammers, but also wrestling moves, elemental attacks, guns, hand cannons, and you can even steal unique abilities and gear from the bosses you defeat. The environment is destructible, so smash everything. Seamless open world covering five separate regions, countless factions and kingdoms, with the biggest draw distance I've ever seen. Minigames like arm wrestling and fight clubs, a crime system with jail time, plus a faction reputation system, loot galore with the ability to die your armor, floating islands with puzzles and story sections. Oh my god, this game has everything. But wait, there's more! A myriad of movement options, including grappling hooks and insane jumping skills. One protagonist, but you can switch to two other unique characters for side content. Some kind of worker system where you can send them on jobs or to war. Base building with deep customization, an economy system, and of course, fishing. Because why not? Subscribe for more Crimson.
SPEAKER_08So it just it just has you know, I think we all know, but the insane amount of content, um, it seems like a really good mixture of things that appeal to me specifically. Uh it's by people I like, ProLabys, I really respect them. Uh I think they have the stuff. It seems that it is like really up my alley in a sense that the main path doesn't seem like to be the point of this game at all. The point of this game seems to be getting lost in the sauce and just I don't want to say the role play of it, but getting lost in the world, whatever that means to you, and just going, you know, along until something catches your eye, and then getting lost in that for whatever amount of time, and just taking in the world however you see fit and having all these different options in front of you to sort of engage with the game in all these different ways. It really does where me and Brandon and you and Mossberg could all have a vastly different experience and set of skills that we're like really into and using. It's cool. It seems really cool, and I'm already all in and I'm only a few hours in. So if this is the like bad, boring part of the game, then I mean Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_11It really does seem like um it is like somebody wanted to take a crack at making one of those like Assassin's Creed Valhalas or something, you know? Like it's got it's got like red dead-ish elements, it's got Witcher-ish elements, it's got Fantasy Rockstar game. For sure, but but when I think about how big the map is and how many side things there are, it's like it's like okay, a little bit of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, it's a little bit of you know, um uh Bethesda. Bethesda, yeah, and then like Breath of the Wild, Red Dead. Like there it just feels like it pulls together a lot of different things, but the thing that I can't get out of my head is just how many locations there are and how they basically said, what if we kind of improved from their perspective, anyway, the level of interactivity with the world that you might have in something like an Assassin's Creed or something. Um like let's take shadows and make it actually a game where you can go into a tavern and sit down, you know, or something like that and arm wrestle a guy.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, the world just feels very alive. You can tell, at least for me so far, that they took a lot of time to make sure every small little thing can affect the world in some way, whether it's the destructibility or when you're running through a town, you're still. I didn't even know there was an air balloon. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff that I'm still learning is even in the game, and I'm like, why are you fucking serious? Like that's really funny, but um even just like the small things where it's like you're running through the town, you're bumping into people, and they're like, Hey dude, watch it. And you know, it's just stuff like I love all that small attention to detail all over the place that just adds up to a full world feeling more alive. It just I love it, yeah.
SPEAKER_11Okay, I mean that so Merced, are you after kind of hearing everybody's thoughts and seeing people play the game? I'm sure you've seen people stream it and stuff throughout the week. Are you interested at all, or you're kind of like, whatever, this is not for me?
SPEAKER_12I'm I'm extremely interested. It's uh it actually kind of sucks because this came out like right when Death Stranding came out, yeah. And now, like it, dude, after seeing you guys talk about it and hearing Brandon and Mossberg talk about it, it just seems like it's such an insane time investment that I'm probably gonna have to put this on like I'll play this another time in my life, yeah, because it would just take so much of my time away from me. But I mean, like, that's like completely separate from how interested I am in it. I think this game looks fucking awesome. Yeah, but I've also I I feel like I've already gotten a huge taste of it just by having played like Black Desert online in terms of con in terms of combat and movement and stuff like that. Um, it looks incredibly similar. So uh I I don't know. It just it looks it looks fucking great, and I'm glad that they decided to um to basically make the game like a full system open world type shit rather than like fully copying over whatever they had going on in BDO. I I'm I'm just like I'm so surprised that they didn't end up attempting to put in some sort of involved character creator.
SPEAKER_08Like why my assumption is there must have been a game design reason that they were like, okay, if we do this, it's gonna cause this many bugs, right? To have that, and they're like, we fix it by making the character look the same. Can I but that's a guess on my part? Is they probably just were trying to avoid some big headache.
SPEAKER_11Can I give you guys my conspiracy theory about Crimson Desert?
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_11Crimson Desert is literally their test dev environment for the next MMO that they're going to announce in six to eight months that uses the exact same engine and gameplay mechanics, but is an MMO with a full character creator. It uses the same map. Black Desert 2. Same seriously, yeah. Like it's it's gonna be Crimson Desert online, and it'll be the exact same shit, but featuring like a bajillion people running around like Black Desert does.
SPEAKER_08And I would sooner believe what you're saying is gonna be an update to this game, like an expansion or update or something. They just flip that. I don't know, maybe expansion, maybe, maybe suddenly an MMO now. Maybe that'd be insane. And not MMO in the like classic sense, MMO more in the like uh just other people, yeah, almost in the destiny time. But there's another fantasy game I've played that's kind of like that too, where just other people are kind of around and they're doing things in the open world as well. Yeah.
SPEAKER_12I think that they just kind of tied themselves in a knot in development, and they were like, Well, we want it to be story focused and we want the character to like, or we want the player to interact with the character or like have some sort of connection and blah blah blah blah blah. And then by the time they get to the end of it and we have this now, and it's like, well, in reality, we spend so much time really focusing on what matter, which is the gameplay, that the story really kind of fell to the wayside in terms of allowing the player to connect with the character enough that warranted us having like this singular character design thing that we started with.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_12Right, right. But but at the same time, it's like, I don't know, in my head, it just feels so weird that like in the last six months to a year trek of creating this game, you couldn't have seen the writing on the wall and then been like, okay, we need to have a fuck ton of people working on just porting over the fucking character customization. The best character customization of any game ever we have right here, right next to us. Yeah. Like, I just I don't know.
SPEAKER_08There's a just so many systems in this game that's immediately where my head goes is to have that extra layer of like a fuck ton of custom customizability that you then have to interact with all the systems with. I don't know.
SPEAKER_11I could just my head goes to it was probably a problem. In this clip, he's playing red light, green light with this statue that keeps looking back at him. Yeah, like it's just shit that you're like, I like what is happening, man. What is fucking happening?
SPEAKER_12Yeah. That's another thing, too, is like having watched you play it and uh and Brandon play it, the game comes off as so much more whimsical than I would have ever thought. Yeah. Um, just in terms of the like natural hilarity of having played the game. Yeah. Um of you know, the moment to moment playing the game, like watching you like figure out oh, you can dropkick people and then you just dropkicked a guy off the fucking side of a cliff. It's just like shit like that. It's just so fucking fun. It's it's really, really fun. Um carrying the sheep around. Yeah, oh god, yeah. Like stuff yeah, yeah, stuff like that's just cool. Yeah. And the the kid's like, that's the wrong sheep. I got someone else to go get the sheep instead. You fucking buffoon. Yeah.
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_11I'll keep I'll keep plucking away at it. I think that's the bigger thing for this game is just just don't rush through it, take your time, and then and just play a little bit of it for several months, you know what I mean? There you go.
SPEAKER_12Yeah, I think I think you're probably right. I'm I'm very excited to play it. It's just not the right time for me to be playing something that is clearly gonna take a long time to to beat, you know. This feels like a red dead. It's actually it's like you said earlier, that it really does feel like a red dead style um game where a lot of the fun and enjoyment that you can get from this game is from like kind of stepping off the beaten path and trying to see if you can find something that uh other players might not have found that the devs ended up leaving, yeah. Whatever fucking reason, you know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_11So um let's
Death Stranding 2
SPEAKER_11do this. Tell me about Death Stranding 2, Merced.
SPEAKER_12Um it's uh it can honestly can just be really easily summed up as like this game is uh Death Stranding, but just better. They they seriously they seriously really, really nailed uh everything that people thought was wrong with the first one. Having given thought to this, like I think that if you didn't like Death Stranding, um you might like Death Stranding too, yeah to be completely honest. Uh because they there's not as as much of an emphasis on the traveling and stuff. It's all still there. The core of the game is still absolutely completely there. Um, but in terms of the pacing of the game, they're not gonna have you on long stints doing nothing but orders throughout like 10 hours straight. You know what I'm saying? Whereas like in the first game, like that was commonplace. In this game, you're getting story beats like every 40 minutes, uh 30 to 40 minutes. You're not just delivering packages, they put a lot more emphasis on the combat, um, which I personally loved. Uh, it gave me way more MGS5 vibes uh for this game in comparison to to Death Straining One. I think that if I had to guess, they probably got a lot of uh complaints. A lot of the criticisms that were aimed at Death Straining One were probably based around the uh what seemed to be the almost useless combat system that existed because you could so easily I play Death Stranding 1 without getting into combat. Like that's just and and all the combat that was focused on like interacting with the BTs, that stuff is was awesome. Death Stranding One, but I'm more so talking about like the combat with the human players, the mules in the first game. Yeah, um, but they really 180 on that design philosophy, it seems like, because they give you so many tools, just like it feels like an MGS5, so many tools in order to deal with the uh they're not called mules, but uh the new human um enemies now that you can you can feasibly go go in and do things however you want, just like MGS5, really. You can go in guns blazing, you can go in with like uh companion type shit, you can go in with an outfitted cruiser um with weapons on the side, you can uh like you can go in completely stealth, which is honestly the way that I loved playing it. I would just go in stealth until some fuck shit happened and then um and then fight my way out from there. But uh, and then the the tools that they give you for reconnaissance are way better now. So you have multiple tools for to be able to see where everyone is on the map um before you go in and you attempt to like infiltrate or kill people, uh, so you can like plan out how you're gonna be uh like doing your mission prior. Uh they they've got a ton of different um they've got a ton of different systems whenever it comes to the uh the movement. This is like outside outside of the combat. Now you're dealing with things uh like environmental hazards. So you've got things like flash floodings, you've got things like avalanches, um, you've got things like earthquakes, you've got things like uh forest fires, all of which can be dealt with with different ways if you equip yourself well enough prior to going into certain areas uh that you know you might uh run into. And uh, and of course, like you have to think about the stuff that you're gonna you're gonna bring in order to help people along the way. Like you whenever you're building infrastructure, I love the idea of like I'm gonna build this infrastructure in a way that is uh in somewhat intelligent so that other people can also utilize it later. Um that stuff's always really cool. The story, the story's way better than death training one because it's uh maybe maybe death straining one crawled so that death straining two could walk, because uh a lot of the death strain two story is predicated upon having an understanding of death straining one story. But if you do the story beats and how often it moves or how fast it moves forward and feeds you uh what's occurring throughout the entirety of the game is incredibly satisfying. It's very easy, it was very easy for me to get attached to the characters. Um, and uh and I was basically I was hooked all the way through the story. Like I just wanted to see the end. I actually genuinely I beat that game probably faster than most people because I just wanted to see how the story ended. But um, like yeah, I I think that I think this game fucking nailed exactly what it was attempting to do. It's uh it's fucking great. I don't know. Game of the year. That's it's my game of the year, that's for damn sure. I I would be very surprised if something came out.
SPEAKER_11He hasn't played Crimson Desert yet. How could he know? I that is true.
SPEAKER_12That is true.
SPEAKER_11Uh but yeah, yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_12It's just like I could I really truly could go on and on. Um it's there, there's oh, there's uh the another one one funny thing. Kojima does with this game. Uh one one thing that I should say is the difference between Death Straining 1 and Death Straining 2 tonally is pretty massive in the sense that Death Straining 1 was a lot more um I would say thriller horror-esque. Death Straining 2 attempts to be a lot more uh laid back, funny, metal gear solid, quirky, very, yeah, very much more in Kojima's true alley than Death Straining 1 existed in, where a lot of the story progression and the dialogue and stuff felt a lot more thudding and uh almost like clumsy because I think he was attempting to be too serious with Death Straining 1. Whereas I think the way he conveys himself through through Death Straining 2 was a lot more natural, even if it is it is a lot more quirky and like lol japanese y. You know what I'm saying? Like if it's a lot better, uh, this go-around. Um so like the longest cutscene. Um the last the longest cutscene is probably like an hour to an hour and thirty minutes. If you truly like I I I would call it all a cutscene. It's about an hour and an hour and thirty minutes.
SPEAKER_11If so holy shit. That's the end of the game. That's like the wrap-up.
SPEAKER_12That's all that's how long it felt. I guess I didn't actually clock it, but that's definitely how long it felt.
SPEAKER_11That's like the wrap-up, the end of the game. Yeah, towards the end. I mean, I mean, Metal Gear Solid 4. It's long. I think the what's the famous like Metal Gear Solid 4's final cutscene was like 50 minutes or something like that. Something like that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_12So but dude, god, that this game is fucking gorgeous. It is fucking beautiful, and there are so many. God damn it, dude. I'm actually I'm just like, I am a massive cuck for this game. This game could have done whatever it wanted. Like, in terms of the the in the story, honestly, like I have not felt so attached to these characters and gotten an actual emotional response, yeah, to this extent from a video game in a very long time. Like, a very, very long time. This the the game does a great phenomenal job on on the story end this time around. I was seeing a lot of criticisms about the story uh going into the game. So I was like, oh, it's whatever, it's a Kojima thing, whatever. Um, but it's I mean, it was incredibly impactful to me. I thought it was fucking awesome.
SPEAKER_08So you think this is the last Death Stranding?
SPEAKER_12Um, it could or could not be. Honestly, Death Stranding 1 left off in a spot where you could have fucking you could have been done. And this game kind of does the same thing. In fact, I would say this game does the same thing with a higher chance of there being another one. So yeah, but it's really all up to Kojima. I think uh from from what I read, I don't think Kojima has any interest in delving back into this universe anytime soon, but he does have the he's got he's got the story and the plot line already written, but I don't think he has any interest in in actually going back. I love the ending. The ending's fucking awesome. It's so good, it's so fucking sick.
SPEAKER_10Fascinating.
SPEAKER_12Yeah. Um definitely came out last year, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, yeah. It came out this year. We can have that discussion in uh eight months. Um Higgs is awesome too. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_10It's funny.
SPEAKER_12Fuck. Who is a Troy Baker? Yeah, holy shit. That motherfucker on screen is magnetizing. I love that fucker. Jesus.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, one of the trailers they did, Merced was like 10 minutes long, and it's like a whole thing with him. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, what I was like, okay, well, that's phenomenal. Like the performance, everything. Yeah, there was like a one of the trailers for Death Stranding 2 years ago. It's like a 10-minute long trailer and it's all about Higgs, and it's like when they meet in the room and he like is doing the guitar, it's just it's so good.
SPEAKER_12Yeah, yeah. I was seeing people like complain about Higgs's character this time around. I think I think I'm I'm I'm gonna say this. If anyone complains about the story for Death Stranding 2, I don't think you understood Death Stranding 1's story. I don't think you actually like played the game or just like followed it well enough because every motivation that all these characters have in the way that they act 110% makes sense. Higgs' character completely fucking makes sense, and that's what makes him so fucking awesome to watch, and that's what makes him so compelling. Is like, I don't know if Kojima was the direct writer for like you know, for Higgs as a character and like his motivations and like what he does throughout the game, but like damn, like great, great fucking villain, amazing villain. He's got a guitar, sick ass guitar, dude.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, it it's it's quite uh I'm I'm in that weird spot where I don't really want to play Death Straining 1, and I do want to play Death Straining 2, but I feel like I need to play one.
SPEAKER_12So you should always just watch a recap, to be honest. Maybe I will. It also has a recap at the beginning.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, fair. For Death Straining 2. Um
(SPOILERS) Resident Evil Requiem
SPEAKER_11played it on PC. Yeah. Rang Ray. Yeah, sure. It would be crazy if he waited and then he played it on PlayStation anyway. Um Yeah. Good looking game. Really good looking game. Let's just wrap up here with a little bit of Resident Evil Requiem about it.
SPEAKER_12Wait, did you even watch the bad ending yet?
SPEAKER_08No, is that a thing?
SPEAKER_12Let's watch it together.
SPEAKER_08Let's watch it together.
SPEAKER_12Did you watch him do the you were there, right, Crossly, for the good ending?
SPEAKER_08No, I missed it, but it's okay.
SPEAKER_11Okay. Thanks, Dan Allen Gaming. So tell me what happened in the good ending real quick. So, spoilers. So the whole game. Spoilers, chat. Spoilers?
SPEAKER_12The whole game, people are like my hand down whenever the spoilers are done.
SPEAKER_11People, people are uh yeah, spoilers. So people are like, the whole game, they're like, Elpis, we gotta find Elpis. And it's a Resident Evil game, so you're like, I don't really care what that is. Um so you go through the whole game. Yeah, it's just we we gotta unlock Elpis. There's a guy who seems a lot like Wesker, who's going around talking about Elpis. There's a doctor who goes, Elpis, you know, that kind of shit.
SPEAKER_08Anyway, and he's wearing the the guy wearing a mustache and a shirt. This is definitely not Wesker.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, yeah. Actually, he's literally when he shows up on screen, I think he is designed to make everyone go, that's Wesker. It's it's like that. Like, does he teleport in? He does everything Wesker does. I'm not even shitting you. He's Wesker, he's literally Wesker.
SPEAKER_12Whenever, whenever they're literally like, oh no, that's Xeno, actually. It's like, shut the fuck up.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, I I I the second he was on screen was like, they brought Wesker back, like it was weird, they just never acknowledge it until the very end of the game when somebody insinuates that that guy is just a clone of Wesker's DNA, and he dies instantly, by the way. Um but uh yeah, so there's like a whole thing uh with Elpis, the whole game. You find out as Grace that your adoptive mother, the the mother that you thought was your real mother is not your real mother. You're an orphan, uh she adopted you. Um and the orphanage that you came from seemed to be in Raccoon City under control of the um uh like corporation in some level doing experiments, yeah, doing doing experiments on children. Um I don't know. How you it doesn't seem that way. How you they don't answer that directly, but it does not seem that way. How you got to that orphanage, by the way, still not answered because they show you as a baby in the arms of Spencer. The the evil guy from Resident Evil 1 who owned the mansion. That was literally like the whole thing. So he when this is revealed, if you're not an idiot, you're because in that thing, he he's like, Grace is my salvation, or or whatever, you know, some kind of like I'm taking care of this orphan because I'm trying to turn over a new leaf, basically. Um and so he does that. Uh if you're you're probably thinking one of two things, you're either like this guy's lying, or he's telling the truth. Either way, it changes what Elpis could be, right? Okay. The whole thing at this point in the game, at the end of the game, is the Wesker guy is like, hey Grace, I need you only you know the password to this to this computer that contains Elpis. Okay. If you enter the password correctly, that will release Elpis, whatever it is. People don't know, they have theories, but they're not really sure what it is. If you enter the password incorrectly, it destroys it. Okay. Okay. So you get to this.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_11You get to this, it's all the like Leon, blah blah blah. This is all the same. He's dying because he's infected by the T virus.
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_11You all go in together. Check this out. Who infected him? He's been infected like forever.
SPEAKER_14It was just in the air.
SPEAKER_11Maybe it was in six. Was that did that happen in six? I don't know. Anyway, look, it's Wesker. Oh my god, he's been infected since two. That's what I that's what I thought, right?
SPEAKER_12But yeah, this is this is the culmination of yeah.
unknownNo.
SPEAKER_11So it took a while.
unknownNo, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_11So she says, No, I have an idea. Okay. I trust you. Okay.
SPEAKER_14I trust you.
SPEAKER_11So you go through all this, you know, Wesker.
SPEAKER_14The prodigal daughter returns.
SPEAKER_11You know, he talks, it's Wesker, whatever. Um this guy really wants you to release Elpis. Okay. Okay. Leon's like, destroy Elpis, but then when she's like, I have an idea, he's like, I trust you. You literally get to choose in a cutscene. They make it look really menacing, because of course. You get to choose uh destroy Elpis, release Elpis. Okay. So I sat here for like a minute and I'm like, hmm. Yeah. I think if you consider that Grace was like, I have an idea.
SPEAKER_08After Leon has said the whole time that's what he wants you to destroy it. So then you're like, I have an idea.
SPEAKER_11She the Grace says I have an idea. And Wesker wants you to release it, and then you know that as well. And you know that as well. So you're like, okay, what do I do? So you're thinking through, you're like, okay, what's his name said that Grace is the salvation, the hope, whatever, blah blah blah. Uh it would be a very funny thing for them to be like, actually releasing it is the right thing to do because Elpis is actually a good thing. That's what I picked, and it turns out that is the good ending. Wow. Releasing it is the good ending because the villains were wrong about what Elpis was. They thought it was the virus, it's actually the cure. Wow. Yeah. Because Spencer Spencer was the whole time trying to turn over a new leaf at the end of his life. Um, hence why he adopted Grace. And your mom was trying to save you, you know, was on the run with you this whole time after you were abandoned by Spencer for some reason, probably after his death or whatever, you ended up in the orphanage, that kind of thing. So the the mom character who dies at the very beginning of the game was basically bringing you around because you were part of this whole thing. Um so I guess if you if you destroy it, this is what happens. I haven't seen this, so I don't know. I don't know what it is.
SPEAKER_02I was wrong, and I am playing.
SPEAKER_11I assume Leon dies, I guess, because he needs the cure. What did you do?
SPEAKER_13Oh what I had to get out of there!
SPEAKER_11Have you seen this? Me? Yeah.
SPEAKER_10Yeah. I think I think. Oh, did you really? Oh, that's really funny. No, there's no way.
SPEAKER_11It does, yeah.
SPEAKER_12Well, it asks if you want to choose something else.
SPEAKER_10Oh, it's like what the fuck?
SPEAKER_04What if I die?
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_11Do you think Wesker died or no? No. No. It's funny that they make all of that play out just to make you be like, hey brother, do you want to change your mind?
SPEAKER_08What's the rest of this? Just going up and seeing the world fucked? Oh, she lives.
SPEAKER_11Well, yeah, but she destroyed the cure. Wait, this is is this the elevator where?
unknownI think.
SPEAKER_12So from her perspective, releasing Elpis, it was a like a world ender, basically. It was like a WMD that she was gonna be releasing onto the world.
SPEAKER_11So she still thinks she did good. Yeah. It's just Leon died in order for her to do it. Yeah. That is really funny. That's like uh that's like 45 minutes less of gameplay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_12Like then And that's like that's like you wanna you wanna go back to the moment of the decision?
SPEAKER_11Don't ever show me this again. That is that is actually really funny. Um Yeah. So you got that ending. Did you ever play the other one?
SPEAKER_12Uh yeah, yeah. I immediately yeah, I immediately went. That's funny.
SPEAKER_11Wait, there's a secret ending? Oh chat. Okay, good ending. Alright, so in the good ending, all the Elvis stuff is basically the same. It's literally just um you enter the thing, it releases the little the virus thing. He's thinking it's gonna make him like fucking Super Saiyan guy. Uh and then he injects it in himself and it cures him and he loses all of his powers. So he's just like a regular guy. Nice. Um Mr.
SPEAKER_02Kennedy. I give you the honor of experiencing my power firsthand.
SPEAKER_11It's kind of funny in the other ending, the Gideon didn't come back.
SPEAKER_13There's nothing special at all.
SPEAKER_11What was up with that? Kind of weird. Spencer wanted to mention maybe he got crushed by like a ceiling tile on the way in. Like when the collapsed That was the first thing I thought whenever he showed up.
SPEAKER_12I was like, wait, what the fuck? Because I just watched the other one. The bad ending, yeah.
SPEAKER_02My powers is Spencer's atonement. It's an antiviral.
SPEAKER_11Gideon just walks in one arm. The last time you saw this guy, Leon and him were literally dueling each other joust style, but on motorcycles.
SPEAKER_03I'm a master's genius.
SPEAKER_11Nice. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Your research was wrong.
SPEAKER_11Um I do think the probably the best part.
SPEAKER_03There was no connection between Grace and Emily. Do you know how much time and money I wasted on this? You see the genius? With Elvis, all virus-based weapons are useless. The world order would be thrown into chaos. We wanted a weapon. Instead, Spencer gave us anarchy.
SPEAKER_11I like that guy. Gideon's very his voice actor. Yeah, his voice actor's awesome.
SPEAKER_02You and Spencer brought me to an end. Yet he outwitted you all. Spencer defied us and paid the price with his life. He was nothing. You are nothing but an imitation. It's over, Victor. I like this. It's done with you.
SPEAKER_11That's it.
SPEAKER_12Oh, yeah, so she does have the one.
SPEAKER_11Yeah. She she doesn't inject Leon yet. Yeah, but she injects Leon with it. Right now. When does she get the other one? She doesn't. At no point do they ever grab another one. Well, they need the other one. Yeah, they need all of the other ones. I mean, he just need one. Gideon grabs one, so I guess you could say maybe they take it from him.
unknownNo.
SPEAKER_11But. Oh yeah. And then he punches that in, which I guess initiates the self-destruct. So you assume all the other ones get destroyed, but yeah, it's just weird. They just leave that open, kinda.
SPEAKER_06But it's whatever.
SPEAKER_11So in that one, you you basically get like a boss fight with this guy. Uh which is pretty fun. I beat his ass super easy style.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, it's interesting. They didn't do like a pseudo-boss fight with Wesker.
SPEAKER_11That's what I was thinking. Make you lose. Like make it really hard. I guess it'd be cool if you could win. That'd be neat, but whoever's playing this sucks. Probably because they're playing on controller. Can't aim for shit. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_08Well, yeah, let's uh I want to see the secret ending. Yeah. This this is pretty okay.
SPEAKER_11Boom. What a cool guy. He like spins it and puts it back in the holster. What a cool guy, dude. Leon is very daunting. Yeah. Why don't we just hit him with the Elpis?
SPEAKER_12Yeah. He's got he's got the only thing.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, they should have they should have grabbed one. But yeah, you're right. She should have just stabbed him with it when they were both up there.
SPEAKER_12Everything was just happening so fast. Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_11Yeah. And then um, you know, these guys show up and they're like, Are you Leon?
SPEAKER_02He's like, Where's the helpers?
SPEAKER_11Yeah, it depends on who's asking. And this guy goes, by the way, he's wearing Redfield's jacket.
SPEAKER_00Depends who's asking.
SPEAKER_11It's like four sizes too small for him. Check this out, watch. Look at the he there's no he could there he wouldn't be able to button that he couldn't button that. Come on, man.
SPEAKER_12Yeah, he's wearing a tactical vest, dude.
SPEAKER_11What's the point of the jacket? Mr.
SPEAKER_12Kennedy.
SPEAKER_11Let's keep him warm. It's fucking cold. Fair enough. I have a message from Captain Redfield. I assume Redfield will be the DLC protagonist, I guess. I don't know. Yeah. Pretty good. Everybody everybody goes home happy. Blah blah blah. Secret ending. What is that? Oh, is that just what happens after the after credit scene? Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_12Oh yeah, I guess that's what they're talking about. Wait. It's just that, yeah.
SPEAKER_11Oh. Okay. Yeah. So at the end, they show that the villain like guys uh come back umbrella to find something. Yeah. Is it Umbrella? I don't see any kind of markings.
SPEAKER_02But retrieving the objective before they send in the wolves.
SPEAKER_11It's a good voice for a villain guy. Yeah. Anyway. Good ass game. Honestly, good ass game. I I I enjoyed it. Yeah, it was awesome. Fun to play. Gameplay starts off at at a 10 in the early Grace sections. And nine. Then like a 10 in like the early Leon sections. And then it's like 9, 9, 9, 8, 7. By the end, you're like, okay, 8. That seems fair. Like it's it's it's good, but it they they like they kind of don't they don't do enough at the end to keep you like playing for the game. You're like, I just want to see what's happening. I just want to see what the but the story is. This shit's ridiculous. And uh I kind of felt that way about God of War Ragnarok. Yeah, this is better than that, in my opinion. Right. But yes, I I I get what you mean, where you're kind of just like, I'm just invested more than I'm enjoying playing this. Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_12That was my my main criticism was that I didn't the that last um grace section sucked ass. Not great. Fucking hated it.
SPEAKER_11Not great. Yeah. Good game. But the game overall is awesome. Yeah, really good game. Funny game, dude. I laughed so many times playing that game. Like it it is truly ridiculous. Um, yeah, they've really nailed the you're talking about that Kojima tone where they're like balance between silly and serious. Requiem, I think 7, 8, and Requiem have like figured out what Resident Evil tone needs to be pretty perfectly. Like they've they've got it. Um yeah. Anyway.
What are we playing next?
SPEAKER_11What are you guys playing next? What's what's next on the list?
SPEAKER_12Time to get crimson. I don't know, it's gonna have to be something lightweight. I'll find something.
SPEAKER_10Yeah. Esoteric ebb. Discount 2.
SPEAKER_12I need another ball pit. That's what I need.
SPEAKER_11Pocopia. No. You guys say Pocopia or Pocopia?
SPEAKER_08Poco Coco Popia Popia. Possibly loves Pocopia though. It's really good. I've been playing it a lot still. Next time we chat, I'll have played some so we can talk about it. Nice. Alright, gang. I will I if I have one piece of advice, it's just follow the main path for a while. Yeah. Yeah. Unlock a lot of abilities.
SPEAKER_12Just play the game how you want, man.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, that that's that's true, obviously, always, but I say that because there will reach a point shortly after the beginning where you're like, fuck, what should I do? They just kind of all of a sudden dump a lot at once, just follow the main path when you hit that point. Yeah.
SPEAKER_10Okay.
SPEAKER_08And then the rest will come along naturally.
SPEAKER_10Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_11Looking forward to it. Alright, let's get out there. Let's get out there and play some video games. Fuck yeah, dude. Fuck yeah. Peace. Peace out. Nice work. See ya later.