Starfield: The Good and the Bad | Friends Per Second #29

to ask you guys a question yeah did you treat yourself to 19 inches of venom a lady doesn't kiss what does that goodbye what are you talking about wait Jacob you've not seen these tweets oh my God oh my God okay all right now we get to explain it that's a great setup PlayStation UK uh will promote like the PlayStation UK Twitter handle was promoting the collector's edition of Spider-Man 2 that that contains a 19 inch statue of Venom and the tag what they actually wrote in the Tweet was treat yourself to 19 inches of Venom and you know the Tweet the Tweet did the rounds at that point first for various reasons reasons that do not relate to collectible things that way they knew exactly what they were doing they also did it on Labor Day so no one from America was online it's just massively blew up it was so funny uh the PlayStation UK media guy I follow him who follows me he's like this was not me by the way this was someone else and he has not clarified who it was he has not put the blame on anyone he tweeted like earlier today the first thing I was asked was whether am I the 19 inches of enemies you know yeah just after 19 inches event that's that's a lot of Venom I mean that's a lot of Venom a bit too much benefit I would have enjoyed 19 inches of Venom that didn't sound right either no that's terrible which quite a what kind of school did you go to um I meant like 19 of my collectible Marvel trading cards laid out on the floor in my bedroom of course that's what you mean of course that's what you meant just like PlayStation UK mint the figurine absolutely of course yeah exactly man here's the true thing though what was the question that you just asked Ralph um whether or not did you treat yourself to 19 inches of Venom the answer is probably yesterday as as we've been talking about it I just indulged in purchasing about 19 inches of Venom I forgot to move I forgot to buy the collector edition that you just reminded me so now I'm buying it thank you very much are you allowed to buy at 19 inches of Venom in California or do you have to cross state lines to get that sort of thing we're a very Progressive experience we allow all kinds of uh inches of anything so but it will arrive in a non-marked box yes my dumb green I I was thinking that you were you were talking about the controller and I was in my head I'm like wait how big are controllers can't do math at all like well welcome everyone to the podcast um I'm hosting this week I'm Lucy uh joining me as always We've Got Jake baldino hello Gerard aka the completionist hello I'm Ralph AKA skillet yo what up just want to say something to you guys uh so on on OBS or like how we're recording uh on on Hangouts like you can see my legs just a little bit Yeah the people watching at home won't be able to see my legs just oh so that's a treat just for us that's just you guys get my legs to get the legs perspective guys it'll uh that's what you got to do we don't like it legs per second we don't have a patreon by the way but we'll get one and then that's gonna be the star of the show Jake's like that's it that's it someone um first of all if you saw me at Gamescom or Pax and came up and said hi then that you like the podcast thank you very much it's very sweet shout outs to the users so many there were so many of you at Pax West we appreciate it I signed a pair of shoes yes so did Lucy I'm just finding his name um because shout outs to um oh no you don't have your name on your Twitter account well valathore on uh Veil Thor on Twitter um and yeah we we signed a pair of shoes and I was like so spaced out that I didn't realize why I was signing a pair of shoes uh because I forgot uh podcast the [Laughter] effing uh frames per second stands for feet wow patreon for the legs we've got the only fans for the feet okay so that's the Brandon baby that's that sweet sweet Brandon money Pro scare that's right um but yeah I mean how is everyone I haven't been here in a couple weeks be good I've been um I just been no laughing about as gay day like poops I've actually put 100 hours into it in the last two weeks uh I finished it last night I roll credits okay I'm tired congrats really have not slept for a long time because I've just been feeding this [ __ ] game and I'm looking forward to talking about it it's it's the challenge I find I don't know if you guys ever find this when you play a game that you really love they like how the [ __ ] do I review this now what do I say yeah how how can you find the words to sum up something like that both at scale and and what it achieves I always hate that and um but yeah I'll get I'll do it I'll I'll put some words out there I'll make it happening I bet it's taking a long one well actually it's not I really don't want to I don't like doing long videos anymore as in like people don't watch them you know like my last Destiny review was an hour long that's too long man we don't need a long time video for a [ __ ] expansion by the way this isn't even this is just the expansion we've gotta we gotta bring it in okay just exercise some self-restraint brevity is the soul of wit wait is that right there somewhere yeah that's right so uh but yeah that's been my life for the last little while just just just doing all that it's been good to quote Eddie Vedder uh oh uh uh I'm still alive that's that's what I've been doing uh I've been reviewing things been playing a lot of Starfield and then other games that aren't out yet so I've been like in a dungeon a good dungeon but yeah the review dungeon oh yeah well Gerard I saw you at Pax what else you've been up to yeah um well I I just did my one-man show over at the crocodile Theater which uh Lucy and Tim came and saw at least the first half of the show they had their Giant Bomb panel at the same time so they had to duck a little early but our boy Ben Starr and the cast of Final Fantasy 16 came uh and they were so sweet and they were so kind shout outs to them they made they they made my day uh that my week uh because they shouted me out in the Final Fantasy 16 panel uh that and that was not something I was expecting so that was really sweet of that what is the one-man show by the way explain to me the one-man show explain to me what it means Jordy you were like let's have fun how good on stage you like command like like it was amazing too like super funny but you I know you have a theater background and you just like commanded the stage and it was incredible I was so proud to see you up there thank you Lucy uh I purposely don't tell people what the show is about but I'll tell the users at home uh it's a show called The completionist Legacy and it is about my life before YouTube it's about how I became the completionist and all of the kind of Fate bonding events that took place in my life and uh how uh it's it's um kind of inspired by Crisis Core Final Fantasy 7 and how um like fate and and Legacy is kind of intertwined and uh yeah it's it's it's about my real issue with my father and how he's kind of always been the shadow figure in my life and whether I like it or not I have this connection with him and and we all have connections with her parents and it's uh just kind of this this one-man show where I talked for 90 minutes about uh all the crazy wacky things that have happened in my life and you know it's it's it's funny it's sad there's there's laughter there's crying um and uh and and self selfish plug if you're in the London area if you're in Camden uh September 24th Sunday you can come see the show so uh yeah for you UK users out there please come see the show it's the only time going to to Europe the UK so so come on by tickets are running out but uh yeah thank you for coming Lucy it was it that show meant a lot because I performed for a lot of my friends in the industry who showed up I had a lot of PR reps who I have a kind of a little bit of relationship with a lot of content creators were there um and of course the cast of five AC 16 which was uh just a true honor to perform for for really everyone so that's cool yeah very cool I really wanted I really wanted to be like recorded and you know do the whole public thing and I would I would love to do I'm I'm talking right now about doing like a show in New York so Jay can come and see it um I'm gonna do a show in our Orlando Florida for my Florida friends and then I want to try and do one more like in Kansas City Missouri because I've got some friends who helped me produce the show who live out there and then I'd like to do one final like Curtain Call show in La just kind of to wrap the whole thing up but uh yeah it's just it's such a special thing it's so fun and uh uh I'm glad that I can knock people off their butts with expectations because they have no idea what they're signing up for until until I start so it's real fun I like the Intrigue that's cool yeah Ralph and I are gonna do Singing in the Rain you guys know the show uh the sticking in the rain yeah you know the show well yeah absolutely right Jake yeah we're we're like yeah I'm the Australian in the film adaptation of uh of Les Mis of course yeah I can't sing a [ __ ] bar and everyone's wondering why the [ __ ] is this guy in this movie for real Russell we love you but you had no place in that movie come on now so I'm going to see the Josh Groban Sweeney Todd in a month's time and I am okay I'm so excited for that we're also going to see Titanic what is that it's a musical based on the music of Celine Dion but it's also a retelling of Titanic that is incredible Australia gets none of this cool [ __ ] it's so bad like I speak to friends who live in London and they're like I'm going to this this cool thing and then whatever and friends in the States they're like oh yeah I'm gonna go see this person in Australia it's like oh Jimmy Barnes is playing at the you know freaking Rudy Hill RSL again that's a highlight so you don't know what any of those words I have just said meant but believe me it's not a great picture down here okay it's very bleakadaya there's nothing going on that's why we keep getting depicted as a wasteland there's just nothing here okay except kangaroos in the opera house that's all we got Jake have you seen the Back to the Future musical that's on Broadway right now I have not but I know a lot about the specific DeLorean that they use on stage like a weird freak but yeah no I haven't seen it is it good I don't know I was in New York for a hot minute I wanted to see it but tickets are too expensive but yeah I'm not really like a musical guy on like unless I just stumble upon them and the ones I really like I really like but like yeah look I'm I'm not saying that I am the Gateway for wrestling and only wrestling but I can also teach you all the ways of musical theater so I can help out this wrestling and musical theater are my two things so I can I can help I peaked at greatest showman that's that's my show that's my ultimate fandom good on you so good on you I'm fine I'm not watching that one how much the prestige again the other day and I was like that's that's my huge thanks pretty good um but I got back I just got back from Pax um where Gerard and I hung out um I've also been to Gamescom yeah you've been busy AMA yeah tell me about Gamescom because I because we because we debriefed Gamescom from the perspective of like hey we watched the live stream and we watch the kid get up on stage and we watch the trailers and whatever but um what was it like actually being there what was it like walking the floor did you go were you just in the business section because just so you know everyone Gamescom is business section and then the everybody else section there's everybody else section it's like 300 000 people shoulder to shoulder it's [ __ ] wild did you ever go out into that or were you just like oh no thank you I'll stay right here in the business thank you very much uh we were in so we our first appointment was at 9am on the Wednesday and it was on the Xbox booth on the show floor uh so we did technically go in the halls but we only went to Xbox and hoyo verse um so uh whoever's paid for me and Tam to fly there um no expectation on coverage they just paid for the flights um and so yeah we had some appointments with them and that was the only thing we saw on the shuffle everything else um was in the business center behind closed doors with air conditioning but on that Wednesday that's like a uh industry day they didn't really have the air conditioning on so that's right miserable um but it was it was really fun that first day like that was all about major appointments we also had Alan Wake that day we saw you know cdpr um didn't see any of cyber of uh cyberpunk Phantom Liberty but like they were there on the show floor um and no it was really cool and then the other two days were just like appointments um in the business center a lot cooler saw some really cool [ __ ] though that's what was my thing about Gamescom is that back when E3 was the thing alive um you know everything will be behind closed doors for press only and then like Gamescom would be when people could actually play them and so this one was kind of a bit more of a mix of um theater presentations and Hands-On stuff so like we played lies of P which wasn't really on my radar until then and I haven't played it and I was like oh damn okay this is actually this is actually pretty fun um but the big stuff made like we saw the Alan Wake like demo off-site so they projected it in a theater because of course um but honestly like the most impressive thing I saw at Gamescom was the Nvidia stuff first of all I will say most impressive and also hottest room in the world because imagine if you have four PCS running 40 90s in a broom cupboard and I'm I think it's something to do with the way that um you have to have a booth like there is no way someone would have put a ceiling on this room if they didn't have to like be forced to do it I say I say um but it was it was super cool so we saw the dlss um 3.5 in Alan Wake and in cyberpunk yeah you'd be crazy I'm not even kidding I was stood there and I was like I need a new TV like I've started I've started being that degenerate I have a PC plugged into my TV now my poor old 2018 HD TV that doesn't even Run apps anymore um but yeah it was super cool but also the um RTX remix stuff which is like the upscaling tech I will say though the only unfortunate bit about that was that they used um Half-Life 2. source engine specifically like Half-Life 2 original um like portal makes me incredibly sick really oh my God Half-Life 2 is borderline unplayable for me unless it's interesting unless I have it set specifically to how I need it I don't know what it is wow and so I wonder if it's that Bob thing that like it's that it's got a very specific Rhythm to its bulb like yeah maybe it's that I don't know maybe but like the poor Nvidia reps like they were like showing us every time they moved they did a really cool reveal thing so they had like one PC with like original Half-Life 2 and the other PC with like the remix stuff in uh remix stuff by the way is just a way of like I'm gonna explain this terribly I'm not a tech person at all although I went into that not really being a tech person and I came out of it I was like What if I became a ray tracing pervert totally like those digital Foundry guys that's it next team member you're on their podcast and [ __ ] yeah it's my time no um basically it's just a way uh it's a way to upscale um and like increase and like improve textures so the stuff that we saw from Half-Life you know back from what 2000 and early 2000s um to what they are capable of doing like they basically like take a snapshot and it's like everything there so they did it with the suit and then they can like strip it out upscale it it's crazy fix it put it back in and it looks incredible it was super super cool um anyway yeah every time they moved I had to just immediately look at the floor and then and then when they started talking again I would look up and go okay um but it was yeah it was super simple wake and cyberpunk as well like the um just the reflections yeah and just seeing like they could turn it off and on at the Press of a button too which is yeah and I was like oh damn all right yeah I tested path tracing when it hit cyberpunk when they like their new uh raytracing thing came and it was it's unbelievable like it truly is I still believe like cyberpunk is the best looking video game full stop I mean obviously every video game has different styles and what have you but it's just in terms of what that game is technically speaking and what it can [ __ ] look like at times it's unbelievable and I always I thought that before but then I saw this path tracing stuff kick in and I'm just like damn man this is insane like the lighting is Simply the Best lighting I've ever seen and yeah it obviously requires very expensive kit to do it for sure absolutely this stuff is not cheap for sure but if you're an Enthusiast like it's it's pretty wild for sure yeah I need to build a new pc yeah yeah it's like looking at him on the floor like I'm very very privileged because NZXT like sponsored Giant Bomb for some stuff so I had a 40 90. damn and I'm just like um I I'm doing a disservice putting you on that [ __ ] TV so I bought a new TV that's like my one purchase for the year um you deserve it thank you you didn't treat yourself to 19 inches of Venom so you should treat yourself to the TV about 55 inches of LG that's right life is good anyway um Gamescom is just such a laugh and like obviously coming from the UK it meant that that was our Big Show like we would go to E3 but all of the European press and PR would be at Gamescom and low like we went to all our old haunts like the haunted puppet bar we went so it's literally and then you say it's literally thought you went to a haunted puppet bar did you bring puppet Lucy with you I didn't I only wasted the opportunity wasted opportunity uh this is the others hideous puppet uh like they play trumpet cover but it was also so hot in there that we just like genuinely we went in rudest bartender I think like I was ordering around and he just kept walking off and I was like no but if it was that hot like as in if it was that the temperature was that hot in there he'd probably just like I don't want to be here man this sucks the thing is as well like it was so hot in there that the walls were wet I hate that like we we genuinely all just like had like finish our drink and just left but it was just it was awesome and there were haunted puppets that sounds like excellent the shot you just graphic The Shining basically and there was this weird naked woman in a bathtub um but no it was like such a fun show and uh I really I haven't been I went to every single one between 2011 to 2018 and I hadn't been back since I moved to America so it was so nice to go back that's cool um that was my Gamescom experience but like Gerard you were at Pax 2 what was the what was your experience oh man I mean honestly um and this is not to be like uh most of my packs is me walking around meeting fans and signing autographs and taking photos and that's honestly the most important thing to me um just because it's the one show where if you're a content creator and you're there to see people like that it's it's nice to go because it you feel like it's the first time that you're seeing it's not the first time but you you feel the users who watch you in in real life and they're so excited and they're so happy um Ralph you've never been to Pax have you uh Pax Australia yeah that's Australia I imagine that when you finally come to a Pax East or West out in our neck of the woods uh people will lose their minds when they see you just because you're so tall with big tall white man very tall I've never seen one of those before um I will say though one of the most interesting games that I did see that I really think you guys should definitely um if you're if you're a fan of it um oh man where's my business let me let me get my wallet I don't want to ruin the name I want to get it right and of course I don't have it on me give me one second I know let me check what do you want me to talk about the games that I saw while you're finding that yeah I still like a bunch of stuff I saw I played Super Mario Wonder oh yeah tell me I did that I did as well I was I went to the New York of that but go ahead we'll come back we'll come up for that one then um but I've played Pacific Drive oh my goodness you're here so Pacific drive very much I feel like had a lot of Buzz coming out of the show a lot of people were talking about it yes my friend Carrie wrote Pacific Drive do they she's a she's amazing she wrote it yeah that's awesome I had such a good time with it it's um so how do you describe it it's like a roguelike RPG Survival Game survival games it's like a run-based car thing fun based um obviously set Pacific Northwest so um it was awesome they gave me the controller so I made the appointment and so I was I was the one like playing and I was like oh I don't know how to drive a car and so you have to actually you know like turn on the ignition and put it into drive um and then you kind of go around and it's just weird but like I mean that in like with the highest compliment so I was there fixing my car very slowly uh just kind of walking around getting to grips with the controls and you know using a little blowtorch to fix my car that was kind of beat up and then some kind of rip in the sky and a bunch of car parts fall out of it and I was like okay well I'll use one of these and I'll put it on my car then I start driving uh the map is basically where it is in a police car you know those are where those computers are yeah so you have to do that to see anything and if you do that and you take your eye off the road sometimes weird [ __ ] happens sometimes weird [ __ ] doesn't happen sometimes Tech lovecraftian monsters will appear and grab your car and try and pull you off the road or um there's a big countdown in the corner to an incident I don't like instability yeah instability and then everything will just go red and like trees all over the place and you have to kind of basically you know like in a um a battle royale are we going into the circle in the middle you're basically doing that to it yeah you gotta yeah it's how you get out yeah but there's a rear view mirror and the side mirror so you're like pedal to the metal gunning it and you can see in the background like all this [ __ ] going on you're like no and sometimes you'll be you know collecting things from the environment and you'll turn around and just like random mannequins will be there and it's like I obviously this is a demo I have no idea what's going on in this game it was so fun I'm generally so stuck I I was like I saw a hands-off preview for that one time and I was just like this totally rules man everything about this is sick like the car you drive is this kind of like wood paneled you know station wagon jalopy thing that you have and you have like a garage and you upgrade the garage so you can like build new things to put on your car and fully customize it but it's always going to be like kind of a piece of [ __ ] like don't imagine your car ever becomes this sick you know like Ferrari looking whatever like it's always gonna be kind of a piece of [ __ ] and you're just running it through the wastelands and yeah all this weird stuff is trying to grab you and you have to like get out to fight these monsters so you can get the parts off them so you can take them back to your car and like put them onto your car while these monsters are trying to attack you get back in drive off I was just like nothing about this does not roll so I was yeah they didn't let me play it back then I'm glad to know it's playable now hopefully I can yeah yeah I'd love to get my hands on that soon definitely very high on my watch list is it the good day yeah I don't think it does does it it's just like 2024. yeah I think so a lot of stuff you can lump on the car and stuff yeah it but it feels very it it's hard to like demo it and get the full picture of it but it felt very like you want like PC game like in terms of it just felt like very like an indie survivaly uh yeah it's almost a little bit more than I expected oh were you really yeah yeah I'm playing on PS5 I was oh yeah yeah it's also it's exclusive to PS5 for consoles I believe it just reminded me of like like a like one of those weird games you and I mean this with like as a compliment like one of those weird games you'd stumble upon on Steam that was like a top play game and you're like what the hell is this well yeah that's true it's like weird it's cool the art style is cool yeah I can't wait to actually see yeah the final thing like the full picture of it because what I played I got to the objective and like I I achieved my run and then like weird [ __ ] happened after that and that I didn't get to play anymore so I'm like oh what's that about yeah so the game that I saw at Pax West which I didn't know existed until I saw it and let me tell you it was a trip is a game called smack Studio have you guys heard of this game no no imagine Super Smash Brothers but you the player can create your own character via pixel art and 3D design and so this game looks and feels and plays just like Smash Bros I picked it up never playing it before and all of the characters in the game were user created people at Pax West they put in so I got to play as Mr beast fighting fighting fighting jacksepticeye fighting chat no no no no no um but this game is incredible it's in Early Access right now um it's eight players it has a full-on character creator in it that has its own rigging and pixel art and it's this like faux 3D aspect where you can design it in you know three-dimensional um plane but it is a pixel art kind of aesthetic and this thing is going to be insane like it's gonna allow so much customization for anyone to put any character in this game and the I was talking the devs there are people who can literally import their Sprites in their own Indie Games straight into the game as well as there are people who can export Sprites from this game to their game so you can design pixel art in this game and then export the Sprite sheet out and incorporate it into your own pixel projects it's not how the blockchain was supposed to work that's what they tried uh but uh yeah it's it's truly an amazing feat of Technology uh a small Indie Studio Eight player battle really Kick-Ass game highly recommend if you get a chance it's an early access right now um and uh yeah it's it's fun as hell this looks this looks like it has a dangerously low TTP time to penis oh yeah basically you can make whatever you like and make them fight and oh yes we all know how that's gonna go so absolutely devolver already have a game for that called genital joustings yeah uh then Lucy and I both played uh Mario Wonder yeah um tell us tell us did you play more than me so I played 15 minutes uh so I played images I think I played an hour when I was in Nintendo and I played 15 minutes when I was at Pax West um and I essentially played the exact same stages that I got to play when I was in New York in New York we got to play some NDA levels I can't talk about but for the most part it was just a show-off um some of the newer like Badges and and and functions in stage but um I played the exact same thing that you did Lucy and um look it's a Mario s game it's really fun like it it it's cool it's it's Unique it's very weird it gives me the vibe of if you like um Super Mario World 2 Yoshi's Island with the baby Mario that weird kind of um color pastel aesthetic it each stage feels like it has the ability to have its own art style depending on whatever the Wonder C does so every stage has a Wonder seed that you have to collect and every time you touch the Wonder seed it does something to the atmosphere whether it's everything is drugs and the atmosphere is changing around you or suddenly Mario it's Mario drugs baby and again mushrooms a little bit about mushrooms so we should be surprised it's true um you know there's one stage where you're like you you touch the Wonder seed and suddenly you're kind of having a cave-in collapse underneath you and you have to like use the drill mushroom to like get away from the collapsing area um above you and uh yeah it's it's it's got a lot of of of life in it which I really dig there's a lot of possibilities here that uh Mario fans uh new and old are gonna absolutely love yeah it was it was really fun and like I uh was playing with the Giant Bomb boys and I played Yoshi and he's the only he he can't get the elephant Powers so I was and also he's um kind of they were saying that he's kind of a younger more inexperienced players because he can't die um but it's so cute the animations are out of this world like every time anyone who is an elephant form would sit on the Yoshi he would be like um that's cool and Tam and I actually got to interview um I'm reading the names I don't want to butcher it uh tazukusan and morisan um which was honestly more like a career highlight for me because I've never spoken to anyone from Nintendo so I was just like oh my god um and also like both of them have worked on so many like Mario games and Zelda and Pikmin and everything so that was super cool and yeah they like they've removed the timer from stages which is wild um and it kind of there was a different flow to it um especially because the camera focuses on like the main one person so you know you kind of all forced to work together and talk and you know we were playing with giant bombs it was absolute chaos but it was so fun and it was just like yeah the thing that they said that they're really trying to do is like way more Discovery way more um secrets and wonder and all that kind of stuff and I was just like I wish we didn't just have 15 minutes to play because there was stuff in each level they would be like oh we actually went above it and did the classic thing of going above the level or we broke this and we went in there or found something else and it was just super cool it was awesome there's there's also going to be a very robust online system that players are going to be surprised by like uh whether it's like online competitive play doing challenges or like you'll see um like digital standees of like where players were when they died or whatever it may be like it's it's very interesting kind of a little bit it's it's not not as nearly as like defined but oh God in like just in before someone the Dark Souls of Mario oh yeah yeah for sure for sure um yeah it's it's gonna be real fun um it had you know I think it has the most playable characters in a Mario game ever because you play as you play as Mario Luigi uh Peach Daisy Peach Daisy two Toads four Yoshi's and nabid yeah wow too many so my my only concern about this game is when the [ __ ] am I going to find time to play it because I know it's like that is the same week as Spider-Man that is the same week as uh well Alan Wake is a little bit after that uh the MGs clutch City skylines MGS collection uh City skylines yeah yeah like is like RoboCop Rogue city is just a little bit later than that uh alone in the dark actually just got bumped next year but that was gonna be that week as well so yeah I mean I really am very excited for Mario for sure but I know that I'll probably just have to put on like back catalog and come back to it a bit because um it's just so busy that week is like the week it's like the most stacked week of the year basically yeah mad yeah it sounds like I've been wanting the 2D Mario games have like a a little refresh and what you guys are saying sounds like exactly what I want it's definitely weird and it's it's fun in that weirdness for sure oh well speaking of weird um final thing from Pax um my favorite game in the show well I played thank goodness you're here which is a very weird British game that I thought of it right um right genuinely okay how do I describe this right so can you just Google thank goodness you're here good name wait is this this is the this is this based on the comedy show what no that's I think you should leave so um go to [Music] you're going go on go on so look at the weird little yellow guy that's who you play as and he's so funny and every time he's on screen I just couldn't stop laughing at him so on the website the only thing they have to describe it is thank goodness you're here as a comedy slap former from coal supper published by Panic okay so what is this game everybody is grotesque everyone's weird so I love it you just kind of you're you're that weird looking kid who also could be a middle-aged man and you're dropped into a very British northern town and you just have to do errands and I think the only thing you can do is jump and slap okay it kind of looks like a Cartoon Network Cartoon yeah and when you when you open up the um uh when you load into the demo basically the first thing you hear is almost a what's all distant like what's all this then um right and like there's so this will mean nothing to you but for the British users it is like a shooting stars it's shooting stars comedy which is it so it's a panel show from the UK with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer and they would just do very very weird stuff like weird non-secreters and bits so for example there was a viral tweet that went around not too long ago which just said this aired on prime time TV in the UK and it it's basically one of them standing with a little um a little piano and just like miming like playing the other one is just pumping his arms up and down doing this like that's the only thing they do and it goes on for like 90 seconds and and there was a whole bit where they called down um a giant sweaty Fox there was a dove from above and then there was the sweaty Fox this must sound insane but I'm really hoping that the Brits who Who the British users will understand so it's very strange humor sure very weird it's very very British like you would go around and you're in a fishmonger and stuff and just everything in the walls would be like what are some of the places called like grunt uh big runs big pies that wasn't all level and it was just it was awesome I had such a good time Mr gulp's only pulp nutty footy like yeah that's pretty good it's just I can't explain it it's just so fun it's so weird it looks 2024 yeah published by Panic um I had such a great time with it we have a television show here in Australia called thank God you're here which is an improv comedy show where like a scene is set up and the like comedy like the comedian is on the other side of the door has no idea what it is opens the door and then the first person in the scene is like thank God you're here and then it's just like go you know so I was wondering if it was some like something like that but you've just said it's something it's obviously a comedy game but it's a very different type of Comedy um just like the way they interact with everyone is just mostly through slapping all the comedies kind of coming from um like you go up and slap someone they'll just go oh yeah right put it you know so um a lot of the humor comes from the characters how they talk what they say um the situations yeah it's basically like thank goodness you're here because stuff's going wrong in this little town and you're the one who has to come in and fix it um I had a lovely time it's very strange I'm that's cool I'll send you some uh clips of shooting stars you can better get um draw do you have anything else from your travels no that was basically it I didn't get to play very many games but uh you know it was uh pretty pretty fun time it was an awesome show we we took Ben Starr to The Cheesecake Factory for the first time that dude is killing her right now isn't he he's just he's just if you could if you could monetize tweets he would be absolutely rolling in cash he racing tick tocks baby we hung out with him and uh it was so awesome seeing people I think I hung out with him more than I hung out with anyone just by just because him and the the crew were so ratting Koji Fox was there too he's he's a he's a riot he's such a [ __ ] yeah he's unbelievably talented he's such a yeah he's amazing yeah um but then that was our Pax Gamescom rundown uh probably should have said what else we got coming up in this episode so right now we're gonna go talk to Michael Heim uh my colleague over at Gamespot about Starfield because uh he obviously did the review um and the rest of us kind of in various stages of Starfield so we've got Michael in to give us the rundown the seven stages of Starfield hell yeah let's go now we are going to talk to Michael P Heim my beloved colleague over at Gamespot who did our Starfield review uh Michael you gave it seven out of ten seven which means good because people yeah it's good but the streets have said something else you know the streets are smiling with it but uh but yeah it is what it is how's the reaction been um I think it's it's been really wild because there are some people who absolutely love this game and people who are unimpressed by this game and I think the Bro once people started playing it I think the consensus was broadly reflective of the reviews as well where you know I wasn't the only one who gave it a seven you know I liked a lot of parts of this game but overall I felt like it was a good game not a great game and of course the Dan Stapleton IGN PC Gamer PC games then uh we're kind of on the lower end of the scale when it comes to this game and there were other people who were absolutely enamored by it and that I from the reception the comments the people who are in the discourse I guess you could say more or less have been uh on that kind of divided in that same regard so it is really interesting to see that when the reviews came out and people started to play it that they were kind of both you know uh both on both ends of the spectrum with this game so there are things that people are going to put more weight into when they jump into this game game and there are other things that the other players are going to care more about that this game comes up short in so it really comes down to what you prioritize in your experience with Starfield so um and I think that that's why we write these long ass reviews like 3 000 words we kind of explain why we gave it a certain score because you know certain things that Dan Stapleton talked about in his review I didn't necessarily care as much for in mind but there are other aspects I put more weight into so yeah that's just that's just kind of how you know people play games and people how uh how we review them as well I feel like Starfield or Bethesda games in particular are are tricky ones to evaluate or talk or just because everybody's coming at it from something completely different and I think some people don't even realize there's this massive subset of people who play Bethesda games that aren't super online gaming news junkies they're normies and like yeah what was like the concurrent player account it's like insane it's already six years I feel like some people are you know like some of those people aren't even in the discourse like there's always people that just like don't give a [ __ ] some people are like oh I just go into these games for Adventures but I I like I think and I'm I read your review and I'm I'm kind of more in line with you for me on the YouTube side of the YouTube people I think I was one of the more critical ones um and for me it's like I don't know I can't I don't want to never like totally boil it down but like a lot of it is like Bethesda stuff it's like sure either like it or you don't like it yeah yeah there's uh Starfield is definitely it's it is definitely a Bethesda game you will recognize it immediately with how they do storytelling with how uh characters move look uh just the way quests are structured whether the way the world is structured is something we're going to get into later which I think is uncharacteristic of Bethesda and actually takes away one of their strengths uh in that regard but yeah this is unmistakably a Bethesda game and you know people love those getting lost in that in that world and sometimes it's not even about you know main stories sometimes it's not even about side quests sometimes it's just about emergent things that happen in the world and there's so many of those elements in this game so yeah and I think I talked to Paris Lily about this too before is that everyone's experience is probably going to be very different like most people probably do the main story they'll do the big faction quests but the things that they care about the things that they get involved in the the different encounters they might have are going to be slightly different and it's going to paint everyone's experience slightly differently but for me I try to I try to do everything because like as a reviewer I feel like it's a responsibility for me to try to see everything um but yeah it's uh it's really weird how the formula of Bethesda which I still love and I still think that there's value in the Bethesda quote-unquote formula it's just that I don't think Starfield make makes the most of it and the thing too is that I've seen them do it better in the past so and I've seen obsidian do it much better in the past as well with New Vegas and that's something I brought up in my review too is like I love Morrowind I love Oblivion I love Skyrim and the sense of adventure and the depth and the the playstyles that you can get involved in and kind of like the Lauren culture behind the Elder Scrolls is wild and it's fascinating and it makes me invested in the world when I get involved in like even if it's just like dumb [ __ ] I get involved in the world I still feel invest in that so it's really weird to jump into Starfield which is a new IP and a new opportunity to build something uh that is you know more or less based on our real world and what extrapolating that idea of 300 years in the future in space and uh kind of not really hitting the mark in that regard so uh I forgot where I was going with that my bad Jake but I have a follow-on question sort of related to that and like because obviously I've not played the game yet I mean I'm you know that's it's end of September for me because I've been on Border skate three I'm gonna do cyberpunk next but Starfield as I look at it and as I read coverage and whenever else like something it doesn't I've heard a few people say it feels a little bit sterile you know that it's just like there's this coldness to it that's not present in um Fallout or in Elder Scrolls and I wondered what like you know yourself Lucy because you've played some of it as well Lucy yeah like how you guys feel about that is there a quality that jumps out to it in terms of like a presence a personality a thing or is it is it just kind of this yeah this sterile cold space I don't know does my question make sense yeah the thing that the thing that leaps out to me with regard to that is that it takes itself very seriously there's no goofiness to it and you can tell that there's no goofiness to it because in the marketing Bethesda like tried to make the sandwich is a thing like collecting sandwiches and I was just like oh but that was cool though I was that lady ruled she was like why did she have so many but like when you actually play the game itself other than the adoring fan everything has just been so straight laced and I think sterile is the word for it like I think part of that is maybe due to the art Direction which I like I love the the NASA Punk thing they've gone for and I talked about this on the Bombcast but because it's not very stylized and they have leaned into more realistic looking environments and specifically it's difficult for a player if the player is me to know what I can and can't interact with and it means that there's this weird kind of friction between me being immersed in the game and God to help me we're not getting into is Starfield an immersive Sim discourse because that's been embarrassing that discourse exists I haven't even seen that discourse this has been wow okay all right fair enough anyway so there's like this weird friction between me understanding my role within the game and what I can and can't interact with and just you know the promise of Starfield being seeing things and like wanting to go up and meddle around with it and play around with stuff in the way that I want to as a player whereas with Skyrim I feel like because the art direction and you know we're talking console two console Generations ago as well different limitations but because the art style was a lot more um was very different I knew kind of immediately what the what the limits of the game were whereas in sky in Starfield like the example I'm using is you know going to one of the many many pirate outposts and discovering that you can hack into the turret and you can change the turrets and I was like I I don't want to be in my um scanner all the time which is kind of what the game pushes you towards doing to be able to understand what you can and can't interact with which is a bit right so you're saying that in order to when you're navigating the environments like walking around in first person you need to bring up a scanner to show you what you can interact with in the environment which is because you can interact with so much of stuff unless like most of it's like pens and just like I want to wanna memo I want to find the the stuff that I can send back to my ship I want to find Health packs specifically Christ um you know I don't care about paper clips or whatever it is styrofoam cups styrofoam cups man bobby pins the legendary Republicans I think that personality thing and I I I think it's kind of with their with their previous games too is that a lot of it doesn't immediately like jump out at you it doesn't like it's not in your face like it was the same with Fallout 4 and now with this like a lot of people walk up to you and you're like I do not connect with this mannequin looking person at all if you kind of like really look into it and like me I'm not making an excuse or anything but like I like like the more I looked into it like finding the charm of those characters like I referenced this in my videos like an early one is Sam Coe yeah he looks like punchable generic cowboy hat NPC I hate this guy and then we're in a shootout and then all of a sudden he's like hey man do you do you think I'm being a good father and I'm like hey dude it's all right like I'll like be like it's okay man and like we have a nice conversation and like I like that [Music] yeah that's that's something I did mention in my review as well is that uh so that a lot of that personality is missing um and you know Fallout has the post-apocalyptic Americana and the whole history that comes along with nuclear warfare and there's a lot of there's a lot to tease out in terms of what it's trying to say about society and how civilization rebuilds itself in the wake of a collapse and Elder Scrolls a fantasy world that's just been built out for so so many years so um the thing that's like I I think a lot about how Mass Effect made a first impression with his first game and how it was just bold and painted this very Vivid world with so many races and so many different uh societies that have cropped up since the first Contact War uh but then Starfield tries to do that in a way that doesn't necessarily have the Charisma necessary to like help you buy into that and I think I look for that in the main quest Quest as like hey get into the main quest so you can learn about the rest of the world and interact with things that you find along the way but the problem is that like the character writing is so stiff like the performances are like are top notch they're as good as they can be but you know the game is only as good as the script lets it be uh so when I'm like I don't necessarily care about what these characters are trying to tell me and when they're trying to say like oh my God we're discovering one of the greatest things in humanity and they just keep it moving and don't really like internalize what is supposed to be happening in the in the main story it loses some of that personality it loses some of that weight that the game is trying to sell me on and I think that it's indicative of the other things I interact with even like some of my favorite side quests uh like they do a better job of of those things but I and this kind of goes into the exploration thing we'll talk about later is that a lot of the societies that have cropped up in this game and in its lore I guess uh feel very siled and that's what makes the game feel smaller than it actually looks um and it's it's hard to get it's hard to like be like invest myself in a world that kind of doesn't necessarily have that personality that to help me buy into it yeah yeah that's definitely something I've again looking at discourse and watching it from afar like there's so many parts of it that appeal to me that I'm looking forward to but that part is the part that I haven't quite seen yet and I've seen I've heard a little business story like Crimson Fleet storylines apparently really good and what have you and but just in terms of like that law that you really want to get invested in like you want to read up on what's going on in the Fallout universe and how it all went wrong and you know again Elder Scrolls there's tons of it and a lot of it's fascinating and that part I've been I was always curious I've been curious at this point like is it there and from the sounds I think it's like maybe it's not there um but do you think anyone would disagree with that assessment though do you think there are people out there like nah man there's heaps there's heaps of law here there's this is the Hostile of a whole new universe they're gonna make a movie out of this like is it ever going to be out there saying that I mean I feel like there can be uh I think there's some people are saying that they really enjoy the story and I'm I'm not here to like tell people like Oh no you're wrong like it's objectively not good like I don't wanna I don't want to get into that because you know uh this can be like it might be someone's first experience with a Bethesda game or their first experience with the Sci-Fi Space story um and that might be valuable to them um but I think the there's there are some bits and pieces that that kind of show you its hand when you know when you learn about why Humanity had to leave Earth and um how they're able to make life sustainable and how certain cities have cropped up such as like the old west stand-in City or the cyberpunk city there's there are fascinating bits and pieces there it's just that the game doesn't necessarily take the time to connect them in a meaningful way so they just kind of like like I mentioned they exist in siled sections that don't feel like I'm feeding into um one cohesive whole and I think that's one of the things like not to keep comparing it to Mass Effect but like when you do when I do think about why Mass Effect was so powerful to on like and made that first impression is because no matter what planet you went to uh you run into different races they're all kind of governed by a similar like ethos they all rely on Mass Effect relays FTL travel and the Citadel and Galactic governments like that's it's core to how you understand what it is you're fighting for and all the characters in your party it's like they're all they are they're all part of this universe where you understand the rules and the history along with it where um like Starfield like jumps you in and says all right you need to understand everything from the jump and doesn't necessarily take the time there's one there's one side quest I think with the UC Vanguard that makes you go through like a museum to show you um some of the some of the some of that history and I do think that's a very valuable thing which seems kind of cool yeah yeah it was kind of cool I'm like okay like I can pick up what you're putting down over here um but it kind of the rest of the game kind of leaves it at that and I'm like damn right uh like if you if there was a way to integrate more of this in uh in a way as a character that I can see that reflected in the things that I get involved in uh on like a stronger level than I think they could have had something much stronger than what actually is there that's just that's just how I feel like some people are gonna probably be might be even moved by some of the things that this game says I just couldn't connect with it um like that's just yeah yeah yeah what kept me playing though is like and again I keep like we both keep saying like we'll talk about how the exploration works but for sure what kept me playing was actually stumbling upon things pretty consistently but also it's a surprisingly Punchy little shooter it's simple but it's like a pretty the first time I fired a gun like or like I picked up like the Grendel like submachine gun and I and I was like damn like I felt I was like oh okay wow it was pretty good pretty good shooter yeah yeah for what it is yeah that's one of my strong points too in this game is like you know you don't have Vats because it's not Fallout and you don't have magic because it's not Elder Scrolls so how are they going to make up for it in combat scenarios yeah and it's they've built a game with really really good gun play I think um the first and first couple hours might not impress you like I felt the same way you did Jake where I picked up my first Submachine I'm like oh okay I'm working with something here and the more you play the game the more you like earn guns that are already decked out with all kinds of attachments and Buffs and all kinds of perks and when I was messing around with some really fun weapons like hot swapping between them in the middle of combat using my jet pack in the middle of the field to like get a better position uh and I was like there was a moment where I was like oh snap they they built this game like a shooter so I'm gonna play the rest of this game like a shooter there are some moments that maybe I use stealth to get by like one side quests really uh leaned into stealth which I thought was really interesting but other than that I go into these caves I go into these science facilities and I find all these robots and all these Pirates or whoever I'm siding against and I'm just lighting up the room it is a ton of fun as when you start to play it as a student when you get those guns in like one example I think is great is I picked up a six um like a a six shot revolver that was fully automatic and if I go into like a like a gun bench I would never build that but I picked it up and I was like okay let me see what this what I'm working with here that thing melted enemies in one go it was just like boom all six shots at once in like a split second and I was like oh this is a really useful weapon I would like use that as my opener switch to my submachine gun all this big roll bomb and switch my grenade launcher and it all has like a really satisfying thud satisfying impact with the gun play so I was I was really impressed like not just because like oh Bethesda is like so historically The Fallout hasn't really been a great shooter and that's why you invest your skill points and fats or whatever so but I came in as like it's not quite Destiny but they got something here for sure like you know oh you know Bethesda like oh cool they make magic fantasy they have they're cute they're cute Fallout sci-fi and now it's like oh they just like guns yeah gun ass guns I I but like I like how like to your point they emphasized uh all the stuff on guns and you're not necessarily focused about crafting a schematic of an entire weapon you're just leaning into the the best parts of Fallout the crafting the components for those weapons and that that got me surprisingly hooked too also I just like that uh did you did you pick having your parents as a perk yes I did I did they give you a gun like right away like your parents are like here's a gun it's American parents then dad also really messed up because my dad's face in the game is kind of a little bit messed up oh I look like Homer Simpson using all right Dad [Music] this conversation about the shooting stuff would you say it's a shooter then like because for example with Morrowind I started with like yo I guess the Elder Scrolls series and with Fallout like yeah fallout's definitely a shooter with some RPG elements I feel like Morrowind I keep saying Mario because it's not my go-to for Elder Scrolls but like those games you could play them in a variety of ways melee and and and um and spells whatever like is this a shooter do you think like are you missing out if you try and avoid that or is it just it's totally uh totally murdering a lot of men yeah dog this game this game is violent and it's right I don't necessarily care all that much about the sort of dissonance between the because the main story to tell he's like hey man if you got involved in some crimes we ain't gonna say [ __ ] and I'm like all right sure uh so when I go out to like do side quests where you're just lighting people up and you're just destroying robots with whatever you got there's a heavy emphasis on the shooting too uh because the game doesn't necessarily give you as many options for approach and I think that's part of why I mentioned that this is on the weaker side in terms of RPG elements because um your main action is shoot and maybe sometimes you can get away with stealth uh and maybe you could you could spec into stealth and like get that that tree maxed out right off the bat and you can get like some wild multipliers with silenced weapons for sneak attacks but that approach isn't necessarily sustainable when you think about how encounters are designed because you go into these more or less combat Arenas where you have like low-level goons and you have like a high a couple high level enemies and stealth isn't going to cut it this these these environments aren't designed for stealth it's not like a Deus Ex game where you are meticulously understanding enemy Patrol patterns and I have different tools that have different types of Effectiveness I'm not knocking guards out dragging their bodies like that's not what this game is so and this game does funnel you into a lot of combat scenarios so what are you gonna do you're gonna shoot your way through and the fact that they put so much thought into how guns are built and how guns work in this game yes you go and play this thing like a shooter no matter what um and like even you look at the the combat skill tree it's just how much more damage do you want to do with a type of weapon do you want your sword to be swinging that thing around with 20 extra damage or do you want to do that for your rifle your laser rifle your grenade launcher so there is a heavy emphasis on first person or well you could do third person too but there's a heavy emphasis on it being a shooter which I again I'm kind of glad that they leaned into something um because if they didn't then like ah what what else how else could they make that up so definitely a shooter with some RPG elements for sure but um that's how you're going to get through this world should we go back to the beginning because a lot of the discussion around Starfield is that oh yeah it's it's it's slow at the beginning but you put 10 plus hours in you put 20 plus hours in and it becomes this compelling game I'm still within the first 10 hours I'm about eight hours in and for me it's been slow going it's been tough and um I was do you like it so far like because again a lot of people say they just straight up don't like it within that time 10 hours in or whatever do you like it so far there are things in it that I do like like the familiarity of it being feeling like a very Bethesda game Studio game I do like there are some points where I just find myself switching off and getting into like a weird little Flow State and going and fast traveling and like clearing out an outpost or following a quest and it's but nothing's I think I'm I'm still so in the Baldur's Gate thing where every single thing inspires like every single thing in Baldur's Gate I wanted to talk to you guys about it you know I was like I wanted to I was screen grabbing it or I was like finished playing the game and I was thinking about how I could have done an encounter better and I'm just sadly not getting that with Starfield and so whether that starfield's fault or was my own expectations kind of a mix of all above but I think I'm finding the beginning really really slow going and I think Bethesda or at least Xbox knows the beginning of slow going because I was a Gamescom a couple weeks ago and there's a big theater presentation where they said we're going to show you the beginning of the game there was a lot of crossfades and dipped to blacks and cuts from that opening because that opening is so slow and it's like right it's more of a tone piece I would say for an opening it's you know you've got Lynn Lynn talking to you the whole time and like guiding you through and explaining hey Dusty you know go get this and mind that and then oh this guy turns up and you're a part of constellation now but if you're actually playing that it's so slow and also if you're walking with a character they're still um slower than you and we should not be dealing with that in 2023. that's true I agree with that completely just it is funny though how they start I mean for me I I Gotta Laugh out of how the game starts fading up from black and you're in an elevator and someone looks at you and they're like oh hey I was like yeah [Applause] I love it again but I I yeah I think for me oh sorry go ahead no go ahead I was gonna see the off-putting thing for me in those opening few hours when it's teaching you going like hopping from planet to planet the amount of times you'll spend fast traveling specifically when you are following that main quest and like getting up speed with constellation everything this is too much in menus like they they give you the the promise of um of like being in a ship dog fighting and then it's like well actually you need to go over here so can you just uh jump and you'll do that from the menu and then that to me is like not necessarily fun if honestly Mass Effect kind of I think they nailed it because they still had all of those planets and they still had a little bit of you felt like you were exploring a little bit because you had to you know and in in Mass Effect 3 as well they introduced that concept of oh well the reapers are coming so as you're controlling the Normandy you have to quickly get to your planet otherwise the Reaper's gonna come right and so you know some kind of interactivity there I think like I enjoy like dog fighting hailing other ships docking with other ships I think that stuff's cool I think fundamentally like like Alana's stream you know seven hours to get to Pluto and then Pluto wasn't there it's a JPEG jpeg it's a real nice GPX though I'll tell you that much but I I have heard because I know we're talk we're talking about the opening hours and also talking about how exploration works but I've heard that um if you make the effort to to fly if you make the effort to not fast travel that it is rewarding you know you just have to put in that work has what do you guys have any observations on that like is that the case like no yeah because that's how you get around the world that's just like at all yeah yeah you like fast travel is the only way um so well no because I mean well I've heard again reading stuff you know like oh I I made the effort to make sure I come out of orbit and fly a little bit around space before I touch down somewhere and and then I got hailed or I bought met some Pirates or whatever else like that kind of thing where you are deliberately ignoring the game the convenience systems that they've been built in with fast travel and just like kind of just hang out in space and people say that some stuff happens out there like again do you guys disagree with that or um there are some emergent moments that come out from when you go when you fly to a planet's orbit uh like before you choose where to land because you have to do that in some cases um there are but the the game will present that with you within like a couple seconds of being in orbit so the game kind of knows that hey I know you flew to this planet because you want to go there but we're going to tell you straight up like oh hey this is uh this this ship full of like kids and a school teacher need ship parts or something or I say I say um or we're we're a bunch of Bandits and we're gonna shoot you down so now I'm in this dog fight so uh at least I will say at least the game is going to like give you that stuff if it's going if if there's something in that orbit area that you phase into if there's something to be had there they do give it to you straight up so and there are there are cool things in there like I ran into uh there's a whole side quest chain that I ran into that popped up because I flew to a planet that I had like I had to stop by this planet to make it to the actual planet that I wanted to go to but when I went to that the one in between uh to fuel up and so I could make the next jump I ran into another side quest that I fell down this Rabbit Hole where I was like a colony needed a new home and I had to talk with the CEO on this planet that was like a resort or whatever and I was like oh wow I just ran into this out of nowhere like that's the good [ __ ] that's that's the good show what I want to run into so at least there is an element of that so in the absence of seamless space travel they do fill in those those orbits the with your with your high-res jpeg of the planet in the background they do at least fill those up with uh things and they give it to you straight up right yeah okay and you're killing dudes even in space like the the flying ship combat is straightforward it's very like it almost feels like workman-like it's very like all right this works this is this is pretty solid it's not Elite dangerous or like some crazy [ __ ] it's just flying and gunning but it has some weapon Variety in terms of adding stuff to your ships and uh I actually found that it could be kind of challenging sometimes which I didn't expect yeah but I like that and then it kind of has Vats like that's where they kind of gave you Vats a little bit because you can lock on to a ship hold this if you hold the signal you can lock on and then it ran and it like literally does the Vats on a ship and then you can like Target their Shield generator and and do and I was like oh okay it's pretty cool yeah I found that cool uh coupled with like the random ships that'll show up and start talking to you and you just get either a side quest or a quick little thing and sometimes they're really funny and I found my I found myself like looking for that like seeking that out and as much as one of my big problems with the game is the interface and the menus and the kind of jumping to things kind of taking away from the immersion a little bit and kind of pulling away from that like you see that mountain you can go there like kind of losing that at the very least there is content when you're jumping I hate the word content but like there is stuff when you're like when you do jump out of I don't even want to say hyperspace I just want to say menu yeah yeah yeah there's yeah there's there's some of that personality comes through in those little emergent moments so like and that that is kind of one of my favorite aspects of it and like it's being the dog fighting real quick I actually enjoyed it quite a bit even though I agree it is very simple um but there's some side questions where you have to engage in like Star Fox style Fleet battles and I was like hell yeah let's go and there are moments where my ship was just like I you I rocked with the default ship for quite a while but then I hit a moment where oh I need to either upgrade or I need to buy a new ship and when I did that I generally felt like the ship was functioning differently like turning was way tighter uh the weapons were stronger I could do like Maneuvers I couldn't do with the other ship so I like that there's an element when it comes to the the ship combat and the actual ship building I do like the the fact that you feel the difference when you do make that upgrade and it makes it a little bit more fascinating and gives it that depth and when I went into those moments those quests that where I was stuck in because I just wasn't strong enough with my ship and I came in and started you know blasting fools and like really engaging like really coming out on top I was like oh yes I'm really glad that the game pushed back on me and said no if you want to continue this quest line if you wanna see what's next you have to engage with the system so I like that the game pushed back on me and kind of forced me in a way to engage with that that whole subsection of systems that I wouldn't not probably wouldn't have otherwise and so like that is one of the things I really liked about Starfield I really love the shipbuilding I very much like when I when they first showed it in the video I was like oh cool I think I'm gonna like that and then they delivered for me like I spent a lot of time it kind of for me was like Fallout 4 with the outposts or you know even even Fallout 76 I don't care shut up um like where I'd start building something and clicking things together and then I realized like oh I I spent a lot of time in this system and not doing other stuff I spend a lot of time building the ship stuff and I I really liked it I think there is like a good tangible thing uh like backing out and then walking around on a landing pad like wow like looking up at yourself the steam is like coming down and you're like wow cool and like vascal walks up and he like says hello Captain ass face like because he can say your name no not ass face but like he does say your names yeah like uh like the Fallout 4 robot so I that that stuff that stuff made me really happy and then the the ship companion stuff is interesting because I like how a lot of it is just people you met throughout your adventure that aren't as exciting or as important but like they're still there so it's like oh yeah hey you guy yeah yeah I have I have um uh Co and his daughter Cora and they're cute um just to have on the ship because she's just like I'm a precocious child who reads books and all of my lines are about books and you know my dad and you're gonna get me books um is that your job as an adventure to getting a library right I say cool no she just is a very clever child um but you mentioned shipbuilding there Jake I have I have to post stuff yet did you find yourself your Michael like find yourself like going down that rabbit hole and enjoying it yeah I think that's that's one element I was surprised with or maybe not so much surprise but I did spend a lot of more time in it than I had anticipated because I had done it in the Fallout 4 settlement stuff I played 76 and uh like I get the appeal of it I just in so okay there's kind of two things to this is that I really like engaging with those systems because like it's Animal Crossing style I'm a I love just even if there's nothing on these hundred something planets even they're they're Barren and maybe there's a cave or a facility to loot whatever I just like landing on a foreign planet and seeing what the atmosphere is like on like a scientific level I love you all the Galaxy map in Mass Effect and just reading the data of this made-up plan it was one of my favorite things in in that trilogy and that whole the whole series and I like that about Starfield too and so when it comes to Outpost stuff I was kind of like picking and she's like should I make a home on this planet like no it's not quite right I felt like I was like on a home buying show or something like choose your home planet and it was really it was really cool it's like oh this is kind of a tropical-ish planet with nice Horizon it doesn't seem too hostile so I'm gonna post up here and then I that's when I started to get involved in The Outpost stuff there's a lot of cool stuff you can do with it um like building or like putting together a facility to make like to farm materials uh more efficiently and you're gonna want to do that on several planets too like if you're looking for specific materials uh and so the I mean the the systems like engaging with those systems are I think as good as they have been in uh in the Fallout games and your mileage is going to vary whether or not you think that that stuff is cumbersome I think some of it is still is but it hasn't improved but it works and I I just like tinkering with this I get a lot I got lost for like a whole day like okay today a couple days before embargo I already finished a bunch of quests main story whatever I'm just going to see where this takes me and I was like huh wow I really like that I have settled on this planet I got some of my crewmates chilling here doing some work uh I'm not paying them at all so uh that's great but yeah that's working for exposure right that's it yeah hazardous elements on that planet that's what but yeah I was like oh cool I have a nice little base I got a couch I got a bed here you know I got a nice roof over my head I got a nice view of the the planet's Horizon but the second part of that is like okay but what for like what am I because the thing with 76 you know it's an online game and I could share that space with other people um and and in four it was kind of like well this is our first iteration of the style thing so like okay cool whatever um but then at the end I was like all right what am I farming these materials for really it's like well it feeds into the research stuff but then I have to go through like the menus and do the inventory management thing and this game has terrible Inventory management so it doesn't make me feel like I want to engage with those systems on a higher level so in a way the way like the some of the user experience elements kind of push back on like um man I don't feel like engaging with this anymore um so they have they have something there though and I think the the possibilities are kind of maybe they're Limitless with this sort of thing maybe they could build out a whole ass planet that you've built yourself that would be cool to see someone like months down the line of player other players players doing that so there's a lot of potential in The Outpost system that I really enjoy that I like um but to what end is always the thing in the back of my mind I mean you mentioned it there like menu systems Inventory management I mean modders have already gone in even before the game properly launched like between the Early Access period and actual game launch models have kind of gotten affixed that how um even in the early hours I'm finding it frustrating so how does it get you know 30 plus hours in when you're I just I just stopped caring uh honestly at some point you gotta just stop caring about managing your weight uh or your encumbrance and be like okay these are the these are the only weapons that I'm carrying and I'm not collecting any more spacesuits I'm not collecting any more helmets unless I see that they give me if I'm gonna equip them because they give me better stats otherwise I'm not going to worry about them because it's not worth the hassle even though I can sell them and make credits right to a point where I had so many credits that I paid off my house I got my new ship I decked it out so at that point I'm just holding on some money in case I run into a vendor who has ammo or health packs that I just need to stock up on um so at a certain point I thought I stopped like actually picking everything up or looking at every little thing especially when you're looting uh dead bodies where I'm not going to pick up their weapon I'm not gonna pick up a regular ass Grendel because I got one that has a billion other Buffs on it so eventually you kind of learn what you want or need to pick up it's credits it's ammo it's digipicks and Med packs and uh Aurora if you want man you can do drugs in this game uh that gives you bullet time which is kind of rad sometimes I just pull up the minions like boom hit Aurora and I'm just like Max Payne type [ __ ] uh and that's that's pretty interesting and then I have the thing that counteracts my addictiveness to that um so that that is like so you got it under control is what you say you got under control of course anytime yeah as long as you're stocked up on those things um so at a certain point though the I it influenced the way I engage with the game and like I didn't I don't feel like I lost anything when I started to care less about looting everything and I don't necessarily think that this game is necessarily built for that unless you are specifically looking to pick up materials that's when it gets complicated and that kind of goes back to what I was saying about outposts and managing your materials because they're so heavy it's like well I'm going to send the ship this this the [ __ ] this this stuff back to my ship um then you have to worry about Inventory management on your ship's cargo [ __ ] it's like all right uh okay that sounds pretty that sounds pretty boring yeah but uh yeah that and I will say that that is not the egregious the most egregious thing about the user experience in this game because let me tell you all about Maps apparently just heard people watching there are no maps in like major cities when you get to a planet there's like no map for whatever so what do you think is there what was their reason for that do you think like what what it's got to be like they're thinking when you decide you make your own Maps yeah get to learn the ins and outs of the city you know which like sort of like I can kind of meet you there but it's a little inconvenient sometimes it's like we're like gamers are built to can I at least find a map can I buy a map can I do a quest for a map sorry completionists like a thousand planets foreign the Thousand planets thing because obviously my understanding is that a thousand planets uh procedurally generated you when you go to them it generates a tile and you can land on this tile and you can walk for like 10 minutes and then you hit a wall and it says you gotta basically go back to your ship so you can like so the game could basically reload a tire like create a new tile for you to explore right that's all fine I don't really care about that that much like whatever but the whole seamlessness gigantic world I need to be able to go everywhere I think it's fantastic in something like no man's sky but it I don't think it's unnecess like a necessary requirement my concern about this when I as I think about playing it is like the procedural Generation stuff and I go on this entirely new planet all new atmosphere and all this crazy [ __ ] and then I see the exact same Outpost that I've seen on four other planets like literally exactly the same how have you found like all of you have played it how have you found that process of dealing with the procedural procedural Generation stuff is it a net positive for the game or would you have rather that it was a smaller Universe with just nothing but curated environments I mean like I said earlier I there's there's there's something Whimsical about landing on a planet even if there's nothing to do and even if it's like randomly generated I like seeing what the atmosphere is like what is it actually like on the ground level but the procedural Generation stuff I think I kept landing on planets at random just to see what it's like and at a certain point I just told myself I'm not going to do this anymore because it's not worth the time of jumping from menu to loading screen to to the the the landing animation to getting out of my cockpit there's just too many steps involved to once I get on that planet I know what the deal is there ain't gonna be nothing for me here unless unless the side quests or a mission leads me to this planet I don't necessarily have any business being there and uh unless I'm again like I said I was looking for an outpost but that was way I was done with the game and like that's kind of what I was getting involved in but I don't know uh it doesn't I When you mention if I would have preferred like fewer planets that are a lot more like well thought out and denser uh I I would always prefer that over the latter um but I mean that's not what this game is going for like at a certain point I understood like that's not what this game is going for I mean they do have dense cities on certain planets like Mars like uh new Atlantis uh in like the cyberpunk city neon so there are like these these certain cities that are built out for these planets um but if they went harder on that I think that's when they could also make up for building an atmosphere building culture building uh an interconnected web between all of these societies and um so I think that there's there's more to like if they were to go with fewer planets denser cities or denser planets like they could have teased out a little bit more in the overall World which would affect other elements of the game um but that's just I don't know that's just kind of where my head was at yeah I feel like for me it was like more often than I liked random planets had a lot of the same oh we land on another planet you're like oh this one has the same like this one also has solar panels over here or like some leftover Factory or like ships are coming and going like really I'm not really like you got to really find a planet and like really get lucky and hit and feel like you're totally alone um and I I don't I go back and forth because I do feel like if you're the type of person with Bethesda games where you like do you like like walking up to a building finding a building and then like walking up to the door clicking on the door and then loading into a little Bethesda dungeon then you have a lot of those here because like you can just find a weird cave and just like find a [ __ ] up guy in it and shoot him with a gun um and like you might not get the greatest loot because it is not it's not hand crafted but like there's there's a little bit of that like dungeoning you can just keep getting if you're just looking for and I use this in my video uh like if you're looking for like that Bethesda game as like a warm blanket and you just kind of want to like do that and be in that world like it does it does have that but I did find like as much as I do enjoy the game like I found a lot of the random planets kind of crappy for lack of a better word sure yeah yeah I mean like that's one thing I just again I can't see the appeal of that like that does nothing about the idea of a thousand planets actually appeals to me not in the context of what this game is like with no man's sky for example it kind of makes sense because you've got this seamlessness thing and you know you're not really meant to spend forever on one planet you're kind of meant to keep going and there's just just general thrill of being able to kind of like seamlessly go from orbit to the sky fly across the planet like as in just fly across the when you're there all that [ __ ] like kind of I see the appeal of the procedural generation and endless planets endless Discovery whatever but for a Bethesda game that just that a thousand plus doesn't interest me at all I was like no I'd rather like six planets actually that'd be much better please and I'm not nothing I've seen has really changed my mind about that having not played it yet I'm that's the part that I'm really interested to say like well no is there actually some reason why thousand planets is good I haven't seen any compelling reason why this game needs a thousand I think some people love like just love that and maybe it's people who haven't played other comparable games and they just like Bethesda games so like they're getting that version of stuff we love in no man's sky or or whatever but they're getting their version of it for like a Bethesda game I guess uh like a Taylor Swift no man's Sky bethesda's version this game [Music] with the same physics you better give us the same damn physics as well all right I need like little like death stranding little carry carts that I can drag around for all my [ __ ] yeah yeah I'm 100 yeah how are you what did what so I'm playing on PC I'm playing on 3090 um my experience so far has been pretty fine the only like in terms of bugs I have one really annoying bug whenever I boot the game up with a controller plugged in yeah one of every three times the game like refuses to put controller inputs on the UI and also every time you scroll it misses one so if you use the d-pad to go down in the menu it will go one three five instead of like one two three four wow so you have to and then you have to reboot the entire system but and then we are so back baby and then the only other like major bugs I've had have been enemies literally just spawning right in front of me like not coming out of anywhere some of the AI just not knowing what to do and just like kind of some of that but other than that like I haven't had anything too terrible um bug why yeah yeah what about you guys I mentioned in my review too this is probably the I mean this is maybe it's not saying much but the most polished Bethesda game I had a couple crashes like maybe three crashes in 60 hours of playing this game and I played it on uh a minimum spec PC I played on my high-end PC that has a 3080 TI in it series X Series S played all platforms and it was pretty consistent and you know features like fsr2 which uh you know super sample or scaling your image so you can play in 4k without having the demand of 4k on your PC it was so clutch uh boot put everything on high and it was you know there's some dense cities where you're gonna get frame drops of course like no matter what game it is like it gets dense enough then of particle effects you're gonna get some slowdown and then big fire fights whatever like I can manage with that because that is just how PC gaming is so it is a demanding game but I will say that you know there's nothing out of character for a game of this Fidelity I guess you could say um and I also mentioned that the 30fps cap on series X and S is like kind of disappointing that you don't have that option and I think we've grown accustomed to I've always been a PC Gamer but I think also on with these high-end consoles you kind of you know I could pick my options I want lower res higher frame rate things like that this game is locked in whatever it the on the X and S that they give you but at least you know I'm not running around and getting like unplayable chug I didn't come across any of that so can I can I ask a really dumb question to all of us is there a world where we think that Bethesda can optimize the series X and S to one day allow 60fps or is it just too capped out as the way that it runs definitely not the app no I mean I think that yeah not the unless it like drops to like 720p and then upres is from there maybe I could see that but that also does take a lot of resources for them so I imagine I mean this is me just speculating but at some point you need to cut your losses be like this is what we're going to roll with this is what we're gonna like we're gonna optimize for this in particular because if we take time to optimize for other specs you know this game needs to come out at some point it needs to be you know if there are things that we can get away with just doing 30 FPS 4K and if we're not upres so I can imagine that there's a demand on the development side to accommodate for those sorts of things which is why PC ports are you know generally more demanding for developers to to pull off um I think it's the the series X and S are are powerful enough to do that in the same way that I can bump settings down on PC to get higher frame rates like those things are physically possible but you know I imagine them at some point like let's just roll with this and make the best experience Within These parameters so sure I didn't find it visually like the best looking game but um I I did really like for Bethesda game too I was like wow like the the crowd density in certain cities like the amount of NPCs walking around is pretty cool I was like wow they really like really amped this up yeah yeah makes places like new Atlantis and neon feel a little bit more full that's why I love about open world games like how they can um manipulate the systems to make it feel full like Persona 5 has like the faceless uh like Shadows just walking by and it makes those the Subways and the city feel so full and kind of like is a wild take but like Yakuza 3 had um just you know NPCs wandering around and if you actually inspect it the NPCs do like some really dumb [ __ ] like this is this is not how humans act but the fact that I was walking through a market that there's a ton of people there I think that adds to the the believability of being in that world and so I think that's one thing that I do really like about Starfield the only other thing I wanted to hit on uh was the faction stuff yes so where there is like a lot of time and and discussion spent on the planets and the endless exploration like where they honed in on like where I think their their kicking asses with the factions the faction stuff is really cool uh even how it kind of ropes you into some of them is interesting and they got a little creative with that and I I'd say like that's a if you if you play if you've played some of these games like that's my best record like do you like faction [ __ ] well they got some they got some good stuff for you here yeah absolutely and uh like I called out the Crimson Fleet quest line in particular in my review because yeah I still do feel like that is one of the best Bethesda quest lines uh that they've done um because my favorite thing is that it integrates the best parts of this game like it makes you involved in all the different systems whether it be like actual dialogue choices that can influence the outcomes a lot of these things are kind of on a set track and that's one of the detractors I think with this game is that I don't feel like you truly influence the outcomes of that world but in the Crimson Fleet quest line there are things that it does react to your the decisions you make or and and kind of unpredictable ways too so I'm like yes this is this is exactly the type of [ __ ] I was looking for um that is uh at least present in that and that's a long questline too I'm like yo this is main quest quality yeah where you are bouncing between two you're under like not to give away too much but you're you're essentially an undercover agent um but there was a point where I'm like oh wait okay I'm on I'm an undercover agent but as I do one of these quests I kind of get attached to some of the characters on this side and maybe I don't care so much about the characters on this side uh so it was really fun to actually make those decisions about how I approach things who I side with what I say to them um and like [ __ ] battles big fire fights um just really tense conversations that I'm having with other characters and then like a stealth Mission uh where I've there's a lot of subplots within that too it's like I'm here to take care of this business right here but I'm talking to this character about something else and I'm like oh let me get back to you on that when I'm done with my business here so in a way it kind of it's a Showcase of other things as well and it's it's a brilliant quest line man uh so I really gotta really gotta hand it to them for that and ever since I finished that I was like oh where I want more of that I want to seek out more than I can't not I haven't really found anything to hit quite on that level but there are other quests side quests chains that tap into certain aspects that I really like about this game and maybe like the that Crimson Fleet quest line as well so uh there is that's where I clicked with me wait what'd you say that's that that's where it clicked with me like that was like my moment into the game where I'm like I'm wishy-washy on certain things by that Quest I was like okay no I I lean towards I like this game yeah this is cool absolutely um so I mean as we're kind of wrapping up here Michael especially because you finished it Jay because you put way more hours in than the rest of us does this feel like I've made a character you made a character me too hell yeah I've gotten I called him Todd rays do you feel like this is an advancement of the Bethesda game studios formula is it more of the same um is it just yeah like I don't know I was gonna say where do you think this will take us for Elder Scrolls six but I think do you think they're just gonna continue doing like more of the same and continue honing or do you think they'll actually dramatically change their formula I don't I don't know if I expect them to dramatically change their formula because I think uh I think I mentioned at the top that uh there's still there there's still things that you could tease out of this formula and in a way I talk about Fallout New Vegas a lot because it's one of my favorite games of all time again that is an obsidian joint but it's it showed that obsidian can come into what is what was offensive essentially kind of a like a janky I mean the janky Foundation because when that game launched that was the buggiest game I ever ever played some people couldn't even run it even on consoles um but there is a magic to how they wrote that game how they chained quests together how they uh choice and consequence and how it played out and certain things that you did that you weren't even involved in a quest but you did something else you killed a certain character here or you said something to a character here now when I do discover whatever questline it's like wow it's it completely changed the track I was on and the the level of role playing in that game showed that there's still magic to be shown in the Bethesda formula because um at the end of the day like when I when I think about role playing it's choice and consequence um and that's probably one of the weaker Parts about Starfield so um I I I don't want it's I think Starfield is a step back in some regards and it's it's that that I think it's a step back in uh being able to influence outcomes like yes you there are Still Moments you can influence the outcomes of the game but the way in which those are reflected is minimal I feel like um but then they do some things really well like with combat and um just showing Fidelity and density in some parts I'm like oh okay maybe this this kind of foundation isn't as janky as we were led to or you know they they figured it out at some point that yes there's still bugs but we can still build big and beautiful worlds uh within the system we're not held necessarily held back by the technology on that front so it's like they did some really Advanced things in this regard but then they had to take some steps back in other regards um so what and whether or not that influences Elder Scrolls 6 I'm not sure um but I don't see them straying too far from it because it is still a unique thing too like you know Bethesda makes the reason why we keep referring to them as Bethesda style RPGs is because I mean some games try to do something similar but there there's a uniqueness to how they build their games whether you like them or not you can't deny that they have a mark on like the the vast or like they have a they have a pillar in role-playing games they have a lane and they have dominated that lane uh again like whether you're like or not they they definitely have a style and people like things about that style and there's value in that still so um yeah for sure yeah I'm pretty much with you um I I liked it the very because the thing I was looking at with this game the most was like just see oh they're finally doing something different ultimately after playing it the framework is still very similar but I like that at least within it they have done very different things like ship combat that is something that you would not even anywhere near expect in their other games so I'm like all right I'm glad they're doing some other stuff here and there it's it's it definitely made a difference I think for me as a player now in my nth whatever Bethesda ass Bethesda game uh is I'm realizing that some of the stuff that are Hallmarks for them aren't necessarily things I always need in my games anymore uh like I don't need to interact with every object in the environment I'm like that's fine just Gloom down don't even have it I don't need that I don't need to like see and I don't feel compelled to like follow an NPC and go see where they go like I don't always need some of that technical overly complicated stuff um so I've learned that about me I'm glad that they've done a couple of different things it still feels like a Bethesda s Bethesda game but for me I'm learning like I'm like okay I don't need the same thing every time in certain aspects maybe they're gonna keep doing that but that's that's where I'm ending up game of the year then yeah do we think he's actually a contender in this year of all years I mean it's a rough it's a tough year it's a big year old Escape man it's so [ __ ] hard isn't it full just gate man I don't know when it comes I just finished the last night oh wow yeah it's it's like obviously I haven't even played Starfield yet but I mean as having said that I never thought anything this year could top tears the kingdom for me I was like there's no way man tears the Kingdom's got it on lock it's down it's impossible forget it's over and then sure enough balls gate comes along I'm like blue tea is the kingdom out of the water so maybe I have that same response to Starfield but that's a pretty high bar to to to to meet I think so for me for me not not like my number one but I do see it being in the conversation for some people because like with my criticism to this game some people love the [ __ ] out of these games like no matter what so yeah um I think it'll be in Game of the Year conversations because you know it is it's on behind the scenes a little bit more it's also about uh like how many people played a certain game so um anyway like everyone's gonna be playing Starfield is a blockbuster and uh it's it's in front of everyone it's on Game Pass it's um it is it's it's streamlined in its experience and it's like a mass Market Style game so I feel like a lot of people are going to give it the time of day um because of that name recognition recognition too it's like oh from the makers of Fallout and Elder Scrolls like of course I'm gonna play their new IP the first IP in 20 some years so it has it has a lot of weight behind it um and that's that that doesn't even it doesn't even involve a conversation about its quality it's just the fact that people are jumping into this on such a high level or like so many people are just jumping into this period and um like people are going to find things to love about it um and to what degree there they are going to love the things that they find who knows but I think it will be in the conversation it's stiff competition though like even if you absolutely love this game um I think that the the the fervor and the passion behind behind people who absolutely love tears of the kingdom and people who love Baldur's Gate 3 is that's a tough Hill to climb and I don't think even I like I love Final Fantasy 16 uh and octopath traveler two those are my two favorite games of the year but I don't think I am even going to try to have that conversation even like for games but I'm like hey if I if my games get into our top 10 that that's a W for me but I am not gonna fight y'all's y'all's the the Baldur's Gate sickos and the Zelda sickos on this man y'all can be out there I gotta say yeah so uh it's really interesting I think it'll be like nominated uh amongst different organizations but in terms of winning I don't see that all right well thank you so much Michael thank you for being our our Starfield expert we appreciate it Starfield correspondent hey right great review great coverage I'm back soon thank you thank you thank you and with that I'm reporting reporting live from San Francisco hey everyone we have a pretty great and unique offer for all of the FPS users out there an extra 20 off any order using the code friends that's right it's liquid IV and we all love it we have the bottles here it's pretty rad um you got the bag the bag oh the bag of it okay I say it is yeah the bag of sachets I just I just Main Line it I don't need a bottle yeah right right just open it up and let it in that's right um You can use it first thing in the morning before a workout would you feel run down in the afternoon night out with friends 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nationwide at Costco or you can get 20 off when you go to liquid iv.com and use code friends at checkout that's 20 off anything you order when you use promo code friends at liquid ivy.com using this code really helps out the podcast helps us keep doing it regularly so we'd really appreciate it if you would use it and thank you again but could I be sponsoring this episode thanks guys all right time for a user question if you have a question uh please email it to contact a friendsposecond.com um we monitor that inbox and we put questions in the show every so often so uh this is from dotpone I recall Jake being fond of taking pictures in game especially if the game has a photo mode and even going as far as suggesting that all games should have it what is everyone else's opinion on this matter do you also make use of photo modes in games that offer it that's a great question it is what it was yeah I will I will go first I don't particularly like using photo mode but I like watching other people use Photo mode so for instance my girlfriend is like a such a talented photographer in real life and uh any game no matter what it is it could be Horizon it could be Animal Crossing whatever it is she takes the best goddamn photos I've ever seen it's it's purely a talent and I absolutely admire her for that and that's the kind of stuff that I dig I can't make the photo but she makes it look amazing so I'm happy that it exists in games totally I wish I had an eye for that sort of stuff it'd be amazing but yeah like digital photographers I think it's it's definitely like excuse me it's like a burgeoning thing where you see it more and more in people's like Twitter handles and whatever and companies are actually working with these people as well to you know bring them on and you know get them to make trailers all sorts of [ __ ] and I think that's so awesome that there's this entire emerging discipline around taking cool off screenshots in video games um I mean do I think every game needs it no I mean obviously not like it's fine if Binding of Isaac doesn't have a photo mode you know what I mean like that's all good but um but like you know I think it is great when developers can put that Finishing Touch particularly on like very graphically intensive 3D games where you know and it's nice to see them really put a lot of love into it it's one thing to have a photo mode where they just Freeze Frame and you can rotate and maybe like a filter or whatever but some of them go wild just like dozens and dozens of features and ways you can change things and just like they've clearly put a lot of time and effort you know you can tell that like hundreds of of people hours would have gone into creating just this photo mode and that doesn't sell games like if no one's like oh I want to buy that game because it's got a great photo mode no this is just something that people do like developers do for the fans they do they do it because they love what they've made and they want to be able to Showcase it in the way in this incredible way and so yeah I really love that it exists it's a feature I will never ever use almost never but I'm extremely glad that it exists for other people and I'm really glad it's getting picked up as you know it's getting more and more recognition for the people that use it I love how you said it it's like a cherry on top like you ever jump into a game and you're like wow this game is pretty good and then you pause it and it's like and there's a photo mode like they even gave us that nice like I love that actually one I heard just briefly sorry Lucy that Starfield actually uses is it true that Starfield uses your screenshots as loading screens does it that's why I saw a headline that saw that I'm not sure if that's true or not maybe that's just fake news but yeah um that's that that's that would be a great touch as well more games should do that yeah we're like because if I was if I was like allowed to make my loading screens the screenshots that I'd taken throughout my adventure I would take so many more screens and I probably would engage the photo mode more because I'd remember that time where I took this cool photo or whatever so there you go developers if follow Todd's lead that's it that's it uh shout out to dotpone who asked this question uh follow them on social all right good photo mode posts and stuff is that why yeah I really like the photo Community uh there's a lot of really good people there doing really talented stuff I try to like advocate for it when I can uh I also am not creative or good or have an eye but I'm trying uh I like it I like that photo modes have so many features that allow me to make mistakes and like try and figure it out and try and learn the ins and outs and as I've kind of been very busy with like life and like with with playing games and stuff I don't post a lot on social media or as much as I used to so what I've been trying to do is leave like almost like a snapshot like especially on Instagram like with every game I play or talk about online I also have a corresponding like Photo mode dump um to just kind of like leave behind for like that's when I played that game yeah and my photos aren't like the best or anything but I'm trying my best and I'm having fun so I'm trying to find um a game that I got really into photo mode with with cyberpunk oh yeah but I think that's you know because it's an incredible look at this city yeah yeah yeah yeah and like taking photos of piano a few uh actually most I have a lot of Judy actually and like sure I actually am totally old takamura I have so many of us just so cool but yeah I I got really into photo mode in cyberpunk um and as well uh Last of Us Part Two um it's just fun but I don't like go out of my way to do it if if there's some if there's a character who's like lined up really nicely then I'll do it but I wanted to shout out if we're advocating for this stuff um Andy Kelly uh it doesn't really I don't think he does it anymore but he had a YouTube channel called um other places oh yeah Andy Kelly used to work for uh PC Gamer now works for devolver but it was basically like free caming like no clipping whatever through um environments and making these really beautiful like just celebrations of game environments and so like the Bioshock Infinite one has always been my favorite um and yeah it's he's done like lothric in Dark Souls 3 um he's got Tucson from Witcher 3 he's got um Skyrim the witness but yeah if you watch the Bioshock Infinite one I think it's also because he really picks a great ambient music um and those are awesome so it's not strictly photography it's more videography but it's great thank you again for your user questions um we are going to throw two we're going to interview Gerard you want to set up um what this next segment is yes so a couple weeks ago when it was boys night and Lucy was not here we I promised you all that uh we would be sitting down with uh Terry boulanger who is the uh the creative director and and and really of The Mastermind over to sabotage Studios uh who directed and wrote and produced in everything about sea of stars uh not Starfield sea of stars another title that has stars in the title of the game um this was a really fun interview uh we asked some great questions got some cool insightful information that no one really knows about that Terry shared with us um but overall uh you know Terry's a good friend of mine and it was an honor to have him here on the show so let's go ahead and take a look at that interview everyone please welcome to the show and I'm gonna ruin your last name even though I've rehearsed it a billion times as I always do Terry boulanger did I do it right you did yeah you really did yes good job Terry there's a sexy sounding Name by the way or laundry I love it Terry thank you for joining us and and once again before we even start congratulations not just on on sea of stars but 250 000 copies in the first week tell me how that's got to feel for you and the team man it's got to be special oh absolutely well I mean yes yes I would say yes the thing is like you know we have you do this and you have 25 people right and and I mean you understand production and the cost of everything and having a theme and feeling responsible for them and wanting to provide and all and hoping that your idea is good enough that you that it's sustainable you can stay afloat and all and so anyways so you know you try to be very safe with your predictions you want to be like okay I know that even if it's kind of like the the on the lower end of the the possible outcomes that were kind of still good or what happens and so yeah we had projections for the first year here that was like okay we know there we know the game three happens you know uh and so yeah it only took a week so now we're like okay great workload game three is happening where we get to keep everyone we get to keep going we get to tell the next story so now it feels it really feels amazing we're kind of taking September off uh you know we're just we're kind of tracking what's going on we're patching if in case there's any issues and all uh but for the most part we're not we're basically not working we're just watching streams and reading reviews and also no it's uh yeah it's a great time for real congratulations man that's uh obviously uh I and many people out there were super hype on on uh the messenger and now sea of stars uh this has been kind of your your your your child I would say since when when did production start with 2019 or 2018 I always forget so actually 2018 so messenger came out so we did like a five-year like a cute thing of like they came five years apart like almost to the day I think it was like 28th August 28th for Messenger and then August 29th for sea of stars uh um right the Playstation update kind of um but uh so we so six weeks after the launch of messenger we had a summit we kind of all got together off-site um it was like okay it kind of worked out so we get to do the second game and so then I pitched to the team at picnic Panic which is our DLC for Messenger and then SCF Stars which was the next big idea so the idea is you know instead of just firing people hiring them again you know by the time you need them as we try to kind of be healthy in that way so DLC is kind of like a known quantity in terms of production pipeline so everyone works on DLC we know how to make the assets we know how to roll out all the all the stuff and then by the time the DLC comes out hopefully pre-production has done well enough that we're ready to kind of greet everyone you know and so it happened very smoothly for for sea of stars we went from picnic Panic launching to just everyone now working on CF Stars full time and we're looking forward to repeating that experience we'll see how it goes but uh so so far that's where we're at so talk to us about how um you know it was with the messenger obviously this is a game that uh is very much uh ninja gaiden-ish but not quite you know very much emboiled in the metroidvania and and for you and the team you said you know we're going to switch from action platformer that's you know nostalgic to the NES and Genesis era to Chrono Trigger and these RPGs um what what was kind of the decision you guys made to to make that shift to go from and you could have made the messenger 2 or or uh even changed genres completely and instead you you really went into hey we made our our ninja gaiden-esque game now we're going to make our Chrono Trigger game what was that what was that kind of um um process inception for you guys sure uh well I mean so man we made so we made the messenger and and and it's funny I was just sharing screen earlier and I saw my on my second desktop I have my ugly cry selfie that I took when we met the creators of Ninja Gaiden in Kyoto Japan and I remember taking a selfie and just owning that this is me crying in the bathroom because I just met you know Yamaguchi son and and yoshizawa-san and and they played messenger and and yoshizawa who was so yamagichi of course is the composer and she's always the like the director designer type um and and he said it was Ninja Gaiden four you know he didn't say that like on the record but he kind of just that you know and it was just like oh my God and it's like well I suppose we can make a sequel but we're not gonna like meet the guy who made it have him acknowledge it again you know what I mean it's kind of like that that's kind of As Good As It Gets we're still excited there's more story to be told in that universe but the vision for sabotage is we take the genres that's that you know kind of stuck with us and then it's it's more of like a game design journey of how do we modernize these games how do we make them as good as our memory of them right because we don't miss the fight control the the the the the the the the difficult we don't miss the repetitive music we don't miss the Steep difficulty you know spikes and things like that well I mean some of us do but to an extent we want to make something that's as good as how we felt playing them is there a way because I can't make you be nine again right but can we make it it's no good that that you're go you're going to be able to access that again while you play in a few of course that's the wish and that all that that's Eye of the Beholder thing in the end but that's what we're setting out to do and so after messenger was done was kind of like well we're pretty happy with this as an action platformer you know there's not so much more for us to solve to improve upon or to prevent or to present in in a modern way sorry and so moving on to another genre was like oh then the challenge kind of starts Anew right we start from scratch there was no uh gold coins in the game at first there were no shops there were no level UPS there were every single system we do reinvent the wheel even though it's sounds stupid it's like for me it's really a journey in game design of like figuring out one system at a time why is the game incomplete without it and how do we make it sing even more by adding those things instead of just oh let's use that because it's oh it's a known quantity it has to be there you know um so that's the process that's that's fun for us in development and then prototyping gameplay and everything and so uh yeah the last thing we want to do is what essentially what what players expect so it might be they might be disappointed by the next big announcement but hopefully if they hear us out and and take a second look they'll be like okay I can maybe I can see it because at first they were expecting messenger too right which is like well it's not it and it's like well I don't want to hear it but then it's like oh okay maybe you know and so now this is this is really what's fun for us and but in terms of sorry to your question as to why the shift and that was always the vision we knew that sea of stars was like the big one that we wanted to do but it took a bigger team and kind of more clout right as as you would know Gerard but so messenger was kind of like what we can do with a smaller team to kind of bootstrap everything and then from there we kind of we were able to build but then now it's it was a dream come true for sure I remember when you showed me the the Sea of stars Kickstarter you were so nervous because you were like oh man like this isn't the messenger two this is a whole new genre and I remember seeing it and just kind of telling you dude this is people have no idea what what's what's coming and uh and and sure enough you know the game's out now and yeah they they had no idea and everyone's playing it I I feel like I have investment in the game just because we're friends and so I'm I'm also watching streams and and and watching videos and Impressions and it's always funny seeing you know what you guys kind of meant for people for players to pick up and take and and and seeing what they didn't pick up and take and uh it's got to be interesting for you guys as a team now that you've been working on this game for the last four years kind of out in the wild how's that been for you guys to watch all these streams and all these people play and and and enjoy these moments or get confused by them how's that been for you guys I mean it's that's that's the real paycheck right is is when people because we we spend so much time and arguably too much time ironing out like the finer details and making sure every single thing or maybe someone's going to look here you know and things like that and you do you do play tests as well and you look at what people try to do and where they're like I was expecting something to be like that and and you know the the the the miyamo quote that gets used the most is how the delayed game is eventually good or whatever in my mind the most important one is never is seldom quoted um it's he said the game is when it acknowledges the player okay and so that you can just meditate on that for like six months and that will inform so much of what you can do in game design is is my game acknowledging the player am I being aware as I'm designing this thing that's you I am greeting someone in the end who will be compelled to try things to touch things and how much things can we put in there that the game can go like yeah I see you I will I will uh yes what you did there we did think of that and it does lead somewhere you know so that's when like exploration upgrades and everything that you find and so kind of visualizing this conversation of the eventual player or players you know uh hopefully with an S um is is was was really like what we kind of obsessed over so now watching the streams and watching people like how they're kind of confused and they feel like ah that was that felt a bit incomplete in terms of the narrative you're like perfect that's exactly where we want you because something's coming later that pays off on your expectation being set here for now and things like that and it's really great to see how it kind of like plays out because it's all a game of communication in the end right you have your vision you want to show them and then do they see it and yeah nothing there's nothing like a live reaction for that so let's let's talk RPGs now because this is an RPG Love Letter uh the biggest reference everybody is throwing around is like Chrono Trigger uh but is there a weirder RPG that inspired you guys that you don't talk like you haven't talked about in the press or fans haven't really picked is there like another stranger one that influenced you guys the weirder one is not an RPG it's Monkey Island uh it's a even though it's not an RPG oh yeah because of the writing because it's the first time I was only starting to learn English and and as the first time I remember laughing out loud while playing a game and that for me was like oh yeah that's supposed to be fun I'm normally supposed to play this can be serious a time but it shouldn't take itself too seriously and it should first and foremost be concerned about entertaining me right even though there can be tension and darker themes it should get a laugh out of me from time to time that was uh that's everywhere in what we do it was a messenger as well maybe a bit more obviously at that time around but but yeah that's that's the one big influence that's in everything we do that that that is maybe harder to pick up on the answer is all of them you know the short answer is all of them we played everything the the you know who they don't know you like the the the even the fan translations like we all of us we've played everything so yeah I was gonna say I see a lot of people saying oh man this is Paper Mario this is Golden Sun this is Chrono Trigger and I feel like you you guys have kind of striked the perfect balance of appeacing to those fans a little bit but also making it your own So that obviously the inspiration is Chrono Trigger but um I I it just felt so unique in how it it paid homage to Chrono Trigger that the rest of it didn't really matter it just was like this is its own type of of Ironclad genre now um especially because you guys took a swing where most people haven't right there hasn't been you know aside from maybe one or two other titles the Chrono Trigger swing at the RPG has been very very um small and I think you guys went for the fences and it it definitely shows with sea of stars um that's actually sorry I actually have a question in relation to that so yeah how do you how did you balance the desire to pay homage to something with your need to create something unique and that was like distinctively your own teams hmm well okay right okay yeah well that's a good one so I mean I mean I mean ask ourselves that very question and and I think where where it comes for me is is is what's the essence of that thing right if you um if you go from concrete and you go back to abstract right what is Chrono Trigger you know uh very concretely it's a frog with a sword and time travel right and if you go really really abstract right it's it's like it's yeah falling in love during the fall right while waving someone goodbye and meeting your new best friend and and and it's also a summer day somehow you know um and so and there's this intention to do good right to be a presence that's positive that's optimistic it's it says something about friendship um it says it speaks to no matter what the odds are you can you can still try you know it's not like life sucks and then you die you know it's very much like you can you can do this it's it's an optimistic it's a positive message it leaves you with a gut feeling of like oh yeah I can apply this in my own way right that's got nothing to do with with you know Magus or whatever and all these characters are amazing but but the essence of it and I just remember a sense of Freedom it was the first game with no Random Encounters I'm just free to roam the world map you know uh the music is just super like capturing you right away everything happens so seamlessly all the dungeons are shorter than what you would expect you're constantly even I've been playing I've been beating this game three times a year for for decades now and and it's still every dungeon is still shorter than what my brain wants to believe you know how much of a tasket will be and so it's more like those those lessons right how does that feel how it it just it feels light it's a breeze it's it's refreshing it's a if of course gaming is your hobby it's it's something you do to pass the time but this game somehow is a day off within that you know it's you're still playing your hobby but you're like taking a vacation inside of your hobby I don't know it's it's super magical that's why I do this for a living so I'm super biased about Chrome trigger but I I that was my sort of understanding my takeaways was like how do we capture that Essence but then express it in we go from extra abstract to something else concrete without using directly uh any of what it it concretely does but we'll reuse everything that it does in more of an abstract way I don't know if that makes sense but because I do spend thousands of hours thinking about this to death and maybe it only makes sense in my mind but that's that's kind of where I was at in terms of that I think I think you make tons of sense Terry because you see that with Carl Carl is exactly girls perspective and journey throughout sea of stars is exactly as you just described you see that the the Friendship of of of of of the solstice Warriors and just how everyone rallies behind garl throughout the entire like in the beginning you're always concerned with you know in girls introduction you're like oh he's just a big doofus or he's just a he's like the the funny character but in my opinion this story is about Carl and friendship and and overcoming you know weird circumstances and and girls the kind of character that throughout the entire game is like hi I'm girl and there's like a huge monster in front of him and you know and he's like hey whatever let's just go with the flow and I think like that that refreshingness that you described as Chrono Trigger and what you find is is embodied in geralt of the entire game and so it makes sense to me whatever you're you're putting down I'm picking up great great um so I want to talk about uh a little bit on obviously this game was made during covet times you know we all kind of experienced it but your team specifically was ramping up to make to make this game you know obviously the kickstarter's in 2019 and your six months into production then the world shuts down um what were some of the challenges that really affected you guys if any and and how and how did that affect you guys as a team because this is a team effort you look at this game and you can see that there were so many passionate hearts and Minds that were applied to Sea of stars yeah for sure uh well so that's the thing is is and you're right 2019 we were like so we were planning the campaign and I remember that's when I sent you the the video because I was like oh man we're about to reveal this and remember you said you have nothing to worry about I was like [Laughter] but we actually did launch the campaign in 2020 early 2020 and so we were going to do it on uh the Spring Equinox you know to kind of be cute with the the Sun and Moon thing you know and it was the Thursday of GDC right so so well I mean you would know this but so GDC is a big like you know business to business event where everyone goes and so the Press is there the developers are there there's conferences and everything and it's the big thing in San Francisco you fly out and I'll and so we're planning on Thursday of GDC we're we're doing we have the sweet you know and all and we're going to have press rolling in giving the pitch Hands-On demo and out and we're gonna have this big thing we launched the kickstarter campaign with the Press embargo everything is aligned very good and then everything locks down obviously right so GDC is canceled uh we don't get to fly anymore and then our thing is like well we're kind of all in on this right uh and so do we still go for it because we've been working on it for like you know Kickstarter isn't like yeah let's just do that tomorrow it took six months of analyzing other campaigns planning or messaging and everything all the Beats we're gonna have and all and we decided to still go for it even though it was super risky and we we did all the Press appointments that we could like remotely to still kind of try to promote it and yeah the response was great so that was that was really really good the kickstarter went super well which kind of essentially was the response we were looking for like yes reinvest everything you made on Messenger will be there to buy it so that you know you're gonna you you don't go bankrupt you know right away and so yeah we decided to pursue it but also the kickstarter helped you know finding more funding for the game because the social proof is already there and everything in terms of the the hassle like in terms of any problems in production I would say that was pretty good because most of the team it's been over a decade of us all working together we have kind of we're all cuts from the same cloth we have we we kind of rally around the same kind of work ethic and definition of done if you will in terms of what goes into the game like I mean I'm the game director but I'm not constantly telling everyone like no this is not it do it this way it's most of what I receive is just that it's just just passes right away because it you know it's it's already good and so everyone was genuinely self-driven to to give this their all and so even though we were remote for almost a full two years we honestly didn't really see a dip in either production or quality but it was great to come back be together and especially for the later stages of the game when we're designing and implementing the late game side quests how everything connects and how everything you know kind of makes sense to kind of like Get Closer on all the the story The all the characters and everything it really helped to be together again like pointing at the screen and like doing iterations and all that no I don't think we saw a delay or anything I think we would pretty much be at the same place even despite that yeah dude what was it like working with yasinori mitsuda like how did that come about through Starstruck I mean he's like the famous classic Square composer where you were you freaking oh yeah I mean yes absolutely I so you know when I was at my my day job at at the another game studio and I was talking about sabotage you know before starting it because these are all the founders all the people that were there in the beginning we had been colleagues for a while before then and I was talking about Rainbow Dragon Eyes who I didn't even know his real name was Eric you know and I was rambling you know we're just at work doing our thing oh I'm implementing some UI for a mobile game or whatever and I'm like oh man we're gonna make the ninja game and rainbow dragon I is gonna do the music and my my the guy next to me Sylvan is our gameplay programmer he was like oh yeah what else is gonna happen you know and I was developers gonna publish it you know you know and it's like it seems like all these things kind of just fell into place and we've kind of felt this traction of like well just say it and just try because it seems like you know it it it can kind of just happen if you like if you don't ask you know uh and so the mission of the thing was like okay now that we're saying you know uh now that we have industry friends now that our first game worked out and I was still like oh yeah and then you know this is gonna happen and but that time around it was mitsuda instead you know and it's like oh yeah you know what else what else are we gonna Sim ship on all consoles you know it's like of course you know and uh but in and in the end mitsuda what was weird is so starting at GDC 2017 I had started that was a year before release messenger I was already trying to ask people like is there any way to get in touch with this guy because you meet people who like they work with composer and they can connect and I can have I can get you anyone I can get you anyone else can can we get this guy though it's always like oh oof okay yeah no not this guy and in the end it was so dumb thing the response I was always getting like no he's out of reach you know and I was like I mean fair enough right and in the end all we did was write a polite email with a pitch and samples from Eric's music uh to his Studio because he has his own studio right uh and we just got a reply like hey actually I'm interested uh this feels right let's let's take the conversation further and from there you know it's just I would say just like any business uh conversation you know you're like here's the scope of what we might be looking at here's what we can afford here's okay what do you need what makes sense that's that's sort of gather around something that works for everyone and and we gave him kind of like a a scale of uh look if we only get the one track from you I'm already ready to die you know and and what's good is that was all by email because I could never have done that in person I I cried so much throughout this whole process it was Unreal um and so we we told them like between one and ten tracks would be the what we'd like to do because we also want to leave space for our own home composer and and he went for 10 he went for the the like the the maximum amount which was Unreal and he gave rest it was Japanese press but he gave a quote um for a reason I don't I don't really understand I want to write music for this game is the first thought I had when I saw it and so look I I don't know and to be honest I will actually never know uh but there's something I don't know what you saw right but he saw something because he's gotta have heard that pitch before right hey man you want to do a pixel turn base like like for sure he's the guy so but yeah enough with what a blessing yeah it doesn't help me that's good advice for anything yeah yeah tell me um so this one is self-published yes so before any before you with messenger would devolve up yep absolutely so what why why the self-published route I mean obviously I get more autonomy sure but like that obviously would have been a bit of a risky decision you know you had Kickstart and whatever else like what was it like to make that decision and how has that gone for you since you've gone down that path well so we work with devolver and basically everything went as perfectly added as it like theoretically can go right like they're you know they're like on a level where where it's like oh I like I know we signed this but I kind of feel this way and they're like let's okay let's talk you know what I mean like they're they're as Humane as it gets you know while still being a business and so there was an understanding that that it it's not going to get any better than this right they go out of their way to talk about the developer they say like hey that we did not make this you know and everything and despite all of that it seems like you're always Under the Umbrella right and I think before a first game it really made a lot of sense because you want to be on the map right you want to meet people yeah and and they're they're not just I just for me I would think as a publisher and not as just oh I need money to finish my game and I know nothing about marketing so okay just give me that right it's like no a publisher is also a curator right in a sense and so devolver was like okay that's a very sexy catalog right to be a part of that one it's there seems to be a sense you know for players that like they they kind of they pick uh games that are the games of their catalog there's something to be said about them it might make the news just even the fact that they picked us it's kind of like a news of its own yeah and so Progressive was never like just okay cool we need a publisher you know like we we it wasn't so much the funding aspect of it it wasn't it was kind of the marketing but mostly it was like we need uh we need a seal of approval that were were a thing and we might become a thing you know um and so the second time around uh it was just sort of part of a a [Music] um we you know we we reflected a lot upon everything that that happened and all and it's been nothing but great but there was still this sense like okay can we like this kind of pie that we're chasing of doing it ourselves you know can we push that even further um and so that's where my buddy Phil who's my my partner in Savage he's like a marketing brain and I was like okay look you want to do the marketing you want to just figure it out and do this and he's like yeah that sounds amazing and then okay so then can we also self-publish and can we also and to be honest I don't know that is a smart business or financial decision is self-publish like that that's not the reason it's really just like man I want to be able to say like we 100 did this we did there's not shred of a doubt that it would have happened you know there's not like oh maybe if it weren't for this person or that other entity like maybe it would have all L flat we can look at this and say like this is genuinely us you know all of it um but also there's the the reality that you know if you depend on just from a you know more of a pragmatic or practical perspective if you're dependent on another company you don't know what can happen you know I mean of course they've already doing great they're on a great path and everything but what if they choose that they say it's over or they or whatever you know and then you're like well okay like now I still need a publisher I can't necessarily find one who we we see eye to eye and I have no idea how to do this so what we stopped making games and so I think there's just something about this like being so fully independent that just feels like okay we own not that they were ever like in our tracks trying to stop anything we wanted to do they always only enabled whatever we wanted but like you feel that for sure like I can just get in a meeting with Phil and it's like this is what we're doing and we're the only two people like we have no one else to talk to you know that that just goes right away we can change something in two minutes and sort of that velocity of never having to check in with anyone that never not get anything approved we can choose to spend on something like for example we have cinematics in the game fully animated cinematics which I think amounted to more budget than the entire production for Messenger you know and if I were to pitch that to a publisher I'm not sure how I would make the case like no no this is worth this is worth that investment like this thing that will total maybe 40 seconds in the end because I want traditional full screen hand-drawn animation frame by frame like an old Disney movie or whatever that's like why would you do that and it's like well I don't know like some I understand it doesn't really make sense when I say it but I I'm sure that for the player like the end user if you will they will cease they will some of them will notice it and that's what I really care about and it's not a case for finding it's the case for the solo what we put into what we make and how it ages and the cover installation that still takes place around it like four years down the line it's not about you know what I mean how that balances two weeks after lunch or whatever so so yeah just being our own our own thing and taking our own decisions we can just go a bit more emotionally where that helps us create art in a way that that's more in line with we're looking for and do you think that's the future of the studio then like self-published route or do you think the next project will be published or by someone else or does it depend on the project or what do you feel about that I mean this I think for real like nothing is ever off the table I will say four sea of stars like the thrill of like let's figure it out and just do it was kind of the fuel for all of this uh does next time around we go like I would rather like you know offload a whole bunch of that maybe or is it like no that we've all figured it out let's just reuse everything that we learned otherwise it was just overhead to do it once um I can't I can't really say for sure other than like we'll just make what we feel like making and by the time we reach that that point we'll just look at the landscape because the other thing is it changes so fast right we only get one release every you know three to five years or something but you know deals are getting signed every day and games are releasing every day and so well you just you kind of like you know rub your eyes like four years later wait what are the like who's you know so so yeah we'll see cool well I think one of the the more peculiar things and I know you can't really tell us how but it's something to definitely kind of Marvel in is you're one of you're you may be the first game if not one of you that was able to publish day one on both Game Pass and PlayStation Plus that that's crazy to me that you were able to do that um I I know you can only talk about the the particulars but how how do you do that like that that not anyone with without a publisher nonetheless you know what I mean like how how are you able to achieve that kind of that that crazy goal because already out the gate that's exposed to so many new players who maybe didn't play the messenger or let alone are excited for sea of stars right well okay so I mean this is this is wait maybe sound kind of corny but you have yeah like you know the saying like they didn't know it was impossible so they did it right and it's I feel like uh the same way I was talking about you know game design earlier and adding the systems like a shop and money and everything we just we just go in complete like pull stupid you know that's just from the ground up justify understand turn every stone question everything and and just and just kind of try you know and I think part of it is it seems like perhaps no one I don't know that no one ever asked but there's certainly a timing thing to that too right which is I don't know that two years ago we could have pulled it off if you will because maybe the the both catalogs were like not open to considering you know like a cross like you know because if you go back like three years it's it's what is the time to do it's time to sign with to be exclusive on the epic game store or whatever and now that's something that's not even in the conversation you know you you saw a game like shenmue getting and so in trouble for going epic exclusive where when's the last time you heard a game do that you know and so the landscape is constantly changing and for us what it was is we really stayed very prudent and we believed in the game very much our thing was blue saw it it seems like they won it if if they see it uh and so the way that was I'll just say this you know because obviously as you understand my hands are tied I love those things but of course of course my thing was like like you know we did we didn't just get a yes the first time is what I'm getting at but so my thing was when you get a no you can be like well okay I so respectfully I don't think we have demonstrated the value that we're proposing here so let's let's talk again when we can better demonstrate it and so meanwhile you're doing your social media efforts meanwhile you're doing your your wish lists on Steam efforts you're having a demo that comes out you and so and once you can start showing like hey look this is this is growing this is the interest that we're seeing this is um because in terms of wish list like the numbers aren't public but the ranking is right uh and so we were like in the top 25 top wish listed games globally like worldwide on Steam and you've got all the big Blockbusters in there and so it's like well gee so you can once you demonstrate that there is demand I think it's the same with with the kickstarter we did is the money that you raise right it's very hard to bring money in the conversation with with I mean you're all also an Entertainer you know this when you bring money in the conversation with the the I don't want to Consumer but you know I mean like the end like the audience it kind of becomes uncomfortable because like I'm just trying to chill I don't really want to understand the cost of those things but I still want access to the output of what you're making and you know a lot of people are Kickstarter we raised over a million dollars and and people they they kind of they compute that amount in terms of personal finances right and they think we're racing with our boats you know and I will make the game at some point it's like in reality that's that's not even 25 of what it's going to cost here because we have 25 people pay that market value over over four and a half years this is It's not nothing it's a significant amount but Kickstarter takes a cut uh we're in Canada so Canada takes a cup unless if you haven't heard uh you know so all these things and it's like we're not left with nothing but we're not left with what it feels like we're left with to the person who pledged um but but mostly what that did the kickstarter was a marketing and B social proof so now you're talking about you want to get investment for your game and you're like hey look we got over 25 000 backers we're the most successful Canadian video game Kickstarter ever oh cool okay yeah sure we'll reply we'll take the call we'll negotiate because you're removing some of that risk for for other people from a business perspective that was by far the main thing that we gained from from the campaign so yeah anyway all these things are you know and so it's the same if you go to talk about a deal to be on a catalog or anything it's all about what have you been able to prove what can you demonstrate and then that's value for them it's like look I think and and you need to hold your breath a little bit before saying it but you're like look I genuinely believe that my game will be a good argument for people to subscribe to your your service you know and so if you genuinely believe it yeah it's interesting and I mean I don't understand too much time on the subject because I really want to talk more about the game but um but I definitely have seen some headlines recently around the nature of those subscription Services particularly from Indies who are saying that they're getting squeezed and those services are offering them worse deals but from what you're sort of saying it's like you fought to get on those on those services and you feel like there's a lot of benefit to your studio into your game for doing so is that correct yeah absolutely absolutely we've we've had the we've had so you know we're talking about how the game sold 250 000 units in the in the first week but if you look at at the if you if we combine like PlayStation Plus and and Game Pass we've had over 2 million uh players and for us that's that's amazing you know and and I know there is a way where you look at that where you look at the amount you got divided by the amount of units and you're like they all got the game very cheap or whatever but it's like no you need the way the way we look at this is more or like I don't I have no idea what the conversation how big the conversation would be around our game if we didn't have all those people getting their eyes on it because you get placement on the catalog and you get and all of that and it can it again they're curators as well right so that's PlayStation telling you or Xbox telling you like this is coming here they're doing social media beats and all that so we think of it as they're kind of paying us to do marketing and the cost is they get to give away our game kind of you know and from that perspective that really makes sense because how many people stream that how many people review that how many podcasts are talking about and the only reason is they always cover whatever is the monthly thing that's being added or whatever and so that exposure you know becomes sales and especially as a small studio um we don't need you know extra big numbers to be afloat uh and and just the amount of messages that we've been getting of people who say I played it I got it on Game Pass and then I bought it because I really like the internet try it and then I bought the game I don't know if that makes sense for a big AAA game you know but for us sure it's certainly like the exposure because we get buried man we release between Baldur's Gate 3 and star field can you think of a worse can you think of anything no there's no worse than that there's literally no yeah well Terry um I you and I were talking about before that we started recording but um this is something that I talked about in my video uh and it's so funny because when I made my video my 15 minute long winded video about sea of stars um I didn't tell you anything that was going in the video I just said I'm gonna make this thing and probably got some things wrong but I'm gonna like make it and and kind of surprise you in the team just because we are friends and and I I like to think that I made this video uh for for you and for Content creators um but there was a moment in the video where I talked about how you and I differ regarding achievements and how we structure them and how in the end we kind of like full circled encompassed and felt the same way especially as you go on the Journey of completing sea of stars um let I would love to talk about how you feel about achievements in games what's important to you when introducing achievements to the players especially because now you've had the messenger and sea of stars and and kind of dive more about how uh you you created the achievement system and and how you were kind of Shadow guiding the player to complete the game without them even realizing it uh throughout the journey sure sure well yeah so well okay yeah this is very much what the game designer had right on I'm I'm I don't like achievement I love them as a player but as a designer I'm like it's kind of like it's expected I I kind of have to tax something onto my game that no matter what type like it's it's not true that for every game this add-on is genuinely adapted you know and sometimes it can break the flow uh it's there's a guarantee that no matter the the level of immersion that you're trying to shoot or sometimes there's going to be like an operating system thing that pops up and it's honestly kind of like from a directional perspective like we're trying to have a moment here and then it's just gonna be this icon that like so but my so when achievements first started being a thing right I remember for me it came from a game that we played ourselves as kids I remember was Ninja Gaiden 2 was my first achievement like Awakening that I had I was playing this game all the time I got an alarm clock to get up early before school my morning's a guide into and I was I I was up to level three of not killing a single enemy except for the bosses right which is now known as a pacifist run I'm not saying and invented this I'm saying that we all did right collectively everyone came up with achievements of their own volition why because we love a game so much and we're compelled to think of a new angle from which to love that game a reason to replay right or a way to approach it that makes the gameplay sing in a novel way that kind of reaffirms like oh man I can play this all over again with this new layer of like either awareness or Mastery or whatever it is and when achievements started like being a thing right I remember going like oh man this is going to be amazing now the developers are going to use this to guide us into new ways to play their game and in my experience that's not really what happened right you basically get these Milestones congratulations you you beat the tutorial it's like I don't know that I achieved anything here you know and I remember Mega Man I remember really liking the achievement because you actually achieve the thing when you get when you achieve it it's something that you that not you know you people just face role and it just happens um and so from there I was trying to because I remember I mean not to play to the crowd too much I know sure that you love Final Fantasy 7 remake but when I played this it's on hard mode because I played on normal and I was like I don't really like gameplay and because it was letting me win even though I was playing in a boring way which was my fault and I was not seeing the potential of the combat system I played on hard and I was dying until I stumbled upon what makes the combat system sing and then I was like man I'm buying I can't believe I could have missed out on how much is clicks once you get it and so for me that would be a good I know that's an achievement that's a difficulty setting that's what I mean by a good achievement for me will will force you to see something that you would otherwise miss out on right and it's like the game developer telling you like what if you try this way though which you can't Dodge anymore the thing that's preventing you from fully seeing the intention right so anyway this is maybe that was too long-winded but where I'm at with achievements is okay how do you think of let's have a few puns in there for the ones that I just stumble upon because that's expected okay sure let's let's do the service there it's expected it's part of making games in the current year that's great but also making sure that some achievements will make you go like huh okay I so I need to approach it this way there must be a way to do that this implies that I can use that in this way and and then creating those clicks moment to make sure that that the player gets everything out and they have a full connection with with your design essentially yeah I think one of the more one of the you know whenever I'm completing a game and I don't know what the scope is and I and I I harass the crap out of you over messenger about like hey am I gonna miss something because in my mind whenever I'm completing a game I'm like I don't want to restart the whole game because I missed one thing I don't want to restart the whole game because I forgot a certain thing um but sea of stars you've not only figured out the balance between letting the player get these achievements in a fun and creative way you've kept it mysterious throughout you know keeping the the bigger achievements to story beats but even just in in terms of completing the game you you you've made the player go hey getting all the achievements is a part of the narrative is a part of the journey without making them feel grossed out at the fact they have to get a thousand kills in the game or or 100 hours in the game you've kind of found that balance and I think that's the thing you know I've said it before and I'll say it again sea of stars is has one of the best completion processes I've ever played in a game in the last decade and and if you end up loving the game the way that I did like you'll you'll see that perspective through and through uh and and I think uh in the end I was so nervous about the achievements especially because you were keeping me in the dark but as I got closer and closer to the end uh once I was there I was like holy holy crap this is this is phenomenal and it didn't feel strenuous it felt earned it felt like uh I I I've been um enjoying that journey and it's so interesting because I I've been again reading what everyone's saying and the people who are are struggling to even do the uh the achievement of of reflecting um the moonering 25 times that was one of the first things I did right away and and I did it instinctually because I played so many of those games but to see so many people like struggle or be like how do I get this achievement or why can't I do it uh it's just so interesting because uh you didn't want to make it difficult you made it very achievable and yet people are struggling and it kind of shows you the the difference between when you're enjoying something so much and you're focusing on it versus just kind of zoning out and going through it and I think you just found such a great balance I mean well cheers and obviously you know we've been talking a lot about your video obviously on the team you you've had a solid in tears and and and but one thing that that we really because obviously like no one is more qualified than you to kind of like a completion system in a game so it's like I mean that's there's nothing past that you know but for us but one thing about the moon rank bouncing it 25 times right I think that's a that's a good example of what we were talking about it's not so much about do that skill shot can you do that skill shot that's almost impossible it's like no it's make sure that through your journey with this game you experience at least once the empowerment of pulling off a cool move you know and that's really what that achievement is about it's not like is it like nearly impossible it's like no make sure that you get there but it's it's reasonable and you're just gonna have that high and then that you've had that moment where you're at this fight you'll remember that fight where you did it you know for those who it's it's a bit harder for but it gives them a more it's not just completion in in terms of taking all the boxes is that you've lived the complete experience that was envisioned in terms of how you feel and all the different things that you do so yeah it's it's uh but again yeah as you say to the completion and the rewards that you get for us that was another thing you don't just get a badge right you also get a meaningful story beat a meaningful reward in-game that's like adapted to the the the investment that you put in and that achievement specifically I realize now more than ever that I probably pulled off more 25 plus Boomerang moments because I remembered okay that achievement stuck out to me in the beginning I have to do that once and I practice and practice when I finally nailed it I was defeating bosses in instances with that because I just I knew the timing and and uh it you taught me the skill of how to do this really cool thing because you made an achievement and once I accomplished it it was just a mini game every time oh now I understand how to do this I'm just gonna keep doing it passively over and over again good um so we're running out of time uh but uh Terry thank you so much uh I I have one dumb question left but Ralph or Jake do you want to ask any more questions before we wrap things up I like your dumb question I actually won quickly though any hints on what's next for you guys uh we're working on the on DLC for sure that was already announced on our Kickstarter it's called throws of the watchmaker there's a character in the game called the watchmaker she's kind of like very private and and secretive so something might happen there um and then well yes we've seen the numbers that we needed to see to confirm that there will be a a third game from us so that will also be happening okay hell yeah uh Terry do you have plans to make Wheels an actual game how do we make Wheels a kick ass tabletop game because I I lost hours to playing this game without and it was like it's just because instinctually I figured it out so quickly that I would just beat Champion mode over and over again because I I found it so fun right right uh I mean that does that's that's sure yeah that sure sounds fun I mean in terms of Wheels it was I have to say it was kind of it's isolated it's a game within a game right and so it's like yeah people just gonna think it's kind of dumb I'll just play it two times or whatever but no it seems like some people are like we just want to play some more uh yes I do have like a list of of more figurines to add and ways that they synergize uh it was also designed to be playable uh like multiplayer you know it's not just like you versus AI it also makes sense no matter what you pick um so we'll we're hearing at the man for it uh we're certainly excited about it as well uh we'll try to uh we'll try to figure it out and we'll see what happens awesome Terry thank you so much once again congratulations to you and the team uh for it for everything with sea of stars and thank you again for sure for spending some time with us today thank you so much yeah thanks for having me it's always good to chat so guys uh raycon let's uh let's talk about Recons raycon wireless earbuds uh we have an exclusive offer for first person wait um I'm living we have an exclusive offer for friends per second users thanks to raycon 20 off site-wide including free shipping using the special link raycons uh the these wireless earbuds look feel and sound better than ever if you're looking for premium quality wireless audio but you're not looking to pay Crazy Prices of the of the premium name brands they got you covered here they're reliable they fit well with these nice little gel tips it comes with like a tray of them to customize for your fit if you got weird ears like me uh there's a lot to these things yeah yeah is they're like one of the few earbuds that actually stay in my ears oh yeah even if you're sweaty or nasty oh yeah I know I've been traveling so much recently I've been playing like a bunch of steam deck rug Ally like everything portable 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Nintendo was Keen to maintain the characteristic voice of Mario and Ai and reached a level where it could perfectly match his voice would you want to have Mario's voice stay the same forever of course I expect residuals to be paid to the actor and their family along with stipulations about how it can and cannot be used but since AI is slowly integrating itself into every aspect of society I wanted to hear the panel's thoughts on preserving characters the way we know them now versus allowing them to change and evolve over time I can see a reasonable argument for both and would like to hear your thoughts this is a great question yes yes um I'll I'll go first um as long as the actor is okay with it I think that's the most important thing and whether or not the residuals will be coming in of course are a big deal however I also love the idea at least in the case of Mario specifically that we have different voice actors for Mario I don't think it needs to be Charles martinet until the end of time we've had several characters several people um take up the Helm of Sonic um you know at this point we've had at least two people do snake regardless if you're a fan of uh of Jack Bauer's version of snake um uh technically that wasn't snake so thank you Jake I am pretty sorry I appreciate it yeah it's okay uh yeah I I think it's as you know I'm I am all for allowing people to try different takes uh let them give it their best shot it's okay if it evolves forward I'm even down for like you know an art aesthetic version like if we have paper Mario has a different voice than 64 Mario then then wrench accent Mario French accent Mario for whatever reason um as long as it's not Chris Pratt Mario I'm good with Chris Pratt we've had that's fine for a surprise in Mario 1. like actually we got Prince Friday he's the new guy he's the new guy um but yeah in the day as long as everyone's getting paid what they want and everyone's happy that's the most important thing to me I mean personally I disagree with that because I feel like what's gonna happen ultimately is that the only people who will get hired in voice acting are people who agree to let their voice be used in perpetuity so it's and so it's fine to say like oh it's just the voice actors like the voice actors are okay with it that it's fine but again I think the amount of power that these major corporations hold in that negotiating process again you will only see actors be cast who are willing to sign their voice away so I just think no voice no AI voice acting uh I mean like unless it's specific like let's say I don't know you've got to do background chatter for NPCs in a video game and you've got to do it at a massive scale for a procedural generation maybe there's some arguments around the fringes of that and I don't know they need to be worked out I'm not saying yeah that's fine I'm saying let's have a conversation about that maybe but I would say that generally speaking if it's a proper voice actor role it should always be voiced by a human and if that human is then longer able to to do that job then it should go to someone else and I think that's also healthy because it allows this new Talent of python like new pipeline to come through new talent to Bubble Up you know I don't need to see de-aged Indiana Jones I need to see River Phoenix you know what I mean like that's it and that's cool um so yeah I I'm I'm pretty against this stuff personally understanding full well that there's a lot of inevitability in it as well and like I think that's something that we also will need to just kind of navigate as we go forward did you know um do you know about Keanu Reeves's claws uh in all of his contracts he you are not allowed to digitally manipulate or use um Keanu Reeves's likeness in AI it's a thing he has in every single contracts because one time he was on a movie and they digitally put a tear on his face all right and he was like that no he doesn't cry that's right uh yeah bless you thank you thank you a microphone release did you meet your mind for that or did it I did cut that okay is that the a is that the AI microphone put in the work while we're trash talking Ai No um so yeah I'm I'm in the same boat as you Ralph because I think it should be people and I think broader conversation about preservation aside like those performances will always still exist um more people should be offered the opportunity to play those roles Tower of theater has worked for Millennia um and also I think if you open the door to letting AI take over on something like this then that is a door that will just continue to swing over yeah yeah yeah you know a terrifying Skynet future for sure yeah it's like the given inch take a mile type thing I'm pretty weirded out by AI I'm definitely like I like that you refer because I feel like Kyle Reese in the trenches I'm like they don't eat they don't sleep they don't like it's got like I get freaked out but um I love that you'll play for navigating AI in its complexities is like the Terminator movie man yes it's like scaffolding yeah no I totally agree I'm with you man that's how I make sense of it too but I I think in terms because I I kind of like especially when it was first starting to come about like I kind of leaned more towards how Gerard thinks um I I think people might soften only specifically with this instance because I think some people and I think this is a testament to Charles's work is that like the job is done the job the job feels very done so it's like unless we want Mario to start saying saying other things like I very much like I'm damn it in this country Mario has high and lets it Go and that's how it should stay so I don't know if they not necessarily use AI but they just keep his lines and those are the only things they use in an archive and he gets to live on a beach forever because he got paid well he gets to sign up that's like the one weird exception I'm all right with what I mean that's what I fall in line with Jake more or less I mean I'm not I'm not as an actor as a performer my whole life I'm not in favor of AI overall I just don't want it but to me as long as the performance is tied to the ability of like the family and friends of the person's involved and they have all of the say in the power and the ability to control how much AI how much money all that stuff that's the most important thing to me like whether or not if Charles Burnett's like hey I don't want AI for my voice I'm cool with that if they want to recast him sick I'm cool with it no matter what as long as Charles martinet and his family is getting that bag and it's like faithful to his performances then I'm then I'm for it because it means that the actor who did this role for 30 plus years is is rightfully going to be paid for all of the hard work that he used to do slash did and we'll go forward at the same time I'm also for anyone trying a new stab at Mario I'm I'm fine either way it's complex right I feel like it was so much easier a couple years ago and we were like haha Tupac hologram haha and like that was it now look right and now I like a different time we can make Obama and Biden and Trump play OverWatch together and Trash Talk each other this is sick man this is amazing what a world now sag Action Extreme access Guild is about to strike uh in the world of video games and one of the key points of concern they have is about Ai and they want to make sure that it does not become a major feature of the way that games are voiced in future and I say all power to them I think it's yeah really important to keep that [ __ ] out of there basically because absolutely peripheral Fringe sort of stuff around procedural generation or whatever okay let's talk about it but um I mean the idea that you'd have I don't know like if what's his name Troy Baker turns in one performance as Joel and his job well I mean picking Troy for this is quite funny because he did uh do that AI [ __ ] okay unfortunately I chose a bad example okay yes uh but let's say a person turns in a performance and and then their job is just to say over and over again so they can fully map their voice and then that company could just use that voice for as long as they like to make a whole series of games but that would be that would be very bad you know not at all for that future yeah I'd like to see Fran Drescher in a game I would play the [ __ ] up can I just say how much I loved the nanny like I unironically loved the nanny so you dropped a Mr Sheffield like in your last video and I was like this is my guy CC Joe I had a cc joke in there but then I dropped it because I'm like maybe people don't know they'll just take the gas off just keep them ready for that one but their parents are gonna love it I recently got a bunch of Nanny tick tocks I'm like oh I would have eaten this up like we only had Frasier's trash Nanny Supremacy [Music] my brothers are so addicted to Frasier by the way like this is these two dudes that sit there watching Fraser well they don't do anymore but they used to they just watched Frasier endlessly they loved the problem so hard it's coming back well it's never gone out to be fair Fraser's always had its own thing just keeps going well Oh you mean back as in like yeah I didn't know that I thought you meant like just back in popularity like it's trading at Netflix Frasier never goes out of style yeah no they're making a new series that comes out next month I think there was a there was a Transformers movie I don't remember which one but Kelsey Grammer was the bad guy and Optimus Prime Cold Shot like gunned him down in Cold Blood former shoot a man yes yes that's right that's great loved it all right I'm moving us on Fraser what has everyone been playing nothing else absolutely nothing else and poop sock in it yeah that's it just finished sea of stars and I am only a couple hours into Starfield that's starfield's gonna be my game that I focused on for the end of the year but you know everyone's gonna be playing it so I'm not alone yeah totally Jake Starfield and redacted review and also I'm still unpacking so that's like a game do you actually do you plan to plan more star field now that you've done the video or you're like no I'm good with that I've had my time with it time to move on or is it like how do you feel about that uh I I want to I have to like hustle through a bunch of other stuff but I think that's like my cozy winter time like once things settle down go back to it and just do more faction faction stuff really back to the cold Embrace of space yes um I haven't been playing I've been playing Star fields and I uh I've been playing a little bit of Red Dead on switch oh really yeah okay have you found that it's like going home yeah you love it are you ready Dave I don't know you're big okay cool like in Red Dead Redemption you played John Marston like that trailer dude I reference that like all the time that's so funny no I [ __ ] love that trailer and like it made me like finally get an Xbox and I like fell in love with that game so much way more than I probably should have um I'm still in love with red dead one and two I have a big red dead mouse map pad right now um see I've been playing on switch and it's been great it's cool uh hopefully more Impressions because we're traveling a bunch uh a punch more coming up so I'll be doing some more Red Dead yeah but uh I'm gonna kick it to you for this week in the way back all right everyone this week in the way back what are we all celebrating I will go first everyone the date is nine nine ninety nine the Dreamcast is released and the launch title to go with it is a one Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast the original Sonic Adventure with the debut of crush 40s open your heart which I would love to sing for you all but there's not enough time in the podcast uh one of my favorite games of all time despite how janky it is aged I love it to pieces that is my choice I'm gonna throw it over to Lucy Lucy what is your choice for this week September the 2nd 2014. The Sims 4. I can't believe that game is almost 10. it's almost 10 and no sign of slowing down even with project Renee or whatever you know they're still getting kits and expansion packs like no other game out there and the thing is about the Sims 4 when it launched it was bad yeah they took so many standard Sims features and just they were not in the base game but I will say like no pools no no toddlers I think yeah there was like a whole life stage it was completely missing and I will say like everyone talks about Redemption stories in gaming you know they're talking about no man's Sky whatever I genuinely think the Sims has had an incredible Redemption story with the Sims 4 and um I still play it to this day and it's great basically everything you said just then could be superimposed on what I'm just about to say because because six years ago today Destiny 2 lost it's like all of the feed all the features you'd expect from previous Sims games slash Destiny 2 weren't in there and it was ridiculous and it's had such an incredible Redemption story since then and it's amazing that's basically exactly the same thing Destiny 2 and The Sims they're the same game with a slightly different genre okay that's that's how it is uh uh 13 years ago in 2010 we had amnesia the Dark Descent I didn't think it was really that good um but it was culturally significant and important it was a wild time for YouTube uh it it was like a huge thing on YouTube with so many people playing it and screaming it like PewDiePie was one of them uh so that was kind of like a thing for Let's Plays it was very interesting to see we're all out and then also just interest in weird things you would get on Steam like popularized on YouTube like getting a horror game especially like horror games have like kind of a lull at that point so it was just like a significant release to me even if I didn't like love the game uh I still think it was kind of like a little a good little footnote in gaming and also YouTube internet online gaming coverage culture sure yeah it was a great yeah well I thought you I thought you were going to say Mel you're solid Japan 1998 it was between that and getting ready to rumble boxing that was a great great game yeah for a Thunderman he was my boy yes 100 excellent great game that's this week in the way back back to you Lucy thank you well that's been a podcast for this week thank you everyone for listening and or watching if you want to rate US on iTunes or your podcast platform of choice that would be great yeah it would help us a lot thank you so much uh anyone that Gerard and I saw at Pax who came up and said hi thank you so much it means the world ever we love you users had such sweet things it was lovely um next podcast will be a random in-person one whoa the gang's all together we're we're all in La next week for various things that we're not allowed to discuss yet but we're there and we are going to be doing an in-person episode which we're pumped about um they're always the most fun so um yeah we'll record it and then it actually won't go up for a bit so we'll record it next week yeah so it'll be like quite behind whatever but um yeah looking really looking forward to that that's going to be um super fun very excited be great um all right go Around the Horn uh Jake where can people find you oh I can be found on Instagram and Twitter and YouTube at jakevaldino and uh yeah thanks uh Gerard uh you can find me on that one video gamer on YouTube and the completionist on everything else and Ralph find me on the sword cut no I'm joking um I'm back from there and I'm now here in the back of the letter living on YouTube and on the Twitter and I don't know that's about it really just just you'll find me in La next week if you see me on the street say hello it'd be nice come find him come find me that's the challenge please don't come find me okay that's not a challenge okay yeah if we bump into each other that's great but please do not come and find me that will be [Music] uh I'm on Twitter at least James games and Instagram same username uh you can find me over at gamespawn on giant bombs my day job and Jake send us home tie your shoes and go to bed [Music]

Channel: Skill Up

Views: 252,136

Keywords: skill up, skill, up, gameplay, games, guide, friends per second, the friends per second podcast, friends per second podcast, friendspersecond, fps podcast, gaming podcast, best gaming podcast, lucy james, jake baldino, the completionist, before you buy, gaming news, news, skillup, games podcast, Review, review, interview, starfield, starfield review, starfield gamespot, starfield ign, starfield podcast, Sea of Stars, sea of stars interview, sea of stars review

Id: bnHPRPd3btQ

Length: 182min 43sec (10963 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 10 2023