Game Scoop! 789: Shadow of the GOTY Nom

Summary

Game Scoop! Episode 789: Shadow of the GOTY Nom Release Date: November 22, 2024

Overview In Episode 789 of Game Scoop!, IGN's Damon Hatfield and his co-hosts delve deep into the heated debate surrounding the eligibility of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree for Game of the Year (GOTY) awards. The episode also explores the current state of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, recent updates to PlayStation's cloud gaming services, and wraps up with a fun segment of video game 20 questions. With insightful critiques and engaging discussions, this episode provides a comprehensive look into some of the most talked-about topics in the gaming world.

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1. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Shadow of the Erdtree – Performance Issues and Gameplay Analysis

The episode kicks off with an in-depth discussion about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Shadow of the Erdtree. The hosts express their frustrations with the game's performance and bugs, offering a candid assessment of its current state.

Performance Challenges Mark Medina opens the conversation by highlighting the game's rough launch:

"I think if we're being really, really honest here, the game is really, really rough. It turned out really, really rough. But nobody wants to be mean to the developers." [03:56]

He elaborates on common issues players are facing:

"Guns didn't make sounds sometimes, visual glitches everywhere... 33 game-blocking bugs making it where you wouldn't be able to finish the game." [04:31]

Gameplay Critique Sam Claiborne adds to the critique by discussing the game's difficulty stemming from technical shortcomings:

"The difficulty derives from you just constantly being crowded without the right weapons to do crowd control... Stealth just does not work." [07:05]

Mark shares his personal sentiment on the gameplay experience:

"Personally, I find the game just utterly boring. It's super hard, it's not a survival game, it's a survival sim... I just find it very boring." [08:32]

Potential for Improvement Despite the issues, Martin Medina remains hopeful:

"It has that feel of one of those games of like, ooh, this could be like a second chance game. It has the potential to be amazing with more time and patches." [12:19]

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2. PlayStation Portal Update and Cloud Gaming Enhancements

Transitioning from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, the hosts discuss the latest updates to PlayStation's cloud gaming services, particularly the new PlayStation Portal features.

Enhanced Functionality Mark Medina is notably impressed with the updates:

"I am impressed. Color me impressed." [25:57]

He details the improvements:

"If you have a portal and a PS Plus Premium subscription, you now get access to cloud streaming for over 120 games... It just works super, super well." [23:48]

Comparative Analysis The conversation shifts to comparing Sony's initiative with Microsoft's cloud gaming:

"Sony's a strange company just because what they've done is like, just as impressive or maybe even more impressive because they have this dedicated piece of hardware." [26:18]

Martin Medina adds his perspective on the broader implications:

"There are many, many millions of Americans that this is a hostile... but for me, it fits into the lifestyle that I have at this moment." [32:29]

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3. The Debate: Should Shadow of the Erdtree Be Eligible for Game of the Year?

The core discussion revolves around whether Shadow of the Erdtree qualifies as a standalone game for GOTY nominations or remains categorized strictly as DLC.

Arguments Against Eligibility Martin Medina firmly states:

"Shadow of the Erdtree is not a video game. It is a DLC for a game that already exists." [35:39]

He further clarifies the distinction:

"This is like the second season of a television show wouldn't win an award for best new show even if it was the best season of television that year." [36:16]

Sam Claiborne supports this viewpoint by emphasizing the importance of categorization:

"It's not a game that was released in 2024. It is an expansion pack." [36:23]

Counterpoints and Community Sentiment Damon Hatfield presents the divided opinions among gamers:

"About three quarters of people say, no, it should not be eligible." [34:10]

However, the hosts acknowledge the passion Erdtree has garnered:

"Because people love Erdtree. That's why they want it to win the biggest awards." [35:09]

Final Verdict While the majority opinion leans against its eligibility, the discussion highlights the complexity of categorizing expansive content within the evolving gaming landscape.

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4. Video Game 20 Questions Segment

Adding a light-hearted twist, the hosts engage in a round of video game 20 questions, where listeners are invited to guess the game based on a series of clues. The game, suggested by Kevin Garaventa, revolves around identifying Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.

Gameplay and Features Sam Claiborne shares his excitement about revisiting classic games:

"It's really cool because you get the space jump at the end and imagine what that would be like... it's really cool." [59:14]

Martin Medina reflects on the longevity and impact of the title:

"I remember being disappointed with it at the time, but I bet if I played it now, I would enjoy it more." [59:35]

Half-Life 2 Documentary Discussion The hosts briefly touch upon a documentary on Half-Life 2, praising its honesty and revelations about the game's development challenges:

"They are very open and generous with revealing previously unrevealed stuff. It's great." [60:14]

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5. Closing Remarks and Thanksgiving Toasts

As the episode wraps up, the hosts share their Thanksgiving experiences and favorite mashed potato recipes, adding a personal touch to the show.

Thanksgiving Preparations Sam Claiborne discusses his culinary adventures:

"I need to figure out the missing ingredient for perfect mashed potatoes." [64:09]

Martin Medina shares his secret recipe:

"Butter and sour cream, heavy cream, and ranch dressing." [64:10]

They conclude the episode with warm Thanksgiving wishes:

"Happy Thanksgiving. And that's a wrap." [64:24]

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Notable Quotes

• Mark Medina on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 performance:

  "Guns didn't make sounds sometimes, visual glitches everywhere." [04:31]

• Sam Claiborne on gameplay difficulty:

  "Stealth just does not work." [07:05]

• Martin Medina on potential improvements:

  "It has the potential to be amazing with more time and patches." [12:19]

• Mark Medina on PlayStation Portal:

  "If you have a portal and a PS Plus Premium subscription, you now get access to cloud streaming for over 120 games." [23:48]

• Martin Medina on GOTY eligibility:

  "Shadow of the Erdtree is not a video game. It is a DLC for a game that already exists." [35:39]

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Conclusion Episode 789 of Game Scoop! offers a balanced mix of critical analysis, industry insights, and community engagement. From dissecting the performance woes of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 to debating the rightful place of significant DLCs in award nominations, the hosts provide listeners with thoughtful perspectives backed by personal experiences and community sentiment. Whether you're a hardcore gamer or a casual enthusiast, this episode delivers valuable content to keep you informed and entertained.

Transcript

[Mark Medina]

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[Damon Hatfield]

What'S up, everybody? Welcome to IJ in Game Scoop. I'm your host, Damon Hatfield. Joining this Joining me this week are Sam Claiborne.

[Sam Claiborne]

Hey, Happy Turkey Day. To those who celebrate.

[Damon Hatfield]

Justin Davis.

[Martin Medina]

Scoop.

[Damon Hatfield]

Heard him that time. And Martin Medina.

[Mark Medina]

I'm here, Damon. And I did hear Justin this time.

[Martin Medina]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

We've got a great show for you this week. We're going to wade into the debate about whether or not Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree should be eligible for Game of the Year awards. People have strong feelings about it one way or the other. I also have the November 1994 issue of EGM if time permits. If time allows.

[Sam Claiborne]

I remember that one.

[Damon Hatfield]

There's some good stuff in there. What's on the COVID Sam?

[Sam Claiborne]

I'm gonna go with sewer shark.

[Damon Hatfield]

Not sewer shark. No, but it is a Sega.

[Sam Claiborne]

How about this? How about this? It is a Sega game.

[Damon Hatfield]

Sega 32X game.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, yeah. Maybe Star wars or Virtua Racing. Running out of Options here.

[Damon Hatfield]

Doom.

[Sam Claiborne]

Doom 32X.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, but first, as Sam alluded to, next week is the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US and we will have the Thursday and Friday off. But do not fret, Scoop Nation. We've already recorded the episode for next week, so your Scoop injection will not be interrupted next week. You will get to your. It's actually our annual 100 Questions very special episode. So can they get all five games right? Well, you're just going to have to wait and see.

[Sam Claiborne]

After being told we were on a losing streak, the table was set.

[Damon Hatfield]

You guys have lost the last three regular rounds of 20 questions.

[Sam Claiborne]

Now we get the double losing streak because we can't include the outcome of the last one.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, let's get into things that we've Been playing right now.

[Seth]

Oh, yes.

[Damon Hatfield]

We can also now finally reveal what it was that Sam said last episode that had to be cut out.

[Sam Claiborne]

My uncle works at Nintendo. Right. And so I heard this amazing thing about.

[Mark Medina]

Now we gotta cut it again.

[Sam Claiborne]

No. I had mentioned a list of games that we were playing and included S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, but I wasn't quite sure if we were allowed to say we had Stalker. Sometimes. Sometimes we're allowed to say if we have a game or not when we're evaluating it. And I couldn't remember, so I just said, hey, can you cut that part? And then Damon had to make a big deal about it.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, I made a joke about LEGO Horizon and then Sam mentioned Stalker and I was like, did we just break embargo?

[Damon Hatfield]

It was just that they're playing.

[Sam Claiborne]

All I did was mention it.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, that's.

[Sam Claiborne]

And sometimes we can. We might have been able to, but I just said, who cares? Let's cut it.

[Damon Hatfield]

But Soccer two is out now. It's out in the wild. It's here. Our reviews in progress. Sam and Mark have been playing it so well. How did Stalker 2 turn out?

[Sam Claiborne]

Mark's played a lot more than me. No comment.

[Mark Medina]

No, I'm just kidding.

[Damon Hatfield]

I can talk about it. Listen, listen. I think if we're being really, really honest here, the game is really, really rough. It turned out really, really rough. But nobody wants to be mean to the developers. Nobody wants to be mean to the developers.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, yeah. It's like you have to preload every conversation you have with being like, this game was like being made in an active war zone. We feel bad for the devs and all of that is 100% true. But if we're here to talk about the game itself, it's a little rough. So if people online have been kind of following media, we did get a build that was like, really in really, really poor shape. The, you know, guns didn't make sounds sometimes visual glitches everywhere. And it was like, by the way.

[Sam Claiborne]

That means that we. And sorry to interrupt, Mark. Everybody hates when I do that. But it is important to mention that we are waiting to have evaluate the game for a review based on that patch, by the way.

[Mark Medina]

Right. And so it was like every day that we logged in, there was a new update and they were huge. They were like 30 gig updates. And then finally, right before launch, and we knew about this, we got the. What they're calling the Day Zero update, which was 130Gigs, which is actually just the size of the game, which means it's not a patch. They're just basically reinstalling the entire game for you with the new patch. And so the thoughts online have been, well, don't listen to what you've heard about soccer because all media and all that, they were all playing on a broken bill. The game's fine now. It is not fine now. The game's still pretty messed up. It's better. As far as I know, people are encountering some of the things we were encountering. But the patch notes for the Day Zero patch mentioned that there were 33 game blocking bugs making it where you wouldn't be able to finish the game. 33. And people are still encountering game breaking bugs making it where they can't beat the game. So who knows how many are actually out there. But so, yeah, so that's performance, right? Performance is. It needs to. You know, it's kind of a weird thing. Avowed got delayed out of this window because there was too many packed games. And Avowed weirdly seems ready to go kind of. I want to know what the alternate version of this looks like where this instead got delayed because it. That's what it seems like it needs. It needs like probably like four or five more months. As far as the game itself goes. Yeah, it's pretty good. It's really hard. Like, it's super hard. It's not a survival game. It's a survival sim. This game, you will die a trillion times. It is. It is. It doesn't really spell a lot out for you. You. It'll be like, here's an anomaly. But that's one of several different anomalies. And you just have to kind of figure out what those ones are. Every time you encounter people, they just kill you like super fast. And you have to kind of approach it a different way. I will say I think the difficulty is still a little bit leaning towards the game being a little broken. Stealth just does not work. Enemies will spot you from miles away and instantly start unloading on you. A lot of people are saying the gunplay feels good. I think it feels awful. Enemies don't react to your shots. They just absorb bullets until they die.

[Sam Claiborne]

That's a really. That's a point that Mark made early on while playing that I really took to heart and started noticing. And it's that like, you know, we talk about bullet sponges. That generally just means something that can take a lot of bullets and it's inexplicable. And you know, you're like, why can you shoot this human? You know, in a game 60,000 times, but then in a cutscene, they die with one bullet. It's that type of stuff, this game. You know, it may have that, but what it really has is that it has this enemy, like, rapidly juking in front of you and, you know, hard to hit. Maybe half invisible, maybe invisible half the time. And as you shoot it, it kind of just keeps on doing its thing. Like, it's not like falling back or like you notice the shields go down, like in Halo, and you can react to that and be like, oh, it just like it's just constantly pressing at you. And so it's like the difficulty derives from you just constantly being crowded without the right weapons to do crowd control, which would be like, oh, you have a shotgun. You're going to push back the enemy in front of you. No, you just have to pull that trigger and run backwards for as many trigger pulls as it's going to take. And that starts to add up to being miserable when you're just trying to. And if you try to avoid contact with enemies and you can't really stealth. So there's just. There's just problems with that formula.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, yeah. And then the last thing I'll say is, like, me personally, though, I find the game just utterly boring. I know a lot of people love these kind of games and they, like, they. When I say the words, I think it's boring. It's very hard. They're like, that's stalker, baby. And it's like, well, then I'm just not a stalker fan because I. When the game is not a buggy, broken mess, I'm honestly just, like, bored to tears. I just find it very boring. But for the people that are loving it and for the people that it's like, it's working good for you. That's awesome. I'm glad.

[Sam Claiborne]

So we complain a lot about tutorializing and the beginnings of games and stuff like that. So before you think you're like a badass that can handle any game, what's frustrating about this game is when they don't tell you something, you do trial and error to kind of figure out what you're supposed to do next, and you die 20 times. And the loading screen takes a long time. So, yeah, you have instant deaths. Instant, because you didn't, like, go through and, like, this is a real thing. Didn't throw a bolt at an invisible force field and figure out how the system works. So then you do that. You do it. Load, load, load, load, load, load, load, load, load, load, load, load. Longer than that. And then you try it again and it's like that type of stuff. That's not because the game is hard. That's because the game is not really thinking about the user experience. And, like, I'm not saying, like, the game should go easy on you. I'm saying, like, it should literally tell you how to play it. So then in some instances that are not like any other game, like, you don't have some of these things that. These concepts in other games. So you can't just be like, well, I know everything about video games. I'll be fine in this game. Like, no, that's not what's happening. It's like, hold this piece of equipment and walk into this toxic ooze and you can't see the thing you're supposed to get. So you just have to respond over and over again and phone a friend. Basically. Like, you don't. You have no idea. These are real examples. Like, you have no idea what to do. So, like, you, the people listening to this will not admit it. And you will use a strategy guide to solve that problem. And you will say, stalker is perfect and everything. And trust me, we have. We have the data. We know you use strategy guide. So you can't just say, like, this game. I don't know why all these reviewers said it's hard. Again, I'm not saying it's hard. I'm saying that I had to do trial and error 20 times in a row to figure out something that should be very easy because the game just. Just doesn't care. And you won't have to do that because you'll get frustrated and look it up in two seconds.

[Martin Medina]

That's a very, you know, sort of underrated or underappreciated point about being a game critic or doing game help for an unreleased game where, like, sometimes you can get help from the developers. Sometimes if it's an esoteric game, like, you don't even know. It's like, am I experiencing a bug? Am I the only person on the planet that has this going on for me? Or is this normal? Is this. Is this what I'm supposed to be experiencing? And it's supposed to be happening. And, like, you know, there's not supposed to be a key there, or maybe there is, or this enemy can't be shot or can be shot.

[Sam Claiborne]

Like it's a mark actually told me for one of these instances, he was like, well, actually, I think in the Xbox version, there's a bug that's making the thing you're going for invisible. But it wasn't making it totally invisible, it was only making it partial. And it would have been possible. I did solve it without that. But once I had the information, what I need to do, but what I really needed to know is that I needed to use a run button, which I had no idea was a thing. And I had to use it at just the right time. And this is in the beginning, this is the first two hours of the game, right? So it's like it's trying to train you on something and it won't let you get past it. But it also, it's just completely opaque. Like it doesn't give you any fun way to solve a problem or a way to be skillful. Like, it's just. That's not the point. The point is just like. And there's just some component here that's missing that's getting you into this game. So like a lot of people I think will bounce off of that.

[Martin Medina]

So I will say like, you know, obviously we have a responsibility to review the game that's given. Let people know if this is a game that they will enjoy if they spend their money on it. But in. It does strike me as a game that if the developer were given the opportunity that in a year or two or whenever, it could get cleaned up and can be amazing, right? It has that feel of one of those games of like, ooh, this could be like a second chance game. And it won't even. It won't need to be a second chance game for some people. They'll love it the first time around. But Cyberpunk is obviously a very, very famous example of that. And to me this is striking a similar sort of like, it just feels like, ooh, just like take. Just take the time, just take more time. Like, please keep patching it. Like clean it up.

[Sam Claiborne]

I will say every bit of footage we've seen in this B roll looks a lot better than what I played on the Xbox. Like, it doesn't look anything like this. It doesn't look anything like it. It looks like it was this game down ported to a last gen system. And so maybe it looks good on high end graphics cards or maybe it's optimized in a different way on PC. I don't know. I just played on Xbox, but the people look really retro on Xbox and that's not ideal. One interesting thing about the game is that it does have these fallout elements. It does eventually get you into an open world and you take side quests and there's towns and people interact with each other in the world. If you wonder what this game is, I would say that's fair. Right, Mark?

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, absolutely. In my opinion, and I don't think Stalker fans would agree, it's Fallout without any of the charm. That's kind of how I look at it.

[Sam Claiborne]

It certainly doesn't have humor from what I've.

[Mark Medina]

There's no humor. There's no like, mascotty stuff about it, which obviously is like, doesn't have to be in every game, but if you strip all the like, goofiness out of Fallout and just you're just in this post apocalyptic, super gritty, super hardcore world, you start to, I don't know, you just start to feel a little down about it all. Yeah. Which I. Which is kind of the point, I.

[Martin Medina]

Think I've definitely gotten really into games. I never played S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 1, but like, these games that like, don't care about you, the player, and have a sense of like, this game world is going to exist and it's doing its thing whether, like, you're in the game world or not. Like this sort of dispassionate, like, you know, we're not here to provide a theme park for the player. Like, I've loved a lot of games like that over the years, but like.

[Sam Claiborne]

It'S anti Sandbox in that way.

[Martin Medina]

Yeah, but they're not for everybody, you know.

[Sam Claiborne]

That's a really good point and I will. It makes me think about how I've mentioned this before, but I think that the main gameplay component of a game like Fallout is the save system. I mean, it's just like, whether you like it or not, you made 200 saves in three days for that game. Because that's what you do. You save and then you get a situation correct or you don't save and you've missed an opportunity, so you save a lot. This game really shows that as being like, if it's going to be a sim, that's the fault, is that it's too easy to hit the reload part. And you do it so much that you get frustrated that it's like, well, mostly what I'm doing here is managing my save system and inching along and like, just because a lot of your deaths feel unfair, you know, And I don't know, like, that's just. That's not why I like playing games. Like, I want to have some time in which I'm like, exploring or figuring out how to take down an interesting enemy instead of saying like, oh, like, you know, I should have saved back there, but now I'll just use my last bullet because you never have enough bullets.

[Mark Medina]

I just want to talk to the commenters right now that are going to say it sounds like Mark and Sam just aren't. This isn't their kind of game. You are correct 100%.

[Sam Claiborne]

I was actually really looking forward to this game. So I definitely giving it a fair shake.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, I played like 25 hours of it. I played a lot of Star Wars Outlaws this morning because the new patch came out. I didn't super love Star Wars Outlaws when it first came out because the instant fail stealth and stuff like that. But once we knew that they were going to revamp the game, I was like, hell yes. I can't wait to play this again. I played it this morning and I think it's fantastic. The shooting. Oh, I think there is. Yeah, the shooting feels great.

[Damon Hatfield]

What's crazy about that is that just was just saying Soccer two was like, you know, a second chance game or try it again game. But like I think a lot of gamers today limit the fact that that just seems to be the status quo for AAA games. We see IG and commenters say all the time the only games I buy on day one are first party Nintendo and Sony games. Everything else I'll just wait till six months down when they're passed and they're actually in good working order, you know.

[Martin Medina]

And she Ubisoft is a multi billion dollar company and a thousand people, they have the biggest IP on the planet with Star wars and they're hedging everything on this one big game and then like they work on it for years and then six weeks after launch they can fix everything.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, like what if they remove all the stealth?

[Martin Medina]

Like what if, what if you just relaunched your game now?

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, well, I think they underestimated how many or overestimated how many people wanted to stealth around.

[Martin Medina]

I'm being flipped. Like I know the actual answer is like they relied on the player feedback, right. And you know, reviews matter and critical opinion matters and like, you know, they're absorbing that feedback and then rapidly, you know, rapidly making changes which is why, you know, a delay wouldn't have fixed it. But still it does feel a little bit of shame.

[Damon Hatfield]

I think now's a good time for me to jump back into Star Wars Outlaws then. Sam. Sam, how about you?

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, I mean that would be really appealing maybe. I'm, I'm still playing Halo games right now and I gotta say putting those alongside Stalker makes, makes. It's kind of funny because I do, you know, Halo. One thing it does really well is that when you're reloading on Heroic or Legendary or whatever, it's fast, you know, like, it just. It just pops you right back in, which is really cool. And you do a lot of respawning in that game. Not a lot of save management, though.

[Damon Hatfield]

Last thing I wanted to say about Stalker is that it seems like Microsoft is still like Microsoft. For years, they had a problem just getting games out the door. Now they're getting games out the door, but none of them have really hit the way they would have hoped. Right. Obviously. Redfall, huge debacle. Starfield. Mark just said Stark 2 was like Fallout without the personality. That was also Starfield. It seems like Forza Motorsport came and went without anybody noticing. Hellblade 2, nobody was very excited about that. And yeah, so, like, now we've got Soccer 2 and it launches into rough shape. We do have Flight Simulator 2024, which.

[Mark Medina]

Seth is working on, which is also, like, broken right now, though.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, but that's like, people. That's out of, you know, just out of, like, server load. Right?

[Martin Medina]

Well, but I mean, even so, right, like, the game doesn't work.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, it did work for me, and I was very, very disappointed that when I loaded it up, I just jumped right into the first available mission, which is take pictures of the pyramids in Egypt. Okay, let's do it. All right. Let me look around the way I normally would in a video game.

[Mark Medina]

What?

[Damon Hatfield]

Nope. Everything's backwards. Okay, let me just invert the camera controls. Doesn't seem to be possible. No, there's no easy way to do it. At least to just invert the camera. And I understand. I'm not trying to invert the flight controls. Those are behaving correctly. You can look around in your cockpit. And I just want the camera to behave like it would for me in any other game. When I invert the camera, apparently there's like, a way to go into, like, several. Through several different menus and you can, like, rebind the direction that your right stick moves in. And I'm like, what the. This is not what console gaming is supposed to be about. I'm not going to do that. So. Yep, that's it. I spent.

[Mark Medina]

You just have to edit your settings.ini file. What?

[Damon Hatfield]

So stupid. How is there not just a AAA game should not ship without the ability to invert the camera in 2020, did you try flying?

[Sam Claiborne]

What type of plane was it?

[Damon Hatfield]

It was a helicopter.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, cool. Did you. You could switch outside the helicopter into third person.

[Mark Medina]

Right.

[Sam Claiborne]

So you did that?

[Damon Hatfield]

I didn't even make it. I spent minutes. I mean, it's very pretty. I spent minutes trying to figure out how to invert the camera and then just gave up. And turn. That's my review of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. Anything else to mention that people are playing before I do want to hear Mark's thoughts on the PlayStation Portal update, but any other games, Justin? Sam?

[Martin Medina]

Well, I talked about it in next week's episode. Yeah, I think the Call of Duty Campaign is great. I don't know. I always have the weirdest games to mention in this segment. I don't know if it's because the Call of Duty Campaign is so like, go, go, go. It's screaming at you all the time that, like, the other game that I'm playing right now is a really casual Diner Dash clone called Arcane Arts Academy.

[Damon Hatfield]

Remember Diner Dash?

[Martin Medina]

Yeah, yeah, I love Diner Dash and it's the exact same of like, you know, you're running around and queuing up actions and like, you know, serving people and it's in a little magic Harry Potter, like school. It's fun.

[Damon Hatfield]

In the heyday of Diner Dash, where would people have been playing that? Was that on Facebook?

[Martin Medina]

No, you would have been like downloading it. It would have been, well, maybe not even downloading. Maybe buying it for like $20 from the store or somewhere.

[Damon Hatfield]

So I remember it came to Xbox Live Arcade, but that would have been a long time after it was around.

[Martin Medina]

Yeah, I have a real soft spot. I've said before on Scoop that like once every console generation, you know, I buy a FIFA game and like, you know, or Madden, like, you know, play it for two months and get really into it and then I don't need to play it again for five years. And like, I actually feel that way about, like, casual games. I get really back into them and kind of chill out. It's often this time of year because I'm so stressed out from work that it's like I just need to turn my brain off and play something, you know, easy.

[Damon Hatfield]

Mark, I understand you're impressed with the new PlayStation Portal update.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. The, you know, the pitch for the thing was like, it's a remote play to your PS5 and you could play your games. It's the remote play that existed already on your phone and you can hook a backbone up to it and all that stuff. And they're like, we're just going to give you a device that's. That's just. That has really nice. I have it Here. But it's got really nice controllers to hold in front of my mic and it just feels really good to play. It's got a nice big screen for remote play. Awesome. But is that enough for a lot of people? Yes, because it's sold out for a long time. But then they're like, hey, you know what? Every game on the PS plus Premium library. I don't know if it's every game. It's like 120something games. They're like, you can now just cloud stream all of them, no console required. So for the price of this little guy, 200 bucks and a PS plus premium subscription, you have a library now to 120 games that you can just play via the cloud. And I think the cloud streaming feels better than the remote play ever did. This is my footage. I sent it to Jobert beforehand. Those are like all the games you can play. There's a lot of them.

[Martin Medina]

That's dope.

[Mark Medina]

Time splitters.

[Martin Medina]

Wow.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, yeah. So this is everything it can't do. It's in beta, so it can't do like it's like you can't play with friends, I believe. And then I think you can't play like any of the demos that are available, like the like 12 hour trials. But that's everything you just booted up. And if you have save files, like I booted up like Spider man and stuff like that, gta. And if you have a save file, it's just there.

[Martin Medina]

Wow.

[Mark Medina]

And jobur, if you could switch to the Grand Theft Auto footage, you guys can see it in action and it just works really, really well. So I did this whole everybody knows this mission, the first mission of gta well, second, if you don't count the intro and like it just, it just works super, super well. I tried a few games, I tried this, I tried control. Control worked great. And then I tried Final Fantasy 7 and Remake worked great. Then I tried Doom Eternal. Very noticeable input lag. I don't know if it's just because that game is meant to just be super twitchy, but as twitchy as it.

[Damon Hatfield]

Gets.

[Mark Medina]

A little too much. It's like control. And like this game, the aiming is a little floaty and so it kind of lends itself more to cloud based where it's like, yeah, like Call of Duty would probably not be great. Doom wasn't great. The other not great one, Cult of the Lamb. I don't know what it was, but that game has so much going on and it was very laggy to play. I recorded I didn't send Jobur the footage because it was terrible, but I recorded Cult of the Lamb right after I recorded this GTA footage. So, same Internet, same time of day, everything. And it felt fairly unplayable in my opinion. But as you can see there, like, I'm not wrecking. I'm not doing nothing. Just feels like gta. Like, by the time I get done with this mission, I forgot that I was playing remote play. Like, it just felt normal.

[Damon Hatfield]

So you're impressed?

[Mark Medina]

I am impressed. Color me impressed.

[Damon Hatfield]

I mean, it is cool. Like, I can't think of too many examples where a company updated hardware that they've already sold with, you know, really beneficial functionality for the consumer at no extra cost. Right?

[Martin Medina]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Right, Right. Yeah. It's not like they're saying you have to pay more. It's like, it's just if you have this subscription now you have and you have a portal, then now you just get this thing, which I already have the subscription. I already have the portal, so I didn't have to do anything other than update my portal.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

And then you're good to go.

[Martin Medina]

Sony's a strange company just because what they've done is, like, just as impressive or maybe even more impressive because they have this dedicated piece of hardware than, like, you know, Xbox cloud initiative. But they kind of just. They kind of just did it. They're like, well, you know, here it is. Check it out. You can play hundreds of games in the cloud on this device, and it's beautiful and they all work seamlessly. Whereas, like, Xbox has been, like, making a meal out of that for, like, years. Right. Like, like, you know, they're running all that campaign about it like, right now. And like, you know, it's where it's just the comms strategy is so different. And that's interesting to me.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah. I mean, I will say the biggest surprise is the fact that it was just stealth dropped. There was no, as far as I know, there was no, like, announcement of this or anything. It was just like, by the way, this update's coming out today, and you just have access to all your cloud games now, which was. Which is pretty nuts.

[Martin Medina]

Yeah, that's rad.

[Damon Hatfield]

I'm trying to find just a list of just the games that are included in premium. It's not that easy to do. For some reason.

[Mark Medina]

I tried as well, because one of my co workers was like, hey, I'm thinking about getting a portal. Like, what? You know, what. What are the games that are on there that I could just do this with and I was like, I don't know, I can't find it. I couldn't find the list.

[Sam Claiborne]

You know, I still, like, I don't really have a use in my, in my life to have a portable system that I can only use in my house. Like, I think that's like, just, that's a really specific use case and I'm happy it works for some people. This adds. So this makes it. So if you don't have a PS5 and you want a portable system in your house, then this is useful. Like, that's a very, very small wedge of the pie there. But yeah, I mean, it's cool that they did it and it's cool tech, but I, I'm not super impressed by this, frankly.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, I mean, I can play Xbox.

[Sam Claiborne]

On an ATM machine now. Like, everybody's streaming to everything so well.

[Mark Medina]

And Xbox has the advantage because they've just made it where you can stream your library with this, this. You can't, you can't cloud stream your library. You can only remote play your library right now. You're only cloud streaming what they have access to. And maybe they'll change that in the future. But the way the look at it, and it's exactly what you just said about the small subset of people is maybe this, dropping this right before Christmas, maybe anybody that was thinking, hey, I. The premium, I'm going to go get a portal now because I can stream all my premium games. Or maybe you have a portal but you don't have a premium subscription. And you're like, well, now I'm going to upgrade to premium because I want to be able to stream my games to my portal. I don't know how much that is in either direction for Sony that's, you know, gonna get those people. I, I feel like, I feel like if you have a portal, you're a nerd like me that's already all in and already has the subscription. So, like, for me, you didn't make any money off me. You already have my portal money, you already have my premium money. So it's like they're targeting people that don't have one or the other.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

And I'm curious how much that, yeah, that's going to do for them. Who knows?

[Sam Claiborne]

And Justin, you cloud game sometimes too, right?

[Martin Medina]

Yeah, I love it. I haven't ever. I actually can't recall what PlayStation subscription I have, but yeah, I do. But now. And we gave Xbox a lot of credit for having a clean, crisp subscription, but then they went and shitted theirs up too. So Now, Xbox is equally complicated. Yes, I do Xbox cloud all the time. Even for games that I could download and even in my own home. I find it's a really, really great way to fit AAA console video gaming into times in my life where it wouldn't normally. Like, I'll play a cloud game for 10 minutes before I start work and I will do it on my work computer. Like, you know, I don't need to. I feel like sometimes even console games are commitment, right? Like, it's an event. Like, I'm going down to a different level of my house and, you know, I'm turning, you know, if I want to play something new, I'm downloading it and that's the whole thing. Whereas cloud is like, it's just immediate. It's like within 10 seconds I'm up and trying the game. And so I love it. Like, it lets me try so much stuff. I do view it a little bit as like a trial of like, how I think about it is like, do I want to take the time and effort to download this game and play it for real? I'll try it on cloud for an hour first and my save's still going to be there. Yeah, I do it almost every day.

[Mark Medina]

That's exactly what I was going to say. I never played the Guardians of the Galaxy game. And it's on there and I'm like, I would probably. I would do exactly what you're saying. I'd probably stream it for the first instead of like waiting for the download. And in fact, I don't have GTA on my console. And playing this opening mission, I'm like, I might download GTA again. Like, this game, this game still holds up. It's.

[Sam Claiborne]

It looks amazing.

[Mark Medina]

I mean, I know fun this game is.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, I was really impressed with how good this looks. Just not docked at streaming, but just like, you know, that the reflections in the car look good still and that the draw distance is good and stuff like that. It's funny every time you both talk about how it's still, you know, that you're into streaming games in any way right now. I feel like somebody that used to work for Stadia somewhere is like, where were you?

[Martin Medina]

Yeah, I mean, where I was. I know you're making a goof, but where I was was living in a city where I did not have reliable fast fiber Internet. And now I do. And so, you know, we've talked about it on the show a lot. Like, you know, there are many, many millions of Americans that this is a hostile, you know, like they're never going to be able to enjoy video games in this way. Right. But like, you know, that's. That for me it fits into the lifestyle that I have at this moment.

[Mark Medina]

Well, and Stadia was always. I know we talked about this in a meeting earlier, but Stadia is Ask was always so big, which was pay a premium, full price.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Price tag for a game. And this is the only way you're playing it. The fact that I can play this on my PS5 but then go sit on the couch and then. And play it on my Portal, that's what Stadia always should have been. It should have always been a subscription service.

[Martin Medina]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mark Medina]

I would never buy a, A game that I could only ever stream. Like, I don't, I don't think I would ever do that.

[Martin Medina]

Yep. Yeah, that, that was a mistake. It's, it's, it needs to be Netflix.

[Sam Claiborne]

I mean, it's weird because like streaming services in games had not combined at that point in terms of, you know, like, I guess subscription services. Like, that was really, really a novel concept when Xbox was taking off with it, you know, whatever, four years ago, just after Stadia collapsed.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, the latest update of the PlayStation Portal seems neat. I think I was just saying last episode that I don't see a use case for the portal in my life right now. This doesn't change that. But I'm glad that people like Mark are getting new cool functionality out of their device that they bought a whole year ago. Now I believe it's just about a year old. Let's move on. Should Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree be eligible for Game of the Year Awards? And of course, the reason why everyone's talking about this is because they're all wondering if IGN will nominate it for our own Game of the Year Awards. That's the reason the Jamies and if it will be nominated for the Damiens.

[Mark Medina]

The Damiens is all dlc. Yeah. There's no new games.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. The reason why the debate is because it's a downloadable content that you cannot play standalone. And not only that, it's like you have to play quite a big chunk of the base game before you can even access it. So it's like it's difficult to access. And traditionally in the past we have not considered DLC downloadable content add ons for Game of the Year. I'd like to hear what you guys think, but I do want to point out I think the overwhelming majority think no, it shouldn't be. And I know this. I ran Two polls in the gamescoop Facebook group and on my Twitter. And that's just about as scientific as polls get. And both of them came back. About three quarters of people say, no, it should not be eligible. But if that's. If that's the case, if the overwhelming majority believes it shouldn't be, how is there so much debate happening online and in comment sections this week?

[Sam Claiborne]

Because people love Erdtree. I mean, that is why they want it to win the biggest, I mean, words at all the websites.

[Damon Hatfield]

It is true that I don't know that I've had a better time playing a video game this year than Shadow of the Erdtree.

[Sam Claiborne]

And like, one might say what you just said is a qualification for why an editorial outlet might say this is the best game this year.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's also true that it's.

[Sam Claiborne]

I'm not saying that, but that's a point to be made.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's as big or bigger than any other AAA game released this year.

[Sam Claiborne]

But just the fact that it's great and everybody on our staff loves it can be a way to convince people that, like, that's the game of the year, right? But, like, I got rules. This is a society, Society of rules.

[Martin Medina]

This is a society. That's kind of the attitude that I have. It's like, oh, it's the best game I played this year. It's better than anything that came out. This year is irrelevant. It's like the second season of a television show wouldn't win an award for best new show even if it was the best season of television that year. Shadow of the Erdtree is not a video game. It is a DLC for a game that already exists.

[Sam Claiborne]

It is a game, though. So a game of the year is potentially a category. So.

[Martin Medina]

No, it's not.

[Sam Claiborne]

I know you're saying it's ADC of the year.

[Mark Medina]

It's part of the game. Elden Ring is the game.

[Martin Medina]

Because you could.

[Sam Claiborne]

If you're. If you were gonna do that test, Justin, you could say the second season of the show wins show of the year, right? Like, that's no problem.

[Mark Medina]

So Game of the year, right, in.

[Sam Claiborne]

Some people's estimation would be the same thing. I agree with you, Justin, about Society of Rules. And I know. I'm just like, I know why people are poking holes in this and, like, why it's happening.

[Martin Medina]

But the difference is, you know, show of the year has to have a new. Like, it wouldn't be. Well, I still really like season one of X Files. So it wins again.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, that's funny, though, right? So it's like, if you. That's exactly the comparison. That's a really good one. So if Game of the year, you know, if you get enough people on staff that still think Destiny 2 is the best game on Earth, then you would eventually just get to a point where game of the year every year would be Destiny 2. And I think that'd be really funny, and we should try it.

[Martin Medina]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

More people are playing Baldur's Gate 3 now than they were at launch, so let's just give it to Baldur's Gate 3 again.

[Martin Medina]

I know it's a very. And I want to be clear, like, this is no shade against Elden Ring. Like, Erdtree absolutely deserves to win. Well, I shouldn't say it deserves to win, but, like, you know, if people feel it's deserving, then it should win every best dlc, best expansion pack award there is. But it is not a video game, so we can.

[Sam Claiborne]

Expansion game of the Year that came out in 2024. Like, that's really what the subhead is there, right? There's a qualification. Correct.

[Martin Medina]

Or maybe.

[Sam Claiborne]

Maybe late December or maybe since December 15th or so.

[Mark Medina]

I think the other upset is the fact that Phantom Liberty, or. What's Phantom. Yeah, Phantom Liberty. I'm like, Phantom Pain. I can't Menace, you know, was. It was an amazing DLC expansion for cyberpunk. Cyberpunk and wasn't even considered. And so this year just kind of feels like. It kind of feels like because of Geoff Keighley and his kind of, like. His kind of, like, dedication to certain franchises. Like, he's human. And so the human part of Jeff. I think the human part of Jeff really loves PlayStation games, really loves software, really loves Kojima.

[Martin Medina]

Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Geoff Keighley. The game award nominations are pitched by the press, right? Like, there's a. There's a conglomeration of, you know, including IGN editors. You know, there's a panel of people that choose what's nominated. Like, he doesn't control that.

[Mark Medina]

I'm saying perception, though.

[Martin Medina]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Is that Geoff Keighley didn't seem to care that much about Cyberpunk, but he cares a lot about Elden Ring and from software. And now suddenly this rule changes. Like, where was that rule last year? And is it because this year was a slower year, and they were like, we need. They're like, it's either this or Stellar Blade, guys. And he's like, all right, well, this.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is an easy Devil's advocate to like, Erdtree is a far bigger, more extensive, beloved game than. Than Phantom Liberty. Like, I'm sorry, but it just is, like, it's. It's the biggest. I think it's the biggest DLC of our lifetime. Right?

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

So it's like that puts it in a category of belovedness that makes people want to give it awards. That doesn't necessarily mean it should win an award that's meant to be given out to games that come out in the calendar year with some fudging of that year.

[Martin Medina]

There is more. Like, this doesn't exist in a vacuum. Like, the reality is people are also upset because Erdtree took the place of something else.

[Sam Claiborne]

Right.

[Martin Medina]

Like Unicorn Stellar Blade earlier. Or Unicorn Overlord.

[Sam Claiborne]

Or Kitty. Big City.

[Martin Medina]

Little Kitty Big city, of course. Or like Warhammer. Right. And so, like, look, Blotro's incredible. And I'm so excited and happy to have it there, but sort of like the narrative of, like, two of the five slots are filled by, you know, a tiny card game and a dlc. You know, I get how that gets people's hackles up. Right. Like, we've been discussing, does Erdtree deserve to be there or not? But, like, there is this subtext of, like, but it took something else's place. You know, like a game that was released this year.

[Mark Medina]

I. I'm of. I'm of two minds. Well, for one, for the Balatra thing, I know they can.

[Martin Medina]

They can get that, like, it nominated.

[Mark Medina]

Anybody who doesn't think Balatra deserves to be on there, it's just. You just have not played it. We. Once. You play it once, then you'll be like, oh, well, not only does it deserve to be on there, but it should win. But I'm sorry, can I just point.

[Damon Hatfield]

Out how lovely our mortise lines up with your microphone, Mark? It looks great.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

This is something the listeners won't be able to see, but I just noticed that.

[Martin Medina]

That's great.

[Damon Hatfield]

It looks really cute.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, we need to get Damon a wave three. And we could just be like, you.

[Sam Claiborne]

Gotta reposition your laptop, Damon. Just turn it upside down and move it over.

[Mark Medina]

Gotta move it so far away. All right, please continue. But so. So yeah, the. The griping aside in defense, I'm gonna. I'm gonna now play the defense card.

[Martin Medina]

Here we go.

[Mark Medina]

If games that came out this year, if only. If none of them could be Erdtree, then I don't sell you. Erdtree was just that good. It was like 50 hours long, and it was. It was like, by far the best thing I've.

[Martin Medina]

Yes. And again, I want. I want to stress that it's not a value judgment. You can absolutely believe that that was a better video game experience than anything else that's nominated, but it is not a video game that was released in 2024.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, I do imagine that it's going to be a little bit of a bummer where it's like you kind of, like, seeing people accept their rewards and stuff like that and have that moment, and it's like they just had that moment three years ago, and now they already get to have it again. Where it's like, wasn't Blotcher made by, like, one person? How special would it be for him to be able to, like, go up there and get it, but instead he's just being beat by Miyazaki again?

[Sam Claiborne]

That's happened with some. Some games before, for sure. The. What if it came out only in a package that was called, you know, the Ultimate Edition or something like that, and it had the erdtree content in it and expanded it that much? Like another consideration.

[Martin Medina]

Yeah, it was like, would that be.

[Sam Claiborne]

Eligible because it's a game that was not available in any other, you know, calendar year?

[Damon Hatfield]

No, you still can't play it on its own.

[Martin Medina]

Yes, that, to me, is the distinction.

[Mark Medina]

Yep. Yeah, this is. Yeah, you definitely can. That's the other thing is, like. Yeah, with. With Phantom Liberty, you could just make a Phantom Liberty save and it'll just. You could play it almost like a standalone game. You could just be like, I want to go straight to Phantom Liberty. It makes you, like, level 25, and you're just there. Elden Ring, not so much.

[Sam Claiborne]

Undertale. That would have been a game made by one person that probably won Game of the Year awards.

[Martin Medina]

Yeah. I mean, video games like this is switching gears slightly to Balatro again.

[Damon Hatfield]

I've never killed one of those things, by the way.

[Martin Medina]

Oh, boy.

[Mark Medina]

Furnace Golem. Neither is Mitchell. Apparently.

[Martin Medina]

Video games are such a strange medium because, you know, like, Elden Ring is a video game, but Threes on My Phone is a video game, and so is Candy Crush Saga, and so is World of Warcraft and Dota. They're all like, the same medium that, like, get reviewed on the same review scale and get nominated for the same awards. No other artistic medium has this, you know, problem or challenge with regard to the crit for it. Like, you know, it's. It's. It's very odd. Like, you know, some movies are 88 minutes long and some are three hours long, but there's still an expectation for what a film is, right. Or an album. And like games are not that at all. Like, they have such a wider scope of what counts as a video game that it's, you know, it's impossible. Like they really. It really shouldn't. It shouldn't be.

[Mark Medina]

Your grandma's a gamer.

[Damon Hatfield]

I think my thing is, you know, I'm a big stickler for rules. I like rules. I like following rules. So the rules say DLCs are not eligible for Game of the Year. So that's my belief. Drives my wife crazy when I'm cooking. I measure everything out exactly as the recipe says, where she just like.

[Mark Medina]

Well, hold on though. He changed the rules though, Daemon. So now you have to be fully dedicated to the new rules.

[Damon Hatfield]

No, no, no. I don't know who this he is you're talking about. The rules have not been changed. However, my other point is that I love Shadow of the Erdtree so much and it's so amazing that if someone wants to nominate it, I'm not gonna get too mad about it.

[Martin Medina]

Hold on, hold on. How does that jive with the first step?

[Sam Claiborne]

Perfectly elaborate. He perfectly elucidated. The exact point of this is that that's the two sides.

[Martin Medina]

You're such a stickler for rules and you love following rules and you're angry people don't follow rules. But on the other hand, suck it.

[Damon Hatfield]

If someone else. I'm saying if someone else wants to nominate it, that's fine.

[Mark Medina]

In this scenario, Geoff Keighley broke the rules by allowing Shadow of the Erdtree and Damon is just going to reap the benefits of being able to see his favorite game winning the year.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's not Jeff. It's. It's people in the industry that voted. Like to give you a little peek. We get a form and you're not selecting from a pre chosen list of games. You write in your nominations. So I wrote in Astrobot and Unicorn, Overlord and Blotcho. But enough people wrote in Shadow of the Erdtree to get it nominated. So they're the ones that have.

[Martin Medina]

If I write in and say the two part pilot to Lost, and if I get everyone else in the industry to do that, that can be nominated for Game of the Year.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yep.

[Martin Medina]

What about Pong?

[Sam Claiborne]

There's no rules, Justin.

[Mark Medina]

None.

[Martin Medina]

I'm calling the cops.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, I can't remember now you got me wondering if I did Elden Ring when I filled out that form. I can't remember. I think I would have done Stellar Blade three times.

[Damon Hatfield]

So you Just write Stellar Blade two times.

[Mark Medina]

I think I'm safe. Yeah, I wrote it in.

[Damon Hatfield]

Sam, do we know we haven't even voted on our own game of the Wards? Yeah, that's, that's still for it to come over the next few weeks.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, I mean there's, there's a lot of games about to come out. Right. So we, we have, we have some always some early December evaluations to make and it's a really fun time of year to try to get everybody playing these last couple games and some don't make it in Avatar from last year is actually eligible for this year's awards for that reason for ign, we don't usually have to try.

[Damon Hatfield]

Probably don't need to bother with that one.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, I didn't play it, so I can't comment. I think Mark played it.

[Mark Medina]

I did. Damon's right, men.

[Seth]

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[Jobert]

I am not going to lie. I was very pleased and very excited to find out Mint Mobile works even for me in the middle of nowhere, Maine. I was honestly expecting to be shut out from all the fun of Mint Mobile, but it worked.

[Martin Medina]

Awesome.

[Jobert]

I loaded in my code and to test it out I just drove out. I'm not even lying. It sounds like I'm making this up. I just drove out into the woods of Maine to see how far I could go without losing coverage. And I am happy to say I did not have any coverage interruptions whatsoever that I would not have experienced with any of the other providers. That alone is enough to sell me because look, Maine is a big state. There's a lot of woods. Stephen King is here.

[Mark Medina]

So it's haunted.

[Jobert]

There's ghosts everywhere. And everyone knows that ghosts hate 5G. But I am happy to say I have literally no complaints. It's inexpensive, there's no contract, I don't have to have all these weird hidden fees. And you know, best of all, it works in spite of ghosts.

[Seth]

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[Mark Medina]

Wow.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, we just had. We've just. We've just been gabbing so much. We don't have time for our egmont this week. That's fine. I mean, I'll be honest with you. The whole reason we have that is if we don't have enough new news to talk about that week anyway. But this week there was tons of stuff to talk about. So that brings us to video game 20 questions. Our suggestion this week comes from Kevin Garaventa in an undisclosed location and with that, let the questioning begin.

[Sam Claiborne]

I feel all 20 questioned out.

[Martin Medina]

I know did this game.

[Mark Medina]

I wasn't on that episode, so I'm feeling on fire.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, we can tell.

[Martin Medina]

Did this game come out before the 2003 GameCube classic and member of the Capcom 5 Beautiful Joe?

[Damon Hatfield]

No, it did not come out before that game.

[Martin Medina]

It's complete in box.

[Mark Medina]

In case anybody's wondering, it's complete in box. When did, when did that game come out again?

[Sam Claiborne]

2003 maybe? Me five.

[Mark Medina]

Okay.

[Martin Medina]

Three.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay, so it's after 2003. Was this a Nintendo?

[Martin Medina]

No.

[Sam Claiborne]

Was this a console exclusive? Let's just start there.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Mark Medina]

Console exclusive. Okay.

[Sam Claiborne]

Nintendo.

[Seth]

Yes.

[Mark Medina]

A All right, first party. Yes, it's Mario. We're good to go.

[Sam Claiborne]

Does this have characters from the Super Mario Brothers Kingdom in it?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Mark Medina]

That's five. All right, so we gotta figure out which Switch. Is it arms or which Nintendo.

[Martin Medina]

It's arms.

[Mark Medina]

It might be arms. It's Splatoon or Brain Age.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is this a series that was created by Shigeru Miyamoto?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Mark Medina]

Did this game have a new inch? Yeah. Did this game have a new entry on the Nintendo Switch?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes. What do you mean this? You said this game. Do you mean this series?

[Mark Medina]

Oh, sorry. Yes. This series.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Mark Medina]

Okay, let's see. Nintendo first party. Can't be any of the Mario parties.

[Sam Claiborne]

Did this come out on a cartridge that probably tasted bad?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Sam Claiborne]

No.

[Martin Medina]

Well, no. I mean, Wait, I don't. I took that question to mean, was that a Switch game? I didn't think other Nintendo cards tasted bad.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. No, I'm just saying, like, this sounds like it's. It was on Switch. We already established it.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, no, the series had a. Sorry, that was a bad question. Classic mark. This series had a game released on Switch, but this game very likely is not on Switch. It's like, it's. You know, it's one of those.

[Sam Claiborne]

But it could. I think the way you asked that meant that it could be on Switch because it's just. It is that very sequel that's on Switch.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah. I took it as like, is the series still running today?

[Martin Medina]

We bought.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay.

[Mark Medina]

This is why I shouldn't be allowed on Game Scoop.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, it's not on a cartridge. We know that.

[Martin Medina]

Well, no, we don't know that. Because you asked if it was on a cartridge that tasted bad and like. No.

[Mark Medina]

Well, if it's after 2005, then it's.

[Damon Hatfield]

Either going to be Sam's, like, I've tasted them all. They all taste bad.

[Martin Medina]

Yeah. I mean, once if you get them from the flea market, there's nothing like. Exactly. They get that light. They get that layer on them. The N64 carts. Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Did this game come out on the Wii?

[Damon Hatfield]

Nope.

[Martin Medina]

What the hell is this?

[Sam Claiborne]

A.

[Mark Medina]

Well, maybe it's the Wii U.

[Sam Claiborne]

There's the portable systems with less bad taste in cartridges. We just really screwed this up from the start.

[Martin Medina]

Yep. I'm so confused.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Martin Medina]

What do we know about it?

[Damon Hatfield]

We know it's confused.

[Sam Claiborne]

This includes Switch, so I don't know if it helps so much, but was this released on a system that could be played portably?

[Damon Hatfield]

No. No. That's funny, but no. That's 10.

[Martin Medina]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's a Wii U game.

[Mark Medina]

Then there is a Wii U game.

[Martin Medina]

Why do we Know that. Why can't it be Wii?

[Sam Claiborne]

Is this a Wii U game?

[Mark Medina]

Because I just asked if it was Wii and he said, no, it's not.

[Damon Hatfield]

A Wii U game.

[Martin Medina]

But it can't be played portably. But it came out after 2003.

[Mark Medina]

So GameCube.

[Martin Medina]

I mean, it could be. It could be. It could be very late GameCube.

[Mark Medina]

No. I asked Wii. He said no, I think.

[Martin Medina]

Did we ask that?

[Mark Medina]

Didn't I say, is it a Wii game? You said no, that's correct.

[Martin Medina]

Okay, thank you.

[Mark Medina]

I think it's a GameCube. Yeah.

[Martin Medina]

Yeah. Relatively late GameCube though, if that's true.

[Mark Medina]

So what is this a GameCube game?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes, it is. The reason why I laughed at the portable question is because it has a handle. It has a handle.

[Mark Medina]

It does have a handle.

[Martin Medina]

I really like the purple launch shade of the GameCube too.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, I wanted that one, but they only had black when I went to my Best Buy.

[Sam Claiborne]

Same. It's not Metroid, because Metroid prime was the one that didn't have a. That doesn't have a sequel yet on the switch, right?

[Mark Medina]

No, but it does have the, like, remakes.

[Martin Medina]

Yeah. So wait, was. What was the answer to the sequel question? Yes, there's a sequel on the switch?

[Mark Medina]

Well, I didn't say sequel. I said, like, is this series. Does it have a game on the switch? So very well could be Metroid.

[Martin Medina]

I mean, there's what. There's late. There's late Zelda. Like, there's Twilight Princess. That was a. That was. Well, but that was cross gen on the Wii.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Martin Medina]

And we asked if it was, and Miyamoto invented it. Do you. Do you. In this game, do you play as a character that's a fighter in Smash Brothers?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Mark Medina]

Okay. Might. Might be Metroid.

[Martin Medina]

Okay.

[Sam Claiborne]

Was this developed in Japan?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, Super Metroid.

[Sam Claiborne]

So was this the.

[Martin Medina]

It could be Star Fox Adventures.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, it could be. That's too early, though. That's 2002.

[Martin Medina]

I think you're right. Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

This would have to be Metroid Prime 2. Son of Samus.

[Martin Medina]

Yeah, it could be Prime 2. Could be Prime 3. No, Prime 3.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is that what it was called? Echoes.

[Martin Medina]

Yeah. Yes, it is. Is this a sci fi game?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes. And that is 15.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is it a sequel?

[Damon Hatfield]

All right, it is a sequel.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, so It's Metroid Prime 2.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is this Metroid Prime 2 echoes?

[Damon Hatfield]

Sure is.

[Sam Claiborne]

Metroid Prime 2004, I think, like this month in 2004.

[Mark Medina]

Is that right?

[Sam Claiborne]

It may have been early.

[Damon Hatfield]

That is why Kevin nominated it. It just turned 20 years old.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. Okay, maybe I'll play this after Halo 2.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, I've actually never played this.

[Mark Medina]

You turn that around.

[Damon Hatfield]

I've never played this.

[Mark Medina]

Cut.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, we gave it a 9.5.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's really cool because you get the space jump at the end and like imagine what that would be like. They pop you back out into third person mode and you space jump around stuff. It's really cool.

[Martin Medina]

Cool. I remember in 2003 whenever you said this came out, I remember being disappointed with it at the time. But like it's. But it strikes me as a game that like, I bet if I went back and played this now I would.

[Sam Claiborne]

Like it more as a very, very cobbled together multiplayer mode that I played a lot.

[Damon Hatfield]

I have no idea why I would not have played this at the time. Because I love prime.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, Halo 2 was out that same fall.

[Martin Medina]

Speaking of games that are 20 years old, I watched that Half Life 2 documentary. It's great.

[Damon Hatfield]

I need to watch that.

[Martin Medina]

It's so good. They're so open with. I guess I don't know what I expected. The game is 20 years old, but I feel like they reveal a lot of, of stuff about things. They cut and they have footage of like, you know, cut sequences and stuff like that.

[Sam Claiborne]

Do they explain what happened to Episode three?

[Martin Medina]

Yeah, they do. They talk about it kind of a lot actually.

[Sam Claiborne]

What happened?

[Martin Medina]

They're very honest. They say, paraphrasing, they say, you know, initially the team got pulled over onto Left four Dead to, you know, they had to finish that up. And then some of the team got pulled over onto Portal 2 and they had to, you know, finish that up. And then they said it's one of those things that sounds crazy, crazy now 10 or however many years later, but at the time they thought like, oh like we've come too far, like too much time has passed. Like we would need to do a new engine and you know, we would need to do new tools in order to make Episode three. And they're like, look like looking back on it, like I wish we would have just spent the two years to make Episode three. But like they felt like they'd come too far to do it by then. Wow. And then they do, they don't, they don't. Like before people go nuts, like they don't tease that like Half Life is coming back or anything like that, but they do kind of like they end on a little bit of an open ended note of like Half Life is always a showcase for new technology and new ideas and That'll always be a part of Valve's DNA and yada, yada, yada. So it's good. And the whole thing is really interesting. What's it on YouTube?

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay, cool.

[Damon Hatfield]

I mean, there was Half Life Alyx. It's not a dead franchise at this point. There's always hope.

[Sam Claiborne]

I hear they show a lot of prototypes in it too.

[Martin Medina]

They do, they show. They. They're really. They're really open and generous with, like, revealing, you know, sort of previously unrevealed stuff. It's great.

[Sam Claiborne]

I've added it to my holiday watch list.

[Damon Hatfield]

This is making me want to play Half Life.

[Sam Claiborne]

Right.

[Martin Medina]

Dude, that's what the footage did for me.

[Sam Claiborne]

I'm like, dang, right? Like, Half Life 2 holds up pretty well.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, yeah, well. And they just came out with a new Ray Trace. Like, I think when they came out the documentary, they like, like, revamped it. Says ray tracing and all that stuff.

[Sam Claiborne]

That'S now available on Steam. Is that how it works?

[Mark Medina]

I don't know. I thought Valve released it. I don't know, because they've been going through, like, they made Portal RTX and all that stuff.

[Damon Hatfield]

I think it's official.

[Sam Claiborne]

I don't play those games unless they're in an orange box.

[Martin Medina]

I only played Episode two once. I played Episode two in the orange box and I've never played it since. I think it's time to go through all the Half Life games again.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yep. That is never a bad idea. In any case, nicely job getting to Metroid Prime 2 echoes. Thank you for the suggestion, Kevin Garaventa. Viewers, listeners, if you have your own suggestions for 20 questions, email them to me at the email address gamesupgn.com, although you are too late for our 100 Questions episode, which is already in the bag and will air on Thanksgiving Day next week. If you're outside the US that is otherwise known as next Thursday, please be excited for that. And that is all the scoops that we have for you this week. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Justin. Thank you, Mark. Thank you to Jobird and everyone else working behind the scenes here in our LA studio to make this episode possible. My name is Damon. This is IGN Game Scoop. And we're out.

[Sam Claiborne]

Thanks, everybody. We're thankful for y'all.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yep, mashed potatoes I had for lunch. Pretty good.

[Martin Medina]

Exactly. That's what I'm saying.

[Sam Claiborne]

I got a crack mashed potatoes this year. That's always something I do like secondarily, as you know, cooking most of Thanksgiving for people. I need to make them really good.

[Martin Medina]

This year I got secret ingredient is butter.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, butter is great. I always like doing the heavy cream, but there's something missing. I need to figure it out.

[Martin Medina]

Ranch dressing.

[Sam Claiborne]

That's a good idea.

[Martin Medina]

We do that.

[Sam Claiborne]

Really? That sounds awesome.

[Martin Medina]

Yeah, it's like butter and I think sour cream and heavy cream and ranch dressing.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay, I'll look up a recipe.

[Martin Medina]

Yeah, follow a recipe like that.

[Sam Claiborne]

Sounds cool. Yeah, I love it. Happy Thanksgiving. And that's a wrap.

[Martin Medina]

See you guys later.

[Damon Hatfield]

See ya later, everyone.

[Unknown]

Nothing is as it seems in liminal London. Hidden amongst everyday people are werewolves.

[Sam Claiborne]

You'll be the werewolf then. Yeah.

[Martin Medina]

And Megs.

[Sam Claiborne]

Wizards Montgomery Archibald Barker at your bloody service.

[Unknown]

And those cursed by the fey monarchs of the city.

[Sam Claiborne]

Declan Buchanan PI he has quite a.

[Martin Medina]

Large pair of antlers growing out of his forehead.

[Unknown]

Join the unlikely misfits of liminal London as they work to take down the powers that claim to rule the city.

[Mark Medina]

I think the queen doesn't like you very much.

[Unknown]

With incredible guest players like Johnny Chiadini.

[Martin Medina]

You say there's sludge?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, Sludge.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

I'm the sludge boy. Love sludge boy. No, again, I'm not that sludge boy.

[Unknown]

Grant Howitt.

[Mark Medina]

Isaac Newton didn't study in F. Putney, did he?

[Sam Claiborne]

Who's Isaac? Oh, my God.

[Unknown]

And Sharmini Bundell.

[Martin Medina]

There's a magic community.

[Damon Hatfield]

There is.

[Mark Medina]

Yay. I'm in a magic community.

[Unknown]

Go to realmspod.com or search realms of peril and glory wherever you listen to podcasts to find this mysteriously magical actual play series.

Welcome to Sagas of Goblin Mode. It's a brand new fantasy series that uses tabletop role playing games to tell an ever evolving story. Get ready for action adventure and weird little monsters. Set in the mysterious world of Sundaros, Goblin Mode follows a group of underdogs, or should I say underlings, working for a dark overlord until they find themselves in charge for once. Join game master Amy Vorpal as she leads players Danielle Radford, Dan Casey and Jason Wynn on an adventure unlike anything you've experienced before. Who will live? Who will die? Sagas of Sundry Goblin Mode. The adventure begins September 9th. Join Geek and Sundry and Realm for Sagas of Sundry Goblin Mode. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.