(bright chiming) - [Narrator] The world
of gaming is super weird. And every month, Gameranx
goes through the weird, sorts the weird, and gives you the weird. Hi folks, it's Falcon. And today on Gameranx, the 10 weirdest gaming
stories of May, 2024. Starting off at number
10, it took 28 years, but the door in the cabin
at the bottom of the hill in Super Mario 64 in the snow level that you race to the
bottom with the penguin that you can't open from the outside has been opened from the outside. And when we say open the door, we mean legitimately open the door. We don't mean hacked the code, we mean found a way to open the door without altering anything
that could be done on the original hardware if you wanted. Would I call this occasion
momentous? I am not sure. It is quite the accomplishment. It took a lot of maneuvering because of the way the doors work. In order to glitch
through the invisible wall that's keeping you from the door, you have to use this penguin trick. But the problem is that
a door is not sensitive to a falling Mario. If Mario is in the fall
state, the fall animation, the door will not open. And so the person who figured this out had to come up with this precision way to get Mario into a walk animation for a frame at the exact right time so it could touch the zone
that would open the door. And it's insane. And it's mundane. I mean, it's the opening of a door that wasn't supposed to be opened. That doesn't sound super duper, let's say. But honestly, it's pretty cool. It's one of the few things that hadn't really been done in Mario that was an obvious thing
that you maybe could do based on what people knew about the doors. It's one of those accomplishments that for weird people, is awesome. And as you might be able to guess, the second I was recommended this video, which by the way, I'm pretty sure was in
the first couple of days, I watched it and I was like, "Yeah, cool." So I am one of those weird people. At number nine, Marvel Rivals is an upcoming free-to-play
multiplayer shooter. It is being developed by NetEase in China, overseen by Marvel themselves. Marvel Rivals had a closed
alpha test, was invite only. And we're not talking
about the game at all. We're talking about
something that they did involving this closed alpha. So I can understand why the
Marvel social media people would not want disparaging comments made about the game based on the alpha. I understand that. But to include it in the contract, in order to play the
alpha is a big overstep. This is the type of move
that makes it very clear that these companies don't
want games journalists to do journalism. Now, I'm not calling
myself a games journalist. I'm talking about weird crap that's silly. I'm so far removed from the
events that caused this, it's not even funny, but I
can tell you this right now. Nobody liked that. I don't like it. I don't think anybody who's hearing this for the first time likes it, and nobody who heard it
when it happened liked it. They had to apologize immediately. They had to retract that
element of the contract. And they had to say, "We
actively encourage creators to share their honest
thoughts, suggestions, and criticisms as they play." Do you know why? Because once you do that, once you say you're not
allowed to say something is wrong with this game,
nothing said can be trusted. Not a word. Doesn't matter if you're
a gaming influencer or an actual games journalist. If you signed a contract that said you will not
say anything negative about this game in order to play it, it doesn't matter how
much you like the game. If you really, really like
the game, it doesn't matter. Your opinion doesn't matter anymore. That contract screws up the
entire relationship between us, the gamers, and people who
are supposed to get inside as close as they can, and give us information
that we're not being given. Like I said, I'm just a game bird. I'm just talking about stuff that I see. But nobody liked this.
It was a big backlash. I wish I could say that
like the contract itself was super weird, but unfortunately, I think the apology is
probably the weird part. Very rarely do these types of
things actually get noticed or apologized for, to my knowledge anyway. At number eight, a guy by
the name of SuperLouis64, who's clearly a fan of Elden Ring, has a large great sword,
big old insane sword. That's not the weird part. It looks a little weird, him
standing there holding it, but that's not the weird part. He actually converted it
into an Xbox controller so he can swing it and have
the game swing the sword. Basically, it's a big heavy toy that he turned into a big
heavy game controller. He says the reason that he did it is because he was thinking about what it would be like if
Elden Ring came out in 2005, when they were putting
out goofy controllers with a bunch of different games. Like some of them good, some of them bad. You got gloves, you got
guitars, you got, well, swords and guns and stuff. I mean, he's pretty on point in terms of if they decided to release it that way. But he did it. He made a big old heavy great
sword, which by the way, you can think to yourself, "Ah, it's probably not that
heavy. It's made of foam." Stuff that you would make
this kind of thing out of. But I think you underestimate
what swinging anything large with any bit of weight is actually like, especially when it's as
a video game controller, because you're swinging it a lot, in order to swing the
sword in a video game. And also, it's not like
one-to-one, like Skyward Sword. It's a controller, controller. So there's an element of jank, not necessarily that there
isn't a level of jank in the Skyward Sword configuration, but Skyward Sword used tracking technology to kind of in an analog
way, replicate your actions. Here we're talking about
digital jank entirely. It's swing or not swing, and it looks cumbersome
and difficult to use. At number seven, Tesla Motors decided
to retract the ability to play Steam games on your
Tesla car, which makes sense. Honestly, I don't know
why that was a feature that they decided to launch at all. I mean that, in and of
itself, is quite weird. But two years after they
announced it, they're like, "Ah, maybe this isn't a good idea. Maybe letting people play video games using the one screen in their car, maybe that's not a great idea." And believe me, I'm not one of these people
who takes a dump on Tesla. I think Teslas are very cool cars. But I have never ever understood why you would be able to play a video game on the screen on your car that literally all of the information that you would get about your car is on. Miles per hour? It goes on that screen Gear indicator? It goes on that screen. I don't think you were
supposed to be playing it while driving, but I think you and I both know that there are people playing video games while they're driving. Because the car allegedly drives itself. A lot of people were just like, "Yeah, I'm gonna set it to do that and I'm gonna play a video game." There's no chance that
there wasn't any of that. I mean, I've seen footage
of people doing stuff that is far more involved than video games while their car drives them around. We're talking cooking,
we're talking sleeping, we're talking the nasty. But I don't think you can stop
people from doing that stuff. You can stop them from playing
video games on their car by making it so that you can't
play video games on your car. Moving on to number six, Microsoft really sliced
the ever loving crap out of Arkane Austin. Knocked them back hard. That's been the one that's
gotten the most attention because Arkane is such a great studio. But they've also actually
knocked back a bunch of other ZeniMax Studios, Tango GameWorks, the other high profile one. That was weird enough as it is, but when you start thinking about it, you know how Redfall cost money? You know how there were people that spent $100 for Redfall? I don't know why there
were, but there were. Well, those people got ripped off. Because there were promises made about the support of the game that was not kept. And not only did they close the
studio making those updates, they also kept going and offered a bunch of individuals, quality assurance testers, producers, other various staff, voluntary
severance agreements, which is basically like saying, "You know what? You're redundant. We don't want you working for us. We'll give you some money
so that it's not horrible that you don't have a job here anymore. Otherwise, you don't have to leave. Like legally, we can't make you leave, but you're not gonna be here. Take the offer." I mean, I just wanna sit
here and say for a second, a voluntary severance agreement. It's such an obviously coercive mechanism by which to fire people. Because as much as it's popular to say, "You can't fire me. I quit."
You should never quit. Because if you need to get unemployment, it's gonna be so much harder to do. Granted, a voluntary severance agreement might make it so that you
don't have to get unemployment. I don't know. It might not, we don't know. We have no idea what the
details of those agreements are. In this case, at least. I don't know, it's just a weird situation. I really don't understand
closing Tango and Arkane Austin. I'm glad that Arkane Lyon is still there. That makes me happy, 'cause that's kind of the original Arkane. But there was a reason that
they expanded to Arkane Austin. It was so that they could make more of their immersive sims at a time. And they hired a bunch of people
who were really good at it because Prey was a primarily
Arkane Austin project. And that is a great game. I don't know, it just, it sucks. The whole thing sucks. Moving on to number five, EA is looking at putting
in-game ads into AAA games. I think the AAA games industry
is just basically done. If I'm completely honest, like
if there's like five studios that are capable of making AAA level games with the types of budgets
that they make them that are able to make money from doing it, at least enough money, like Rockstar is clearly able to do it. Epic Games, clearly able to do it. I'm not gonna bother listing off studios that know how to make money
making AAA level games, but there are not a lot of 'em. EA, clearly not one, because they're selling
games and they're saying, "Hey, we gotta put ads in those too." So it's like, you know those streaming
services that used to, you paid for 'em and you thought, "Well, I'm not gonna get ads
'cause I'm paying for it." And then you got ads, Hulu,
Disney Plus, I'm talking to you. Yeah, it's happening with AAA games now. Games that you're gonna
spend like 60 to $80 on. Yeah, those games. I hate when I have to
continually say like, "I wish I could say this
was particularly weird, but it seems like it's where
things have been going." That's what's weird here, okay? Moving on to number four. Somebody made a full on
Kratos mod for Elden Ring. And this is not like a simple
modal swap. No, no, no. This mod brings along
with it a custom moveset, custom icons, custom weapon
skills, custom descriptions, and other custom things. And we are talking about
original God of War Trilogy Kratos here. So we're talking Blades of Chaos, but we've also got the ability
to pull off both two-handed and one-handed moves
with the Blades of Chaos. I looked into it and somebody
asked the mod creator if they could just use the Kratos model without using the moveset and abilities. He answered, "Yes, the
Kratos model's chest armor and the moves and abilities are tied to the Blades of Chaos." So I mean, you got a lot of options here. And in a lot of ways, it's
kind of like using young Kratos in a slightly more recent God
of War like control scheme. I'm not gonna say it's the same thing, 'cause Elden Ring and God of
War and God of War Ragnarok are pretty different animals. But I would say it's closer to that than it is to old school God of War. I mean, it's a pretty cool mod. I think what's weird about
it though is that it just, it looks natural, honestly. It looks like the game was
designed to be played as Kratos. So that's a good mod right there. And number three, a jury, not
a judge or other intermediary, an actual jury trial decided that a cheating software
violated Bungie's copyright. Now, some people might exaggerate this one and say it makes cheating
in a video game illegal, but if that were the case, a number of other previous court cases would've done the same. It's not the cheating, it's the fact that there is
actual copyrighted material being used and propagated for profit by sites like AimJunkies, which is owned by Phoenix Digital, who was the defendant in
this particular lawsuit. This one wasn't the kind of money that had to be forked
over in previous lawsuits, even ones involving AimJunkies, which previously totaled
millions of dollars. This one only landed
$63,210 worth of damages. But it puts a jury on record, which is unprecedented on this one. And number two, Thomas Mahler
of Moon Studio, their CEO, the head of the studio tweeted something that I just loved hearing. Because this is exactly
what we said in response to Microsoft closing all of those studios. You go back to the
video we did about that. "To everyone who has been
pestering me for years about why we didn't allow Moon Studios to get acquired by a big publisher. That's why. I lived through the 90s
and saw what happened when smaller studios got acquired by EA. Never again." Amen, Mr. Mahler. Well said, well done. And for everybody else who
gets a deal from the devil, did you know that monopolies are illegal? That's why Microsoft
buying all these companies keeps causing court cases. But unfortunately, laws are
meant to serve people in power, not hinder them. And well, selective enforcement, we live in the age of monopolies. And to be frank, if you can
have a successful game studio that turns a profit without
being bought by somebody else, don't let them buy you. Everybody you make games for
will appreciate it, believe me. And finally, at number
one, I love this one. Not because it happened,
but because it's very funny. A priest, allegedly, important to say the word
allegedly here, because this is, I mean, I think a crime,
some kind of fraud, misappropriation of
funds, at the very least. A priest allegedly spent 40k
using the church's credit card on, wait for it, Candy Crush. Not just Candy Crush. He was
also playing Mario Kart Tour. That's where that $40,000 went. But apparently he also spent other money on buying gifts for his
goddaughter on Amazon. So he just, he couldn't help himself. Had to even out the selfishness of spending tons of money
in games for himself with some giving. I don't know, Reverend Lawrence Kozak, I can't tell whether this
is something to be mad at, or something to be highly amused at. I have to imagine the
church accountant was like, "What the hell?" I can
understand him being mad. And I can maybe even
understand some of the people in the congregation being
mad, because I mean, ultimately church money
comes from donations. They pass the basket,
right? That's their money. But at the same time, it's so silly, he spent $40,000 on Candy
Crush and Mario Karts? I don't know, I think, outside of a fairly small
immediate blast radius, the fall off for being
angry and becoming amused, I imagine it happens on a fairly quick, fairly steep slope on that graph. But apparently our man
isn't just stealing. Because he used his personal bank to pay off $10,000 of
the church's credit card. It makes it sound like
he's kinda using the church as a credit card, which is still bad, but clearly, he intended
to pay it off eventually. (falcon chuckling) I'm sorry, that is
just, that's just funny. I'm not saying he should have done it, but I am saying it's pretty funny. I think that's all I've got for you today. Leave us a comment, let
us know what you think. If you like this video, click like. If you're not subscribed,
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on Twitter at FalconTheHero. We'll see you next time
right here on Gameranx.
