Our Starfield Review IS HERE - Did It Deliver?! | Defining Duke, Episode 139

defining Duke an Xbox podcast is brought to you by well you if you want to learn how to support the show go to patreon.com Media [Music] [Music] [Music] salutations everybody it is Maddie here today this is the episode you've been waiting for welcome to episode 139 a defining Duke an Xbox podcast today as always I'm joined by The Pickled sellery lover himself Lord Cognito I learned something new about Cog the other day a man likes pickled celery I learned something new the other day I didn't know I never had it before so it was really good man good to get to see you and obviously you know the circumstances are evolved and we'll talk about that well yeah yeah man it's good it's good to be back it's good to be back um long long road I don't know if you want me to get into that now we're gonna let's introduce Jean let's introduce Gene yeah we'll go with her and structure the episode and then yeah we'll we'll fire that off again welcome back how are you sir back in the realm of the Dukes yeah happy to to have the full committee here you know yes I'm very excited to see everyone here so no question yeah is it I've been looking forward to this conversation like all week yes we we planned this one out right when we got our copies we're like we're gonna do this so ladies and gentlemen this is our Starfield special and to really set the structure of this episode you know when special ones come by you know how I roll I try to adjust to make sure we get what everyone needs here so what we're gonna do is kind of if you will normally the structure of our show as we go before we begin what we're playing some warm-up questions then the full news reel and before we begin is usually filled with like little bite-sized pieces of news this time what I opted to do is just fill that up with the news because there is very little of it to give us as much room as possible to talk about star field it's gonna be an hours-long conversation I imagine so I would rather just give us space throughout the show to ensure we have that and fit in your questions about star field and various other topics we're going to get into we're still going to go with the Game Pass pick of the week but just a heads up on how we're going to flow with things it's going to be roughly feel the same but just some pieces of the the pie are already pulled out but just something you should be aware of otherwise ladies and gentlemen if you're interested in supporting us we're over on patreon.com media where Early Access typically typically will go live to patreon patrons on Thursdays but this episode's going out free to everybody we do that as well when we think it's going to be a special episode like this we know everyone's really been waiting on our thoughts for Starfield and so we're gonna really hit the ground running here and make sure that everyone can can tune right in so we appreciate you tuning in but nonetheless if you want Early Access moving forward and episodes of ddu that'll be over on patreon.com media gentlemen are we ready to start catching up with Cog and then begin in Earnest let's do it all right Cog fill us in you were you were absent last week it takes a lot for you to be absent so let's let's hear what's going on yeah this is um a very emotional week for me because um y'all know me I'm the guy that takes try to take care of myself as best as best I can I try to be as preventative of my health and this was one of those situations where I just I'm a person that doesn't do well when I don't have the information so this is one of those situations I'm like what is going wrong with me I just started like a regular flu I'm like okay this is going on for a couple days you take a DayQuil your DayQuil your Tylenol whatever you do right and it's not getting better so I'm like all right so then another part of me said well you know what go get tested just in case you travel a lot you know go get tested from covet or what have you got tested negative okay fine the last two days of the past week the first I was just like okay this is unusual I I'm not breathing I'm struggling I kit put on my socks I can't go like it was just I was just belabored the breathing in conjunction with the muscle pain and like it would be the equivalent Maddie if you did sets on shoulders every day without a rest day and just pain and I'm just like okay something's wrong so I speak to a couple of people they're like bro just go just go go to the ER and I'm like yep so I drove myself to the ER and I really was I was really regressing pretty fastly so what I went to the uh ER they you know did a couple of tests they read some scans stuff like that CAT scan and stuff came back fine but they said Colvin and I'm like what so I was gonna throw it off I was like what do you mean I was like I'm negative they were like no bro this is a new Strand and you have it with the first cold view the first coven patient we've had in about two three months and um on top of the covet it's pneumonia on top of that which was really devastating me and with my condition before most of you guys already know I have diverticulitis it brought another version of diverticulitis back on top of it so I was basically fighting three things and um it was it was rough man it just breaths everything completely in plain debilitated they oxygened me up they kept me they were like you're not going home anytime soon until you get confidence to breathe on your own and that kind of stuff so yeah it was pretty scary stuff um the first two days was rough you know and Gene you may attest to this being in a hospital the thing you realize is you try you're not getting any rest like every two to three hours they poking you it sucks bro like every two hours like it's for your life don't get me wrong yeah but they're like okay so we got to do the blood we're gonna give you this we're gonna give you antibody we're gonna get this blood thinner we're gonna get there we're gonna wake up we gotta check the pressure we gotta you could be dead sleep we got to do that then you gotta walk around with this machine then Maddie they had me in the area 51 sealed off I had a whole Hospital blocked to myself the covet D was excitation Zero yeah bro things like we haven't had a co-feed patient in three months they were like excited no it was crazy they came through they had the um the the the the Breaking Bad um the suits were you cooking up the Coke and they had their own [Applause] this is the thing I just want to tell the realm of the Dukes and around the laws the scariest part was when after everything was up he's okay you're breathing all you're good bro you're coming back everything looks good you know we have a little residual things I want you to follow up on after the fact you know just we have to follow up but the thing he said that really humbled me is I'm just going to be honest with you this is the head doctor he was like if you were not a fit active guy you would have died and the tears rolled bro that's crazy bro so it just put it in perspective you know um I'm very appreciative I'm very thankful um everyone that that asked me to see how I was doing I mean right now it's just a matter of getting my energy back like I could do like one thing a day and then you know you're tired all the time kind of thing so I'm just building myself back up slow doing the necessary things to get myself back on track and um I just want to appreciate everybody because um people really said some heartfelt stuff and they were like Ugh we just we can't be here we can't have a world without you man I want to thank you as I really got emotional during that time and I'm I'm very appreciative of of being here and I'm fighting back you know we're still it's not over we going through what we gotta jumped you yeah they jumped me bro yeah they called it like a Magic Bullet someone made a Magic Bullet so basically all my all these conditions on top of a pre-existing condition and then and boom but if it wasn't that my cardio and I'm a fit guy and I'm you know that saved me because anybody else it's like yeah and I've had coffee before so it was I've never had anything like this so that's it but thanks everybody Matt it was good to see you it's good to hug you yesterday yeah yeah yeah yeah I noticed you were at first like a little you know lower right remember when we were together one other time and you were like yeah I know it's something a little off like I noticed at first but you you got the momentum going you got back into into yourself a little bit more and um man I didn't know it was that serious I was checking in on you like yeah all the time every other hour I feel good um yeah I didn't know it I got that serious I'm very happy you're here I'm very happy you made it there and this is why you know this is why number one don't skip leg day everyone like day number two is what happens when you think of Todd in the tube he's gonna test your love of it he's gonna be like Oh I'm gonna give you the review code but you're gonna be locked away as page zero in the in that wing all right whatever you know yeah I definitely had an appreciation for that for sure yeah they keep waking you up man like when I was in the hospital like it'd be like three o'clock four o'clock today it's time to take your medicine all this is exactly what you said you know take your blood pressure take your blood you know like just completely drain you it was crazy yeah you know but I wasn't in any any kind of uh uh locked up Wing or anything like that I had a roommate and dude this was this guy was like so racist and he was black he was black and he was racist against the other black nurses you're not Americans so that you know so it's like that that afro-centric like diaspora you know I was just like dude this guy is so toxic dude like this is like the most strongest guy I've seen like ever it was it was driving me insane dude so you're lucky that you had you had like no bed mate yeah mad about these women I felt I felt terrible that puts into perspective what I had when I had uh my appendicitis when I was in in high school like I just had like I think I imagine like you're kind of a typical annoying roommate where their family was always there just loud as on theirs they're acting like that curtain that straight between you two is like a steel wall and you just can't hear anything like that puts into perspective I didn't have it that bad yeah this guy this guy got shot so wow when I find out I was like oh gee I'm surprised I only wanted to shoot your ass that's hilarious all right we got a couple writings and then we'll just get right into the little bits of news we have this week and then it's all Starfield from there ladies and gentlemen uh we had to write in here I got a response angel or being a writes in what's up Dukes hope you're feeling better Cog by the way that's a that's a thing that's throughout all these writings like everyone was really thinking of you and uh just a reminder again of how Loved You Are so I'm sure you all have heard how sacred symbols burn Maddie with his glasses I gotta asked or are they actually Gunner glasses I noticed Cog had some tinted glasses too are they Gunners or just regular glasses with a tint just curious I ask if someone who also wears glasses and works with screens eyes be burning sometimes after looking for too long uh thank you for writing and yeah so it's a funny story like I just get tagged by Colin on this tweet because like I don't post as much on Twitter anymore so like when I get a lot of notifications at one's like oh what the happened here and so I'm like scrolling through I said I'm like Colin and I see the roasting my classes and I'm I gotta i belly laugh because I'm like there's no way Khan knew what happened to me like there's just like he was just definitely thinking I was wearing these to like protect my eyes and that was it he's like hey dude like actually I just want to make sure like yeah it was all good fun right I was like dude I was fine yeah for those who don't know I feel like I'm about to explain this at least a couple of times until the community's familiar with it just briefly I'll keep it very simple here and then the comment boys will help me out because I'm still getting the occasional like what the is on his face uh these are avilux glasses they're they're migraine preventative glasses screens are a big trigger for me I've had balance issues for the last 10 months Cog saw yesterday I was like yeah bro like there's certain things that throw me off and like it it gets really strict with me so I gotta be on my a game when I'm out of the house I'm getting better it's not a hundred percent but uh you know I'm I'm definitely in a better spot than I was the you know comparatively speaking those last 10 months so that's why I wear these glasses when I podcast because you know the the eye movement quick eye movements can kind of throw off your balance too it's just a messy situation but I can't speak to Cog glasses I'm pretty sure those are Gunners this is just this is I've been an I.T for damn near 20 years and screens my life yeah that's just all that is for eye straighten but yeah I think they look cool like that yeah I kind of I kind of like them you know I I had to bust them out of like a little thing but we're at yesterday I was just like man I'm not trying to act like you know what like some people are something like Youtubers with events I've been to they like stay it's almost like a wrestler thing like in character yep while at the events and I'm like yo you can like break key fob here like you can you can what you want some money I hope people are looking at me right now thinking like yo Maddie like you know you don't have to go YouTuber mode they look cool they look like uh Travis touchdowns glasses from No More Heroes because they also have a red tint it's either that or I was kind of feeling like a little Matt Murdock energy yeah for sure that's how I replied to Colin I was like I was like Matt Murdock yeah yeah because I think I actually want a pair Colin's gonna have to deal with two of us yes oh he stayed in the movement he's gonna have to roast the soul anyway just to clarify that but um let's talk briefly Starfield on a completely yeah for sure and then we'll talk Fallout afterwards Lucius Augustus writes in hello dirty dang Cog Pinhead Maddie and Jean stop you have violated the law this past week we saw a perfect example of around and find out if someone stole copies of Starfield from a shipment leaked 45 minutes of vertically filmed footage of the game with a crying baby in the background named his character his real name showed his face on camera and presented evidence of him selling other copies and may have flashed his address even this chaotic energy couldn't last forever as the person in question was arrested and charged on felony charges shout out Tyrone you made waiting for Starfield just a little bit more interesting I don't know if you guys caught this story but I was like the fact is his real name is the character name and then filmed it not thinking was incredible to me but nonetheless this this leaker got is is getting arrested for I think up to seven years or something like that like they're serving a hard time for this man it reminds me I saw on Twitter because like Twitter just posts violent all the time and everyone's just so desensitized to it they don't care it reminds me I saw this video of these guys running over a dude on a bike and and the dude's filming from the backseat you can see the guys in the passenger seat run the guy over they're like go go go drive drive and I'm like what I like why would you do that but also why would you post that why would you post that yeah like you just vehicular manslaughter potentially just like yo upload that I don't know anymore man but nonetheless the uh this the Starfield brought us a little treat with that you guys catch up on that news I was honest but I caught a snippet of it but I was curious if gee I did I did I caught his video up I caught his review about Starfield uh he was like yeah you gotta do a lot of reading in so you really got to pay attention so congratulations Todd like it's really funny that like Todd Howard is such a household name that this dude who has no idea what Starfield is or what kind of game Star Phil was you Todd Howard's name and spoke it you know wow that's that that's that's real Fame right there you know that's that's real all tour ship right there that's interesting yeah as that guy stuff for sure yeah exactly um yeah so yeah I don't know how this guy came upon these games it doesn't seem like he wasn't even a fan of it I think I think he was just like he just got caught up in like the hypebeast moment you know like like if I started collecting a bunch of Jordans uh you know like and like like it's just like I'm something that I'm like kind of familiar with but like whatever and then like I just started selling it because because I know that that's gonna sell you know so like I feel like that he was like okay the hype means the uh product right now is Starfield so I'm gonna try to get get me a piece of that and backs of mercari you know he knew he was hustling he knew he knew he had something so he like yo I'm gonna buy like that exactly but you go in there with your government and then like come on bro like this that this is wild man like this is a wild story I'm like I never heard that like this so yeah Tyrone you famous now hey shout out to him though for putting his name I self-insert too so my character's name in Starfield is just Jean Park yeah I think I just went with just Maddie I don't I don't like most games can't fit my last name in the bar so it's just like just like in uh Persona I'm always Maddie shro that's uh and they always call me shrokun I'm just like and now my friends call me it is a joke they never fit my uh my full name is Persona anyway let's talk about this I'm sorry yeah would you say Gene my Badger shro Senpai I'll take that so so fine it's like that double s Fallout TV show has been confirmed to be airing in 2024 by Prime video as posted by a tweet on their Twitter account they also confirmed the show will be set within Los Angeles with Vault 33 being mentioned Jack Isaac writes in hey Dukes big shout out to Maddie for being a fellow Die Hard Fallout fan and a great source of insight in the gaming industry and also Lord Cog for his irresistible passion for life and especially gaming while offering the best Vibes in the podcast space thank you guys for helping me with my daily TR or with my treadmill sessions leading up to my wedding day coming up to the day after Starfield Early Access begins I'm sorry about that man that sucks my one question is what impact do you expect the Fallout TV show to have on the IP will we see a revitalization in a franchise which sorely needs it thanks again for all you do keep up the good work and I hope you have a I like baked mac and cheese but Maddie says otherwise kinda day all right gents so this Fallout TV show has for me been on a steady incline without them really officially doing anything beyond confirming it's airing in 2024 because of a plethora of leaks that have happened for the TV show um the sets look great the costume design looks fantastic which I think is honestly half the battle nowadays if you're adapting anything I look at The Witcher with the nilf guardian armor that was like a trash bag when Netflix was first doing that and it looked really terrible um even if the first season came out pretty good um and so as these leaks have poured in more and more people have grown optimistic about what this Fallout TV show could be and I think Jack asks a really great question here because I know it's kind of foolish in a episode that's going to be dedicated to Starfield to kind of look Beyond right like what's next right but I think about the Fallout 4 next-gen update I think about the Fallout 76 Atlantic City expansion that's on the way think about the first trailer they'll drop for this show I think about the show next year is 2024 kind of the the year for Fallout if you will do you think that's where Bethesda lets it all roll out instead of what originally they said where they plan on dropping the Next Gen update for Fallout 4 this year some people were thinking we get a first look at the TV show this year like what's the five right now for Fallout as a branch you know I'd like to start with you uh it's it's interesting that we bring this up because uh my favorite YouTube video essay is Noah Caldwell is your vase uh just uh uploaded his nine hour Fallout series retrospective wow I'm I'm eager to to dig in but he makes his observation because he's he was playing fallouts in Fallout one Fallout 2 right so he's recalling the history of Fallout and how it was a shaky IEP that it almost like sank interplay but now in the hands of Bethesda after bethesda's success uh with Fallout 3 and afterwards Fallout is now an IP that can weather like bad bad product you know it can have it can weather Fallout 76 it can weather a Fallout 4 that wasn't like you know didn't set the world on fire uh pun intended I like that Gene I like it I'm good but uh and uh yeah so that that's why it's an exciting time for for Fallout I actually did uh I saw today as a Wednesday I actually had a conversation you know Todd Howerton and uh Phil Spencer well he's always talking to the god Howard uh I'll have more to talk about next week because I don't want to drop my my own information but we do talk talk a little bit about Fallout too I may have made a specific request everyone okay so yeah it could be some exciting times coming who knows okay Gene I'll likely be covering that in a video so get ready oh come on what are your thoughts on what's going on with Father are you excited for the show Next Gen update that you know we can now that the embargo's lifted we can say like I'm kind of worried about after playing Starfield like what it's gonna be like going back to Fallout 4 in the next gen updating I don't know if that's gonna feel particularly good which is why I'm like you could have struck with this ahead of it you know ahead of starfield's release afterwards like the timing might be good for Fallout as a brand but maybe not as a player going from Starfield to fall out boycott what are you how are you feeling about Fallout in 2024 kind of like you Maddie it's been a steady incline of of interest for me and I think what it is it started because what I'm noticing and Gina appreciated is since the last of us that that the lines of blurring between gaming multimedia TV shows movies and I'm old enough to remember when knows never worked or they were bad right so it's like now we're seeing like yo like these are quality shows and if you put in the work and you respect the lore and you do what you have to do you can now gain a new base and as much as people knock Sony for all you know they recharged again for a remaster of a remaster look at what the results were right there's a whole brand new audience of people who never experienced The Last of Us and know it just from the HBO show you don't say the g cover and now they're like wait a minute this this is on a game and it's it's very cool to see that so for Fallout we Maddie I know how you feel about four though so it's like to see a whole new era of people if this generation to say okay yo what is this let's go back now Greta yes we would have loved before right now [Laughter] I would love to see this I think this is great and I love that world and and to your point question uh Maddie the reason why even though I know we in the Starfield back we're going to talk Fallout will always still have that Vats and that brutality that that still came into a certain yeah audience yeah I miss that so much I actually am reinstalling Fallout 4. I missed a vast system in Starfield I know that's how part of Starfield and obviously we'll talk more about weird because it kinda is with the spaceship with the spaceship here just a shooter that's it yeah absolutely right it's kind of weird there's no there's so many different guns but there's no go-to targeting system if you're bad at Shooters like that's why they put bats or whatever to to turn to turn into Vats or whatever you know yeah God damn it no doubt well speaking of Todd he spoke to GQ about Elder Scrolls six now there was a lot in this Starfield preview but that's kind of out of date at this point because now we have the Impressions uh he said this about Elder Scrolls 6. I will say that we wanted to fulfill that role of the Ultimate Fantasy World simulator and there are different ways to accomplish that given that time has passed end quote now the truth is this really isn't much to go off of but because it's Todd I hang on to every word my man says and when he says Ultimate Fantasy World simulator I don't know if I've missed something but Bethesda game studios must have had I think a little internal shift in philosophy because starting with Starfield they've started to use this word simulation very very often like we don't want to break the simulation right that they talk about that stuff with Starfield like it's about the simulation and now we're hearing that with Elder Scrolls six so I think as always it's important to with any Bethesda game studios game analyze the tech and what they're doing with Starfield because I think it's going to heavily influence what Elder Scroll 6 is doing to the point where when you look at the scale and scope of Starfield my prediction still and has been for a while that Dave waited on Elder Scroll six to make all of Tamriel in one game like I know ESO exists but as you see things like this I'm like What's the Ultimate Fantasy simulator I'm like you got the races but can you have all the biomes now because of starfield's like it's got to be all of Tamriel it's Gotta Be You know it's that would make the most sense like taking what Daggerfall was and what Starfield is in a spiritual way and evolving those Technologies to make Elder Scrolls sick I just feel you like that's got to be the direction they're heading in if I were to shoot a guess right now I mean it'll be a good uh six years or so until we actually know but uh gentlemen what do you think about what Tada to say about Elder Scrolls 6 Gene we'll start with you yeah that's exactly what I thought I was like and that's what you would hope and expect I feel like after Skyrim I was like we gotta go we gotta do all-time real you know next you know we got we gotta go back to Morrowind it'll go back to Doug it's got to be the same thing as dragonfall because I see a lot of Daggerfall in Starfield as well you know yeah um and you know there's so much diversity in the biomes in Starfield that it's like whatever you know Skyrim is still like mostly Snowy Mountain you know and obviously there's a lot of the different biomes within Skyrim but a lot of it was pretty snow-capped and Tundras and everything like that and Elder Scrolls is just going to be like every bio known to known to Fantasy and it's it's like they're they're going to try to like be like they're gonna try to make a game where it's like you're going to be trekking from one place and it's gonna it's gonna be like the Trek to Mountain Dew you know like you're gonna go all the way there um uh I I feel for that that old lady uh who oh surely but that's the fan I forget her name yes really Curry yep I met her you met her she's great yeah I met her I believe it was in a pack she sees is she's like the Bethesda older woman yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah she knows iron videos yeah she's awesome I didn't know who she was yeah yeah I said we we introduced it was like a Pax East maybe last year or something like that yeah she was mad that they made Starfield because you know she's probably she might not make it to Elder Scrolls six and I'm just like yeah well I don't know if she said that but she was mad that he didn't make ls206 and I was like that's because she she doesn't know she's gonna make it there man that's crazy you know they put her in the game though which is nice oh that's dope it was cool yeah that's cool yeah yeah no I mean I'll jump it real quick um look the fact that he's talking about it we're just so excited he doesn't be like Todd's talking about it yeah we know it's real he announced it but also in the same interview he said that he kind of regrets it I don't see it too early yeah he might have wanted to do in a more traditional way yeah I'm just like look I get it it's it's coming but if my end is like are we getting it until if we get it at the very Talent of this generation if that so it's gonna be a while y'all that's just what I'm at I'm excited to see like crowded a crowded final Fant uh my final fantasy crowded fantasy that does the game you know because you know we'll talk about more in Starfield but Starfield has a lot of people like at once you know and it's and I would just say I've never seen this in a Bethesda game before because I mean I I haven't taken like a deep deep look but I haven't noticed many NPC overlaps like cyberpunk had a problem where they have big crowds with lots of duplicates where whenever I looked at the crowds in Starfield I was like oh there don't doesn't seem they're diverse there was the the only last night when I was playing I found a a corner where there was a two of the same guy that was the first it was the first time so it does happen but it seems to be pretty diverse and but I saw one guy with the same flannel shirt same face it was crazy Phil Spencer has hinted at more regular showcases here's the quote what I can say is we're going to have more beats to talk about more of what we do because the content lineup is so strong you're going to see more regular times to talk about our games because the portfolio is deep enough that we can support that end quote I found this rather exciting because developer direct has shown now twice to be an incredibly high quality format we did worry kagu and I spoke on one episode about you know when you increase that volume do you get the drop off because they do all like the b-roll and those epic shots of devs walking down the hallways they fly out to the studio make a real full production of it and with how much is lining up to come out next year from Xbox from you know the likes of oxide games all the way to Ninja Theory you just wonder how many directs they're going to pump out and how many they're going to do is all in one package or like a star field director you do that for a vow do you do a dedicated vow direct and so on and so forth I'm very curious to see if this format stays as flexible as it's been because I think that's the best of of it because it just makes it where every show you just don't know what to expect like the first direct they obviously Shadow dropped HiFi Rush when we already knew it was gonna be like oh Forza and redfall right maybe Starfield so um I'm very excited for more regular showcases from them I feel like you know this now they have the content to support it I imagine this is in his head like if we get Activision Blizzard like they're gonna need to show up a lot more it can't just be your you know see it the summer showcase maybe a little Gamescom energy and then game awards like they're gonna need to to have more to fill out the year so what do you guys make of of more showcases Cog let's start off with you Mr showcase yes love it love it I mean this is what kind of envisioned you know as far as once the Cadence of their first party starts rolling and I felt this was the year they were gonna have a big here we already started off with Hi-Fi rush we had read for and then you know but after that you know we see what the Cadence is obviously we've all placed all field you know Forza is coming so for 2023 you know you look at the lineup into totality you figure to have four you know hopefully AAA or just exclusive first party titles per year so that's the game pass Vision you know once it's in stride and I think that makes sense now in parallel to you know showcases yeah they're gonna have to you know have more directs I thought they did a fantastic job obviously with the Starfield one where we all enjoy that we got a great sense of it we also liked even I forgot about what Minecraft Legends and and what you call that had at the top of the year we act like Minecraft like I gotta stop that Minecraft yeah like it exists this is the game and but again showing the developers working on his game getting that behind the scene in depth with good production events I think they finally got a nice niche and um yeah I think this this is It's a positive side so hopefully it can continues release dates continue to get hit but I expect more showcases based on their Cadence excellent Gene any thoughts on on more showcases from Xbox Yeah you mentioned something that that kind of sparked a bulb in my head about Call of Duty you know like dude Call of Duty is going to be an Xbox showcase now think about the Casual market for Call of Duty right there are people out there who only play Call of Duty just like they only play Madden and literally nothing else right now package a Call of Duty reveal where all these casuals are now tuning in to Call of Duty on top of the other games that you got on on Xbox that's a great way to to broaden broaden the market broaden these people who to let them play to let them play anything else other than Call of Duty so I think I think that's a tremendous opportunity to be able to to lift all the other boats you know the Call of Duty might might be able to lift other boats finally you know because every time there's a Call of Duty reveal it's always in isolation you only get Call of Duty you find out about a trailer oh Sergeant price is back Oh Captain Price is back that's it you know and then and it is move on with their day but with Call of Duty they got they gotta sit through everything else else before they get to Call of Duty they're going to be hearing and singing about all these other games it's going to be interesting to see it to see how the market changes afterwards and the little gateway drug that is Game Pass and I was gonna say you lean into that that speaks their language because a lot of these dudes don't want to spend the money on it yeah I put it exactly exactly they don't have a lot of money they're they're not they're not exactly because Call of Duty is their game we know them dudes they just by Madden or 2K or GTA or or Call of Duty that's that one game for the year and that's if you say Hey you can get it right now if you subscribe to this service for like 15 bucks and then you get all of this you don't say like that's how you get the Gateway hustle on but exactly all that I know these guys like they like this we always talk about people like that right but then it's like I have friends who are actually like that you know they're always ignoring their girlfriends for Call of Duty you know so it'll be interesting to see if there's other games that would actually like like their attention you know facts I agree yeah Phil spoke on d-listed Xbox 360 games I wanted to expand on this a little bit more quote there's a list of what 220 games that are not back compat and I have that list and I've got it stapled on my forehead and like how can we make sure you can still play them how many of those are on PC that's one thing because I don't it doesn't necessarily mean you need to be able to play it on existing Hardware that you bought 15 years ago but preservation is front and center when all these decisions are made I will say for us that preservation that's linked to only one piece of Hardware is a challenge because there could be Hardware love as well people who love and want this device forever but mechanical things will break over time but that's why we gave people with this decision a year let's say hey if you want to go buy things in the Xbox 360 store we're going to give you a year ahead start you can go get those things and just know that the list of 120 or 220 games is something that we see and we would love to find solutions for those games to continue to play and quote Nicholas brillar writes in greetings MCG last week Maddie voiced concern over no one writing in about the announcement of the closure of the 360 store I had meant to write in but lost track of time no worries about that Nicholas I'm actually not super concerned with the closure I initially was but every game I could think to purchase prior to the shutdown is either a part of the backwards compatibility program something I have already purchased or has been natively ported to the Xbox One and up or something or some other platform I won't pretend that it doesn't suck at 220 games are going away that difference between this and the PS3 Vita 3DS and Wii U is that the majority of the titles aren't going away we aren't losing an entire generation of games and Patches at least not yet this is a loss but Microsoft has done everything in their power to minimize the damage that'll be caused by this closure attached is a list going away provided by video games Chronicles gentlemen if you'd like to peruse that you may go ahead and copy and paste the link if this is all we are losing then I think we'll be okay take care and see you in the star field very well written Nicholas thank you for chiming in on that um and I agree with because in the sense that the list like if you go through it there's only a few in there particularly ones like Valiant Hearts from Ubisoft the standout game you know like that's a great game right like that's great A lot of them have been carried forward a lot of these games aren't back compat um in general that I imagine Xbox has tried but to me there's that uncomfortability of just it's the same energy I carry with the PS3 and the Vita the 3DS and the Wii U there is that uncomfortability of like all right there is stuff that's being left behind that you know I I think of it a lot it's going to sound like a maybe an extreme example but you'll kind of get where I think about it where Call of Duty they used to have like for example Nazis in their World War II based story modes and over time they've kind of like scrubbed that away because Nazis suck of course right but they've scrubbed them away to avoid that but I'm always a believer in like we can't avoid the ugly parts of History unless we repeat them right and so I look at even though it's a dramatic comparison I look at something like this where I'm like we can't just get rid of everything because it's just not as important as certain other games like even if it's a kind of whatever game we should try to actively preserve these things because as we become more and more digital this is largely thanks to Xbox who's on the full digital push um you know we're going to lose more and more pieces of our history and I just feel there needs to be a more active effort to reserve those things I'm not saying you have to actively support them and if you want to abandon them do what Xbox did try to bring them forward and I know it's idealistic to say like I want every game brought forward but I feel like when you look at what Nintendo used to do like they used to be the kings of backwards compatibility now they've they've learned where the money's at you know thank you Mario Kart 8 Deluxe but I just feel it while it is idealistic and it's just not realistic my thoughts I just hope that I wish that we did have that energy to just you know preserve what's there even if it's not great I'm not saying like I'm riled up and angry that Worms 2 isn't going to be available for me to purchase but for someone that may matter and also it just may be something like teams worked on it money was poured into it it should it should continue to exist in perpetuity I'm sorry but uh gentlemen am I being dramatic here I'd love to hear your thoughts uh Cog we'll start with you as uh Team digital what are you making the 360 story listing what Phil had to say on it and uh is is Maddie getting a little out of pocket no you're not out of pocket I mean look it's tough because again I have this internal dichotomy which is like I love games I love gaming history I feel they should be preserved almost museum-like if aliens landed what were humans doing during this time what was the number one form of entertainment what would this would be it right would be we'd have a showcase we'd be able to go back and play The Archives so to speak right and it's just now it's just like the way it's structured it's we're in this push-pull of like I almost look at it like the Blockbuster era from the you know when it we I used to go to the video store I used to do that stuff or you game Fly the game get the disc sent to you and physically play it and then slowly but surely phased out those things go away so there's a part of me the techie in me loves the the the technical you know the nature of things advancing right and this is convenient and this is good but the historian in me is like yo Maddie dude got a point you know saying like how are we supposed to and now we you know obviously the 360 store is shut down the majority's games you can access you know I just wish I don't have a solution I just wish there was some way almost like a video game tribunal and they could come together and say okay these titles existed you know we need a place from an archive standpoint that we could do it the problem is this thing costs money who's gonna manage it you know servers and then let's be honest this is a business so people are going to be like you still want us to keep on Call of Duty One servers or you know like it's it's tough man I just wish there was like a simple you know yeah answer good answer yeah it's like no good dancing I do struggle with so I don't think you're bugging you know I do think it is going this way clearly Xbox's future we just talked about Gamepad Xbox going this way and and to me the the last shout out to Gene and punching up punching up like Nintendo was The Last of the Mohicans in my opinion because they're cartridge based they stay now yeah they gonna make you buy it again but very curious how they handle Nintendo was it the focus is what they're calling it now back compat I'm very very yeah so so it's gonna be I'm I'm so in tune to rumors are I know if y'all heard the rumors all that you know people have seen access to the new version of whatever Nintendo's next iteration is so I am very curious on how they are tackling if at all back compat so gee I'm very curious what you think about this because I know I'm very kicks like I know you got a lot of different interests I want to know where you you fit with all this yeah I mean I'm definitely with Maddie completely uh Echo everything what Maddie said uh I think uh you know to your point about buying stuff again you know I mean there's the the way we preserve albums is that they would just re-release the album again right uh they were just re-released the movie again and then you would have to buy it again you have to buy a 4K UHD you have to buy it in blue or you have to buy a DVD you have to buy a VHS going all the way back the problem is that it's a lot easier to and cheaper to make that than to make a game you know uh that's why making games is so hard uh I do want to give a shout out to a game that just got released yesterday and I and I want to write and I'm writing about it uh but I haven't had time because of Starfield uh but uh it's uh the game the making of karateka uh my digital eclipse and Kara take a have you guys heard of it I'm looking it up right now yeah I I think I know what it is I think I just mispronounced it is that the the Coronado we call it karate I actually pronounced that my entire life was carotica exactly because in the hood in my hood we call it carotica right uh but but apparently but but it is and when I think about the Japanese pronunciation it would be karateka right so so you know as an English romanization but it is actually the very first video game I ever played it is the it is the first it is not only what the first video game I ever played is possibly my earliest memory in life and the first my first contact with any kind of media whatsoever um so here it is digital Eclipse not only so it's it's made by Jordan mechner and he's the the creator of Prince of Persia karateka is is his first game and then he made Prince of Persia so that's the same animation style very cinematic that makes so much sense like I haven't played this one but Prince of purge that makes so much sense because it looks it looks the same right it's the same animation he was recording his dad like running across force and that's the prince you know uh and that's it's also the karate guy uh that's his like that's his mom's like karate ghee and everything so this guy was such a like a great historian of his own work like he was 18 when he made this game uh and he was taking journals every day about you know like like what how development was going what he was thinking and then so they preserve all of that into this like Museum like presentation in the making of a caretaker um and so you understand why this game is so important in in game history there's a letter from John Romero who's who who writes to mechner and says hey man I'm just a game designer just learning how to do things how did you do the side scrolling in Appleton you like he was like how did you do that that is Magic right it's like if you don't want to tell me that's fine I'll figure it out on my own just and John Ramos like just look out for my next game it's gonna it's gonna do something you may do so that's like the fascinating history and the interesting thing is that if you read John Romero's book The the central problem of them trying to create Wolfenstein 3D and doom was that they didn't know how to figure out how to make the the scrolling you know so they were trying to figure out that the problem that Jordan mechner figured out in car take it all the way back in 1984. wow so like like it's it's a fascinating history but it's 20 bucks it's only for a game that's like about like they're like 20 minutes 20 minutes 30 minutes long but you got so much history there and it's projects like that that I think would be also be very very helpful in terms of games preservation you know like like like how many times we have to explain why Halo is so important to people right like people don't you know people don't get that the the the Dual joysticks and the regenerating energy and the two weapon uh limit was just a new thing for consoles especially you know people wouldn't know how important like GoldenEye was in terms of the development or Mario 64. you know you think about you know I'm also a big cinephile too right I love I love movies but you know if you if you tell someone who doesn't know much about movies Citizen Kane is the greatest movie ever and then you show them citizen King they're like what the is that it's so boring it's just a lot of talking I don't get it it's just about a guy with a newspaper and a a sled at the end right but then I took film class and then I was taught why this is why this movie was important what what this movie did for cinematography for for acting uh for for film pacing then I realized okay okay now I see why Citizen Kane is the greatest movie ever because every other movie after that learn from it you know from it that's what I think about Chrono Trigger I just like you you just when I played it for the first time I think a year and a half ago or something like that my first thought was like oh I've seen this before this is okay like what's the big deal and then you realize in that moment you're like oh but this is like a 1995 game like this yeah you realize how many games still to this day borrow from Chrono triggers yeah and karateka someone says you know karateko is the first game where I ever saw somebody fall in love it's like like it was a huge like jump in that narration so you wouldn't get games like God of War Ragnarok or Last of Us without card takea you know because because Prince of Persia is is in the same a line of of DNA of those games too you know so it's interesting it's fascinating to learn about these games it's interesting it's cool you know I love this stuff absolutely we have an update on Baldur's Gate 3 which previously didn't seem like it was coming to Xbox until next year this comes courtesy of swenvinc who is the CEO over at larion Studios he tweets quote super happy to confirm that after meeting with Xbox P3 being Phil Spencer yesterday we have found a solution that allows us to bring Baldur's Gate 3 to Xbox players this year still something we've been working toward for quite some time all improvements will be there with Split Screen Co-op on series X Series S will not feature Split Screen Co-op but will also include cross save progression between Steam and Xbox series end quote so this went exactly how Cog and I spoke about it and we said you know when we were talking about parody and stuff we said you just just cut the co-op for Series S like it's not ideal I get it but just I said I was like like 5 10 20 people are gonna be hurt by this decision like I think of the thousands you're missing out on by not having such an important game on your platform I still think obviously most of the sales should go to PlayStation they're going to be there day and date but it's good Xbox should have it sometime this year and I think for Xbox fans in Starfield the timing is pretty great that you have something kind of lined up that's really good after this other really big game um but a welcome update nonetheless gents any thoughts on uh what's going on with Boulders gate three and and that the uh Series S will be dropping a split screen Co-op feature I'm gonna jump in real quick I mean for the principal Steve I do want to be clear that I don't want to seem elitist towards the series s and I do feel that it would be nice if they do say if it's ever coming or at a later date I just want Clarity on that part now to the overall part Gene like I do understand like if they have the metrics that say how many people are actually utilizing this feature and it's that minimum this is a potential Game of the Year candidate it's not a good look that this is not on your platform so I I get that part what I do want Clarity again because I've done developer research with this to a people who are not affiliated with Microsoft and I just wanted to get to the bottom of it and say is this an issue with a series that's legitimately can't do it based on spec and every single answer was no Cog it just requires more development time and there has to be a push pull on what you will sacrifice from the rest of the game whether it be a resolution thing or what have you because you're rendering the game two times that was what was told to me it could be done and then if you look at it you know I'm saying historically split screen is not a feature we see a lot in the newer generation it's more of like an old school Nintendo kind of keeps that going to be honest so I think the issue that I just want to make point of is that what I speak to developers behind the scenes the issue is not that the series has came can't do this the issue was the actual feature parody that Microsoft was making almost like a requirement to say x has to have s features and to see them kind of break you know kind of change that position because of Baldur's Gate and maybe split screen now gets into that pocket where it's like okay if it's if it's a split screen game we're not going to hold up the release of this game on the series platform so I just wanted to be clear on that but I'm glad that they they spoke and I'm glad that um larion and and Phil and smart smart heads gotten in the room because it makes sense and now hopefully I'm curious also when's the date for the series X1 when is it coming because we know sometimes you know softail's coming to certainly I don't think it's larion's best interest to put a paid game I don't care how great November they're smart November exactly because there's no Fanboy stuff but I don't care how great Boulder's Gate is you're talking game pass and all these different things and if we just saw the numbers on Starfield surpassing Baldur's Gate on Steam sales as far as sales and pre-order like it's not business sense for the Xbox platform for them to launch at the same time in my opinion so I'm just curious on the date and if Series S will ever get split screen hey those Gene yeah just selfishly uh you know we talk about how this is a bad timing for the Xbox ecosystem because of course like everyone who might be interested in barter's Gate would be interested in the start field right um that said I'm done with Starfield I'm ready I'm ready I'm ready to play ball to Skate 3 right now right but you're bougie you had it early I had it early I said it's so selfishly at a purely self-identity because I would love for baldus Gate 3 to drop next week September 6th at the same time and then I could just play that because I I I I for a crpg for so like I tweet about it sometimes but my brain is Warped and that I like to play games where I where my head thinks the the platform makes the most sense you know so like games like doom and Bethesda games like even before the the sale I would always play on Xbox right a lot of PC Centric games I would play on the window on the Microsoft platform because to me the Xbox is that it kind of has the same DNA as a PC right that's that's what the original Xbox was built off DirectX right the DirectX technology so for a crpg like it doesn't make sense for me to play it on bother it bothers gate on the PlayStation final fantasy yes armored Core yes all those games yes Resident Evil absolutely right but for Baldur's Gate I feel like it just makes so much more sense and just at home and Xbox and I I don't want to buy the PS5 version right now man but I'm kind of tempted to but because I feel like I need to just to be a bad place to spend your money man bro yeah yeah so I might still do that and then just just like maybe I'll just get bottles get to be physical on Xbox that might be fair you know so yeah I bet they need but I got it I could wait I got I didn't know what was gonna happen so I said let me get the PC once I got a confirmation to this cross progression Crossing I'm like okay whatever it ends up I could play it but actually I just need to experience what everyone's going crazy yeah yeah yeah so I got on a PCI I played for five hours and you know you that's going to save is fantastic right but my PC can't run it and the game is buggy as hell like it's so funny that like Destin and like all this conversation about like oh just give you mean the mainstream the game gaming company shouldn't release buggy games right and I was like dude bottles gate is buggy as and we'll talk about it but like I feel like Starfield is less buggy than Baldur's game wow you know okay we gonna talk okay we definitely will talk yeah because I I had a different experience let's keep powering through this we only got a couple more bits left and we'll talk Starfield sea of stars has already sold 100 000 copies in its launch day which is increasingly significant because it's Game Pass day one and PS plus day one so people will pay for good games breaking news breaking news Brennan Horton writes in hello Duke boy see a star is released to an open critic average of 95 receiving a universal praise notably this is an indie title and notably at the time of writing this is the third highest rated game of the year yet in a year with a new Zelda Baldur's Gate 3 the rebirth From the Ashes of the fighting game community and dare I hope Starfield does this game stand any chance at getting its roses will game award ceremonies honor it and will it even be nominated for Game of the Year at the Achilles or otherwise have a good one and I'll see you in the Stars well played Brennan so yeah this game is doing tremendous for sabotage which you can't think of a better Studio after after the messenger it's like they deserve a huge win like this great game games man great games and so um I've played this a decent amount um I'll share some more thoughts later but I just really wanted to celebrate the success of this day there is a Renaissance ongoing now of pixel art games there is a Renaissance ongoing now of computer RPGs it's there's a statement being made from the consumer that and I know this is going to sound really crazy guys if our your game is really good we will buy it wow and I think it doesn't matter your genre for the most part I think so long as you're visually pleasing which CS Stars definitely is you're mechanically familiar which I think even Baldur's Gate three no matter how hardcore it is it reminds a lot of people of BioWare and I think BioWare was a good entryway for people I think that's what got them really through the door to those numbers I think these types of games are going to continue to thrive which is really exciting like seeing octopath past 3 million sales we haven't gotten much updates on the second one yet but we haven't heard it's done bad uh live alive did really well I'm just happy to see games that typically Publishers are like yeah no are probably going to start opening up their hearts because not only are they getting the best ratings of the year but they're also selling really well which they may not hit gangbusters Level numbers I think bulger's Gate 3 is an anomaly in that front but with their budget compared to what they're selling they're making tons of money off these games anyway that's enough out of me uh Gene what do you make of sea of stars already selling 100 000 copies that's great I think we talked about it last week um but yeah I mean I I still haven't touched this I still haven't even touched bombers cyberfunk uh it's always been Starfield again on that one uh but uh yeah I'm super excited to get to see a Stars uh congratulations congratulations to them I can't wait to get into it do I think that it's gonna be a game of the year uh with everything maybe you know uh the Achilles through Xenoblade Chronicles three about uh last year and uh you know that's a big deal yeah like a million or whatever you know uh so maybe it'll be this year's uh you know it has no chance of winning game of the year like zero chance um I agree I would be super surprised if that happens but uh you know hopefully it'll get us flowers and and I do want to take a look at that because I do you know I would love to be able to consider it one of the best games of the year if it if it truly is so Cog what about you yeah oh this is true man I don't know what you thought this has to be thrilled bro I just talked to e yesterday and um yeah he this is the guy that just he breathes Chrono Trigger he he's been loving you know a game these Title Games to kind of come back and make a Renaissance and to hear him blow V8 about this it just makes me smile so this is like it's like you say about it isn't there's a ditch for this there's there's a there's a I look at the octopath twos the triangle strategies you're starting to see you know now my hopefully my iuden comes back you know they bring him back which I love you know I played the first and second so it's just like you're starting to see it man and it's cool it's cool the demand is there so salute to this team this is tremendous and the fact that they're in both Services it's a game pass PlayStation Plus so so many people get a chance to play it this is this is great stuff I love to hear it absolutely let's stick with jrpgs in a sense Xbox has hired maina Sato Kato as director for Partnerships in Japan responsible for leading Partnerships worldwide for Japanese Publishers at Xbox previously she had eight plus years of leading roles at Sony interactive entertainment PlayStation Japan Dylan writes in hello fellas it looks like Xbox made a pretty significant move in Japan maina satocato who was a leading role in Sie PlayStation Japan for eight plus years is now director of Partnerships in Xbox or in Japan for Xbox I sometimes laugh when people post indeed updates but this one could potentially be big down the road your guys thoughts and as always have an A1 day a little bit of a little bit of cogwa there I think one steak sauce I just thought this was uh great to see you know that Xbox continues to invest in this region they've done this I've noticed they've been hiring for these kind of partnership leader roles in various regions in the world but obviously let's keep it real PlayStation is dominated that kind of jrpg front for a long while and I love the humble Behavior here to go and kind of get that free agent that will bring you the same success PlayStation is found with that Japanese audience right uh this type of stuff is how you can start locking down more of those like maybe not making Kojima just a one-off thing um locking down more deals with like from soft Bandai and the list goes on you know I think this will help them a lot in trying to associate Xbox more with Japan we already know they're going to the Tokyo game show no doubt about it and so um you know after all they've done with Persona and everything I I just am very excited to see them continue to make strides in this region I don't think it's I've said it before I don't think it's time yet for people who are thinking their head like oh exclusives exclusives I don't know if we're there yet like I said it's day in date like make sure Persona 6 is there day and date anything that you're not being withheld from contractually should be there day and day once that is a steady routine for us on Xbox then we start you know as we grow the region more and more then you start going for exclusives maybe but gentlemen what are you making this higher I've done to throw a gene on this I'm very curious because if he had any uh background information on the hire in general not for me I'm not not familiar with her game says right but it sounds like a good hire uh you know always reassuring to hear Xbox is is being serious about Japan you mentioned from South Maddie you know people forget that Francis was heavily heavily supportive of of at the original Xbox at the very beginning right there's a lot of fronts off exclusives to Xbox and you know I I like I feel like like both platforms really dropped the ball away from stuff you know like like bro Demon Souls was it was a console exclusive for PS3 and you didn't want to sell it in America are you are you stupid no and then and then also Xbox you have from stuff making games exclusively for Xbox and you didn't like nurture that are you stupid it's crazy you know so like in retrospect look I mean look at what look at what armor core is doing right now you know armor is a super Niche game everyone's celebrated it's a viral hit again you know um yeah that's what I've been saying like from South sorry to make this around about front side but front soft games have always been really really good you know and it's like like you you read the reviews from the early 2000s and it's like man like games criticism in their in the in the 2009s 2010s was awful dude like like they were just giving these from South games like oh this is garbage you know like three out of ten four out of ten I was just like what the are you it's kind of like it's kind of why I stopped like listening to game reviews at the time because I was just like these people have no idea what they're talking about you know it's like shouldn't you be calling me God Hand the most unique brawler ever made and IGN gave it a three out of ten the famous three out of ten in IGN you know and it's like what the and people look to those reviews and it's like you killed entire interesting genres and interesting ideas because it because you didn't you you didn't sit down to really just think about what kind of game this was for like like more than like an hour you know anyways gotta hit those deadlines Gene little people you know it was a different time back then and people definitely you know were accustomed to what they were accustomed to but I feel Eugene like it is sad to see certain genres like that that we've seen exist for a long time you know not get the shine back then but now you see what it's becoming and to me that's what I'm very excited as far as um you know this higher look I I want to give fill in the team credit I don't think they get enough credit this generation for really what I could consider Grassroots investments in Japan you're seeing it and it's not lip service it's not oh we're just gonna throw money at an exclusive game you know for a short period of time have that and that's it and walk away no it's like let's build a relationship with Sega let's build a relationship with Atlas let's build these relationships with these Japanese and jrpg games that are missing the platform let's go to Tokyo game show let's have physical presence oh I think even the Indie um thing Maddie remember we were talking about they're trying to work with ID at Xbox and independent developers over there and stuff like that but this to me because she's established I mean I I don't know her but I'm looking at her resume it's like eight years at Sony you know and working with these type of Japanese Publishers and relationship you need someone who can work the room that knows the whole situation over how things work you need that intellect so to me this is committed you know commitment to this to this job to this um this movement with uh with a TGs in Japan so yeah I think it's great I think it's great obviously we have to see the the fruits of it you know if it really results in anything but I love that it's continued and this era that's one of the things I'm most proud of because don't get me wrong I've had Peter and we love him you know what I'm saying during the 360 era and he at least attempted to make strides to get the blue dragons and all that stuff always give that man credit but what I felt is post his error it was just like a give up we can't ran in there that's it we're out you know saying oh well and and it it nothing hurts more than seeing a beloved game miss your platform and you don't know why you don't say kind of thing so yeah yeah you really felt that they kind of gave up on that like like halfway through the 360 area I was like what's going on here why am I playing my PS3 some more you know that's crazy it's so true you put it that way I literally became a PS3 guy like towards the yeah I even own a PS3 you know what the yeah it started off all 360 but then towards the end yeah slowly made those those relationships well one jrpg that fortunately is coming to Xbox is suicide however it will not be launching this year as a message on konami's website said the following quote regarding the planned release of suicide in one and two HD remaster gate Rune and doonin unification Wars we have reached the conclusion that despite the very best efforts of our dedicated development staff to release the remasters in 2023 additional time is needed to ensure the quality performance and gameplay experience our users deserve end quote now there was no mention of when it's releasing it's just honestly an assumption on my behalf that it's going to be in 2024 uh but they are bumping it back from whatever their internal date was which was never shared we just had a year so not only is euden the very sweet and like game uh been bumped back into 2024 but sweetened is joining it now uh which is a shame I was really looking forward to this one but with everything coming out maybe not the worst thing that's personally happened gentlemen uh Cog you talked about this weekend in just a little bit ago wanted to really like to play them but how are we feeling they got something hard bro PlayStation one like I love have you both played it I've never played music though I got it on when there was the the random PlayStation classic drop uh first weekend and two and it was like available for five bucks and like the whole industry was just freaking out like oh it's back like these really expensive games you can download them now I played it for like I was I was in college at the time so you know I was definitely not as appreciative of games I think as I am now and so I played like a few hours of it I just bounced off of it I think nowadays I'd probably eat that up but that when I saw this remaster I was like this is such a Maddie game yeah these games are excellent and again I really that's when Cog was I was about younger Maddie bag where I would play nothing but jrpgs whatever the new one come out it's out so make me scared that one day I'm gonna change and just drop them and I'm like I'm like I'm like what happened to you dude like why'd you stop you're young you got time you got all this stuff you professional Mr Maddie plays with you you can do it bro I just for me when you get older you have to make business commitment decisions and I noticed certain things I I just because I there's a few things that I love them so much I don't care what I'm gonna do like what Gene would understand when Final Fantasy comes around oh no we stopping everything I don't care what's going on I I have too much history and tax with that right but there's certain like with every new jrpg com like damn I want to play that but I just can't juggle with all these different things but that's it but long and short of it you know they need more time clearly these are classic games I want them to come I want people to experience these games and then please send and arrest him now arrest in Facebook send some love to my uh that's a gaming that that ride at Chris Jones He loves this game more than life itself the way y'all love Chrono Trigger and this man grew up with sweeping and so he every time I get a press release an update this man is like delayed again like he he's going through it so Chris Joe said some love lawsuit gaming.net brother we a better get we gonna use the Maya model quote it's always better to delay we get the better game hopefully they get it together because he wants so many people to experience this game I played it on PlayStation one I was blown away I was like this is better than Final Fantasy this is better than Chrono Trigger bro I'm not sure I'm not sure if if I could live up today because it's been so long but the whole story though the story is so so amazing it was really like like I felt like like this is a modern story with like intricacies and characters 100 a Stars you know I'm thinking about my boy gremio for three go to one you know the 10A star uh the fact that both that that this was an RPG that continued on you know like this was Mass Effect before Mass Effect yes uh everything that you did in sweeper than one would carry over into suicodin two that was crazy back then you know um so that's why like when mass of it came out and they're like oh my God it remembers my decisions for Mass Effect when I was like dude so we couldn't do that dude you were supposed to say that would have messed up my presentation at the last day of the video only so you couldn't fix it I was like nobody ain't call me all right cool yeah yeah yeah oh yeah so um you know to Cox Point yeah cause correct like this is not a great year for for to release like any game I guess especially that big you know if there's a there's literally 108 characters and they're all interesting so it's like okay let's cool it down and learn how they balance that that's the thing I don't know about the series I'm like how do you like how do I manage all this that's what I'm very excited about it you you do it in a fun way because you get a castle and you get a like they they're your community you know like you gotta watch out for them it's so awesome dude it's so sick that's so cool you guys got me excited and the sweet golden two is just like I think I think suicodin 2 is better than Chrono Trigger in terms of the story the ending for suquin and two like I just took my breath away I couldn't believe it you know it means it means so much to me yeah I can't talk because I didn't be cool tricks I don't want to disrespect everybody but I feel the same way but I would love but you played both and for you to say that that's a lot of weight yeah one one is good but I think two is is really like the Final Fantasy six of like that series or whatever you're gonna have two yes you yeah yeah I think over I think Chrono Trigger is like a perfect game you know so because common boys going Factory dungeon though that robot that's the one part in Chrono Trigger I'm just like that's true that's true and also Isla's part is kind of rough too right they keep The Cave Part so no game is truly perfect is it we have one more story to go and then we'll talk about a game that may be near perfect we'll throw back for everyone night dive Studios has said that they're interested in remastering the darkness so tell us 74 writes in hey Dukes with the CEO of night dive Studios teasing a remaster of the darkness series I know Maddie has said he played them before but if Cog or Gene ever played these underrated games with the excellent remaster of Quake two I have High Hopes they can do a great job yo the darkness series is so stupidly underrated and it ended on one uh the second one the Cliffhanger Gene you gotta know what I'm talking about I don't I actually didn't play part two oh my God don't do it don't do it that Cliffhanger still sits to me as like one of those good I won't play with them yeah like you just you'll always wonder like what's next what's next kind of like I haven't played Half-Life 2 but like to me I think that's my Half-Life too I just always wonder like where's Darkness three as if it's actually gonna happen it never will but like I would love for people to see just how good this series is like the way it used the light at its time and how you could manipulate Powers it was like a first person shooter with these crazy abilities you could use it was it was like it was unlike anything I felt I had played at that time on the 360. um I just it's it's awesome to hear that they want to do this too because I think visually is the only place where it's kind of lagging but Cog if you played the darkness I've never played it you'd like these games I'm allergic because you play as like a mobster right and so it's like that very like like I love Mafia too because it's very much like this Italian Family Feud right it's like there's a lot of love in that story but there's a lot of like the streets are gonna do streets things in these things until it gets very gang warish right okay and I think it's the same thing with the darkness where there's like a romantic plot in the middle of this mobster lifestyle and then this dude's got this very scary ability too so it's it's way better than it has any right to be I feel I don't want to oversell because it's not like it's a perfect game but it would definitely be an awesome Nostalgia dive to go back to this one it's such an interesting pick like after they're like oh we did quake and doom they're like yeah we're gonna do the darkness now it's like sign me up that's not what I expected anyway gents any more thoughts on the darkness or shall we finally get into it I'll just say real quick that darkness is great if you you know if you enter immersive Sims this is one of them that you know it was developed by strawberry Studios uh they made The Chronicles of Riddick which is an amazing amazing Xbox original game uh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so that's that's how I got turned on to dark in the darkness I was like wait this is the same Studio that the same guys I made Riddick uh sign me up that series bounced around the logs I think digital extremes did the sequel so it's just yeah yeah yeah darkness is cool it's basically like Mafia is first person shooter mixed with Deus Ex mixed with like you're just venom for some reason you know yeah I never thought of it that way yeah and it's like like you got all you got you got these technical powers and you just like throw it like like it's imagine if Venom versus like The Godfather people you know like like it says crazy and as cool as that sounds basically folks and then Venom is also a mafia guy too it's awesome it's crazy I like it I like it so no you you dig it it's really cool yeah I was actually watching gameplay clips of have you guys ever played Godfather 2 yeah dude I can't rules yeah I I've never played it my friend is huge on he's like here watch this he sends me a video it's called I all executions and Godfather too it's like five minutes long this game is up bro like just putting shotguns in their mouth and stuff it's insanely violent and there's like a city management Sim in and I'm like why where how where was I how did I miss this game so yeah there was a all the city management system and yet you have to intimidate the other like the jewelry store and the grocery store and you're just like doing Punisher style fatalities on them it's crazy it was like Mafia three but like oh it was everything tried to be kind of in the darkness you eat people's faces yes and their hearts yeah oh and they're I'm sorry you eat their hearts that's right that's that's how you you you you gave your life back yeah okay this is crazy I can't I can't wait I I I'm I might even try to find a realm of it right now just to play you know go for it yeah all right gentlemen it's time it's time to pull back the curtain star field let's talk about it now I want to make one note before the conversation begins put it here in the script that this is we're recording this here on Wednesday this conversation is taking place ahead of reviews going live and I say that not to protect ourselves but I know some people like the review discussion of like what others are saying right now we don't know what everyone's takes are going to be we don't know if we're going to be the outliers we don't know if we're gonna be right in the middle liking it disliking or whatever that may be but if you're looking for like a conversation on the overall Zeitgeist of Starfield and what people are saying about it and probably the scorching hot takes that are gonna surround this release uh that'll probably be next week but we're not going to talk about that this week because we don't have access to that information so we're just going to talk about our time with the game no spoilers uh we're gonna peel back the current and then just go all in with a ton of your writing starting off with Dan Excel saying hey boys Starfield we're back it's here we finally made it Maddie Coggin Gene we're dying to know did Starfield deliver didn't meet or exceed our expectations are we now in the post Starfield Xbox era give us thirsty listeners some Thai juice to drink please have a great weekend and Cog we're glad to know you're healthy again so who wants to who wants to open this up who wants to open it I'm afraid to start so I don't know let me start because your guys's show so go for it man I think you guys are both ahead of you while I was uh doing things so I will talk but I'll look this is this is one of the most interesting games I've ever played I've never been so excited to play something get terrified to play something because I don't know what's gonna happen you know we know the hype we know the story you know Maddie's done all the research when the first star field you know trademark was announced and you know we knew they were working on something and obviously y'all you know you know the realm of the Dukes knows like how much I love Todd Howard and his games and these type of games so let's just get to it so for me you know and I'm I'm just going to talk broadly in the beginning you do whatever you want if I gotta hop in for like a write-in of yeah you guys will have to I apologize in advance I might just cut you off reading yes please please please because you know I'm gonna be a little bit over the place because the game is just so massive yeah there's so much things you can do so my experience was this I came in you know I wanted to know what it was about and trying to get into the rhythm of what star field is right that was the first key for me now I have to be brutally honest right because my expectations are to the roof with this we've been waiting so at first the first two hours I was like okay it's cool but I don't know if I'm there yet I don't know if I'm wowed yet I already got the face right out of me in the opening hours bro I'm like and I'm sitting there and again this is a little Cog ego I'm like I didn't talk all this about this I just said that this gonna be the second coming to Jesus and I'm sitting and I'm like you cool but I'm not there yet and I think it just starts with the opening and then it almost felt like the first three hours was a kind of a narrative tutorial to understand some of the systems and this game got systems this game got a lot so much complexity to it and but that's I love you but you assume a little bit too many people understand all the increases and things that you could do and that just it was a little bit not that it was a Barry it was just a little overwhelming at first right so then I will say where it turned for me right after three hours first thing first I wouldn't look graphically I was actually more impressed that the 30 frames of the engine was saw I was like oh the engine is not even the issue I thought I was going to be worrying about the graphics more than that it wasn't the graphics and the the technical stuff it was more the story stuff so I was like all right so we get into I get to do Atlantis and then slowly the game starts to open up quests start to happen things had to happen then it becomes what type of gamer of Starfield are you gonna play are you going to start questing traditional Bethesda style are you going to main store requests are you going to faction their random emergent events that happen right then there was a whole part of the game which I would consider the star field actually in space that when I did that I'm like oh my God I could live here and just do this and still have a ton of fun so what I will say is this this is going to be a polarizing game at the beginning based on your personal experience within the first two three hours because you could go around not doing much and be like what's going on right but there is a moment and it's going to happen whether you do main story whether you do a faction and the writing the narrative the story lines are so addicting they're so good and you're like oh my God this it became a point where it's like I cannot wait to get back to Starfield so I can do X Y and Z so I'm just going to start off with that with my just initial Impressions I'm going to jump in with y'all because I got a ton more stuff to say and tell us it's such a big game I don't want to take too much but I will say yes to to the initial question did it this is a game that gets consistently better as you play it consistently great as you play it and it did exceed my expectations where I'm like oh oh no I'm not worried now oh I see what's going on so that's where I'm at I'm Gonna Leave it to you guys which you know you're opening Impressions or wherever you guys want to go because I'm curious because I want to jump in I got so much to say so much going on I'll I'll kind of hop in here because Starfield for me was a very I have 70 hours in the game right now I I really threw my life at the game when I had the chance to I probably would have had close to 100 if not more if I didn't have to review so much at the time and uh shout out to my fiance just really just making all the meals and really like let me she helped me out a lot like she just let me kind of lose myself in the game because she knows like I'm not gonna do this for pretty much any other game like this was the one right so just got a shout out and give some love to that because she was really helping me out a time just let me throw my life away for a little bit which is very selfless by the way because I am just at the end of the day sitting downstairs playing the game but I say all that because the opening hours are really tough for me like there is some emotion there for Starfield I'm not gonna lie there is that desire like not because I'm an Xbox content creator of income there is as someone who was inspired by these games loves these games like it's it's why I have a career because of these games and yeah there is that feeling of like you want to love this so much right um but since the last Bethesda Games videos game I've grown up a lot and you you handle that differently right and so playing it those opening five hours not good no not good all right the step out moment not there the technology yeah just a heavily tutorialized intro not a good choice the lack of Freedom horrible decision I was lately is watching me play the opening five hours because she was so excited for me and I was like straightfaced most of it she's like you're either really dialed in or not having like I thought you'd be way more off the walls I was like I'm not having fun right now I think I'm not and that was legitimately tough for me I was like I'm not having fun those opening hours for Starfield I want to say they suck because I think that's a little overly aggressive but it wasn't even anticipation of wanting to get to the good stuff it was like no like I look at everything they've done so well and it's a lesson here and I'll get into why I'm starting with all this when I exit Fallout 3's Vault right Vault one-on-one I step out you see Megaton you see the Springvale Elementary School when I step out of Skyrim yeah you see a mountain it's kind of a little less epic but I can go off to the cave to my to my East I can go down to the Bandit Camp to the West there is or you can go to uh I forgot the name of the town nearby but Northeast right there's a number of places that you can go in each of these step out moments that invite some sort of gameplay and there is no single right way to do it you just play how you want with Starfield what I learned after about 20 hours I was like I think I'm playing this wrong because in those 20 hours it was the most up and down ride for me I was like oh I really like this well my love star feel I was like nah nah like that was like it's just such a experience filled with gaps like I want to love this so bad but there's so many times it gets interrupted which I'll expand upon as we get deeper in the conversation these are things like the pacing of the game like the quests in the game are really good but instead of wandering like you would in Fallout or Elder Scrolls but you're just and you're like hey what's that and it leads you into this insane storyline starfield's like you're wandering you get an update because you heard someone talking in your quest log you're like okay I'll go do that and you get into this insane question that then brings you to the boundaries of space itself and in those star systems you might encounter a thing or two and so while I was trying to explore and find things like I would in bgs games I was finding nothing I'll get into how I feel about the plants later too and I was like I'm just this isn't clicking right now like the flow the bgs Rhythm it's just like it is a Bethesda game studios game but the Rhythm and the flow that that gets that makes me forget all the Jank and whatever it's just not there it really wasn't until I did a major storyline that my opinion started to shift and that was with the main story which Gene I know you and I will lean into that main story is amazing like it is not just like I know bgs has not a great track record with main stories I think Fallout 3s is great but I think when you look at what they've tried to do it's usually not the big thing like you talk about the faction story lines but a little birdie told me he was like you gotta check out this story I was like okay the main story yep I was like okay main story of a bgs came all right no do not sleep on this thing and it is it hooks you there's actual choices there's actual consequences some of the best missions bethesda's had I'll say one word entangled when you get to that mission holy man so good and it kind of carries off what Cog said the quest in this game are so good that I stopped carrying eventually about the issues I had with exploration they're still legitimate criticisms and make no mistake that the Impressions I have on my channel voice that heavily it is your traditional bgs game but at the same time it's not but it is as Cog said you it consistently gets better but I say all that and I'll wrap it up here and dish with the gene is my problem with Starfield is there is a way to play it I was playing it wrong and that's not something I've said about bgs games I I think the right way is to play the story first because you get introduced to all the major locations you you start bumping into activities because your wandering doesn't guide you to the content it's the quest that guides you to everything else and so that's kind of a shame it's not the end of the world you still have good in there it's just the way you find them is very much not Bethesda game studios in my opinion I'm now going to my quest log setting waypoints following waypoints and that's not bad that's just I just liked how in bgs games I could ignore that and just stumble into Dungeons and that because of the structure of the game there's more pressure on the quest to be great and so when they're not something I'll expand upon later too it is a little bit of a bummer because it's like this this the the simulation the Thousand planets almost conquered what could have been a game that was a little more tight-knit and dense um but what we have here is a very big broad package a ton of insane bright spots that uh does it deliver I think so but it takes time to get there for me it take that's someone who loves their games it took some serious time for me to get there uh and I think if I kept playing it the way I was and I didn't break off and do like a faction storyline or something I I think I'd be singing a different tune right now truthfully but Dean I'd love to hear from you man like all right where do you sit on Starfield uh just to answer uh uh Dan Excel is a question I think it meets expectations we're just saying a lot right because there was a lot of expectations for Starfield a lot of great expectation and I do I think it meets her for the most part I don't think that anything in the marketing was a lie not at not to the point I think that it is more successful in living up to the promised and cyberpunk was in 2020. because I re-watched the 45 minute direct and I I just like I did in cyberpunk and I wanted to hear what they said and what they showed everything they show is in the game they reveal the entire gameplay Loop in the direct uh they show you how you leave a planet how you go up how you go out and go to another planet how you find quests all of that is there the entire gameplay looped in the the the game design isn't a direct you see it there they don't really say it but they show it to you so it was interesting um yeah I think uh the first few hours was also rough for me you know uh I think it was it was a little bit less so because I'll tell you what I every time I play a game like this especially for review there's always so so much limited time right so I always bum rush to make Quest that's just my style especially when I when I try to review because I wanted to see the central product of of this product and so I was like okay well I'm probably doing this wrong way because because this is a Bethesda game you know and Bethesda main quests aren't aren't that great they're not diverse you know you go to the speaking to Parker parthenox that was like the highlight of Skyrim right and Fallout 3 you find out where your dad is Fallout 4 it had a cool twist about your dad again there you know um whereas in this one uh there's just I was just worried that there was not gonna be much there and then I I and then I started gaming along the main quest and I was like everything that I'm doing in this main quest is interesting and different yeah and it is way different from when I tried to do side quests which were very very this game is a shooter no that you know it was interesting to see uh them being koi where they're like oh well I don't know if you can get through the whole game when I was shooting no you can't get through the whole game without shooter you have to keep it yeah you have to kill somebody sooner or later you know you will be shooting people in the head sooner or later absolutely this game is a shooter but then I was I was worried I was like did they just turned into the action shooter and then I played the main quest and that was there was an entire streaming quests not even into one uh Manny's talking about where it was just talking I'm just going to different places it was like a heist it was like a gangster movie um it was it was interesting and then yeah I I you know can we talk about how P Hines talked about like you know like how the the end of the game yeah we don't want to spoil it of course but yeah we won't spoil it I I guess uh yeah I I didn't really love the game until I beat it and then and then after I beat it Manny did you real credits I did yeah it wasn't until after I beat it and I was like now I understand this entire game I understand the entire structure of it I understand I understand the way it was designed I understand the way that the way I'm supposed to play it because I do think Manny that you're right that there is a way to play it and I do think that it does involve making sure that you do the main quest at least in some part because it is a very very good tour of the all the planets all the different ecosystems the interesting thing though is that there's I'm still finding communities and cities that aren't along in the main quest you know people were worried that I was like oh my God is there is is there are the only CDs going to be new Atlantis and then Cowboy Town Fallout in Starfield and then uh you know neon which is yeah which is a night City without cars you know and granted all those locations are great they're fantastic they're huge they're very diverse there's a lot going on in each of them right and then there are more cities after that there are there is more to to go on there are more communities to find uh some of these space stations are are the size of entire cities which is incredible I couldn't believe it you know uh it's when you bump into those things that's when it's like finally like yeah that feeling of like when I'm floating around space and I had like a ship fly to me and it's like a couple was arguing we don't know where we're going and they start nagging and I'm just kind of tuning them out and I'm like yeah it's like a star system over and they just warp out of there I'm like that's what I'm talking about like that's the I love in these games you know and when you bump into like a star station I found a casino that was completely vacated but it was all zero gravity and I was like floating around slot machines and it's like yeah it's cool as hell yeah and that's it behind this game is I I think once you get beyond the boundaries of the main quest which I agree I think you gotta do it first is everyone's going to start to have like a different story to tell um yeah I think that's what we're going to show in this review we all are going to have different stories to tell uh Beyond just the choices you make in the quest like the water cooler moments for this game do exist it's just how you get to them that my bgs pure s has has been really tossaling with but yeah you're and you're right that there is no step out moment and the step out moment has always been a really good good guide visual guy to to where to go you see the Washington Monument in in the distance in Fallout 3. you know you probably gotta go there sooner or later it's it's classic video game design you put the beacon out there and and then you make sure there's no beacon in in Starfield but there's there's no Grand Vista to walk towards you just land in new Atlantis it is so hilariously not epic that I almost think it was intentional like what if we just didn't do it guys like what if we just didn't have a step out moment I was like well I'll exit this area I won't spell why because in this area I'm like huh okay I was like maybe not yet right that's what I was saying I was like nah yeah I was like once I get into Starship and I was like nope nope he said there's two step elbows I'm like bro what the that's the one lie he told I was like what what's step out one because I don't I didn't see it I have I have a theory on what the step-up moment is but but I think it exists in the game and I kind of don't want to spoil it um but but maybe we can talk about it in a sport of class uh oh yeah I do believe I did have a step out moment it came way way later in the game to me I think I know what you're talking about interesting and uh but yeah you're right that the the intro to the game like there is supposedly a step up moment but they don't treat it as such you know because there's nothing really interesting to see nothing nothing is really interesting happening the game just kind of continues right and then you go up in the ship and you're like oh am I gonna Marvel at the planet's side or whatever like that and like no I'm just here at the planet and we could talk more about how travel Works travel works we'll get it today yeah yeah this is a free-flowing conversation where the are you going where to start right it's so massive it's so much I think for me where my experience for Maddie was different where I wasn't as I want to say disgusted with the step out moment part because yes I just felt narratively I just wasn't drawn yet but I wasn't like mad at it I think for me this was my thing I'm a person who I don't respect bethesda's like just one energy when they attempt it to me when they do third person that is just some additive thing that you just want to try to play around with I'm gonna play you in fps your mama named your FPS I'm gonna call you FPS that's how I've always played that's the games right so where it really started to click with me early on a base level was Emma when I'm going through a base first of all I'm picking up every object I'm going through the I am that guy my companions are to the point like excuse me on Cognito you know vasco's like you know you could use me if you yeah you're picking up everything reading everything you know say I love the interactions with the companions I love love the subtle things where I'm such a scavenger and a lore guy and I was reading about horrible things that were happening in a PlayStation with signs and stuff like that that you know I would hear the audio logs and sometimes a quest line would jump off because of something I did extra diligence in the other thing that I liked I have to give credit to the combat because again when I'm talking about that third person I was gonna play this game exclusively first person once I started to get about uh what is it the the the power pack the one that jumps you up like a trampoline up on top of a damn building that one oh y'all never uh no no there's there's another one there's the Boost there's one that literally I could damn near scale mountains and buildings because it jumps you to the top is that a mod that you put on or it's a it's I did I went to Mars and I did the storyline the Australia's dude Australian uh it's called demios he worked for a Mining Company don't worry about it there's a hope you're gonna come across anytime you get a pack just make sure it says power pack okay bro when I got this power pack I'm scaling the entire planets I'm I'm flowing I'm Michael Jordan in it I'm like yo this is CR it got so fun I'm platforming and stuff I'm doing this I believe I'm touching the Stars baby so once I did that actually I said I cannot play this in the first person anymore yeah yeah when you're running PlanetSide yeah you got it and then you then the skill trees where you could kind of invest into hovering it I started to get the flow out of combat I started to get the Florida weapons the laser weapons the shotguns down there melee I don't like the melee too much yeah I I didn't think they melee was all that but the thing that I liked is yes was the AI perfect from a combat yeah that's something they run out there in the middle then sometimes when I see them huddle up and stay up top yourself but sometimes if you flake them they ain't got no answer so I know Maddie's one I think me and Maddie are talking yeah you know that's one of his issues with the AI I can't stand it you you I know you could yeah blading Clips in my impressions of them just like standing there just it's one thing like if I outsmart them if they're it's because the game Studio's game the the reactive AI is not supposed to be like The Last of Us Part Two where they're having dogs sniff where you water in the grass like I'm not looking for that right right I'm just asking that you shoot at me get you shoot no not I get there sometimes where the AI will be stagnant on that level I will give you that combat Ai and that but I will say there's the AI that rushes you that's very aggressive there's the the animals will get into it and stuff like that but for me where it started to turn the corner when I really respected the AI is the play style I went so just real quickly so I went space scoundrel so I'm you know kind of intimidate you or get what I want I'm gonna do persuasion because I want to win a lot of persuasion checks it was one time I went to a city there's a damn near a bank robbery going on between a sheriff and people that had hostages inside that they started that off oh yeah good choice I think immediately I was like I would love to stop a bank I was like this is amazing and the level of writing because I'm gonna tell you Gene I'm a filthy save scummer when I know when I don't get the result I want I'm loading up and Destiny made it so easy I could load in mid-conversation be like oh I was wrong so I'm loaded let me tell you how Starfield is ill how great The Narrative is they still they wrote so many other choices every time I save scum bro so it was I had to learn the motives of the actual person I'm trying to persuade and I'm like oh this game is amazing then it started to hit so we we had that we hadn't done so much better man oh the writing is amazing so with that I went piloting a little bit because I wanted to get you know a little bit better there and I will say this with the yeah I'm gonna give it back to y'all is I went I think it was the ryujin quest line a lot of them if you're a stealth and persuasion guy no this is this is the spot for you if you want more bills I'm excited oh if you want to go up the corporate ladder and rest with them over there now um let me tell you the game became there was one mission that was so amazing where I was going up the corporate ladder someone became a mole and I had to go stitch them out and investigate my own building this thing became Splinter Cell and there was patrols AI I had myself had to be up I started to see all the systems so again to your point Maddie it's like it's what your experience is right because if you have a broken experience or boring you're just messing around with planets and just you may not have these moments right and then the last thing I will say and I learned is from King David this is the funniest thing I'm such a noble guy I just wanted another ship all I'm doing is running around with the basic I'll just run around so I'm like all right how do I get a ship without my companions you know because most of them were goody goody they was not trying to feel me robbing killing murdering and they were like we're out so there was this what I had two opportunities first off to tell the story random Planet I'm searching for resources because I'm trying to build something King said Cog when you want to plan it look up in the air and look and see people land I thought that was window dressing I didn't think that was ah bro it's real it's awesome so I'll go and I'll rob their ass bro I have someone landed I said oh he oh he got a class B oh I need this so I'll go over there oh man 21 Light Years really wow okay I was like okay guys this was way better so I said Sam cool you stay here because I couldn't send him home and then I went into the package I go there he ain't got no crew he's just a captain by itself so I said hey what's going on what's going on over here he's like yeah you know just a little mechanical trouble you've actually been able to figure out no problem I was like sure you don't need no help so he's like he's like nah I got it and I was like all right so I shut the hell up pull up I'm like oh I got me one right here baby kill the boy Sam cold just like that Sam Cole left your party Sam I'm like no yeah bro the companions got you on a short leash late ladies and gentlemen if you want to act out I'll just say go to the Crimson Fleet storyline because if you do dare to act out your companion not only leaves you but they voice their display they're like I can't believe it they believe it's and the last story at El Paso because you're right you've got a safe School ask yourself I won't do I will I won't Rob him sorry that a lot the next thing cause I'm still running around one ship I don't have any ships so the last and so then they taught me about the skin the attic was like Kong you got to use the scanner in space you gotta hail people it took me a minute to get through a docking station but I finally learned how to talk and communicate to other spaceships in different jump zones so I go against the ship G and the name of the ship is Grandma so I said hell hey sweetie how you doing I got some nice meals I got some stuff you want to come over and eat Okay so you're bored and dark so I bought in Dr ship I get in there as an Old Woman by herself she has all the med packs the best uh meals for your Regeneration all this stuff right so I was like um so what you doing out here by yourself oh my husband died so I just you know I'm just I should stroll the space ways and I just feed people my kids don't like it but whatever now mind you Class A Crazy ship caught all the stuff I need I'm sitting there and I'm like and I'm going through the ship and I'm like oh you're casing The Joint you're casing Grandma's house bro this game really tests my morale I'm like so I'm like well why are you by yourself she's like well you know I probably should I said Grandma you can be out here doing this this is not good she was like well last person Maddie she said I let someone and she took all his space clothes off he's a nudist and he I said Grandma what are you doing so I said look I'm not gonna rob you please go home do not come to this sector again and I sit there all the way so two attempts a one try that one I try to be a bad person didn't work well first I try to be a good friend but I had to give you about random space star field stories I just wanted to highlight emergent events it's kind of what I was when it plays in your favor it's and it's an incredible feeling it's when you're looking for that which it's usually not hard to find that because usually in a bgs game something will distract you and you realize like you're you're kind of just zipping into menus a lot like when you're in space there isn't I want to get this clear for a lot of people there isn't necessarily space travel like you think like you'd fly around the Sun and yeah let's talk about it yeah it's not how you imagined in your head because I think we all have the same picture like yeah I'm gonna cruise around like oh there's a spaceship there there's a satellite there there's an asteroid field no like a lot of times you're gonna zip in and it's gonna feel like you're almost the backdrops moving towards you like a bad old movie instead of you actually flying towards something um that cat scared the hell out of me um but it's not the travel that I think we all drummed up in our head and this is where the the famous Todd Howard quote I think you get it a little more like we can do anything we just can't do everything and it's like yeah this is like they couldn't do everything kind of moment like they couldn't add in that extra space travel which sucks because I feel like that's the best part of the game man like the combat is the best there when you're running into events out there it's the best the the kind of unknown of like talking at an event like a station that's when you hail them and all you hear is static on the radio oh I got that I was like oh like okay let me get in there let's see what's going on in here and there's some that I found that like are unmarked you just board it it's a star station everyone's dead what's a bummer about those is sometimes the procedural kicks in and you're like oh there's like no notes here there's no logs here there's no story here like I don't know why this place everyone's dead and left it I just that's it it's just a place like I've had that happen a couple of times so the space exploration could kind of be Hit or Miss but I think the thing that people need to be most aware of is like when you're up in space um the gene we talked about this like the the traveling from quest to Quest is kind of hilarious because you'll go into your quest log you'll hit set course and you're gonna fast travel a ton like you're not really flying two places and I'm not I don't think anyone was expecting no man's sky like yeah let me land on this planet up I go into the stratosphere no one was thinking that but like you're not really going to be zipping and zagging to things you're going to be opening menus opening your scanner switching targets it's it's very much Gene you put it perfectly like this interactive menu more than space travel and I think it works like especially when you have those moments of dog fighting and you have those emergent events Cog was talking about I think it's great but when you're again it's when you're looking for that you're like I really want some like space exploration right now I could go for that number one you're like where the do I start like there's so many systems here and then when you start just jumping across and scanning all the plans and you're finding civilian outposts abandoned lab I'm like okay abandoned robotics lab yeah exactly yeah I've seen a million of those like those clearly are in content you start skimming the game a little bit that's where like bigger isn't better Todd figure isn't better but that's like it's not like I don't know about you all but for me the thousand plus planning experiment kind of failed for me I was like you know what I like the game a lot I think it's fantastic but you didn't convince me that you need to do this you didn't like I think a couple Barren planets absolutely sell the simulation as they put it but I would have taken like 250 planets and and had more bumps in the road along the way perhaps that space is what's creating those moments Cox talking about I imagine they tested for all different amounts of planets until they felt they hit the right number but it's it's interesting because with that focus on scope I feel like they got a little distracted it's gonna sound like I'm going left here but it'll kind of come full circle is I think about the the persuasion minigame um that they have which I think works really well the one thing the game doesn't do is really account for my backstory and traits well enough I feel like they just wait you don't get the options I get them occasionally okay yeah I think you and I we did a spacecraft space scoundrel yeah like yeah I get it it's like almost a win based on my okay I don't get it often at all I swear on my life bro I've I have The Wanted trait uh I have the uh I did the kind of space scoundrel uh class because I wanted stealth Focus because I was like based off what we were seeing with the engine I was thinking okay like I think stealth will actually work here and it does by the way there's actually a hole on stealth mission in the UC Vanguard storyline that's so cool I'm like oh okay this engine is it's built different comparison but I guess in my experience then I didn't see many skill checks along the way and what's funny is the the persuasion minigame you just see like how much writing is in this game and I'm like y'all could have just trimmed the fat of all this and just put a skill check that was one line versus like eight extra zero in this person Asia minigame and I say all that because I think Bethesda gets like fixated on systems like they got fixed a on like how many players can we pack in keep going keep going keep going instead of just what I think matters to the player and it's the same thing here like how much lines can we pack into this game keep going keep going it's like no I actually would have taken less lines and more skill checks because that's pretty much what it would have equaled out to it's like shortage of writing isn't the problem it's like to me in my experience shortage of skill checks is the problem there um not that I need like alternate a million alternative Solutions but flavor text even like I barely stumbled upon that you find it more in the main faction Quest slides I think like they put it more in the main meat of the game but um I say all that because I think sometimes the scale of the game uh overtakes the focus and that's what makes it unique that's what makes it special but that also can be sometimes its greatest weakness I felt sometimes you do gentlemen feel the same with the the where do you stand on a thousand planets now that we've had time to float around space is it did it deliver COG I am polar different from you that's crazy yeah I'm not because it's this is a Sci-Fi game like to me it's like I want the idea of going to the unknown and here's the difference where I think where our disconnect is is that I understand what you're saying Maddie you're like yo maybe if they just cut this out it's less blow more refined get to the good stuff as far as the story what Maddie wants to do and I understand I want to be very cognizant of that I think for me the joy of the game is what is that what's going over over there and then there are there are events like I remember getting into a dog fight shooting down someone and the parts landed and it became a crash site on a planet and becoming an emergent event bro King taught me that like I'm like crazy it's crazy like the the game has so much immersion now I will say to your point Maddie when you get and G made a good point when you get to some of these planets the majority of those procedures yes it's gonna be abandoned this cave you know it's and it's like you'll just go I've like tried something out like I'm still trying to trick myself yo like what if I find something cool in here and it's like oh I found aluminum I feel no fact they see that this is what me and you differ this is where no man's Sky Cog likes because I'll go there and I'm like okay oh y'all got this y'all got iron y'all got it y'all got this recipe I'm I need all of this to either a do this other questline B and my he is doing I knew the game had me in the but that's the game I have never built the Outpost the bass ever I don't do that stuff I'm like I ain't doing this get out of here because get me to the story right there became points where I was just like man I do need this I have all these crewmates that I'm also uh getting to and I actually learned it myself it was very simple right so I was like now I have planets that have these resources that I can now fast travel to and then set up shop but I just wanted to get I guess where for me the I because I like no man's sky and the time period of where this game is this is this is before Mass Effect and we've really gone out and established ourselves this is like hey we're just trying to get you know I'm saying get out there kind of energy so everything is unexplored right and I think if you take that away for what they're trying to do right it makes it feel less and it it's normally I am the density Hub World guy which is weird but this game I feel does fit what it's trying to do and I did like that thing now the only thing I will push back and I will say that I completely agree with you with what your initial point was is my perception of how the travel was going to be was definitely what you said and it's not that missed this is literally hold up weight you're not going to really fly into that planet you're going to press the button and then we're going to cinematically fast travel you to each part and this I thought at least if I'm in the solar system I could go to each single one on my own land yeah that's gonna do kind of like yes that's gonna be a disconnect for some people I will admit like people are not some people will like it now the the flip side that I do like about it is once you've visited something to me one of the worst things you do a whole extensive quest line and you're like damn I gotta backtrack off the bass I gotta find my oh no if you've been you go straight to that I've went from the end of a mission and then automatically flew out skipped the Cinematic and ended up on a planet for the next thing so if you've been to the solar system before you've been to the structure before it has it kind of baked in that you could just insta travel and I do like that but I agree it's going to be a disconnect for a lot of people and this is a very polarizing thing that I do understand when you're coming from Maddie that a lot of people may say hey I don't like that part and this is boring to me get me to the regular stuff but Jim I'm curious where you where you're at all yeah I think people need to understand that there are like two layers of exploration and we can talk about the land exploration and because there's so much going on with there especially with the boundary break controversy and everything right going on but then there's that there's a lan exploration which is a lot like Skyrim and Fallout blah blah blah and then there's the bubble above each planet and then you just like that's where your spaceship lives and it's like like Manny said that's where the playable menu is and sometimes you'll have a distraction the dog fights are super cool I love the dogfights every single time I'm one of them I completely forget about the fact that I'm just in some some pocket bubble like above the atmosphere I'm like oh I'm flying through and I'm like you know and then that's when the illusion like like is able to envelop you it works you know like when when a spaceship is going behind an asteroid like blow apart the asteroid and I fly through the shattered rocks of it and I continue to to to to to fight that thing that's awesome um but as I said earlier you see the entire Loop of trend of travel in the direct they show you like what they show you above the planet and you see the rocks and it's very static and then you just click on land and then you see the landing animation and then that's it that's the whole that's that's the game that's that's how that's how travel Works those are just like cinematics for the direct like it's very much what you see yep yeah that's just what you see that's that's how that's the entire game like design that's how it's structured uh but like Clark said you can skip all that I was at the very very edge of the universe and like the the core of a planet and I found something and I was like I should I should bring this back home so I clicked the lodge and six seconds later thanks to the the fast loading the SSD and the Xbox power of the Xbox series I was back in my lunch like like no problem so like like in Final Fantasy 16 like you joked that like Clive Clive is uh just like going from the edge of like walude and then suddenly he's like oh we need to retreat and then like you're like well Retreat it takes like six months to get here what do you mean Retreat just keep going but then you Retreat and you're just back home in there and it's like oh okay well whatever right like that happened in in Starfield all the time the entire game like like the entire game's pacing or relies on the fact that you have to fast travel yeah um you can you can just walk back out the cave and I could just walk out into the planet walk back into the ship fly up into the ship and then and then travel to the system that want to go to and then land and you can do all that if you want to uh but really you're just extending the amount of loading screens that you have yes um but so I believe you know to be a little predictive of the discourse the toxic discourse that we're going to see tomorrow and for the rest of the week people are going to call this fast travel to video game I think so yeah I think it's fair I mean there's a ton of loading screens like when you get the neon like neon is one of the most visually pleasing parts of the game there's a lot going on dense crowds uh you see all these different ways of life and signs and propaganda it's just it's like visual stimulus and then every place you really want to go there whether it be the ebb side the trade tower the club a store even sometimes is all behind a load screen and like Gene said they're quick like you don't really think about it but it's the volume of them in some areas got it worse than others no doubt about it neon is especially bad because there are so many buildings and here's the interest but they're the the detail into these buildings is incredible that's what I was mentioning earlier that this is like the real first Bethesda game with like actual like civilization in it because like you know like like Tamriel or whatever is it's a fantasy land you know the dragons dragons are killing everybody fall out the nuclear bombs kill everybody here everyone's alive and well and and they're thriving humanity is alive and well so you go into a corporate building like usually in any other games like you would the corporate building like a GTA they'll be the lobby and then maybe you get like the mission floor and Netflix the CEO office right no the corporate buildings in this game there there is the marketing department they they built out the human resource department for each of these buildings yeah yeah I was like what the am I doing in a human resource department in a video game like why did they even make this here that's crazy who knows you know yeah bro that real quick interrupt Gene did when I I did the UC Quest later and they have a good Bros yeah I did that no they literally have before you take your exam you can go through a museum in the game to understand the lore of the game and it's fully animated and it's I'm like bro do this I shouldn't have done that bro do the first Quest yeah of UC the Lauren Starfield is so dark like if anyone wants a comparison you're listening you're like okay which way does it Lean Like I went in thinking starfield's gonna be this uplifting tale of humanity going out into the Stars no like it's more all out than Elder Scrolls like it is it's up what's happening there's a lot of messed up there's a lot of good people in Starfield it's not like Fallout where you everyone's like it man whatever like we're all dead anyway um no it's it but it's dark like the history leading up to where you are at in the Starfield timeline is is really really like mired in wars and secret operations and there's a Hidden Truths buried everywhere and these faction quest lines kind of serve as like peeling the layer back again and again so like you kind of go into UC vanguards and I kind of went into it thinking of like the Warriors Guild like okay the Vanguard you know the main dudes okay that's what I thought that's why I didn't do it yeah exactly that this game so bad with your perception of what a Bethesda game Studio's game is like the main story you're like okay wait this is really good and the same thing with the Vanguard you're like okay yeah you're a wannabe Warriors get wait what what's a terramorph well bro Daddy please tell me you did the term I didn't do the term more fun see that's crazy Jean this is a straight up horror game at that point is it a UC Vanguard Mission then yeah dude that's the one I was talking about like it's raining yeah you're getting stalked like this is minor sport but I think people gotta hear it to know like what creation Engine 2 is doing compared to this stuff it was raining it was night time a creature stalking me and you could hear it and I had to stealthily crawl around and flip some switches and bro you know Bethesda game had like oh this is intense and there are Parts in the main story that that Gene I know you can attest to that are legitimately creepy yeah like like that's pretty creepy yeah it's I mean this game it's for all the critiques I have of its exploration and whatnot its tone is so flexible like you could be in new Atlantis and be like you know and then in the in the just deep throes of like a really up storyline moments later like it's just so much narrative Whiplash uh I know I interrupt you I apologize but yeah I just oh no no storyline is I'm sure I'll say this about other ones like it but that one was like a big surprise I was like thinking that this is gonna be whatever like you know you you're cooking I think that was the big surprise here for me and you said it earlier let's be honest you know most of us are Bethesda guys here they're not known for they they know for live in the world do the side quests yeah you know enjoy the entire banquet they're not known for y'all I'm here for a main story and a steak and you know what I'm saying like like they not known for that like I can't I remember Oblivion year was good Fallout no question but I'm just saying as far as me and I'm gonna give it to you because you are probably the father and I'm dying to know your opinion like as far as a story main story from what I have played so far this is by far the best story I they have ever done and you know when Pete was like yeah we're proud of it and I'm like yeah I don't even remember what I did in Skyrim you know say like I I remember the guilds and the brother Dark Brotherhood and the thieves you know this now this oh they go there they go there so that's what I wanted because I know you know we kind of spoke a little bit and that was one of your things that you seem to be impressed by and I'm just curious you know do you agree with that do you where did that fit in the scheme of things for you with your your Starfield impression yeah let me read my review which will be live when this goes live so please go read it on washingtonpost.com but I say that this is easily uh this is easily the best uh Bethesda of main quest a central storyline ever uh and uh God what was it gonna say yeah it's it's to me I think it's the mission design and the level of choice that's in all these because I noticed it's not just the main story like doing the UC Vanguard it was it also made me see like okay it's not just like the main story I got the focus here like I'd say in starfield's main quest like there's I I actually learned by talking to a couple people who also played the main story there's a point that a choice is made that will vary from player to player yep and which which is really cool like what happened to you was completely different from what happened to me when you when you told me what happened I was like I don't know what you're talking about are you like the main story I was like that's not what happened to me exactly wow and then there's a second part where you do that and like a third part like there's yeah it's not a spider web like I think of wasteland three like to me that's the ultimate spider web game where just everything you do just goes outward there's a level of focus in in these games and I think that's important because or in these stories sorry because I think it's important because they're they're trying to achieve something with the narrative it's not just like reactivity the game like I think Wasteland three is like this game has themes in the narrative like I'd say the main story made me think of existentialism uh you know really tapping into the human curiosity and in a weird way it felt very biblical in a good way oh this is what I was going to say uh so I told you all that I spoke to Todd Howard today I am actually the first person that he spoke to outside of the company about the main quest oh let's go he was really happy to hear that I beat it and he wanted to know what my thoughts are were to ending so I explained to him what I thought the themes of the game and the ending was and he was like you nailed it that's exactly what we're going for right it's like it's too bad that isn't in the spoiler cast because I could talk about it we'll talk about that more later or I might even include in my article next next week too but uh yeah that's why like that's why Todd Howard was yelling at Pete Hines when Pete Hines was like oh I've been playing the game for 60 hours I'm a total space bar and toddler was like like have you done the main quest he was like no I haven't even touched it it was like Todd is like what are you doing dude play the main quest so like these guys are actually aren't actually kidding when they when they when they emphasize the importance of the main quest so that's why Maddie says that that's the right way to play it and that's why like I told him like dude you got to do the main quest man because I do you feel like that it all comes comes together and it comes together even stronger once it's done you know that's the crazy part that's what I heard what we can speak about because I got confirmation that we can speak about this part the the main quest and the the existence of new game plus and new game plus having an even more transformative role based on the main quest you know storyline yeah so there's one cool let's go there's one with new game plus really cool thing that happens that I I can't even hint at I'm sorry ladies you know I can't hint that but like you'll probably think of it when you beat it and when you go and do it you're like wow I mean you know exactly what we're talking about once once you get there yeah 100 like it's they they they did something kind of special with new game plus that I've never seen a game do and that also was not hyperbole but I think I think that that I I I think that it is the most Innovative and clever thing about this game uh that they redefine replay value you know yes and the gameplay Loop and that's why I keep saying over and over again that it's like it's like that's when the entire game made sense to me at that point um yeah it it I feel like because they they no I don't want to say more I'm not going to go off yeah I'm sorry I'm so excited to play it some more or play it again you know yeah uh and that's what a new a good new game plus should do yes you know like our record that does a similar thing where it's like you beat it and it's like the next time around there's just like like new and like they're like it's just an interest like interesting approach I don't know um so and I think what Starfield does is even more interesting you know wow yeah yeah the new game plus is special no doubt about it it's gonna It's Gonna Keep people hooked for I have a question for you guys let's go I want you guys to go to music oh oh okay I put this in my review and I know it's a hot take because it's cool with Elder Scrolls we have ion zero with Fallout now Starfield I think this might be their best score yet like wow I really do I I and and that's big for me to say like there's a lot of because I'm trying to separate the Nostalgia that I have from like listening to these tracks I use them in the backgrounds of my video like I hear them all the time versus like Starfield where like for my critiques in the neon load screens bro the track that plays there this dude is goaded after that track it is so moody and atmosphere everyone get the neon quick like that okay track is where I was like yo this soundtrack is so good like the you know I also love that they kind of figure out like Fallout 4 one thing that it bugged the hell out of me is like you kind of just be jogging along and The Game Wouldn't register properly if an enemy was nearby it would break up the great music you know he was like no I don't want to listen to combat music like this game has a good separation where it doesn't constantly hit the off switch on very vibey tracks and yeah they it captures the great isolation of space quite well it's um especially in those we talked about those creepy segments that's where it also sticks out and it feels very full I mean it's a it's a range man but I I love the soundtrack I'm glad you brought up Gene because I probably wouldn't mention it otherwise but I loved the soundtrack of this game I think for me it's it's it's not it's more of a mood setting it's fine Mass Effect it's very yeah like it's because I'm the guy that I'm I'm the Explorer right so I I'm going into the darkest caves I'm I'm I'm I'm Scavenging I'm doing things and it it's there's a tension there's a subtle okay what am I gonna find here what's gonna and I feel the mood the music really does a good job of kind of not being overbearing but letting me feel really in the moment of what I'm doing um actually don't mind the the Enemy music when there's like especially like there's really threats that very um carnivorous threats from an alien uh creature standpoint I thought that was well I talked about that if y'all gonna learn about terrible just gonna let y'all know right now and when you do learn about it it yeah that when that thing that that be hit it's it's pure Terror it's all God oh God you know what I'm saying it's kind of like a Alien versus Predator kind of vibe that I was getting but um overall like I said I I'm not gonna go I am a Skyrock I will I will say I am a Skyrim guy fall out I mean those are like music but I will say Starfield approach is different I like it I just need a little bit more before I conclusively say yo it's definitely there but I'm curious because you brought this up so where do you have it I turned the music off oh my god wow I didn't hate the music but I did hate one part of the music the Starfield theme always playing every time you fast travel bro there's only so many times I can hear it [Music] I was I was here I was here that thing like four or five times within like 10 seconds dude so I could do with an off switch for that yeah that might be my little my little brain tune in that house that's fair it might it might be I was tuning it out until I noticed it and then and then I couldn't stop noticing I was like I gotta turn the music off because I'm gonna go insane I hope you didn't play after this show you got me scared that I'm gonna fire it I'll be like oh I noticed I'm sorry I like it maybe just don't fast travel as much as I do but you know what I do there are some tracks that I really really like so I didn't want to say that I don't like the score right okay uh because there are some tracks that are really really good I would put it up there with the with you know the original like night theme from Skyrim and I do Mr radio though you know yeah that would have been cool to have a radio you know it has some Imagine Dragons playing oh you try to get Chris he's trying to get that man pissed off because I saw that magic jacket that was incredible that was a personal attack on Chris I'm sorry for the game and I think that just killed it I do miss I do miss having a radio though uh you know that you just be vibing out in in a planet and you're just like you know I wish I could listen to something else so you know pull up an apple music or Spotify playlist work too you know but well it's good oh sorry what I did do is I I created a playlist of all these classical music uh uh uh tracks just like 2001 the Space Odyssey uh so you know like glued the noob and everything like that because like that is like the perfect five for just like vibing out in space and exploring and just like collecting resources um I won't say just like you really hated that theme to go that far yeah I was I was trying to replace the soundtrack that's how my bad I hated the theme I guarantee one of the first mods remove Starfield theme with fast travels yo please request it I'm requesting it right now please remove just there's a theme from the from the loading screen when you do the grav drive you know or just a grab driver jump that's it yeah um I didn't build an outpost and I and and I'm not someone who usually with those systems but I did do that in Fallout 4 I did like like building my own house in Fallout 4. but in The Outpost I and I feel regretful about it because I hear that that's the best way to to build up crafting resources and then like I feel like some of my equipment you know the power pack again like I'm trying to build up to get that power pack but I'm having a hard time resources guys how did you deal with incumbrance so two things number one that weightlifting perk got fast tracked when I started to notice a problem yeah yeah that got fast right I was sprinting everywhere with 75 inventory everywhere deals work it's basically work work it's basically Skyrim you know they they didn't really fix they didn't really uh fix what wasn't already broken uh so you you shoot more pistols you get better at pistols you can you can you can upgrade pistols and boom you're shooting you're shooting pistols everywhere so for weight weight burden you know the best way to level that the only way to level up is that you got to be 75 over your weight limit or 75 of your weight limit and you got to be sprinting your ass off and that's how you increase it facts Maddie before you answer the continue your story about the weight lift I don't want you to lose your thought um how how are you guys feeling this is a little controversy with the ILP where we talked about it how are you guys feeling about the allocation of when you do a challenge in the perk that you have to also use a skill point to unlock the next level of the challenge as opposed to being given it do you like love it do you think oh you love it you like the commitment to the style I love the commitment and you know what I love that they're slowing down the the you're gonna get God mode you always get God mode in these games but the problem they've always had is you get there so quick and especially in like Fallout 3 like if you're picking bloody mess and all these damage and you can get Swift learner bro you just rise up the ladder and like by level 10 easy-ass game not even level five it's insane the difference they did here with keeping the Skyrim leveling system but just fine tuning it what I saw originally like oh no like I thought Fallout 4 I was like oh no perks and points man yeah like in Fallout 4 like you just like there were dudes who were sending me screenshots they're like I love this game Maddie I'm level 387 I'm like I don't know how the you found content enough to do that besides the point being is like I feel they did a really good job especially with new game plus Intel like a really good job with that power scaling because like especially with space combat like you die a lot out there at least in my experience like that's where most of my deaths came from on the ground I think it was when the AI was working my experience like it was moderately difficult which I liked I was like oh I can't just pop a stem and just run out mow them all down it's like I gotta take cover it made me realize they're they had this in Fallout 4 but like there's a lean mechanic it's like okay like I like it yeah yeah yeah if you press up against something you press the left trigger this was in Fallout 4 too you actually pop out of cover yeah yeah yeah it Bethesda y'all on board and come on bro like we just said five things that all of us didn't know about the other ones was doing I didn't even know you could drag bodies Bethesda bro yeah you gotta all you got you got to do better with this oil that's crazy okay yeah that's fair but there's certain things that like they didn't need to tutorialize like they just hit me with 8 million menus and I knew they were losing me in the early going when I was just like yep hey like I just get the hell out of here like I was like I'm tired of reading your constant pop-ups man it's like I need ad blocker for this game at this point man it was just constant pop-ups but um yeah that's that's what uh how I felt with finishing weightlifting I interrupt you on your weightlifting he was talking about how you was going to play yeah with all the that you had to pick up in this game there's a couple of things that you can do I think the I think the best thing that people should do is I don't care if your ship looks like a monstrosity just invest in the cargo upgrades on your shipbuilding because um what I learned was at least until I think without post management there's a perk that connects the Outpost kind of like the trade routes um I haven't gotten to that point because I've done Outpost like a little bit because the crafting in this game because it's optional I actually it's amazing like the difference it's like I actually want to go and build something create a place for the homies to go chill at let them work on some stuff let them cook mine stuff etc etc but I don't know if you like put a chest down and you connect all the trade routes that I'll have access to that that's something that my testing is yet to reveal because I'm not leveled up enough um but investing in your ship's cargo you'll always have access to that inventory whether it be when you're selling to someone which is really helpful so that you can get a lot of money or um don't pick your resources there of course your um companions can carry stuff and what I learned is when I engaged in the building and the upgrading I noticed my inventory limit would go down because I'm utilizing my resources so what I would do is the the item hogging me in Fallout 4 right just grabbing everything in sight now in Starfield it's like I grab all the resources and I run and use them I don't care if I get like a couple percent in it's like I'm gonna use you it means that I don't track my projects as closely I don't save up or something because it's funny Fallout 76 had the same problem the only issue was like they're like the stash limit they had was so small because of like I think servers and they gradually increased updates for it um now it's not a problem but it's funny that in Starfield like everyone was saying like yeah I'm over I'm encumbered right now like I I have too much in my inventory like how do I like so many reviewers are like yo how do I how do I handle the stash or I was like cargo like just uh I I just bought the most expensive one and that's been great for me I can carry up to like a thousand pounds and weight in my ship now and and that's been more than enough with like fully upgraded weightlifting and you can get backpacks but you lose your at least in I haven't found a backpack that does both but um you can get backpacks that give you extra carry space you can upgrade armor they have the same upgrade from Fallout 4 pocketed so you can get those uh upgrades on your armor and so you can get more carry space that way um it's definitely limited I think a little too much but I think I think it encouraged me to start engaging in those systems more and re like especially the research station which I thought was really cool um and because of that I I kind of came to I don't say I appreciate the the income Birds status I was in constantly but it it brought me to something kind of fun and addicting and and this game does a good job at like getting its hooks in you as you like get into that session where it takes a while I had my sleep schedule under wrap bro I was doing great man and like I think I still have a pretty good hold on it but like this game threatened that terribly so yeah like they they have a good way of roping you in but that's how that's how I try to maneuver it so you guys both had like a lot of problems with your uh your inventory space yeah I'm I'm the worst like if I I'm bro I'm oblivion I'm every when I see high value on something like I guess you because it's credits so they're like oh this is five thousand thousand you know I'm gonna take that it's gonna be good and it's just so then my hustle was adoring fan right so adoring fan be with me all the time he does everything I want him to do and I'm all right you're my mule for all my my products worthy moments on the ship that's why I got him bro super pause worthy and uh he was great because a lot of the companions you meet in Starfield very early are very morally High Ground until you know some you'll meet other characters you know so that was that but I would say Vasco at the ship also and then I started doing what Maddie said which is the cargo because what ends up happening is I did have an event where I they they required I had to be a diplomat between two major parties and these parties they were like yo one of them I call them the mass and mass effect Andromeda crew they came here with their whole Colony ship that's like them that's like you pull up in the bus in Washington DC in front of them in front of the White House and say yes and now the Washington uh the White House is ours we we own it we traveled here and I'm like bro that's not yours so they was like well we're gonna go claim it and I so I had to go into the quote-unquote planet that had the White House and pretty much you know negotiate but during this negotiation period part of the settlement was a lot of materials except both parties could exist and I kind of diplomated the situation but to your point longer end of it is that it is a problem I do think they need to handle a little bit better without just doing weight lifting all day but outposts also help that when you start to learn that mechanic and to your point Maddie I was the same way I didn't I never do those type of things crap but the way it was optional it was just kind of easily it it was easy to set up and I was able to get into it and set things up pretty fast and you realize that the weapon upgrades are amazing in this game like they're very good I had a big problem finding a suppressed weapon for a while um and when I did because I was building stealth and I was like I'm not like I have this head start with the background I picked on stealth and I'm like I'm not building it at all where I'm like falling behind I was like I need a suppressor and the fact that stealth Works in this it worked in other games that you could do stealth Archer really easy in Skyrim but it was more like because it was broken but like this game you could do authentic like a Guys nearby and then someone's down the road and you could just pop up and take him out and then someone might hear the body drop but it'll still say like caution it almost say like immediately like in any bgs game but you shoot them they go oh they die really loud everyone's loud who's there you know and yup yup so yeah I find a silent pistol early on because you can find really good weapons uh yes and so I finally I was lucky that I found a Simon's pistol and I was like you know oh I have a good question I can kind of throw exactly yeah real quick don't do dirt if you stealth don't do dirt with companions because sometimes they blow up the spot like Sarah she was running around I'm like what are you doing that's why I wasn't getting no stealth kills in the beginning because she jumping into the mix of us you see her yeah in Starfield they die they did that Ellie they like we see him she's blowing up your spot bro fact continue I'm sorry no no you're very good not Skywalker writes in Maddie Cog and Gene I have to know where their unique weapons in Starfield finding the named weapons in bgs games has been a long underrated feature that I have always taken so much enjoyment in from Lincoln's repeater to the overseers guardian these are traditionally some of my favorite weapons to use in these beloved RPGs I'm curious how such a feature could be implemented into a game with procedural generated areas that are unique to each player pardon me please tell us about it or break the bad news either way cheers and happy launch day Aiden thank you Aiden for writing in gentlemen how is your experience finding named weapons in I have one I I think it's a unique pistol it's a revolver and I forgot what it's called but it was off a main character yes I've I they're to answer your question Aiden they function more as Quest rewards I've noticed I have yet to go into a location and be like at the end of a dungeon like in Skyrim they perfected it and I don't know out of everything they looked at with Starfield and made better I don't know what changed internally where after Skyrim where they nailed rare weapons and armor they looked at Fallout 4 and went like yo what if we just watered that down to a science and just went legendary weapons and then in 76 we doubled down on that and then Starfield we tripled down on I was like why why are we walking away from this so much I don't get it because it just gives value to these otherwise worthless areas because you'll find stuff like the Lincoln's repeater or the overseer's guardian in a place where just Raiders are holding it down with a a mini nuke I mean it's great um but in this game like I found what I've what I found perhaps the most disappointing this is having high expectations in today's game development environment but like one thing I loved about Skyrim for example is like you'd find a Mace of Molag ball nothing looked like ball nothing acted like the Mesa Mo log ball in Starfield you'll get like a I got an assault rifle it's called fiscal corridor and that's because it was yeah it's like a funny name based off the quest I got from and I didn't notice anything unique visually or I effect wise and I'm like my weapon I have is better in this it's like they're they're like trying to to remove that part of me so like Aiden there in my experience there I have yet to see one that I go oh wow that's really unique compared to the rest of them it's more like Fallout 4 it's just uniques where you you have like the overseer's guardian is very much the same as a combat rifle in in Fallout 4 but they have different power levels and base stats and that's what separates them and in Starfield it's much of the same but I almost think it got a little worse from what I've seen like I have yet to have a really exciting weapon that I've got that exciting as in like I looted it there are exciting ones in how they play um particularly like um I really love the Beowulf like that one's a lot of fun for me to use um I turned into like a single shot rifle but um uh gentlemen how is your unique weapon and armor how is that gone you're a little hunt for them have you found anything which I'm curious Gene and that'll go because yeah I think the the revolver I got I'm not even sure if it's Unique I think it just might just be named you know and with some special upgrades um in terms of armor that's interesting because you do there is again like regular unique armor that you can get but then you would get it like you would probably pull it off like a like a dead like character on a questline or something uh you know you defeat the boss and you do that um I have found unique spaceships and that's interesting interesting okay tell me more there's one question that was just like not even procedural I just heard it in the background and like like guys don't sleep on the on on the quest that you just hear like like in the crowds because that is some of the weirdest like wackiest like and and like handcrafted like that those are not procedural quests anything that gets added to the activity log is is almost guaranteed to not be procedural yeah so then I found one and it led me into this like interesting like layer and at like with this whole story that one spoiled because that the whole point of the that Quest is the story is really interesting at the end of it I got a unique helmet I got a new unique uh spacesuit and I got a unique spaceship all that that are all matches the spaceship the the the helmet and the space suit all matching and the space pack so I got wow all the all the uh the uh the cosmetics in the game unique to to that area to that one character to that one person to this one Quest and now I just look crazy like not right now I love that yeah so it's awesome like like you you will find unique like like this is like the craziest outfit I've ever seen like so what I'm I'm noticing and I only just found it last night like again like this is the that I had to like go go in and I finished my review and I was like I gotta play a little bit more because I know that there's so much more I'm missing and I just found so much more stuff yeah that I'm glad I did because like I it changed my score to review you know it went for three and a half stars or four stars you know there we go yeah there we go and four stars is a Max that's that I'm not saying four out of five stars so wait you do four out of four four oh wow what you said four I was like oh out of five okay that's fair no no no it's four out of four so it's it's gonna be a hundred on Metacritic but then that means that like a three-star game is gonna be like down to like a 70 something you know basically 35 all right yeah see it's funny because what I'm learning with this conversation and I think what's going to make Starfield special it sounds like is there's stuff I've gone off about that you've been like oh no that like that I found this right and it feels like the game has answers to any critiques we kind of thrown at it but it's just the vastness of the game it's like I might hit that at the 200th Mark 200th hour mark or I might hit it at the 80th or I might talk to it after the show I talked to another reviewer who just bounced off the game we were just like like I didn't like it I was like how long are you playing it was like six hours I was like that's so when you told me Maddie that you were playing for five hours and and you were not enjoying it I was like that's the same amount of time that this reviewer played it so they're always still in that funky area of just like I don't know what I'm doing I don't know what the game is about I don't understand the crying I don't understand the loop uh all of that becomes apparent because you gotta live in this game a little bit longer which is why I believe like yeah two weeks is a lot is a long time to review a game and we're grateful for that I think we could have used at least a month for it for this game I'm finding so much more stuff that that probably would easily like I was like am I justifying the four I have to think about it right but then like all the stuff Cog is saying and the terror morph and stuff like that that would easily put it into the four star range at that point you know but I haven't experienced it yet you know so that's why the reviews today are going to be super interesting because it's like it's really good because it seems like I've heard people really like it I've heard some people like bouncing off of it so I'm just yeah I'm expecting her I don't I don't want to guess too hard but I'm expecting like a a range of scores when it when it comes out but um you know the the more you really sit on it it's a game that always calls your name back that's that's the thing I noticed is like I'm thinking about it more like I think balder's Gate 3 for example is the better game right now the two if you are to make a comparison but despite that I'm thinking about my Starfield save way more like I I want to go back to Starfield I want to see every single corner of Starfield there's more there's no personal investment from a player in Starfield versus Baldur's Gate which is uh which is still you know as as flexible as it is and it's it's miraculously flexible in terms of player input right it's not really your story though you know you're still going through this DND story you still have to deal with the Mind flare in your brain you know whereas in Starfield it's just like you're out of the minds now now what but that's classic Bethesda you're out you're out of the Vault now what you know yeah yeah you gotta make that story yourself and that's why that's why it calls back to you because it's like you have that investment in there it means something a little bit more you know because the decisions you you make you know I I I add my review by talking about a really really stupid thing that happened in the game where it's like you know it was along the main quest and it's like I'm witnessing probably the most important event of human history of all time right this is like incredible right this is the most amazing Discovery ever and I brought my boyfriend Barrett with me [Laughter] so he's there and I'm witnessing this thing and it's like bam and the event's over and then the the only thing out of Barrett's mouth is hey friend you got time to chat yes I love this cave you know you're not going to see something that stupid in in it but in a Baldur's Gate because this game gave me the agency to drag my boyfriend uh to all the way to the outer edges of the Galaxy to witness this this enormous event in human and and like Universal history and he says he just wants to chat so I asked him like like what do you want give me a sandwich or when they find something randomly I got something to give to you yeah that's exactly what he was doing is I got something to give you I was like what you got buried I was like yeah I got a sandwich I was like so this is a game that lets me drag my boyfriend all the way to the edge of the Galaxy just so he can make me laugh and give me food that's a good jump off point here hold on we we might have let's go Alex Kilgore says Hey Dukes real question time who did you or romance in Starfield and why I chose Barry because I thought it was interesting that I can romance him in the first place he's one of the First characters you you meet uh and I'm not like gay I think um my therapist and I well I have to find therapist first to work that out but like you know like I wanna I was like why don't I be gay in Starfield because I'm not like actually gay in real life I don't really do this that's why I play games to pretend to be other people so that's why I was like yeah I'll bring Barrett along like he's the he's a character that I like the most I like hanging around him the most uh it's funny you know I think the characters in this game are interesting I think they're well written uh you know uh especially the members of constellation the only thing is that like I heard that there's loyalty quests and I'd even bump into those yet right now so you wait you ain't hitting none of the flirt oh you had it yeah okay cool yeah so I'll let you finish but yeah I mean you know yeah so that's that's why I just selected Barrett because I just thought he was the most interesting person so yeah I was hitting on the flirt with him and I was like oh I didn't know the bear was like this okay you know yeah everyone's out there it uh it still feel bad like it it's romance to be had hey is all about the profits so for me I'll try to like all right let me get a feel of most of the characters you know um I didn't really hit it off with Sarah too much because she just became a little bit too judgmental for me and especially you know my indulgences with ryujin really struck a bad nerve with her and um yeah it was not gonna work now Sam Cole was definitely flirting because I I took you know I'd like it into the daughter and and I could see Sam was pushing up like okay it was we had one of the moments hey can we talk yeah all right Cowboy easy but I'm good right now she broke back hold on a second yeah you try to get it look but I won't say this Samco is the dude to run with bro oh outside outside I do like so we'll see in that voice man his daughter hates my ass dude let me tell you how Sam goes for when the idol animation was sitting there he's like I know you stared at my baby blues bro I was just good to go get a sandwich and you acting like like Bethesda this game has Idol snark yeah conversational Idol snark with everyone so right now I will say though I forgot how do you pronounce her her name on Maddie um oh no you and I might have just the line man Andreas is she Indian what is she I don't know man but I don't know right she's a brown girl yeah the thing about her she got a little bit of gray her morality yeah she said well you're absolutely the most interesting when you meet her I think very interesting when she made me laugh is remember I'm the big boost pack guy Mama I'm I'm doing all this Michael Jordan stuff everywhere I go so if you time it wrong because it takes up so much energy you could kind of like do hard Falls and hurt yourself so if you don't if you don't ease your fall from such a high drop so she'd be like I saw that she's like it looks like that hurt but I'm gonna act like that I can see that it's like she made cracking jokes on me and then the thing that I like about her is like she loves when I Loop the bodies yeah she's like yeah she's like yeah very like she she's very much driven by Justice like I realize like if I'm giving someone a firm slap on the hand and I'm like there's a reason for it like you can't just unjustly kill someone but if like there's a reason why I could put a ball in your head she's like yeah yeah like you shouldn't have done that so like sorry but we're gonna this is another thing I like about her she a lot the game has a lot of political ideologies and religious ideology spread about and it's clear she was on a side one at one point but she has a different view of how Starfield is telling history and I like especially take her to the museum I highly advise taking her to the museum yeah they always have something to say about it she has some of the most amazing desk he was like I would love to see how the freestyle Collective feels about how they said this that the third or how the house of varoon feels about such like she she she's like whatever the main story Quest played out differently because I had her as a follower I won't say which one but yeah like she had a very specific unique set of interactions because I had her with me in the main story like that's where Bethesda went right by trimming down the companions is you get a lot of feedback from them and then you get moments like that where I was like yo if I had Sarah with me that just wasn't happening like there wouldn't have been that connection that back like it wasn't just like she's just chiming in because I said something like it's like hey I know you like wait why are you with him yo kind of energy yeah it's it's really good stuff so long and short in the lead if ranking is probably what is it andreja it's a very interesting name but that's what I caught my attention I'm like this is like where are you from like oh I gotta learn more but also bro just it was one look and I was it I was like oh bro I feel sorry I felt so dirty about it I was like I talked to all that and then I saw her I was like yeah it gets real it gets it gets real it gets real it's Sam cold stop flirting but you the whole world can you romance Vasco I wonder that's a good question you got to be able to it's just as you could ask him personal questions but I've never I've never have you guys read like outside of the beginning of the game I left Fasco kind of in the ship and he's like he's the greeting party as soon as I land down the ships he says your name he's uh the uh the the same thing that the follow-ups yeah yes good point good point yeah exactly like Captain Maddie I'm like oh I was like you always said my name that's awesome yeah Captain Jean oh my God hell yeah that's a Bethesda game right there yeah that's the game baby let's go all right we got a couple more questions that we can kind of tab through here let's talk about one that we've somehow managed to avoid this whole time which actually may speak to our experience I don't know I'm going to kind of do these as a two-for-one package here we'll do Matt Danger 87 and your boy Nikki B Together Matt Danger writes howdy Dukes I know you're trying or I know you're going to be inundated with Starfield questions but I'm wondering did any of you try it on the series s with all the discourse around uh the set the S potentially holding games back and such I wonder how a game of starfield's magnitude holds up on the little man thanks as always and Cog I hope you're feeling better Meanwhile your boy Nikki V writes hey Booty boy Berry titty gobbler Maddie and foot photographer Gene wow the the list continues on dude I made it dude surprise this hasn't been asked yet what's it been like going back to 30 FPS is it still jarring after all these hours or has it become second nature once again have a cog is sohen she makes gears character models look realistic kind of day wishing you all the best big guy with a lot of love love appreciate it all right so Series S and performance let's talk about it shall we so gentlemen you both I think I saw you both splash the thumbs up for the series that's am I correct was did it did it run well for you both yep yeah yeah for me yeah I was telling the truth again yeah all right listen that's my man I could not tell the difference I could I couldn't tell the difference it's it's it's almost it's pretty much the same game the the we can talk about performance more broadly but whatever was going on in series X was also happening on Sirius X I played it for like about five hours of the series this I think that's enough time and again this is like deep into my save so this is not like the beginning no this is like when all the memory and all of my is all over the universe you know yeah no bro this is great point I think that's what surprised me the most because I had a unique experience I played on all three platforms obviously during my being at home with an initial review before I went to the ER I was playing on series X um then something preemptively made me load it on my laptop on 30 70 and see how that was and later on once I started to recover in the hospital I had my whole we bring the laptop and I made a hot spot so I can play a little star field once I was on that tail end and that was good but back to the question of Series S that really impressed me I put about 10 hours on Series S and the thing that surprised me was like jeans I couldn't notice the difference and mind you I'm coming from my laptop 3070 down to Series S and I'm like I'm not no everything is retained I'm not seeing any drop-off for degradation and this is where to the second part of the question Manny the 30 frames was the right decision because it's stable it's a stable 30. now granted we will talk a little technical Jank I did experience some as far as like what I could saw the Bethesda love Jank you might have a you know they got ball heads one load when you come in one time you're like okay what's going on here but from a techno a pure technical standpoint the only time I felt the engine was really taxed as if like I was in you know new Atlantis every single NPCs I'm doing a lot I felt that is what I felt the 30 I'm locked but when I'm in combat when I'm doing other space fairing Wing Commander shooting fighting other spaceships I'm not feeling the dirty I'm like this feels really smooth and I I'm actually impressed with the performance on this game you know it's I'm not is it perfect is it nothing wrong with of course you could find a nitpick here and there or a pop-up here and there or stutter here and there with very specific things but as an overall presentation the how much hours I put in this game it's extremely impressive how this game Run in my opinion yeah no I played it all on series X I've heard some mixed things on PC which would be par for the course this year but from a series X I I gotta go back to what Todd Howard said because it was it was straight up on the money it was you don't think about it like the performance is that stable you just don't think about it like even when the shooting was going down because I remember he said something like it plays smooth and I laughed I was like Todd I was like Todd 30 frames shooter smooth like think brother what um okay you might have something there because you know is it your perf I guess preferred method to play probably on paper no but I really didn't think about it at all I didn't notice it I know it sounds like like I know what it sounds like to the audience but I really didn't notice like it it was a smooth experience because there was never a dip really the only times I had them were twice and it was when I when I'm my ship was coming in to land there was like a little stutter that happened sometimes to me yeah it happened twice to me and I'm like all right that's it like that's not gameplay to me like at least that that's like it's loading in the level or something but when you're running around you're questing you're talking you're in the the most densely populated cities of Starfield I it probably explains why there's so many load screens as a trade-off there but I think it's worthwhile because your actual gameplay while it's interrupted by load times uh which are very quick load screens I should say which don't have long load times the actual frame rate is never a problem no matter the and the action like especially in the main story gets crazy like there is flying everywhere it gets insane and that stability is really showing off well in again that ship combat like that is where like a lot of stuff's going down you're going at the fastest a bgs game probably has ever gone before um you know you think about how they've never done vehicles or anything probably because of the speed at which you're going versus what they have to render um yeah man I mean they on a tech level it feels like they've nailed it I had I had you know the problems with the AI I had a bug where I don't know if you guys had this people would be bald yes that's what I said the ball glitch was awful bro because it I'll just say it happened at an emotional point in the story and I reset app I reset that's what I noticed fix that I reset app because bro Gino probably know the part I'm talking about there's an emotional part in the main story and like everyone's bald I'm like no I was like oh my God like everyone's bald bro everybody yeah and I had it on Mars I'm walking around Sidonia and I'm like yo whatever shave their head and I was like At first I thought it was Laura I'm like I'm like yo it's hot on Mars like that but then I talked I turned to talk to Sarah she's shaved head I'm like I'm like what the happened I was like this girl yeah I I found out resetting the app fixes it I had to do that twice it was during that story moment and then on Mars but otherwise yeah like that was the that was the main two bugs for me I had a couple of Waypoint bugs where like when I was doing the UC Vanguard questline like they were directing me to the masked building and it was like shooting me underground pretty much like is where they were trying to tell me to go but I knew I had to go to the elevator in the heart of the building and if I didn't know that it just was completely misdirecting you and so if someone's not paying attention like that could probably happen but otherwise like what where did you guys find this in the Polish level compared to the rest of the bgs games and I I asked that because for me like I acknowledge fully these games are buggy like they earned their name bug fezda for a reason but at the same at the same time like I can't say directly I've had the same experience people have had online like I don't I don't get these massively buggy playthroughs on Fallout 4 Fallout 3 or Oblivion like there's Jank but like buggy where like shit's breaking like people have shown like the only time I had that was 76 which was like a genuinely busted game um so to me it was definitely an improvement but like not a complete wild surprise because I kind of always had faith in them but I'm curious for you guys if you've had those different experiences with their older games and if Starfield really blew you away on the Polish front yeah I mean for me it's like um I had from I think that's how I look at it I played about the first 20 hours and I was just like wow I didn't encounter anything bad like I was expecting The Lovable Jank that is Bethesda you know what I'm saying like I was expecting so I you know I was just like okay now I did I did ball glitch maybe once or twice that happened I did have one bad one though it was like I went to a killer silly and like nobody had legs oh wow they were like me's like you know and they're just running around I'm like yo metaverse right yeah yeah I can't say it but yes so basically I was like all right stop quit go back in but um yeah I think to me the issue was actually surprising not the policy the thing I want to say is this I want to be clear because I know this is gonna I think this will be part of the discourse when this gets released and we haven't mentioned yet is that I see a lot of people attacking this game and saying look this is you know the start you know the the Showcase game and you know comparing it to the hashtag just ones right the the Final Fantasy teens the it's from a graphical Fidelity standpoint and then The Last of Us isn't all of that and all I will say is this if you're coming into this game thinking that you're going to see The Pinnacle of graphical Fidelity if you're coming into this game thinking that you are going to do everything that no man's Sky Star Citizen whatever whatever on every level then you may need to check your expectation of what this experience is going to be because that's not going to be that it's it's it's not and this is not trying to make excuses for it I'm just telling you what it is now the sheer scope of what this game is doing I challenge anybody or any game to attempt to do what this game is doing because that's the beauty and the depth it's so broad it's a deep ocean of things now do things synergize perfectly like kind of what Maddie said no this the awesome issues they're awesome things that we we understand from a developer standpoint they made some concessions so that we can try to experience that but what I don't want to see is these one-to-one comparisons of this is you know you know last of us look at the face models versus this face model right again creation engine I'm not making of course it's got its age we're not going to say that but look at the sheer scope of what all field is doing realistically and compare that fairly to another game and that's all I would say here because I think that may be some disappointment for people who have way too high expectations for this game when they load it up and that's just my I'm curious what you guys think about that part yeah I agree I'm sorry God oh just I'll just talk about the bugs uh I didn't really run into any bugs 30 FPS was totally fine I'm totally cool with 30 FPS games anyway so like I didn't even notice this you know I've I've I still play games in 30 FPS I just play Final Fantasy 16 and 30fps um in terms of bugs I saw some textures like kind of like flicker in and out but it was pretty rare uh my my eyeball would like twitch like everyone but that's only when I would like flip the camera around to like look at my face um and there was one Quest that was bugged for me um where a woman had to introduce me uh so she had to move uh to move to another place and she just wasn't moving and I'll just say am I doing the quest wrong what are you doing I keep trying to talk talking to her and she's not doing anything and then she just didn't move so I just reloaded two to two saves before and uh pretty much it was just five uh she she started moving and everything okay so just like what what do you guys experience like everyone's bald no legs uh women not moving to activate the quest just the the game is auto saving copiously which is generous and and nice and he's useful and so just take advantage of that whenever you see any kind of bug uh that that just trips you up uh for me in terms of to answer Manny's question about whether I've had like bad Bethesda experiences I've never really had that either you know yeah I've never really seen like even with cyberpunk I never really saw anything crazy either cyberpunk is like the mystery not the mystery like that's the one that I played that I know was like the the biggest case of like me just having that and Jedi Survivor like completely different experience of like product before launch or product after launch like cyberpunk when I was reviewing it like it was a little buggy but I mean it wasn't the montages you see for it are like horrible and you're like exactly I didn't have that I was like holy though this looks bad yeah so I didn't I if to me that you know but again like I still had less bugs like they were like that was the only quests in Starfield out of all the quests I've done with that bug down on me I've had way more quests in Fallout 3 Fallout 4 that that would just stop because the the NPC wasn't doing what they were supposed to do um that the pad thing was wrong and everything so that to uh again like I I do think that this game does live up to the hype that it is the least buggiest most polish game ever and Matt booty told me that you know they used to joke that that they would have every single QA tester in the world uh testing this game and uh you know they've been testing it for for a long time so and it really shows it just really shows uh in the end product again the series s performance is great uh series X performance great you don't even think about a PC I don't even know uh but you know I'm sure it'll be fine eventually so yeah probably the piece she's probably maybe the loudest yeah you know Community upset but Matt I was gonna say I just was curious about your um maybe the discourse that may happen in reference to graphical Fidelity yeah of Starfield I was curious how you how you take that I'm definitely in your camp on it um I just think people don't understand trade-offs and it's not to protect star field you know it's definitely the best looking Bethesda game Studio's game there's no doubt about it but the for example like the character models are spotty in quality like the outfit like the space suits and the guns everything that looks really good some faces for you can tell like all these games have the same problem when they're 3D like Sarah Morgan looks really good but like random Jane in the middle of new Atlantis looks yeah without no last name you know if they ain't got no last name and the random citizen NPCs are crazy there's some of them are super ugly dude yeah we generated like black people I don't just say dude are you being racist what's going on dude this is crazy yeah no I I think the comparisons are inevitably gonna happen because people looked at what was it the fruit and Halo infinite versus Call of Duty oh God you know that dumb man so like you know what's gonna happen and I think it's just people exposing their ignorance at a certain point it doesn't mean that star feels the best looking game it has its moments of beauty like when you're running around an isolated planet in in in third person yeah my complaint is like where's the stuff to do like I'd love to find a thing but at the same time I'm like damn this looks really good and like when you're jumping around and zero gravity while you're doing I mean there is that feeling of like you're kind of in awe for a moment it can visually look great but that's not why you play it's the same I said Gene you and I talked about it with a vowed like yeah I want a vow to be respectable looking as a game but I would trade off the a vowed Graphics to be something more in line with the outer worlds but better if you give me good ass role-playing because I don't look at obsidian like I look at Sony Santa Monica I don't look at obsidian to deliver to me a game that is this almost movie-like production that not only plays like one but looks like one and obsidian gives me a level of agency that I care more about than visuals from their games that's their identity bethesda's always been identified by their immersive worlds and they have that here and they make it more immersive with denser crowds and much more detail in the environment like Cog you mentioned looting and picking things up one thing that changed from Fallout 4 to Starfield that I love is like the interior decoration so now when you pop open a locker like in Starfield you just hover over the locker and you'd see seven bullets 30 caps and and some detergent and I'm like okay loot but in Starfield it's like you open the locker and it's a locker and in there is like stuff on shelves and you gotta look at each one and take your time going through it all like that's true that's the detail here's the immersion of feeling it lived in you get that detail in different levels like and this isn't to size them up but like I'm not gonna go to God of War and be like yo why is it when I pop open one of your chests I don't get to pick up every like when Bethesda in Skyrim like when you find gold on the ground like when you find a pile it's not just pile of gold 10. it's like one piece two piece three piece and so on I'm not going up the guy worry yo why why is it when I kick open this chest I can't pick through every little ax and piece of gold you got in there every Rune you got in there it's because they're totally different games doing totally different things like Bethesda thrives off interactivity so when someone tries to size them up visually we can talk about the game's visuals on their own versus their history which I think is the best it's been and we could talk about it on an industry level it's definitely not up to I put in quotes industry standard but when you look at the scale of the game and what it's trying to do and what it also does extremely well and how much dialogues in the game I just at a certain point you're exposing your own ignorance again it's not to protect the game it's just you're not recognizing what the developer's intent was and when you ignore that for the sake of pushing your own opinion again you you expose that you don't know what you're talking about and you immediately make yourself easy to just I'm not gonna listen to you and you if you want to be heard educate yourself a little bit that's all so you know again it's not to protect the game because I think like I was saying earlier character models are like hit or miss like there are some in side quests that just don't look as cleaned up as some of the main story components and um that's a little it's a little distracting at times it's very Oblivion like the camera Zooms in it's like shoulders up lots of eyebrow bumps and eyes darting around while they're talking to you like that's where that's where like it's a little janky and stuff and it's not perfect there but it looks a ton better than anything we've got from them in a while and um I think for all it's doing like I I find it totally acceptable where they're at visually um it's it's definitely it's definitely acceptable like if it's if if you're so put off by visuals like star Fields I just I don't know what to tell you man like it's just like it's not no it's not a beautiful perfect looking game but it's also not ugly so I don't know what I noticed that the lighting in on the planets when there's a sun and you land on the on the dark side of the planet it is dark when you land and then when you go to the other side where it's brighter it is bright where you land like the real-time lighting engine is actually going on within the planet map itself so we we talk we kind of like dumbed down like oh you got to do a lot of fast traveling is playing a map but there are actual systems at work with the planet map itself where it's like that is moving in real time do you see any in God of War Rector you know where where the where the sun is moving depending on where you land on the planet no you don't get that in any game but you get in here in Starfield that's fascinating you know and it's interesting yeah you don't get to see that in many games no I didn't even know that that's crazy do you want to talk about the boundaries yes go for it jump right into it it's a good transition yes there's a controversy about boundaries about how if you walk for a certain amount of time you can't just walk forever it's not it's not like no man's sky where you're just walking forever and ever and you can conceivably walk around the whole planet uh that's true you don't you don't do that uh and I didn't even bother testing it until uh people started talking about it on online you know why I didn't test it because who the wants to play the game that way you know I I sure as hell don't I don't want to just walk around forever and ever and ever but I tried it anyways and sure enough it does happen it it happens after about 30 minutes you're walking about the same size as a Fallout 3 or Skyrim and then you get there and it tells you to turn around that's it uh so every time you land on a planet it is creating like a tile of of land with stuff again back to the advanced for what the abandoned robotics Factory and stuff like that that stuff will happen but uh it is producing a title of land that you can kind of explore over and yes when you land next to New Atlantis that is a completely separate tile of land than the land right next to the new Atlantis if you want to see the land right next to New Atlantis leave new Atlanta's and then you can see and then you will see the land around it you can literally hop over the city walls and you can walk around the land around that City that's that shit's there it's not just a city that's awesome you know and you forget that sometimes when you're running around new Atlantis that you can actually like go out to those little areas beyond the city walls which is crazy because the city itself is so big it's so massive it's the whole size of like a Deus Ex game already you know yeah um but yeah you can do that one thing and back to your original original long time ago Point Maddie about the the size of this game and the scale the one big criticism I have that I actually highlight in my review is that you really really lose the sense of intimacy and residence in the world you know like I said even after like 50 five hours or whatever I still don't really feel like that I live in in any one place where and again we talk about a step out moment um there's no we've they've just completely removed this sense of awe and Adventure when you're approaching a place you know there's nothing equivalent to walking from Vault uh one-on-one to Washington DC and you're and you're like okay I'm making gradually making my steps sooner or sooner you can see the capital growing growing larger the anticipation of that of of like oh my God what is actually in Washington DC what is actually in Boston New Vegas let me what is actually in UVic is because I'm in the outskirts I'm going to walk to New Vegas is a really good one yeah there's there's no there's no castle like on the Mountaintop in Skyrim that that we're walking to you don't get that when you walk to the city you land in it and you're in the city you know so you know and and there will be parts of the adventure where like you might approach certain things from far away but they're never as Grand as like walking towards like a familiar place like Washington DC and then you you get a real sense of like location you know like okay I'm north of DC I'm west of DC or like Boston is like like up up down there or whatever I forget exactly where Boston is but you know you you know what I'm saying where there's like a real there's no real cohesion that that they sacrifice and I get why you know you you get why why they did that but I miss it I I do miss that feeling of being like yeah I'm I'm on an adventure and I'm walking from one nowhere place to like I'm getting to this destination and who knows what's there and that's where Elder Scroll six I think will take the cake because I feel like it's gonna be on Foot Right like you're just gonna go from that point A to point Z to the other end of Tamriel and that'll be nicer like to not have a spaceship in Elder Scrolls it would be nice right that you couldn't fly in those games although there was that one pair of boots you'd get in Morrowind that would that remember when the guy like outside Stadium when you first start the game and he just falls out of the sky and you're like oh yeah where'd this guy come from and you like read his journal and he's like making these special boots that let him jump in the sky if you put them on and you jump you die too oh yeah unless they put those in you shouldn't be able to get into the skies in Morrowind or in uh in in Elder Scrolls six yeah so I do kind of mourn that loss of like you know like really like intimacy with the environment you really know where you're going and in here it's like okay I'm just running back and forth a new line as I'm going to the building I'm going to the lodge I'm going to do this and that it just at a certain point I just kind of feels like I'm doing errands and in a place that I do like I like working at yeah you know but like I it never really felt like home like like the home in Fallout 4 that you know the Fallout 4 Step Up moment was amazing and because you see your house destroyed you know yeah and like that's an amazing moment you don't you don't get anything like that here you don't get anything like that so like if that's what you're looking for you will miss it you know yes I think that's valid and I think that's what a based on what Maddie was saying earlier why I definitely understood where he was coming from I think the challenge here is again I'm trying to be balanced because my sci-fi love is so strong and exploration is so strong but I understand if you know coming from classic Bethesda games where it's almost like Starfield has added this third piece to a game right that never like like it's like almost games where 2D and flat this is this new third piece that's true yeah right and it's like how do they in implement it get still have that classic feel and I think the way I was able to internalize it because I do feel what you got you said Gene about being lived in and it feels like it's yours and knowing and the the idea of what's that over the mountain right that's what we love and we're used to and I think for me once I got into the rhythm of it I was like okay Starfield is not that Starfield wants me to go out check things out and then along the way things may happen yeah and then obviously like we talked earlier do the main quest and then you can see this world develop around you and understand what's going on and I think it's a valid criticism you guys have because this is this may be the disconnect for some right who want the traditional bgs experience and I'm like yeah this is cool but I don't know if I could rank it over you know Skyrim Fallout 3 days a good transition today is perfect yeah I know it didn't set up well here hope Cog is feeling better this week I know everyone is definitely going to be in the honeymoon phase for a few weeks but where does Starfield rank into the mighty Bethesda Pantheon thanks for reading and have a I just started a new job this week and I'm still finding a way to leave early on September 1st kind of day thank you for writing in Brandon I imagine this is more of a wrap-up question and then like obviously getting any final thoughts in on Starfield but if you don't mind gents I'd love to just hop into this one let's go go for it obviously it's hard to say now I you know to me the bread and butter are these games are the faction quest lines and guess what I haven't finished one of the faction questions oh wow so it was 70 hours so that's crazy yeah then these I mean I guess you could count the main story the main story you can technically count as one um that's where the love is built because I think Gene put it perfectly at these quests kind of serve as tours and especially in a game as vast as this the tours are really important because that's where you hit the immersion stuff and that's where the the love really starts to brew what I'll say right now is if I look at the Bethesda Pantheon the reason why I recognized like looking at yourself and to be honest with my feelings like I was like is this better in Fallout 3 nope no no is it better in Skyrim now is it better in Oblivion Morrowind yes I think so um maybe morrowind's like more impressive as an RPG but like I think it's better in those games is it better in Fallout 4 100 it's about totally there's no question about that and what I recognize when looking at that Pantheon is like okay so you have Fallout 4 a great game that I think is missing a lot of key pieces that make it fall out 76 we don't need to go into we already know that and Oblivion and Morrowind are really old and I'm like okay so in the Pantheon of like modern top tier Timeless Bethesda games this actually falls to the bottom of the three right that's how I look at it I mean but I could see over time because like the thing is is these other series have time to be nurtured and the DLC like I know I don't like to look at games this way but like there's no denying that Bethesda game studios games are different beasts and I'm not even talking about just modding which absolutely like people can say all they want like Skyrim's Timeless bro we're modding that game like that is a big reason why we love Skyrim is how customizable the user experience can be when you get your hands on those mods so for me with Starfield I see the it's um an excellent game for the most part and I also see the ways that they could fill in the gaps and I'm saying all that before I finish the experience truly right and I see it all through and I feel comfortable putting it there where I could see it maybe crawling in front of Skyrim for me for me because Skyrim is a game that when I go back to I like the Dark Brotherhood I love exploring but I really don't like it storytelling I just love being in that world right it's also like a lot of nostalgia for me because that's a game that that's a game that literally started my career like I was I failed the class because of Skyrim I was just obsessed reading previews I made rare weapon armor guys here I am like that's what happened if you want to fast forward my whole tale so I could see leapfrogging that game because there's a lot of Skyrim in this game and I think it does a lot of Skyrim better um Fallout 3 though that's that's a tough one that's a tough one man that's your baby that's your baby I don't think that'll ever happen but Starfield is among the top um it definitely surpasses even the ones I have Nostalgia for to some degree but not the ones I have strong feelings for but I have to be fair and honest and say that part of the reason I love those games so much is I've had a decade plus with Skyrim I've had since 2000 probably I think I played the first time really in 2009 Fallout 3. I've had a long time to really let these feelings set in return play through so I struggle probably more than most people to be like you know here's where it ranks some people will just fire off and that's fine but for me I'm like that's where I find it like in the top three which I think is pretty good for starters when I haven't even finished the game what about you guys hey this is tough because it's early and and I'm trying not to be a prisoner of the moment and I'm trying to assess this thing fairly is it a perfect game no they of course there's some flaws there's some things that prevent it from being in my opinion like the 10 out of 10 is kind of game but what it does so well it really shines and man like when you look at the the pantheon for me you know I have Skyrim is almost one of those kind of Untouchables in a sense right it it was so generationally defining for its time the Dragon Ball in the class the you know everything about that game I truly love my the thing about Starfield which makes it special is I can't stop thinking about it and I want to go back to it all the time and it has such an addictive quality that even when I beat Skyrim I'm like okay this was great I know they come out with DLC I'm gonna be there and I'll jump in for the DLC this is different though because For the First Time I think the fact that the main narrative is so compelling and truly synergizes and opened up the world like Gene said like it you understand what they're trying to do and now I'm like oh my God the possibilities here right so again I don't want to be prison in the moment and say slanderous it's over you know Skyrim and Fallout 3 just yet but I it could be one of those when it's all said and done from me it could but it's too early obviously I gotta get where Maddie Regina's at right and mind you I am not where Gene is that still too early genius right Jean has completed and he's like yo and me and Maddie kind of right you know we're very cool we've done we've got so much hours on everything else to try to get a more well-rounded you know thing so this is gonna be tough for me man to me it's a good sign that I'm already in this mental anguish of where I'm gonna put it but yeah I think right now it's it's looking it's at the three spot for sure right now the three spot for sure Skyrim Fallout three you know what I said and then I mean obviously I talk about New Vegas but you know the thing is when it's all said and done yes I will say the potential for me number one is there it is still there but I have to see how it plays out that's where I'm at Gene how about you I'm exactly where you're at Maddie uh I hold Fallout 3 in the same like high esteem like it's a top 10 game for me like up there with like you know uh I I like I would rank Fallout 3 easily above both Red Dead redemptions um 100 100 easily no problem right um I think Fallout 3 is I like it better than New Vegas yeah yeah yeah yeah but I recognize it a lot better in many other ways but but I think as an overall package and his experience as a first time experience I'll never forget the first time I play Fallout 3. I really felt like that it changed my life like I built my personality around it uh it it introduced me to new kinds of music I'm a huge fan of the Ink Spots now I bought their vinyls yeah yeah because I love that that old era of doo-wop music I was like I was like follow just introduce me to new music it's great yeah I built my whole personality around it like I I bought off merchandise uh nothing will ever be Fallout 3. I don't think anything Bethesda will do from from here on uh whatever beautiful that's what this is making games like this it's always going to be fun it's always going to be in the shadow of Fallout 3. Skyrim is also tough too because Skyrim why I started playing Bethesda games at Morrowind so when I played with blue and I was like oh this is just like prettier simpler Morrowind okay yes and I want to play Skyrim I was like oh this is just prettier simpler uh Oblivion so like the games are just getting simpler and simpler more casual but more action heavy and more you know more physics heavy Skyrim changed the game changed the industry relax uh The Washington Post we did the top 10 most influential games of the 2010s Skyrim was easily there you know it was the first game and it's gonna be there forever [Music] um but to Cox point there were so many exit points in Skyrim where I'm just like okay you know what I had enough like I can move on with my life and then do something else right because I feel like that I know I have a good grasp with like a lot of experience after like 40 50 hours right after 40 50 hours in Starfield and especially after talking to you guys I'm just like I haven't even scratched the surface you know perfect this could be better than Skyrim you know who knows it kind of explains why they never did previews for the game right because yeah I was thinking that when I first played the when I was 20 hours in I was like you could have given me five hours with this game which is massive for a preview and I would have not been able to tell you it just would have been like a vomit of like different experiences from different people but like even like it's crazy to think we're all so deep into the game there's still so much to be seen so that's the thing it's like so that's why I like I I say that I think Starfield is at least as good as Skyrim if not if obviously not as revolutionary right but I think it's at least as good as as those games I think uh it's better than Fallout 4 uh I think it retains a lot of that weird like wacky humor like all these whacking side quests that just kind of come up like I'm so glad that I kind of feel like that they kind of walk back a lot about Fallout 4 because Fallout 4 was so much about the gameplay loop as opposed to the role play you know it's all about crafting and getting getting these these new gear and then you go to Adventure and then you get more stuff and then you and then that's just feeding into the blah blah but like the the dialogue wasn't there and the role playing really really wasn't there I still played like 700 hours of Fallout 4 so don't get me wrong yeah right it's really weird like I'm so critical of these games but I'm just like yeah I still like through an ungodly amount of hours compared to any other game I've ever played into them yes so what are you even really doing here you know like we're talking about how Fallout 4 is trash even though we we've dedicated like you know like like an entire career to yeah to talk to you about it and playing it um so that's why it's like I I don't even know how to how to gauge story that's why like reviewing this game sucks you know because it's like like whatever we say tomorrow could be completely different you know um you want to talk about Maddie's uh Fallout 4 review you know I was hype on Fallout 4 too the the the problems of Fallout 4 don't become evident until you spend like 100 hours in or whatever you know really really hard to hard to get it so like I I I'm high on the game right now I could still see a a couple problems I'm gonna play 700 hours of Starfield no problem out of any game this year include including the Baldur's get three this is gonna be the game I play the most you know yeah yeah I think that's how it's gonna end up for me too I think this and Baldur's Gate 3 will probably be our most played games but I just see Starfield being the one that keeps pulling me back in 100 yeah is it the better game I think it's better constructed there's so much more intentional design and like a lot of the systems just kind of like fit a little bit better than Starfield because then you can tell just like you said there's so much like like features creep in this game we're using more stuff more of this more of that and it's like they're trying to make that fit and it takes a while I initially thought that the crafting system was all in this game I was like whatever this isn't working out right but it wasn't until I started figuring out how it worked and how I how it grab stuff and lose stuff out okay now I'm actually seeing like that like we keep going back to the band I keep mentioning the abandoned robot robotics exactly it was like that story is a factor that would be helpful for me like once I need new you know so it's like I I I can start to again I can start to see how how this game is making a little bit more sense yeah but it's not as immediately evident and it's not it's not as clean as like a Baldur's Gate 3 or even like you know when you want to talk about comparing like like games that don't make any sense it's like tears of the Kingdom tears of the Kingdom gives you a seamless experience from jumping from the top of a sky castle uh past to the sky into the into the surface of the planet and you're going down to the core all seamless that happens on a Nintendo switch you can't get experience like that instead it's in Starfield but Starfield offers like a billion things a billion other things too yeah so these games are really hard to judge but you really gotta like take it take it for what it is but the problem is taking taking star for for what it is is going to take a really really long time yes I don't think anyone out the gate that I've talked to um as we kind of went over here but I think this is just a fair warning to the audiences they're probably getting ready to fire the game up as when you do start it it I don't expect anyone to love it right away I don't think you fall in love with Starfield right away I I like even me pure sheer on an adulterated hype just crazy for Starfield conference it's the trademark the hitting that start button oh my God what a feeling like holy it's real and even I like I just be prepared for the intro in that sequence it's just not great it's a steady build up though and I think if you run that main story for at least a little bit I don't know if it'll let go of you but I think if you run that main story for at least a little bit and get your feet wet you may have a better time than people who I've spoken to but I'm care I'm I cannot wait already for next week's episode I'm very curious to see yeah what the reviews will be because like everyone I've talked to has just been like yeah it's great dude or like it's good I'm really liking it it's Bethesda game I'm like should I be on next week's episode welcome sir um but gentlemen is that all we have to say right now about Starfield yeah I mean look this this is the moment right I made it we made it so long so long we've been waiting for this game and look I want to I want to shout out the the team because at the end of the day regardless to the you know any nitpicks or flaws we may have the sheer undertaking and labor of love you could see that was put into this game it's a lot and the complexities of what they were trying to accomplish I do feel deserve some praise and again Maddie I'm with you the beginning I'm like man I don't know we gotta see yeah but as I keep going it's like Gene says it if something goes off and I'm like ding I get it I get it now but look we're here you know I'm very curious to see how the community receives it you know how how everyone's experience are you know what more new things we learn because in this conversation I've learned I can't wait to go play because I'm like I learned like four things from you guys today that I'm like I had no idea none of that could happen that if Daddy talk about leading and popping out I'm like okay yeah that was something I learned kind of late when you hold the electrical trigger when you're mining lasers out you'll see the red will start shrinking and there are certain rocks that take longer to mine but if you hold the left trigger and then fire it while it's fully powered up like it just mines in a heartbeat that was something else I learned I was like I was like oh wow like yeah there's a lot of hidden features I'm making a video on it because I was like there's so many little secrets in this game that they just never tell you top 30 things to do and stuff yeah the guy the guide Community they're gonna Feast bro anyone I was thinking about playing when I used to do guide videos I'm like oh my God like there's me some channels that make their living off I'm already speaking of long net now I'm like get on it guys yeah this is a fan like please help me because I need to find them to find this other you know I want like like you know that that spaceship and that outfit that I told you guys about like I don't even know how I don't even know how to tell you guys how to get there that's the interesting part about the game there's so many Star systems and planets and you get a thing like if you don't write it down in that moment good point and it's hard to know if you can repeat it because of the way the game procedurally generates you're like Michael was that because there are moments you're like was that real or was that was that handcrafted there like what what happened there so I was like a literal tourist because like you know like I don't want to like I I forgot how to like manuscript I forgot how to write on pencil and pen or whatever so like I'm literally like like as a tourist like taking photos of my screen of like okay this is that planet it's like okay this is what the building looks like and like when a character is telling me remember you need to say this with the when the discussion comes I'm just like oh so I'm just like yeah bro Xbox screenshot I was like yo I gotta do something because paranoid about doing that because I get worried the Xbox network and I'm breaking it hey without knowing it I get so worried about that bro yeah I didn't do that that's why that's why I was using my phone edit plus it's just easier so I'm just like using my phone so I was like I'm a literal space tourist just going to experience in this game and trying to like remember because I am completely forgetting where I've been I forgot I forgot like like I forgot where like all the crafting uh desktops were like they showed me where it was and I was I was like I haven't crafted anything in like 10 hours like like I'm not engaging with this mechanic I need to remember where it is and I was like oh it just said the basement of the lodge so if you want like a good area to just craft a bunch of stuff it's yeah I forgot about that yeah yeah that place is just tucked away I didn't even realize it was down there until a certain point I was like wow this place is bigger than I thought the second floor is so nice in the lodge very cozy very cozy all right gents great talk on Starfield ladies and gentlemen we hope it delivered after all this time and now we just move into a brief question from the audience and uh Game Pass pick the week believe it or not because I want to make sure we still continue to deliver on that even if people aren't going to be playing Starfield for every reason um this question comes from Mike Poe I thought it was like a really interesting one to just wrap things up on good day Dukes first of all much love the Cog and I hope he's on the Swift path to recovery sea of stars is getting excellent reviews and the reception to it and boulders Gate 3 has me thinking we're at a high water mark for RPGs I did want to ask though Maddie if you and the other Dev team members for your game are looking at these two games for ideas or inspiration if you don't want to talk too much about your game then we can generalize this question out to other devs based on conversations you've had with developers do devs actively try to take inspiration from Hit games that come out or do they ignore them and try to preserve their original ideas design ideas without influence of other games I'd love to hear all's thoughts thanks thank you Mike for writing in now I know I know this is kind of directed towards me and I can kind of start off by and during that a little bit but I think we'll get more into how developers and interpret things from games and turn them into their own ideas um for me like not really anymore because we're so deep in the design of our game like we've kind of fortified this is what it's going to be so we're not veering from that it's really about like testing and making it better and that type of stuff um but as it stands like on paper what we're implementing like that's pretty rigid um but yeah when you've when we started like the first thing I did was looked at my favorite games and I was like what what do I like about this what makes it tick like you it goes from into it like Enthusiast level like oh I really like this thing too like studying games you really like is a science and I I kind of enjoy doing it anyway because like it just made me a better commentator I felt like okay what makes Fallout 3 work it's like oh I love just the random exploration and the the history in every location you go through I'm like okay write a note about that right like okay I like that about and you just make this list of of ideas that are across genres that aren't cohesive and you start to think of yourself based off the game you're making how do I tie all these elements together and make it feel wholly original that's how I've looked at it and yeah like I look at games even to this day um like really Baldur's Gate or you know as like writing inspiration I look at of course I studied like why do I think the writing is so good in New Vegas and I look and I'm like it's the choices it's the characters it's the backstory and it's it's asking yourself like how does a conversation progress well like what do they leave out as extra details what's need to know information like you start to again break it down into a science more so and like yeah even Starfield and that's when I kind of start to know I have a a great game on my hands is when I start thinking about my own more on like ideas to make things better or or how I would propose an idea like definitely when the game gets the creative juices flowing is when I know that this developer's got something so I don't always use it as like a definitive barometer for for success with these games but like it helps my YouTube coverage too because I just I I get more into the the finer details of the game but at Gene I know you've interviewed you know a ton of developers far more than me and I'm curious if this is something you've stumbled upon have you heard because I always felt like a lot of developers are kind of almost treated as like taboo to reference directly like in movies they're like oh we watched I I don't know TMNT I don't know and they're like we really liked what they did with the costume design there and so we wanted to do that but in game it was itself the creators are like oh yeah Daredevil you know Daredevil exactly and I plan when I released the game like I'm gonna be very open about our inspiration because I feel like it's weird developers hide it like so many games started to look like fortnite so many games started to look like breath of the wild tears of the kingdom and I'm like it's so obvious your inspiration visually but you're not talking about it and I I feel like that almost taboo nature in the conversation I've always found it very odd so I'm curious in your time and Cog especially you because you've interviewed a ton of devs too Gene have you heard developers talk about you know leaning into ideas from games um that they've played and and do they try to keep them original or they say like that's a good idea how could we evolve that I mean it's interesting uh because I mean you're absolutely right I think I think that's a that's a fascinating point and it's such a huge difference about the way our creators in our industry uh operate versus the others because again like you mentioned TMNT and get you know layered in Eastman are very openly like oh yeah this is this was just like uh Daredevil you know but just with turtles you know they're open about their their influences whereas in the game industry like nobody will say that that Skyrim and and and Oblivion influence them you know but you think about you know sticking with the Bethesda uh theme of this episode you know but those games are so influential you know the reason why Demon Souls exists is because PlayStation needed an answer to Oblivion and there and then they went to from stuff and they were like yo make us a game like that and Miyazaki was like all right well whatever you know everything and he had to literally light the PlayStation and be like oh yeah it's got stores of magic yeah no problem you know that's so good but but it's still stemmed from the idea of having to complete with Oblivion because Oblivion was such a big deal and Zelda itself is inspired by Skyrim and Nintendo is a company that does not talk about the influences and also kind of ignores influences but Skyrim is was so big so impactful that it could not help but even Inspire Nintendo that said Nintendo will never admit that you know it's crazy um so I did interview a new drugman uh uh earlier this year and he was very open about he's like I'm looking at Elven ring and I'm looking what they're doing you know that was really like the first in yeah I love that and that was the first instance where someone is finally admitting yeah like the industry is watching element right and we're learning from this you know uh because Eldon ring was a game so big like even Reggie fisa May was playing playing it so I was like you know you know everybody in this industry is tearing apart this game right now studying it trying to make trying to see what what makes it tick you know that's why you saw all the devs could complain about the UI and everything like that because Eldon ring was was so influential that you could not ignore it even if if even if it's a game that you don't want to play if it's your job to make video games you need to play this video game you know yes but yeah I wish developers would be more open about it because y'all are weird and we're not doing it you know like like why what makes you so special what makes games so special a feeling of like oh we copied too much but I don't I don't get that since like to me my favorite games are honestly the ones where I see the very clear inspiration and it Blends them all together I mean that's what we're trying to do with our game like you're gonna see the a lot of games that I really like in the game I'm making and that's the goal like I wanted to remind you of your favorite games but because it puts them all together which no game is done and does some new ideas that gives its own identity like that's my favorite form of game creation like I I noticed like Starfield I guess you could say is one like you feel elements of No Man's sky and you know a lot of like the ship combat is reminiscent of uh not ever space I'm trying to think of the other one that's like that space game or this is chorus I can't remember what it was but point being is like you see games like that that feel like a lot of things bled into it and and I think those are just the best because they're mechanically diverse and everything feels fresh and inspired like you start to feel like it's a pizza pie and like every slice it has a different topping on it and and that's my favorite Cog when you spoke to developers have you noticed any of them leaning and saying like we're looking at this game you know because I I feel like it's important we do this but it doesn't feel like it's happening enough no I think uh rarely because obviously I have a lot of personal relationship with with a lot of devs and like say if you're in an off you know sight kind of thing and it's just kind of talking between the homies kind of vibe then you know you'll get some Banner right there like yeah when this came out you know this truly changes we have to look at everything different but it's interesting What gene is saying where publicly you don't hear it so I think that's I think that's where the business aspect gets in and the Eagles a little bit where it's like I don't necessarily want to bend the knee but we clearly know that there's certain games that are inflection points in the industry where the game changed and you go oh my God like you don't say like because of this game because of Skyrim's open world because of I mean even fortnite to some extent with Battle Royale and stuff like that there's certain things that happen in the industry where everyone goes they go you know what yeah like that or in my experience the Publishers go to the dev and say like like what he said with uh demons we need one of those yes we need that and I think the the ego of the dev sometimes may get crushed to be like all right we respect it but we can't say it but we all trying to make an answer to that right so it's the competitive the business side yeah that I think gets in the way but if you speak to developers like a man and one-on-one and you get the honest truth that people say that yeah that was great I still look at you know I I need to have tell me one of his systems was kind of like yeah I looked at Mike Tyson punch out on a base level for certain things because I liked you know the way the combat was going is on some aspects of it so yeah it's there it's there but yeah the games industry is weird they they they sometimes just don't want to give flowers all the time and you know because like you know like I work at the Washington Post right and the New York Times is our big competitor and you're beating us by a lot right um and then they have a podcast the daily right and then we started our own podcast which is daily but it's not called The Daily and it's like we we don't we're never gonna admit that we did it because the New York Times did it you know and people are going to be like oh yeah well you know the post reports podcast is completely I was like don't play with me dude I worked here man I worked here I know you guys weren't planning anything before the New York Times today which is pathetic but anyways fair enough well actually funny enough involved it definitely is and it's it's funny because the Game Pass pick of the week is one of those games I'm talking about like one of those guys oh I see the inspiration there and uh I'll just transition right in if you all don't mind let's do it yeah let's do it like Game Pass pick of the week is sea of stars It's gotta be um Chrono Trigger meets Mario and Luigi series straight up man like that it does not hide its inspiration like when you get into those encounters there's no loading in screen which I don't think is a problem in these turn-based games but I like how Chrono Trigger just is very daring and that like you can fight anyone anywhere CU stars does that but when you're in combat there's a lot of timing based mechanics which are very much like Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga like you know you have to hit the a button at the right time the maximum RPG coming at the being remain November that was the originator that was the original it was the original I did that okay RPG is the original good concept of the okay because I never played that one okay perfect so yeah so Mario RPG meets Chrono Trigger then perfect so and that's what I love about what they're doing here because like it's funny you'd almost view it as a backtrack right like the messenger no one did what the messenger did right switching art styles switching music as you time travel like that's a perfect synchronization of visuals and narrative and gameplay and sound and then you throw this witty ass writing on top of it's just an amazing video game right and then sea of stars just is very clearly inspired by games that we know and love and look how well it's doing um so it just feeds right into what Mike's talking about and and um so I'm just glad the game's doing well but yeah I played about like five six hours of it at this point in time um I've been playing it on Nintendo switch because that's where the review code even though it came in very late that's where it came in so I also feel like this is Eugene you talked about earlier how like you know certain games you just think in your head like oh I'm gonna play that there and it's like I'll see you stars as a a switch game for me 100 absolutely especially that OLED screen oh my God I wish games would wear to influences more in their sleeves I'm thinking back to uh Shadow of Mordor Middle Earth right yeah like like you see the trailer I was like dude you're just ripping off Arkham and I'm gonna play the out of your game yeah yep yeah to this day I still do I still think we haven't ripped off that that game enough we haven't though we got Mad Max we got the Shadow of Mordor and War games and that was it and Spider-Man I guess yeah yeah about it you know yeah we need more Mad Max rules I didn't like it at first but I feel I didn't get it right now I would say like bro there were like arm Breakers you do in that game that is wild that's a that's a good game yeah very good game Batman where you kill people it's awesome dude Sleeping Dogs Sleeping Dogs Batman where you kill people sleeping dogs bro they're so great executions in that game man I love that game so you want to talk about it that that's on Starfield levels of oh that's a good main story I did not expect that bro shout out to my man Jackie Jackie and Wei that's a Brotherhood I'll never forget oh okay Stars yeah so the the combat's very Chrono triggered like in the encounters um but what happens is you you have skills that cost MP and when you attack enemies that's how you gain your MP back with like your basic attacks so it's kind of like a nice tug of war and then like Chrono Trigger there are combo attacks which I I don't know if any other games ripped off this mechanic but I'm happy that we're getting rip-offs of that because it's a good idea to like have your party members team up with a little combo meter um and it works really well here like you know because there are weaknesses you can Target on enemies not in your standard jrpg way like oh you're weak to fire but an enemy will like wind up in attack and it'll say like it's at 100 power it'll have like a hammer and a moon next to it it's like okay like I gotta hit him with a hammer attack and a moon attack so sometimes the combo attacks work really well at wiping that out and you if you hit those weaknesses and time them out well it'll stop the attack entirely so that kind of Rhythm plus like boosting where you can absorb power based off the the normal attack damage you did and boost again and do more damage or do more heals like there's a lot of layers where it's very mechanically deep but it's not like your standard RPG where they're like here's spells here's skills here's abilities and they just make you go in menus and and edit builds which I love but this game is very different this game's Very Super Mario very uh Mario and Luigi RPG like okay we gave you this set of mechanics and we're just gonna stretch it as wide as we can and so it leads to some really good boss fights some really good ball fights uh the music is great it's by the composer of Chrono Trigger if my memory serves me right which is like the hello like it's gonna be really good uh the story very wholesome good wholesome energy uh with occasional serious undertones but uh the writing isn't on the level I feel right now from my time playing it as the messenger I feel the messenger was way better written game I think because there was this surprise like this is hilarious but there was also a win to it all in like an end goal with it all with sea of stars I think it's more focused but it's also like those first like three four hours they're just standard jrpg Fair like you've seen it all before um you play as two kids who are Solstice Warriors and kind of like Star Wars like where you have to disconnect yourself to study the ways of the force you have to disconnect yourself and become a solstice Warrior so gotcha it's about introducing all these terms at the start of the game you're like what the a solstice Warrior what's Moon cradle what's a world eater or what's the fleshmancer which sounds like a sex toy by the way but it's like the main villain in the game it's like what are all these things and they just drop all these terms and you just crawl through the game and you're like learning step by step what they all are but yeah it's an easy game pass pick of the week I mean this is probably the easiest one we've had in a while like it's a great game it's from what I've seen online I haven't been yet but like 25 30 hours so it's doable might be a good little thing to offset the palette with Starfield if you got the time for it giving how big Starfield is I don't know how y'all are gonna do it but I wanted to make sure that for those of you who are not into Starfield which there are people in our audience who are not that you're hooked up with something to go go out and play and download and see if stars does get the Maddie silver approval I do have a review Impressions video over on retro rebound if you want to check out a little more focused thoughts I guess but yeah CS stars is is great I have yet to see that like 95 open critic type grade but it is still really good and so I want to make sure I give it some love here in in this week of Starfield it would seem yeah it's reviewed better than Final Fantasy 16 you know I'm not surprised by that I wasn't crazy about 16 so I was like uh I was like oh yeah of course but 95 like top game of the year almost like very good good for that discourse for 16 really really die quick like nobody's talking about that game anymore it's crazy yeah I think I think I think people realize I was telling people I was like dude you're in the honeymoon period the the moments are great once you step away from it and you're gonna realize the story doesn't make a lot of sense guys you know okay yes he's gonna realize that the story wasn't that great you know it's interesting yeah 16 to me was just such a I don't want to be dramatic when I say but it really felt like such a Miss for me like I just I I like 13 more like I'm not even a trick-or-coat that like 13 2 13 3 or Lightning Returns just way more enjoyable to me oh yeah we're gonna mention Final Fantasy 13 every episode we are yeah I think I might agree with you man again I just played 13 and I was just like man I had a lot of fun that was really that was really yeah like there's something to that game it's it's definitely like once you get it it clicks yeah yeah I mean I we don't want you to try to do a 16 show but it's just this this story never connected with me and the combat especially so like I hope they don't go in that direction moving forward but I've said that a million times now yeah anyway gentlemen that's it for this episode of defining Duke an Xbox podcast and what a fantastic episode it was Gene as always thank you for joining us and perhaps we'll we'll discuss we'll see you next week maybe but uh of course it's you know schedules we'll see how they they all dictate that but thank you down the last man for joining us again this has been a really good conversation where like it really brought to life just how many ways you can play Starfield yeah I think it was really like just beyond the two of you like just having more people like share their experiences I think I think people will get a better overall picture of what this game is like absolutely now that they've heard from the three of us you know um so happy to be here I'm just so glad to have this platform to be able to talk about this game because it was really it was really hard not to talk about it for a long time I know right it felt like honestly I saw a lot of reviewers breaking NDA for this right man dude this was the least game ever I saw dudes tweeting about it like yeah I beat the main stories I was like I was like bro I was like what the is this and other reviewers were like like fact checking people I'm just like bro okay I don't think you can fact check either bro yeah people were working on the NDA and like I was the one doing news updates on Starfield just like there were people like there was like reports like peonans was like oh it's our least buggy game yeah and I was in my video I'm like I don't know I guess we'll see you in launch date in my head I'm like yeah just to keep up with the discourse and I was catching that I was just like yeah man he's just man he's playing yeah I think I did a good job of threading the needle of like I'm not gonna tell you but I'm gonna open up the conversation for you all to have here's the information there were times though like uh I think there was one with the main story and new game plus where I just represented the video I was like yo I'm playing it like I I can't I just want to put this in front of you like I can't say more though and this was that in the book reports like I was shocked that Pete Hein just said like oh yeah the the the the the the when you beat it that's when the real game starts I'm like why are you why are you saying that yeah yeah that was kind of crazy in hindsight kind of yeah I wouldn't have I would have kept that I just want to say we have New Game Plus and it's really cool yeah so but yeah it's just it's just nice to finally talk about it you know for me it was really hard when everyone was talking about the boundary pushing and I was just like yeah there was a couple of times I had to sign off because I wanted to get like cut that but and Cog is always it's fantastic to have you here I'm glad you're back I'm glad you're doing better man it's it's not the show without you so we appreciate you hopping on board and uh and talking some Starfield with us man yeah man appreciate both y'all appreciate being here I want to shout out Gene man holding me down big time and came through like a trooper and amazing discussion and like you said it's great to have so more people to talk about this game because it did so much to it so yeah this is funny and Shout out again LSM fan Realm of the things so much love I really appreciate it and um like I said I'm working slowly just bear with me is getting my stamina back together it's going to take a process but it feels good to be podcasted to talking games again especially this game because I survived the MRI yeah yeah yeah you paid your dude I know how I feel about MRIs and claustrophobia yeah he was dead he's 11 for me I was one of the things the the Duke listeners you know y'all were really nice about my first appearance on the Dukes you know people thinking about the third chair I'm just saying hmm yeah well listen if they like that they like the jeans let's have a chat we're not even teasing anything I literally don't know this is not a tease anyway ladies and gentlemen thank you so much for tuning in to episode 139 defining Duke and Xbox podcast we appreciate you we hope you have fun with Starfield and it's everything you hoped and dreamed it would be or see you stars or whatever you're playing on your Xbox we hope you enjoy it The Post Star field era of Xbox has truly begun and so we'll be back next week to discuss who knows what the hell the discourse is going to be we'll see how that goes and we'll kind of take it from there we're definitely flying by the seat of our pants now and after this is force of Motorsports so oh hell we're going on to the next big Xbox game so with that everyone thank you so much for tuning in we appreciate you and we will see you next time for episode 140 of defining Duke an Xbox podcast peace the finding Duke an Xbox podcast is a product and trademark of Last Stand media and Collins Last Stand LLC and is recorded from the United States of America the show is conceived by Matthew Mr Maddie plays Schroeder and me Colin Moriarty and is written and produced by Matthew Schroeder Maddie's co-host is Barry Lord Cognito ebersley defining Dukes executive producer is Dustin Furman and the show is edited by associate producer Ben Smith all of Last Dance theme music is by Ramon Narvaez as you know all of Last Stand media shows including defining Duke are fan funded on patreon at patreon.com media the following names are at the producer support level on patreon and we're thankful for your kindness and generosity [Music] thank you foreign [Music]

Channel: Last Stand Media

Views: 119,303

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Id: Lc2YyucYCQw

Length: 231min 16sec (13876 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 31 2023