Game Scoop! 804: Game of the Year Watch 2025 Begins!

Summary

Game Scoop! Episode 804: Game of the Year Watch 2025 Begins! Release Date: March 28, 2025

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Overview

In Episode 804 of Game Scoop!, host Damon Hatfield, along with IGN crew members Justin Davis, Sam Claiborne, and Tom Marks, embark on the annual "Game of the Year Watch 2025." The discussion revolves around the standout games released in the first quarter of 2025, insights from recent events like Nintendo Direct, and engaging conversations about upcoming titles.

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1. Introduction to Game of the Year Watch 2025

Justin Davis kicks off the episode by announcing the commencement of the Game of the Year Watch 2025.

• Justin Davis [01:15]: "Here we are again, one quarter into the year and that means can only mean one thing. It's time for Game of the Year Watch 2025 to begin."

He highlights a shift in the year's momentum, noting an uptick in quality game releases as the year progresses.

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2. Top Contenders: Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 & Assassin's Creed Shadows

The panel discusses the leading games based on IGN's Face Off data, which gauges audience preferences.

• Justin Davis [02:28]: "Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is currently leading with the IGN audience. Yep. Number one."

• Tom Marks [03:06]: Expresses enthusiasm for Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 despite not having played the original, drawing parallels to CD Projekt's trajectory with Witcher series.

Sam Claiborne adds depth to the conversation by praising the game's extensive content and open-world appeal.

• Sam Claiborne [04:26]: "This game is so intense that it's just a lot of content in it that the strategy guide is still really popular for it and it's just taking a really long time to compose."

However, Damon Hatfield [05:03]: cautions about the combat system's reception, mentioning it feels "clunky and goofy," which may deter some players.

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3. Split Fiction's Surprising Popularity

Split Fiction emerges as a surprising contender in the top three, just behind Assassin's Creed Shadows.

• Damon Hatfield [05:41]: "Split Fiction... It has a lot of open world appeal that is sticking people to it."

Tom Marks shares a personal anecdote about playing with his daughter, highlighting the game's family-friendly nature.

• Tom Marks [06:07]: "Every night that we're back, she says, can we play more Split Fiction?... But I'm really excited to get back to it too."

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4. Monster Hunter Wilds and Its Future

Discussing Monster Hunter Wilds, the team weighs its current standing and future potential.

• Justin Davis [07:12]: "Monster Hunter Wilds is in the top five. Tom, you reviewed it, correct?"

• Damon Hatfield [07:20]: Agrees it's "really, really great" but expresses uncertainty about its ability to surpass Monster Hunter World.

Sam Claiborne delves into community feedback regarding the game's end-game challenges.

• Sam Claiborne [08:58]: "The season resetting is nice to get rid of your wanted level..."

The panel remains cautiously optimistic, hoping for substantial updates to enhance the game's longevity.

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5. Nintendo Direct Highlights: Metroid Prime 4 and More

The discussion shifts to recent announcements from Nintendo Direct, particularly focusing on the Metroid Prime 4 trailer.

• Justin Davis [28:39]: "Metroid Prime 4... but it just looks kind of generic."

• Tom Marks [29:08]: Critiques the trailer's simplicity, expressing disappointment over the lackluster presentation despite the six-year development period.

Damon Hatfield offers a nuanced perspective, appreciating the trailer for aligning with fan expectations despite its slow pace.

• Damon Hatfield [33:01]: "We're doing what you want. We're doing what you're expecting."

The team also touches on other Nintendo announcements, including a new Pac-Man game and the rebranding of Hot Shots Golf to Everybody's Golf.

• Sam Claiborne [35:38]: "It's a new Puck man game... to some weird pick."

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6. New Releases and Upcoming Titles

The panel briefly mentions other notable games unveiled in the Nintendo Direct:

• Rataton and Marvel Cosmic Invasion: Highlighted for their unique animations and creative gameplay mechanics.

• Everybody's Golf Rebranding: Discussed the history and ownership transitions of the Everybody's Golf franchise.

• Rhythm Heaven and Witchbrook: Acknowledged as anticipated returns for long-time fans, with Witchbrook celebrated for its beautiful graphics despite a delayed release.

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7. Listener Interaction: 20 Questions Segment

The episode features a segment where the hosts engage with listener emails. Joey from Astoria, Oregon, suggests a game for the 20 Questions challenge, describing it as a "top five all-time favorite" yet "underappreciated" title. The team attempts to guess the game through a series of targeted questions.

• Sam Claiborne [63:08]: "Is this a Nintendo game?"

• Damon Hatfield [70:03]: "Is this a snowboarding game?"

After numerous questions and eventual clues, the team speculates that the game might be Wave Race Blue Storm, a GameCube title known for its water sports racing gameplay.

• Sam Claiborne [77:31]: "Wave Race for GameCube."

Though uncertain, they acknowledge the difficulty in pinpointing lesser-known titles from older consoles.

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8. Final Thoughts and Wrap-Up

As the episode concludes, the hosts encourage listeners to share their game suggestions and engage with other Geek Media productions.

• Justin Davis [81:55]: "Thank you for the suggestion, Joey in Astoria, Oregon. Viewers, listeners, if you have your own suggestions for 20 Questions, email them to me at the email address gamescoopgn.com."

They also promote related podcasts like Oxventure and remind the audience of subscription options and upcoming content.

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Notable Quotes

• Damon Hatfield [05:03]: "I think I would play [Kingdom Come Deliverance 2], but I'd be more inclined to play it if it didn't have the combat system. Because I think the combat system looks clunky and goofy."

• Tom Marks [03:06]: "Can Warhorse Studios do that? I don't know, TBD. But they're on a good trajectory from like Game one to Game two at least."

• Sam Claiborne [04:26]: "This game is so intense that it's just a Lot of content in it..."

• Damon Hatfield [33:01]: "We're doing what you want. We're doing what you're expecting."

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Conclusion

Episode 804 of Game Scoop! offers an insightful and lively examination of the gaming landscape in early 2025. From assessing leading titles in the Game of the Year Watch to dissecting the latest from Nintendo Direct, the hosts provide expert opinions and relatable anecdotes. Engaging listener interactions and in-depth discussions ensure that both long-time fans and newcomers find value in the episode.

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For more information and to listen to Game Scoop!, visit Geek.com.

Transcript

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[Damon Hatfield]

Foreign.

[Justin Davis]

What'S up Everybody? Welcome to IGN GamesCube. I'm your host Damon Hatfield and joining me this week are Sam Claiborne.

[Sam Claiborne]

Hey, it's wonderful to be here.

[Justin Davis]

Justin Davis is back and he has exactly one hour with us today.

[Tom Marks]

Scoop.

[Justin Davis]

We'll see if we'll see. Yep, we'll see if we need to excuse him early. And Tom Marks joins us this week. Hello, Tom. From our reviews team. And he's here for a very specific reason. We got a great show for you this week. We just had this Nintendo Direct today. Lots of interesting games to talk about coming out of that. And we'll talk a little bit more about Assassin's Creed Shadows. But first, it's that time again. Here we are again, one quarter into the year and that means can only mean one thing. It's time for Game of the year watch 2025 to begin. We'll add that in post. So three months into the year, time to start taking stock. The best games of the year so far. I think the year started out pretty slowly, but then things started picking up, I think towards the end of February and now there's a bunch of good games. So we've actually been running a face off on ign, asking our users what they think are the best games of the year so far. And so we've got some very clear and useful data right here. So coming in at number one so far is Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, which I think.

[Tom Marks]

Oh, this is. Oh, this is the Face off data Not IGN review scores or anything.

[Justin Davis]

That's right. Yeah, but which got a nine, I believe.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah, yeah, no, yeah. I just. Just clarifying.

[Sam Claiborne]

I have a question too. At the beginning of the episode, you said Tom was here for us for a specific reason. Is that reason to talk about this topic or is it to win 20 questions finally, which we've been losing?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, yeah, Justin, they are on a bit of a losing streak.

[Tom Marks]

Great.

[Damon Hatfield]

I don't know. I don't know if I'm the anchor you want to bring in for that one. I'm not going to lie.

[Sam Claiborne]

You better be.

[Damon Hatfield]

Is it bigger than a breadbox? Wait, no. Oh, dang it.

[Justin Davis]

So Kingdom Come to is currently leading with the IGN audience. Yep. Number one. However, right behind it, only a percentage point behind it, is Assassin's Creed Shadows.

[Damon Hatfield]

And then worth noting though, that Kingdom Come, Assassin's Creed has been in the Face off for like a week. Less. So it has less data, but it already has like almost 3,000 kind of face off in it. And that's usually enough to get a general sense that this is going to be high up there somewhere for sure.

[Justin Davis]

Exactly.

[Tom Marks]

I. I have this compulsion, like, I really want to play Kingdom come deliverance 2. It looks like a Justin game, but I didn't play the original. And even though everyone says, like, you can jump into the second one, it's fine, just go ahead and jump in the second one. I don't feel like I can jump into the second one. I feel like I need to go back to the beginning. And so then it's like, okay, that's a last gen game. I have to figure out if it's forward compatible on any modern console. And, you know, then I just end up playing. I'm like, okay, I'm just going to play more Factorio instead. So like. But I'm really into it. Like, I'm glad that that game and that developer seems to be having kind of like its Witcher 2 moment of like, you know, everybody liked the Witcher, it was good, got good reviews. And Witcher 2 was like, wow, okay, CD Projekt. Like, they're really onto something. And then obviously with the Witcher 3, they blew the doors off everything and catapulted themselves into the upper echelon. And so, you know, can, you know, can Warhorse Studios do that? Like, I don't know tbd. But like, but they're on a good trajectory from like Game one to Game two at least.

[Justin Davis]

So go ahead.

[Sam Claiborne]

You know, this game is so intense that it's just a Lot of content in it that the strategy guide is still really popular for it and it's just taking a really long time to compose. It's. It's a huge game. It's a lot bigger than even we expected going in. And that's really neat. People are like doing everything in it too. Like, it's definitely, like, got an open world appeal that is sticking people to it.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Tom Marks]

Skyrim. Skyrim with no dragons.

[Justin Davis]

Skyrim, no dragons.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. A lot, A lot of comparisons to the Bethesda RPGs. Like Skyrim, the Elder Scrolls stuff.

[Sam Claiborne]

I think I would play. I want to play this game, but I'd be more inclined to play it if it didn't have the combat system. Because I think the combat system looks clunky and goofy. Goofy. And I just am not interested. Hence I'm playing Assassin's Creed with perfect assassination turned on. Because I'm just done. I'm done with it. I want to do everything else in a game except for Go and hit people with swords at this point in first person.

[Justin Davis]

Well, it's not well in first person. I see too.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

Okay, so one, two, Kingdom Come, Deliverance to Assassin's Crew Shadows. But immediately behind Assassin's Creed Shadows, only one point behind that is Split Fiction. So those are the top three in the running with the IGN audience as of today.

[Damon Hatfield]

Surprises me, to be honest. Split Fiction, I haven't played it yet. I'm really, really excited to still. I've just been in the middle of playing other stuff still, but it surprised me how popular It Takes Two ended up being and not speaking ill of that game. I loved that game. I thought it was a blast. And it continues to surprise me how much this sort of game is breaking out with a wider audience like this. Again, not that it doesn't deserve it.

[Justin Davis]

Oh, yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

I mean, it goes to show you that, like, it's. It's the experience of, you know, sharing this game with somebody that I think is the best thing about it. It's just like when we all played Pokemon Go, we all got out, we started walking around and it was really goofy and we're like, wow, this is just an experience. I mean, Pokemon Go wasn't a perfect game, but like, we all played it and had a really good time and that's what I remember. And I think these co op games are like that. You're like, I played this with this person and I had a really good time.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah, we like my experience with Split Fiction. Granted, I was out of town for like nine or ten Days I'm playing it with my daughter. And so my experience has been every night that we're back, she says, can we play more split fiction? And I say, no, it's a school night. So. But like, you know, we loved it before, you know, again we were out of town so we couldn't play. But like, you know, we did the first. We played it a couple of evenings and loved it. I am very excited to get back to it too, but I'm torn between being in dad mode and say, no, it's too close to bed, you can't have any more screens. And then also I'd really like to play this video game. And so, you know, like the two have to be kept in balance, of course.

[Justin Davis]

So those are the top three and there's a couple more worth noting. Only a few percentage points behind that. There's Monster Hunter Wilds, which Tom, you reviewed correct.

[Damon Hatfield]

It did, yeah.

[Justin Davis]

You gave that one eight out of ten.

[Damon Hatfield]

He did, yeah. That game is really, really great and I'm happy to see it up here. But I also think it does make sense that like you said, the top three are kind of all pretty dang close and then this drops a couple percentage points. It does not shock me to see that it's a little bit further away from that top pack, but I'm really, really glad it's up there in the top four.

[Justin Davis]

This is, you know, there's obviously a huge Monster Hunter community. What's the sort of overall thought on Wiles? Is it, is it not going to end up being as popular as World?

[Damon Hatfield]

That remains to be seen. That's going to depend a lot on the updates that were coming because we just got a thing about the title update one that's coming pretty soon about what monsters are going to be in that, what they're going to be showing off or what they're going to be adding. And it's got some, it's encouraging, right, like what they're, they're doing. But like a big problem with that game that I had, that I noted in my review was that it felt a little bit slight. It felt pretty like there weren't a lot of really good top end end game challenges, which is something that, you know, we got flack a little bit for before the, before the game came out of people being like, well, the base version's always easier and now that it's out, I think a lot of people are seeing like, oh yeah, there is, there's really only in the base game like one or two monsters at the very, very end that even put up a little bit of a fight.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

I've been seeing chatter.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's like, I guess everybody.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

About this. Which is disappointing because even when we previewed it, we were like, hey, we really hope that if this is a game that feels easier because we love Monster Hunter, but.

[Tom Marks]

No but people. But the exact. And I'm not a big. I'm not a big manhunt guy. Just a caveat. But like, it was the exact same thing with the last game, right. Like, it was a little bit on the easy side. And then the DLC and like post game stuff came out and it was incredibly hard. And then everybody was like, oh, okay. Like, I'm satisfied now. So it's like I'm expecting a similar arc this time around.

[Damon Hatfield]

I'm hoping for a similar arc, but it feels even in. Cause you're correct. But even in that context, it feels different. Cause I reviewed Rise and Rise's expansion as well. And the thing to me was like a. I finished Wild's quicker than even Rise, right. So it was another. Yes, Rise was easier, but this was another step. Right. And then on top of that, the big thing with Rise is like one month after Rise launched, it got an update that added I think like seven new monsters. And then two months after that, it.

[Sam Claiborne]

Added one or two this time, right?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, it added four more a month after that. Whereas this title, one update is adding a single monster, the ability to fight a monster that was already in the game that you couldn't refight, and then like a harder version of an existing monster, and that's it. So it's like.

[Sam Claiborne]

And it's kind of surprising that there's not this like roadmap of really difficult. Cool. But like, that's. It seems like that's the platform, you know, but it's just. It's so.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. So the question of if it's gonna pass World is like a really big. We'll see. Because World was this insane, huge breakout success for them. And Rise wasn't quite as big, but it had this exclusivity thing with Switch first and it was kind of a side thing in a different sense. And so I don't know. I'm. I'm like, I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful it gets. It gets all this stuff that I feel is missing. And it follows a similar trajectory to those other games. But I also think there are reasons to be like a little bit more wary this time.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay. So I'm going to put you on the spot. Tom, you're the only person all IGN that's allowed to do this. Where. What decimal point would you give this?

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh man. In. In the eights.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. Well, I hope it's not a different number because you're standing with the eight.

[Damon Hatfield]

I don't know, to be honest.

[Tom Marks]

But if it was an 8, it could be a 7 point something to be fair.

[Damon Hatfield]

No, no, no.

[Sam Claiborne]

You could have rounded to the eight. That's right.

[Tom Marks]

That's right.

[Justin Davis]

7.9.

[Damon Hatfield]

No, I think, I mean, I think it is. I don't know, I think it's in mid to low eights for me, to be honest. Like, I think it was really missing a decent amount of stuff and I think that the thing I kept saying while I was reviewing it was like, this is a 9. If the difficulty shows up, this is a 9. If that extra stuff shows up, this is a 9. If the end game really is gonn going and none of that stuff materialized, 0.3. So I like, I honestly, I. I don't think I. The decimals have left my brain. They're not a part of my vocabulary anymore.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh yeah, I thought you say I'm not allowed to do that, but here we are having the conversation. So anytime we have you, I make the rules.

[Damon Hatfield]

I can do whatever I want. I just.

[Sam Claiborne]

I love it.

[Tom Marks]

I love it. I do. Damon, before you move on real, real quick, just some real time deal scoop. If you're like me and you're considering picking up Kingdom Come Deliverance 1, it is $10 on the PlayStation Store right now. But Xbox and Steam. Xbox and Steam are full price and I did just because language and video games are very silly. It's only the PS4 version of the game, but it's backwards compatible, forwards compatible on the PS5. So look, I don't make the rules. That's just what Google says.

[Justin Davis]

Got it. There's also some breaking news happening. A Bloomberg report says that a planned Hogwarts Legacy expansion has been canceled.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh really? That's weird. Yeah, I know, but remember the last news on that was putting all their eggs in the Hogwarts basket when they were closing the studios and stuff like that.

[Justin Davis]

Right.

[Sam Claiborne]

So they're going to do a sequel. We know.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah, well, I mean, definitely, but that is odd. Whatever. I don't want to comment on it in real time. I feel like I need to read the report. It's like no DLC plan, there's full Steam ahead on the sequel and they're like, well, maybe we will do a dlc. And they're like, nah, nah, nah, just kidding. We'll just make the sequel okay.

[Sam Claiborne]

So we know it's not getting harder. Monsters Hogwarts.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

The only game to outsell Call of duty in like 14 years. You think maybe they'd want to squeeze a little bit more out of that one, but who knows what's going on at Warner Brothers?

[Tom Marks]

I think that that's an example of franchise management done right, right? Like, take care of your fans, make a complete product, you know, put your head down and make a real banger sequel. And then.

[Sam Claiborne]

No, no. Make a live Service sequel takes 10 years.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly. That's the Activision model of like, oh, we're going to do it every single year until everybody hates it.

[Sam Claiborne]

Although Call of Duty was great this year.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true.

[Justin Davis]

Okay. The final game, rounding out the top five IGN fans favorite games of the year so far is Avowed. And I'm so happy, I'm so happy to see that in there because I really like that game. This game was such a pleasant surprise.

[Sam Claiborne]

Totally great.

[Justin Davis]

Wait, that's not about.

[Tom Marks]

No, no, it is. It is Pentiment though, which is another very good video game from the same studio. Yep. Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

I don't know. Are you still playing Aoud, Sam? I know you, you 100% of that first big area.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's so cool. Cause right now in my brain, if I went and played Avowed, I would be fine. But one more week of Assassin's Creed.

[Justin Davis]

I know.

[Sam Claiborne]

No way. It's gone forever.

[Justin Davis]

I know.

[Sam Claiborne]

So it's gonna happen. Assassin's Creed's got. It's got its claws.

[Justin Davis]

I know it's really tough. Cuz I love both these games, but they're both so huge and just take weeks and weeks to play. So.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah, yep, that's. That's me as well. I. I've already talked about it a couple times, but it's like I was out of town for spring break and then I was out of town for work and Aow has completely been a victim of that for me. Right. Like, I have not an ill word to say about it, but it's just hard. You really need to like devote like a good chunk of time to it. It's a hard game to bop in, in and back out of.

[Justin Davis]

Have you spent any time with Avowed, Tom?

[Damon Hatfield]

No. I mean, can I be real with you? I have fallen pretty far off of. Pretty far off of like the open world rpg. Like the list of this.

[Sam Claiborne]

Right.

[Damon Hatfield]

Of Avowed Kingdom Come, Assassin's Creed. That sort of style of game has fallen by the wayside in terms of, like, what I choose to spend my time on. Lately, I just look for shorter, more varied experiences more often than not. And I say that, you know, after having just beaten Persona 3 reload, which is 100 hours of a single RPG with tons of grinding. So I am a full hypocrite, and I recognize that. But, like, there's something about the open world kind of vibe that just doesn't cook me in the way it used to, and so I don't gravitate them towards them when I'm looking to just hang out and play games.

[Justin Davis]

Well, smaller and varied definitely describes split fiction.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. Yeah, so I've heard.

[Justin Davis]

I'm.

[Damon Hatfield]

That, like I said, that one is. Is high on my list for. For what I want to be playing next.

[Justin Davis]

It's interesting. This. This. It's. It's four Gigantic. I mean, I don't know.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is.

[Justin Davis]

Is Monster Hunter Wild considered open world?

[Damon Hatfield]

No, Open zone. Yeah, Open zone. They tried to sort of spin it as, like, all of the world is connected this time, and the really. The only thing that. That matters for is, like, loading screens. It's, like, very convenient in terms of going from place to place, but you're not really. You're not running around the world looking for things and doing, like. It's not really that kind of game. You're going. You're doing very specific hunts and just running to the monster that you're hunting.

[Justin Davis]

Well, Kingdom Come, Deliverance 2, Assassin's Creed, Shadows, Split Fiction, Monster Hunter, Wilds and Avowed. It's like these four gigantic either open world, ish games, and then split Fiction, which is a much, you know, different, smaller in scope, indie game, super creative. I don't know. This just. I just think this is an interesting mix of games so far.

[Tom Marks]

It's already a great list.

[Sam Claiborne]

Do you. Do you. Do you all have also rans too, for some of these? Like, I have a few others, but they're not quite.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, I was gonna. I was gonna ask if there are any that you felt like, are. I mean, would they actually be a contender, you know, or. Or are you just mentioning a game that you liked? You know?

[Sam Claiborne]

No, I think that Civ 7 could be a contender if it fixes so many things.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

And they did a patch this week, and it fixed one of the silliest, just stupidest things where it's just hard to use a merchant in the game to send to the place you want to go. It's just a dumb Thing. But it's like, yeah, just do that a hundred more times and suddenly you have a really, really great civ game. Right?

[Tom Marks]

Yeah, well. And they totally will. Right?

[Sam Claiborne]

Like, that's only a few weeks after launch. They had a big list.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah, maybe. Do we. Oh, someone's. There it is. Are we gonna talk about AC Shadows or is this our chance to talk about it?

[Justin Davis]

I have an email about AC Shadows that will.

[Tom Marks]

Okay, I'll save it.

[Sam Claiborne]

And then I also played Lost Records, Bloom and Rage, and I just wanted to mention that I played that game.

[Justin Davis]

What is that game?

[Sam Claiborne]

It's. It's from the. What's the series?

[Damon Hatfield]

Don't. It's from Don, who makes what's the.

[Sam Claiborne]

Most popular series called, which I've never played.

[Tom Marks]

Life is Strange.

[Sam Claiborne]

Life is Strange.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. Life is Strange.

[Sam Claiborne]

We did it, everybody. We did it. Yes. It is a 90s set game calling all Damon Hatfields.

[Justin Davis]

Okay.

[Sam Claiborne]

Partially. And then partially set today. And so you're a crew of. Of girls that form a nominally riot grrrl band. They actually mentioned some pretty good stuff in the game, Bikini Kill et al, which was definitely my high school scene. So it's really. It's like gone home in that nostalgic X Files, like, nailing it, like, mood, which is really cool. So it's got that going for it. And then it has Yellowjackets theme where in modern day that the teens are meeting up again to talk about something horrible that happened to them that summer. And it's just a lot of conversations about, you know, bad things that happen to kids. And then there's a camcorder that you hold throughout the game and you can take little indie films and cut them. And that's like the game part. It's like you make these checklists, like when you go to the video store, you make it and it's. It looks great and it's like really well done.

[Tom Marks]

I like that part, you know? Is it a spoiler to discuss? Like, is because, like, my interest in this game is. Is the horrible thing that happens to them like monster related or is the monster mad?

[Sam Claiborne]

It's going to be in part two, for one thing, because it's coming out in parts, but.

[Tom Marks]

Got it.

[Sam Claiborne]

I don't know. They probably killed a guy or something. It's more Stand by me.

[Tom Marks]

Okay. That's what I'm thinking.

[Sam Claiborne]

Stand By Me stuff.

[Tom Marks]

Well, but Yellowjackets is okay. I understand.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's not like that. It doesn't go full cannibalism as far as I can tell.

[Justin Davis]

Cool.

[Tom Marks]

Understood. I'M trying to understand if it's supernatural or if it's.

[Sam Claiborne]

I think they just had a bummer summer and maybe they did something pretty bad.

[Tom Marks]

Got it.

[Sam Claiborne]

But hard to tell because there's like a bully in it and stuff, so I don't know where that's all going.

[Tom Marks]

Understood. They 100% killed somebody or like a.

[Sam Claiborne]

Kid died by accident or something. Yeah, it feels like Stand By Me. I mean, that's the, it's like a spooky feel. But like, some of it looks really good. Like this is the camcorder stuff that's happening and when you play back, the camcorder, like looks fantastic. Like crazy good film or video blur and grain and stuff. It just looks awesome.

[Justin Davis]

Cool.

[Tom Marks]

Cool.

[Sam Claiborne]

Anyway, that exists.

[Justin Davis]

I think in my mind. It's like Assassin's Crew, Shadows and Avowed are my two favorite games I've played this year. But you know, I, I, they're such big games. I have to spend a lot more time with each one to know, you know, which one I would end up liking more. Justin, any favorites or any early contenders this year for you?

[Tom Marks]

Well, as usual, I'm mostly spending my time on games that didn't come out this year. I got really re addicted to and have put a ludicrous number of hours back into Graveyard Keeper after being away from that game for several years. So, you know, Graveyard Keeper, released I think in 2018, is so far my 2025 game of the year. But as I said, I've been, you know, I've been out of town like a third of the days this year. So like Avowed and some other stuff has gotten this short shrift out of. But I just started Assassin's Creed. I'll save my feedback for the question that comes in, but I love it so far.

[Justin Davis]

Cool. Yeah. Tom, has there been something that isn't a giant open world RPG that's resonated with you?

[Damon Hatfield]

Balatro?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. Still going?

[Damon Hatfield]

No, I fell back down that rabbit hole recently. No. Monster Hunter. You know, I sounded pretty negative on it as we were talking about sort of it earlier, but Monster Hunter, it is some of the best Monster Hunter has ever felt when you are actually in the action. And it is some of the coolest monster design they've done some really like this game is really, really good and I am really, really pulling for it in terms of some of these updates throughout the year. Like, I do think Civ 7 I think is gonna need like some time. Right? Like, I think it's gonna need like a, at least a year to really get its stuff together. I think monster hunter by 2025 could be a really impressive new version of itself.

[Sam Claiborne]

I would have swapped those two just because they haven't given the roadmap. You know, like we don't have the road.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Like a bunch of monsters. Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

But I see, I see this. The problems with Civ is like they, they have shown that they like fix. Yeah, that and they, they've shown that they like fixing a lot of those problems in expansions. Whereas Monster Hunter I think does. Yeah. Where I think Monster Hunter does actually like to just push updates for what things people are annoyed about and they listen to the community really, really quickly. So I'm very optimistic about the future of Monster Hunter and I hope that by the end, by the time we get to game of the year stuff, it is really, really worthy of being in that conversation. But also, gosh, this year is going to be stacked, so who knows?

[Sam Claiborne]

So it's a little bit complicated with Roman numerals, but you think it's more of a Civ 7.5. 7. 6.5 maybe. Is that we're at. Not quite. Since Civ 7.

[Damon Hatfield]

We'll see. We'll see.

[Justin Davis]

One note on both these games, it must be disheartening for Civ devs to put out Civ 7 and see so many more people are playing Civ 6 and Civ 5. Still so many more people. Thousands and thousands. Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Or at least they're playing.

[Tom Marks]

Gives them the perspective and the air cover to be like, we're in this for the long haul. That's true. People are going to be playing Civ 7 for a decade, you know, so it does cut both ways.

[Justin Davis]

And then for Monster Hunter. Monster Hunter World is Capcom's best selling game of all time.

[Sam Claiborne]

Wow.

[Justin Davis]

Yep. So it'll be interesting to see how close it can get to that.

[Sam Claiborne]

You fools should have bought more Mega Man 3.

[Justin Davis]

Yep, exactly.

[Sam Claiborne]

You screwed it all up. You had your chance. It is depressing.

[Justin Davis]

Capcom is very transparent. They on their website they have a recurringly updated list of their best selling games ever. And you just have to scroll real far before you get to any Mega Man. It is all Monster Hunter, Resident Evil Street Fighter.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, we owed the little robot boy more.

[Justin Davis]

Yep. Looking ahead at game, big games coming out. Q2, we'll have Doom the Dark Ages in May along with Elden. Ring Night, Ring Night Rain. Then there's Death Stranding 2 in June and of course the Switch 2 launch. And whatever launch games they have for the Switch 2 could be something good there. Although I've started to realize I don't think there's any way the Switch 2 launch lineup isn't a disappointment compared to the Switch. It has to be great compared to the Switch one, which had Breath of the Wild, right?

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, I see. Well, it'll just have Breath of the Wild and you'll be happy, right?

[Tom Marks]

Yep.

[Justin Davis]

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[Justin Davis]

You don't wake up dreaming of McDonald's fries. You wake up dreaming of McDonald's hash browns.

[Sam Claiborne]

McDonald's breakfast comes first.

[Damon Hatfield]

But I.

[Justin Davis]

Well, speaking of Nintendo and the Switch 2, what about this Nintendo Direct today? Kind of probably the last one for the Switch one.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

I was surprised that some of our staff members thought that this was disappointing. I thought it was awesome. This was very scoop.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah man, I'm so glad to hear you say that because I felt the exact same way.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, I couldn't believe it. I just was at a big grin on my face. I got a nice espresso. I watched it and it got better and better and better. I thought Metroid was probably the worst looking thing and it still looked me too, man.

[Tom Marks]

I felt the exact same way. That's exactly two PlayStation games.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Tom Marks]

It was crazy.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. Totally nuts. Okay, so totally nuts.

[Justin Davis]

Metroid Prime 4.

[Sam Claiborne]

We are huge.

[Justin Davis]

I mean, look we are huge Metroid fans here, and especially Metro prime fans. But I agree. It's like this. It just looks. I mean, the gameplay will probably be very fun, but the look of it is just kind of generic.

[Tom Marks]

100. Like, this is. This is what they spent six years cooking of. Just like Samus using magic on her other hand. It's like, give me a break, guys. Like, and like, look like super Metroid is my favorite game of all time. I really like Metroid 1, 2 and 3. I really like Metroid Bread Dread. I'm not worried about the game. There's two layers to this commentary. There's a. There's a layer of like, is Metroid Prime 4 not gonna be disappointed? It's like, no, the game's gonna be fine. Game's gonna be great. Like, it's gonna be incredible. But I'm just flabbergasted and baffled that when they had six years to like, to cook on like the world's most explosive and amazing gameplay reveal, this is. It's like they spent like, they spent like 60 seconds of their three minute trailer of Samus, like scanning shit. It's like, oh, no, guys, don't.

[Justin Davis]

So it's just in her powers. They show using powers. And it's just very slow, right? It's just like very slow.

[Tom Marks]

And just like. And like the whole.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Tom Marks]

And even the combat section I kept. I'm like, use your charge beam. Charge it up. Use the charge beam. And it's like. Nope, she never does. Just doing the little plinky. The little plinky attacks. Shoot, shoot.

[Sam Claiborne]

There's a charge beam. Got one.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah. Yeah, we did get one.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. I don't know. I'm still looking forward to it. Just, it's just like when you think of other Nintendo games like Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, they have so much style, right? Whereas this. I'm not saying it should look like Breath of the Wild, but I like video games that have like a personality, a visual identity, you know? And this, this.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, it does look like Donkey Kong. So. Yeah.

[Tom Marks]

And even just like, you know, Samus has these magic powers now and it's like to do what? Like to grab, like grab a thing and slowly like drag it across to like open a door. Oh, no.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. I'm gonna start the conspiracy theory that this was a first person Donkey Kong game.

[Justin Davis]

It's so slow.

[Sam Claiborne]

Set in the Tropical Freeze verse, right? And it was, it was. You were gonna have banana esp, right? And you could, you could actually manipulate things with your Ape brain. And it all takes place. That's why there's a bunch of stone doors and bananas flying around everywhere. And a banana monster. See? You see where I'm going with this?

[Tom Marks]

Averted.

[Sam Claiborne]

There's an actual banana monster.

[Justin Davis]

Mark, you've been pretty quiet on Metro Point 4.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, I want to hear Tom's thing, but. Right. I will say the positive stuff here is when it gets to this part and it shows, like, a spaceship being eaten by a plant. It shows a Metroid. Spoilers. There's. There's Metroids in Metroid.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

They don't all have them. And. And then it shows, like, a little bit of fighting, like maybe like a bigger creature or something. That looks great. Looks great to me.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

And. And maybe it's on one planet, which I think is super important.

[Justin Davis]

You want it to be on one thing.

[Sam Claiborne]

I want it to be on one planet. I want it to be, you know, the caves part and the sky part and everything, but all in one planet, just trapped.

[Tom Marks]

I think it's funny that Samus got sucked into some other dimension and then there's still Metroids there.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, well, yeah, it has to be.

[Sam Claiborne]

Maybe it's Samus. Huh? And.

[Tom Marks]

And she's on a whole other planet and is once again the savior of some other alien race.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's Chozo, I think. I think they show a Chozo.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah, whatever.

[Sam Claiborne]

The part that Justin doesn't care about. Have you any respect for the baby?

[Justin Davis]

The baby?

[Tom Marks]

No, the baby.

[Justin Davis]

Tom, what do you think?

[Damon Hatfield]

You know what my, I guess hot take in this room is specifically? It is a hot take only in this room. I'm just glad it exists.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

[Damon Hatfield]

I think what this trailer did. I'm not disagreeing. I think the trailer is. Is a resounding fine for a game that I'm excited to play regardless. But I think they just wanted to show that it was the game you were expecting it to be to some extent. Like, the scanning is super slow and doesn't make good, good trailer footage. But, like, the scanning and the lore was part of what I loved about Metroid Prime. Right. No matter how slow it was. And so I think. I think that was the vibe I got from this trailer was like, we're doing it. We're doing what you want. We're doing what you're expecting. We're doing what you want to see out of this. And then with this little twist of these purple magic powers. And from that perspective, I guess I am just left excited to see, more excited to play it for Myself, I'm. They didn't give a date. Right. Which is kind of disappointing.

[Justin Davis]

They still said 2025 though, so.

[Damon Hatfield]

Right. But, but I'm, I mean, and maybe, maybe they're not giving a date because it's gonna get announced in a week and it's like a launch game or something. I don Switch two. But I, I, yeah. I'm encouraged by what I see in that. It looks like what I would want from a Metroid Prime 4 pretty much is. That's, that's kind of my take. I, I agree. I don't think it was like. It was not an earth shattering trailer that is going to make everyone go and buy this game immediately. But it was as a Metroid prime fan what I wanted.

[Tom Marks]

It's very, and I say this with love as a huge Nintendo fan. The company is occasionally incompetent when it comes to discussing and announcing and revealing and marketing their games. And it' sort of vintage Nintendo. Like please be excited now. It's like don't cut a better trailer. That's it.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

And I also think that the wait is part of this. Like if this trailer had come shortly after the reveal, I don't think it would be a problem. But you are right that after years of delays and years of what is going on with this game, to finally see it and have it be just like a good trailer is like a little bit of a letdown.

[Sam Claiborne]

So if Samus has been warped to some planet that is, you know, beyond all knowledge and recognition, how does the scanner tell her what everything is?

[Tom Marks]

I know.

[Damon Hatfield]

She'S got psychic abilities now. You know, in D and D, when you cast identify, where does that information come from? It's magic. It's fine.

[Justin Davis]

Okay. We also, there's a new Pac man game.

[Tom Marks]

It looks awesome.

[Sam Claiborne]

I would say it's a new Puck man game.

[Justin Davis]

Puck Man.

[Tom Marks]

It completely won me over. Like it's so over the top, it's so silly and dumb that it circles all the way around to like somehow being cool and working.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, that's how I described it too. I was talking about how like the gritty Bomberman reboot and Bionic Commander reboot is like totally stupid. Nobody wants that. Nobody asked for it. And then this is like a parody of that. So it works.

[Tom Marks]

Exactly. They didn't. Those games didn't commit hard enough. Yeah, this one does.

[Justin Davis]

Did anyone see this secret level episode? This Pac man level episode of.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, this is what this is related to.

[Justin Davis]

It is like this, this is like in that episode, Pac man is okay.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, maybe we would have shown those things in the proper order. Then we would have cared about it, right?

[Tom Marks]

Well, yeah, I like, at the end of this trailer, it shows that your character has an almost Persona, like special power where like Pac man eats you and then you turn into some giant, like, mech thing.

[Sam Claiborne]

You know, at first I was like, oh, they're calling it Puck. That's funny. It's kind of like a Pac man looking thing. What is this game? And then as soon as that waka waka waka happened.

[Tom Marks]

Yep.

[Sam Claiborne]

I was like, now you have my attention.

[Tom Marks]

Yep, same.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, it looks. I mean, that's the thing that's funny about it too, is to me is the thing that makes it work. And you guys mentioned this somewhat, is that it just looks like a cool game. It also just looks fun even if there was not Pac man stuff. And they've made it so that the Pac man stuff feels reverent and silly and fun rather than, you know, distracting. Yeah. So I want to play this game. I don't know what it is and I want to play it.

[Tom Marks]

There's certain games that, like, I like, I wanna like. I so badly want to like be in the room when it's being pitched. And like, this is one of. They're like, no, guys, this is gonna be so gritty and like, it's really gonna work. And like, it's gonna have all this lore. And someone had to be like, okay, like, here's your budget, Go forth.

[Justin Davis]

I want to know the order of events because it's very similar to the premise of the Secret Level episode. But it's like, did Namco want to revive Pac man, make it more relevant again? Did someone, did a developer say, let's make a more gritty version of Pac man, or did that come out of Secret Level making the show? And then Bandai Namco got an idea to make a game based on that. I just, I want to know what, what, what inspired what, what came first.

[Sam Claiborne]

So we see the pre order has original arcade sound effects.

[Justin Davis]

Yep, I did see.

[Tom Marks]

That's great.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's also so amazing because, like, Pac Man's not in the name.

[Justin Davis]

Nope.

[Damon Hatfield]

They're just calling it. You could, if you're one of those.

[Sam Claiborne]

Physically in the logo, which is funny. Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

But what I mean is if you're one of those unsuspecting people that doesn't go online, it doesn't listen to podcasts and just wanders into the store and says, oh, this looks kind of cool, and you get home and then it's.

[Sam Claiborne]

Pac man in the middle of there, man.

[Damon Hatfield]

It would be like, wait, what?

[Sam Claiborne]

I hope the reveal is different than that, though. And then, like, you know, it's like panning up this mountain and, like, establishing all this story and, like, listen, I need you to go meet somebody. Her name is Sue. We call her Pinky.

[Justin Davis]

This is the official description from Bandai Namco. Shadow Labyrinth is a 2D action platformer and a genre twisting alternate take on the iconic Pac man as Swordsman Number eight. Awoken by a floating yellow orb puck on a mysterious planet amidst relics of wars past, you are chosen to become the instrument of its will. To survive, you will discover many secrets, consume your enemies, and grow from prey to the apex predator as you embrace your true purpose, which is eating cherries.

[Tom Marks]

The. The tagline in the trailer for a Pac man game is, embrace your true purpose. Become the apex.

[Damon Hatfield]

Predict. I love it, Sam. You know what game this actually gives me vibes of is. I wanted to say Ukulele Yoku's Island Express in just like, not. Not exactly one to one. Obviously, they're very different, but in the idea of Metroidvania with a mechanical twist. Right. Or not sure.

[Tom Marks]

If this is.

[Sam Claiborne]

Do you think you'll actually, like, roll around and eat things like the Pacman creature?

[Tom Marks]

Yeah. They show that trailer for a moment.

[Damon Hatfield]

Gosh. The Pac man biting out the logo at the end.

[Sam Claiborne]

You see the maze flashing at the bottom of this. There's, like, the Pac man maze down there. And the boxer.

[Justin Davis]

It's coming soon, too. July 18th. Coming totally.

[Sam Claiborne]

As the kids say, unhinged.

[Justin Davis]

Okay. Is anyone else excited for everybody's golf? Hot Shots.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah, I like. I love that they're pulling a resident Evil biohazard with the name.

[Justin Davis]

Yep. Yeah.

[Tom Marks]

No, yeah, obviously, Hot Shots Golf is what, the best golf franchise. Can I say that? Is that there's some really good Mario.

[Justin Davis]

Golf, too, but they were made by the same company.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

Is that true, Camelot?

[Tom Marks]

Oh, yeah, that's right.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Tom Marks]

Camelot. You're right. No, yeah. It's been a long time. There was so many announcements. The reason I like this direct so much is there was a bunch of games that I didn't even know I'd been yearning for until they came back. And then it's like, oh, man, it's been like a decade since we got a good Hot Shots golf game.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

I love Hotshots Golf.

[Sam Claiborne]

So it was rebranded as Everybody's Golf at some point, and now they're. They're just combining the two terms.

[Justin Davis]

It's Always been called Everybody's Golf in Japan, they called it Hotshots Golf in North America. But in 2017 they just started calling it every. Everybody's Golf worldwide. But there was. There's also confusing. The. The brand or the IP has like bounced around. So it was created by Camelot, which interestingly enough also did Shining Force, like one of the best turn based strategy RPG's of all time. And then they made the best like arcade golf games of all time. So Camelot made these games, but then. And they also started working on Mario Golf. And Camelot is still around, but they don't do Everybody's Golf anymore. The. The brand moved to Sony Japan Studio at one point.

[Sam Claiborne]

What?

[Justin Davis]

And then it moved to internal. Yeah. But then it managed to Clap Hands. And then they put out games like Clap Hands Golf, which is the same. And now apparently Bandai Namco has it. So I don't know why this Everybody's Golf brand has been passed around like that.

[Tom Marks]

And Clap Hands Golf is actually legit. It's really good, by the way. Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

But why does this game look like it came out for PlayStation 2? That's my only question. I know it doesn't matter, but boy, it looks bad.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah. I mean, because nobody cares.

[Justin Davis]

Probably. Or they're probably just trying to make it look like those days.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah. They just want Crazy Golf back. That's all any of us want.

[Sam Claiborne]

So it's like they put a team of three on it. Like just do what you can. We just want.

[Tom Marks]

But not, not, not in like a negative. Like it's. It's correctly scoped.

[Justin Davis]

Although Camelot, like, like I mentioned, they did the last Mario Golf. Was it Mario Golf Super Rush, Tom?

[Damon Hatfield]

I believe so.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

That was the last one.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. Which I think was just. I think we gave it a seven or something like that.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, people love the 3DS Mario Golf. Right. That was the one that was like a rpg.

[Justin Davis]

Is that the one? Well, I, I don't think it was 3Ds and the old.

[Tom Marks]

The GBA ones and Game Boy, they've been getting kind of worse as they go.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, no, the 3Ds one was beloved.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Justin Davis]

I don't remember the 3Ds one, but.

[Sam Claiborne]

I remember it was a big deal.

[Tom Marks]

Mario started on Toadstool Tour. Is that what it was called? Did I make that up?

[Sam Claiborne]

They had it.

[Damon Hatfield]

One of them. Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

Well, Mario Golf started on Nintendo 64 and then I liked the one for GameCube too.

[Tom Marks]

The Camelot ones were the handheld Ones where the Game Boy color. Game Boy Advance. I mean, maybe they did the console ones, too.

[Damon Hatfield]

Golf was the original. Golf was where Daisy was invented, right?

[Sam Claiborne]

No, Daisy's from Super Mario Land. She's the princess in Super Mario Land for Game Boy.

[Damon Hatfield]

I thought. Okay.

[Tom Marks]

I thought. I thought Mario Tennis was where Daisy came from. Nobody knows.

[Damon Hatfield]

One of. I thought that was where she came back, was one of those sports games.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, well, she came back in a sports game for sure. But, yeah, she's from Mario Land.

[Damon Hatfield]

Gotcha.

[Justin Davis]

So it was Mario Golf world tour on 3Ds, and there's a Reddit thread saying that game is what the Mario Sports. Mario Sports games on Swish. Wish they could be. So apparently they do like it.

[Sam Claiborne]

People were flipping out about that game in the office. I believe Greg Miller, speaking of Patapon, was super into that one. Talked about it a lot.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. Patapon 1 and 2 coming to switch.

[Damon Hatfield]

Hooray.

[Justin Davis]

Yep.

[Tom Marks]

It's great.

[Damon Hatfield]

I love that. I love Patapon, that game. Those games are great.

[Sam Claiborne]

How did that escape from Sony? What's happening here?

[Tom Marks]

They're just doing it.

[Damon Hatfield]

They're also making a spiritual successor. Right. The original creators are also making a different game that is basically just Patapon.

[Justin Davis]

I don't know.

[Tom Marks]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. I can't. Oh, God. It's something I can't. Oh, man. I'll find it.

[Justin Davis]

And then there was Gradius Origins, which is interesting. Well, yeah, I'm a little bit. So it's got.

[Sam Claiborne]

I'm into it.

[Justin Davis]

It's gathering up six gradiest games. And then there's a new one, Salamander 3, which I'm very excited for because it's being made by M2 Shot Triggers, which is a great studio that does awesome ports of classic shmups like Dang on, Fever on. So this includes Gradius 1 through 3, Salamander 1 and 2 and Life Force. What's interesting is that Gradius 1 and 2 and Life Force are already part of the Konami Arcade Classics collection. And then there's a bunch of greatest games that they didn't include, like Nemesis 1 and 2 for Game Boy, Gradius Gaiden for PlayStation, Gradius 4 for Arcade, Greatest Galaxies for GBA, Gradius 5 for PS2, and Gradius Rebirth for WiiWare, which is a game that's trapped on WiiWare.

[Sam Claiborne]

Aww.

[Justin Davis]

So I don't. They could. I just think they could have done a lot more with this greatest collection.

[Sam Claiborne]

They'll do a second one because this one's called Origins. Right. So they'll do something like Gradius Gaiden or something. I've never really played the arcade versions of these. I only the NES ports.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah, same.

[Justin Davis]

Well, I think this great. I think what we're seeing here is Salamander3 and they. They went with like a very 16 bit or early 90s arcade look, which I love. So yeah, very, very excited about that one. And then speaking of. Oh, go ahead.

[Damon Hatfield]

It was, it was. It's called Rataton and it is from the original creators of Patapon. Yeah, they. They released Gameplay. A gameplay trailer of it last month and it. It just looks like Paton.

[Justin Davis]

Cool. And then speaking of early 90s arcade games, Marvel Cosmic Invasion from the same team that did what tmnt Shredder's Revenge. So it's a. Yeah, Shredder Revenge. It's a pixel art beat em up with Marvel characters.

[Sam Claiborne]

But. But like a combining characters twist to it.

[Justin Davis]

Like there's like a tag team. They call it Cosmic Swap. Some sort of tag team mechanic. So even if you're playing by yourself, you pick two characters and can swap between them.

[Sam Claiborne]

And that's funny because Marvel vs Capcom was the fighting game that did that. Right.

[Damon Hatfield]

Like it had a. Yeah, I think that's very intentional. It feels like. It feels very much like they are just playing on X Men game nostalgia generally. Right. And they, they know what people sort of remember about that and are bringing some of that in from. From that other. From the fighting games and. But you know, this team has proven they know what they're doing in this regard and when they do these things and it's very exciting to see them get another crack at it. And with an IP like this with Marvel.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, I mean all of these are 1990. Like two designs. Like every. Every single character is from, you know, either the early X Men cartoons and you got the brown Wolverine, like all this stuff Spider man looks like he did in like Spider Man X Men versus Arcade. Like it's really cool like to hit that era. Plus the pixel art somehow gets to that kind of like everybody's hulking and breathing. Like, you know, Capcom era art. Yeah, it's crazy looking.

[Justin Davis]

It looks really good. Oh man. Venom looks great. I will absolutely play this with Kingo.

[Tom Marks]

Yep.

[Justin Davis]

Okay. I think those are the highlights from the direct for me. Anything else anyone wants to shout out?

[Tom Marks]

I wanted to call out two things. One, Witchbrook came back with a new. I like that they called it the announcement trailer. Whereas that game was announced pre Silksong. That's how long that game. So Whichbrook is being developed by Chucklefish who was the original publisher, is not developer but publisher of Stardew Valley. Right. So they published that game and helped co fund it and then you know, have built this empire on like cute cozy pixel art games.

[Damon Hatfield]

And they announced only on console too. They only published it on console and then are no longer the console. Publisher Eric Barone took it back.

[Justin Davis]

Interesting.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah. They've sort of had a peaceful breakup and sort of going of their separate ways and so. So this game has been, I mean I think most people had kind of given up on it. Right. It had become almost like a meme of like, you know, what happened to that really cool witch, you know, slice of life pixel art game. And then to just shadow drop it in the middle of a random Nintendo Direct is like really wild. And so you know like they still didn't announce an official release date. They just said winter. So it's one of those things where like I'll kind of believe it when I see it but it just looks gorgeous.

[Sam Claiborne]

Right.

[Tom Marks]

Like it's unbelievable. So that was game A for me. The other one was. I have no idea who the developer is or where it came from, but this game called the Eternal Life of Goldman ducktales. You see that trailer?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, yeah. Really cool animation on that.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah. Just the animation is completely on another level and just this game starring an old man that pogo sticks on things ducktale style. So those were two standouts for me. I guess I said too there is one more. It was Rhythm Heaven. There's a new Rhythm Heaven game coming out. It's another one of those franchises that's just been gone like a decade and I didn't even know I needed back in my life until they revealed it. Until it's back.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Mm.

[Justin Davis]

Pretty good Nintendo Direct for.

[Sam Claiborne]

I'm sure you have some extras, right? Aren't you a tomodachi guy?

[Damon Hatfield]

Not as much on that one. I'm really excited that they are doing Dragon Quest 1 plus 2 HD 2D.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's so cool.

[Damon Hatfield]

It feels kind of like a no brainer that they would. But the three was really really well received. It was really, really well done. So it's super cool that they're. I, I both appreciate that they're doing this and I really appreciate that they're bundling them. Not that these games are like, you know, not that I would feel cheated if they did them one by one or anything but like it just for These early ones, I think it does make a lot of sense. And so that's really cool to see.

[Sam Claiborne]

Do you know what the twist is that they're referring to? They're like, and we showed you a character that's not normally in this.

[Damon Hatfield]

I don't actually know, but I didn't.

[Tom Marks]

Pick up on that either.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, but that's. So that one's. I'm really excited for. I'm glad that they're doing that for sure. The other thing I will say that is not excited, but necessarily, like, didn't win me over yet was Pokemon. Pokemon. Pokemon has a. So they showed another trailer for Legends Z to A. And I. I used to be an enormous Pokemon game fan and have fallen off ever since they switched to full 3D worlds. And I think my stance still with Pokemon in this day and age is like, game freak's got to prove it to me. I'm. They. They really, I think, have a lot of ground to make up and some cool battles in a trailer or whatever. Is not like, I really still need to have see the reviews with people saying, yeah, they finally, really did figure this out. And. And everything they showed in this trailer is, like, neat and exciting and has not gotten me to that point yet where I'm, like, willing to. Where they've got my trust back yet.

[Tom Marks]

I really.

[Damon Hatfield]

I think I really do just need to see these games in action now.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's funny because the worst part of any Pokemon game is going to the city and then going up to all the office buildings and getting all the. The pokeballs and tms out of the office buildings, talking to everybody that has nothing to say except for how nice Pokemon are. It's so boring. And this whole thing is a Pokemon town. What are they doing?

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, you can battle in it, at least.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, you can battle in it in the parks. Take it to the park. Don't throw that ball here. Throw it in the park.

[Tom Marks]

People just want Pokemon games to look like Witchbrook, and instead they make them look like this. They make them look like a PS3 game.

[Damon Hatfield]

I'm still surprised. I mean, and this is not a small task. This is not a small ask I am about to suggest, but I am still sort of eternally surprised that Pokemon has not been treated like Zelda or Mario in, like, have the mainline 3D game, have a 2D offshoot. Right? Like, that has worked really, really well for Mario and Zelda to say, we're gonna, you know, have both of these things coexist. And instead what we got is now Mainline Pokemon and Legends, and those are very similar in there. Not obviously. They're very different in some. In some ways mechanically. But they're not what I am suggesting. And I am surprised that we don't have any sort of pixelated incarnation of Pokemon anymore.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah, I will. I mean, I don't need to carry water for Game Freak. They gotta get their act together. But, like, I will say that they have the disadvantage of having a baggage of a Pokedex of a thousand Pokemon that they have to keep up with. Sure. Unlike, you know, Mario and Zelda can just be whatever they want. They don't have to carry anything forward.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. That's very fair. None of this is a small task. Right. But all I know is I'm just. They still have a lot of ground to make up in my eyes. And so this trailer, I was just like, didn't. Didn't do it for me yet, I guess.

[Sam Claiborne]

So. I know we're running long time, but we have to call out that Miyamoto came out and just seemed like he was just gonna deliver the worst news. And it was so great. He's like, after 10 years of Nintendo Direct, we've been bringing you all of these exciting game announcements. It's been the honor of my life. And I just wanted to say that we have a new way to share games that for two weeks, you can share with your little brother, Sia. It was so weird.

[Justin Davis]

You thought he was gonna announce his.

[Sam Claiborne]

Retirement or something or like, the end of Nintendo Direct. So I was like, you guys just had a banger direct. Now you're gonna cancel them all? What are you doing? But no, they didn't cancel him. They're like, no. He was like, yeah. What was it for the app? Was that what he was announcing? Yeah.

[Tom Marks]

Nintendo today.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

After 10 years, I am solemnly here to announce that I will be doing this for ten more years. Oh, okay, cool.

[Sam Claiborne]

The app is like. It looks like it could be pretty neat. I mean, it looks like it has little cartoons and stuff daily. So I got it today. We'll see.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah, me too.

[Justin Davis]

Cool. Okay, let's check in with the listeners. Hey, listen, listeners, remember, you can always reach us at the email address. Game scoopgn.com just like court did. Court says I'm playing Assassin's Creed Shadows and loving it. One small gripe I have is the system where when the seasons change, the enemies get respawned. I would love Ubisoft to use the Far Cry system here, where you liberate a castle or a hideout, and then it Gets populated by allies. What do you think? Would that work?

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

Sam, does the. The respawning enemies bother you?

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. Well, okay, so clearing out a castle and then being able to get all the treasure is appealing, but, like, that's really hard to do because you'll get. You tend to get a wanted level unless you stop, the bell rang and stuff like that. So I usually just sneak around and get all the treasure. But I was thinking how fun it would be to walk in as s. Okay, just kill everybody and then just be able to walk up to the treasure. Like, that is appealing to me. And it would be nice if that was, like, permanent, because then I would go from place to place and make sure I, like, check that off the list. Like, that'd be cool. That'd be a good reason to keep playing it. The. The season resetting is nice to get rid of your wanted level. Like, I like that part about it. And the seasons are beautiful. But I did want to add that there is a game out right now where you can kill everybody in that entire game. And it's Adam Fall.

[Justin Davis]

Oh, I thought you're gonna say avowed.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, can you.

[Justin Davis]

Well, just the enemies don't come back in about, right?

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, no, no, that is a good thing about that game. But I think you can kill everybody in Atom Fall. Like, okay, that's funny. There is nobody left, which I think is a funny, funny thing.

[Justin Davis]

Challenge accepted.

[Tom Marks]

There are.

[Sam Claiborne]

Because I allowed you to do that, right?

[Tom Marks]

You can boil down every video game eventually, if you boil it down far enough into two genres. One where either you are the master of the game and the king, and everything revolves around you, and it's this sandbox for you, the player, and you're the center of everything. And then games that don't give an F about you and you just exist in this world and have to survive and make your way through it. And the tricky thing about Assassin's Creed is that it has sometimes been both, right? It's swung back and forth between the two of, you know, the point of, like, it's fun and satisfying in a video game that you can just dominate it and kill everything and everyone, and you take it all over and you clear out the whole map. Like our gamer brains. That's like, you know, that's very satisfying for all of us. But, like, it is very cartoony and silly and kind of like wish fulfillment. And, like, you know, some Assassin's Creed games have been that, and then some have been a little bit more sim oriented and a little bit More like, look, this world's gonna continue carrying on whether you're in it or not. And like the, you know, the, the seasons being the equivalent of like this game's blood moon to sort of like hit the reset button on everything and reset the simulation is like they're both valid. But I think part of the pushback on AC is that it doesn't really know which it is or it switches from game to game.

[Sam Claiborne]

So what would be nice is if it either did that, that'd be nice. Or if it actually let you level way ahead of castle castles that were early game castles. Because you know, I think these are two different types of rubber band problems. And the rubber band problem that all Assassin's Creed games now have is that no matter what level you're at, you get more skills and some cool stuff like that. But like it still takes the same swings of your katana to kill every enemy.

[Justin Davis]

So because of level scaling?

[Sam Claiborne]

Because of level scaling, yeah. So like no matter. I like the fact that in this game you can go to high level areas and survive. We've already talked about in the show. That's great. That's fixed. Love it. Super cool. But it doesn't have the backwards thing where you feel like a badass for going to a castle that before was hard. No matter what, if you go there and before they were over leveled, then you're just going to go there. They're going to be exactly your level. And so again like you just, the fights become really samey unless you change your skills and do stuff to entertain yourself. Otherwise like you can just sit there and hit heavy attack and it's going to take it four times to kill the enemy at the beginning of the game and four times to kill an enemy at the end of the game. Like it's weird. Yeah, like it's just weird to me. I don't understand it.

[Justin Davis]

With previous Assassin's Creeds they added the option to turn off level scaling, you know, like an a post launch update. So hopefully they do that again with Shadows. Because I, I, you know, I'm on the record saying I don't think level scaling should be in any game ever.

[Sam Claiborne]

But I don't care because I'm assassinating people and when I fight people it's fine or whatever. But that is not why I'm playing this game. Yeah, every moment I'm playing this game and riding around and saying like I cannot believe the water is running in rivulets through the sand at the side of the staircase while it's Raining or, you know, I can't believe that when the wind started picking up, I could see the petals from the right tree that they were coming from. Or that, like, freaking deer at night have glowing eyes if the light catches them the right way. It is unbelievable. And I love it. I love every minute I play this game. And when I get in that, like, habit of, like, well, I really shouldn't just be getting samurai out of these castles because it is getting samey. I still do it because I'm compelled to do that stuff. But then I just go off and just ride in the countryside to go to something that I. It's out of my level, and it's incredible.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. Yep. I just. Last night, I finally got to where you can play as Yasuke after whatever. Nice two or three weeks. So that's where I am in the game. And then, Justin, I want to hear your thoughts. But we talked about this at length last episode, and I said that now a. We really like now. And I think they've really achieved something with her facial animation. I think it's some of the best I've ever seen, and it's a great performance.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah. And I don't know who the voice actor is, so I apologize.

[Justin Davis]

I'm playing in Japanese. I don't know if you're doing an English.

[Tom Marks]

Oh, no.

[Sam Claiborne]

I.

[Tom Marks]

But I think the English VO is really, really good, and the facial acting is really, really good. Like, the storyline. Like, I just started the game, so I'm two hours in, and, like, I'm interested in the mystery box, which, I mean literally, because. Because the game starts, it's like, what's in the box, but then also, like, it's a story of revenge and mystery and who are these bad guys and what are their motivations? Like, it's very kind of blockbustery storytelling. Like, but it's not bad for a.

[Sam Claiborne]

Starter for Assassin's Creed.

[Justin Davis]

Right.

[Tom Marks]

Like, it's a pretty good. Exactly. Like, yeah, I'm. I'm invested in it, and I like it, and I like her.

[Justin Davis]

Yep, she's great. And then we had talked about the funny tonal stuff. Like, there's like a, you know, a surf punk song that plays during a battle scene early on, and it's like training montage with, like, kind of goofy, like, Django and chain dish tunes. It's just. We were a little bit surprised by that.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah. I. Yeah. I mean, I don't know, like, samurai media, you know, it's. It's partially historically inspired and then partially inspired by other fictional stories. That have been told about this same time period. Right.

[Justin Davis]

So anyway, should you ever decide. Tom, I think Assassin's Creed Shadows is pretty great.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, I'm maybe one day.

[Sam Claiborne]

But I would recommend it over any of the last four. Like, I think it's one to play.

[Tom Marks]

Oh, I. I still like Odyssey.

[Justin Davis]

I do like Odyssey.

[Tom Marks]

I mean, we like. I just. I don't play a lot of AAA games. Like, I play a lot of factorio. I play a lot of games that, like, kind of hate. You have a lot of, like, have a lot of sharp edges, and you really have to meet them halfway and find the fun that are weird and surprising. And so whenever I do dip back into just a super polished, super smooth, easy AAA game, it's just the best feeling. It's like I'm just along for the ride. You just take me where I turned on the game as an option to be played in a more immersive or less immersive way. And I'm like, I'm with the map markers on. Just show me where to go. I'll go there. I'll do it. So it's just easy breezy. It's good.

[Justin Davis]

Yep. I like it a lot still. Okay, we probably have to say goodbye to Justin.

[Tom Marks]

Yeah, I'm sorry I can't help you.

[Sam Claiborne]

Pressure's on, Tom.

[Tom Marks]

Yep.

[Justin Davis]

Okay. Nick. What we usually do is just. Well, okay, there you go.

[Tom Marks]

Oh, problem solved.

[Justin Davis]

We usually leave, like, a freeze frame up, Justin, but that works too. We can just wipe them away. Here you go. Goodbye, Justin.

[Sam Claiborne]

Bye, Justin.

[Justin Davis]

There you go. Okay. And that brings us to video game 20 questions. First of all, we have an email about a previous 20 questions. So this comes from Andrew in Overland Park, Kansas, who asked during video game 20 questions in episode 802, there was confusion on if Halo Combat Evolved was rated T or M. You said you'd explain your thought process, but by the end of the episode, you never did. Can we go back to that for a moment? Yes, Andrew. It's only because some Halo games are rated T and some are rated M. That's it.

[Sam Claiborne]

Simple enough. It depends on how much of the little blood splatter happens when you shoot people in the head, change that from game to game.

[Justin Davis]

So that's that. And our suggestion this week comes from Joey in Astoria, Oregon, who says that this podcast is the very first video game podcast that I ever started listening to. I found you guys while in lockdown during the pandemic, and I've been a weekly listener ever since. My suggestion for 20 questions is a game that I consider to be a top five all time favorite. However, it might be the most underappreciated, redacted. And with that, good luck and let the questioning begin.

[Damon Hatfield]

An underappreciated top fiver. Okay. Okay, Sam, would you please kick us off because again, this. This spikes my anxiety every time I'm on this show.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay. Shout out to home of the Goonies. Astoria. Is that right?

[Justin Davis]

Goonies never say die.

[Sam Claiborne]

Goonies never say died. Apparently there's another movie, so they definitely not going to say die yet. So was this a platform exclusive, like on a platform?

[Justin Davis]

Yes.

[Damon Hatfield]

I guess we should just start narrowing. Was. Do you want to narrow by company or by platform? Probably company first. Right. Was it. Was this a Nintendo game?

[Justin Davis]

Yes.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, That's a good start. That's a good start. Platform exclusive Nintendo game.

[Sam Claiborne]

Or was this. Was any element of this game represented in character form or music form or anything in the direct today?

[Justin Davis]

No.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay.

[Sam Claiborne]

No direct representation.

[Damon Hatfield]

Was this. Did this game come out this millennia?

[Justin Davis]

Yes.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, so nothing super Nintendo or earlier. Right.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is the.

[Damon Hatfield]

Or not? Yeah. No, go ahead.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is the main character a human or human like being.

[Justin Davis]

Yes. That's five.

[Sam Claiborne]

Because Mario. Who knows?

[Damon Hatfield]

Who knows, right? I mean, even Link. Link has pointy ears. Right.

[Sam Claiborne]

Sometimes he's a hellion.

[Damon Hatfield]

Right. It's confusing. Yeah, you never know. Humanoid or whatever. All right. Was this a Zelda game?

[Justin Davis]

No.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is this a Mushroom Kingdom adjacent game?

[Justin Davis]

No.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, now it's hard. So that means no Star Fox. So it's not like Star Fox Legends is some weird pick.

[Sam Claiborne]

Did this game have a In as part of a series? Did it have an NES entry?

[Justin Davis]

No.

[Sam Claiborne]

Interesting. Interesting. Okay, so it doesn't have older origins or maybe it's.

[Damon Hatfield]

Glover is not a human. Right.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is this the first in a series?

[Justin Davis]

No.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay, so it's in the middle of the series, but didn't originate.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, man. So not Mushroom Kingdom, not Zelda.

[Sam Claiborne]

We don't know if it's Nintendo developed actually.

[Tom Marks]

Right.

[Damon Hatfield]

Because. No, we don't.

[Sam Claiborne]

Exclusive platform.

[Damon Hatfield]

Exclusive with a human.

[Sam Claiborne]

Was this developed by Nintendo?

[Justin Davis]

Yes. And that is 10.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay. Okay. I think we can get this.

[Damon Hatfield]

What? I mean, so then Metroid maybe?

[Sam Claiborne]

No, that was on nes.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Excuse me. Excuse me. You said it was not pre.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, I'm thinking something like me related or.

[Damon Hatfield]

Huh?

[Sam Claiborne]

You know, something. You know, they did have a few. Well, let me ask this. Did this series start in the new millennium?

[Justin Davis]

No.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay, so that's interesting. So it could be an arcade game or a 64 game or a Game Boy. Game series.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, it could be in the Kid Icarus line of things.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, it could be Icky's.

[Damon Hatfield]

Although. Is an angel a human? I guess you said human. Like I think maybe.

[Sam Claiborne]

I don't know if he's an angel. Remember his dad made him wings?

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, fair, fair, fair. I forgot the lore.

[Sam Claiborne]

But that's. But that's on nes, so that's why I asked that originally. Because of Kid Icarus.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you said. I thought you said snes. That my brain is faulty today. So arcade then.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, OR SNES or 64 or something else like. I don't know. I don't know if this is going to help us where the series came from, but I'm interested now. Can't. I can't unsee. We can just completely drop this line of questioning and go to other things. If we want, we can ask like. Because I still don't know what system it's for.

[Damon Hatfield]

Right.

[Tom Marks]

Was.

[Sam Claiborne]

We could ask handheld or console to start with.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, yeah. That's what I was about to do is was this a handheld game?

[Justin Davis]

No.

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Sam Claiborne]

So it's not Switch either.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Did this come from a system with a Wii in the title?

[Justin Davis]

No.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, so then GameCube.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is that possible?

[Damon Hatfield]

When did the N64 come out?

[Sam Claiborne]

Came out in 1996.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay. Okay. So statistically speaking, probably.

[Sam Claiborne]

No, no, we know it's new millennium. You already asked that. We know the game is from the 2000s.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. But what I mean is like if it came out at the end of the 90s, then technically it could still be a N64 game that was released second half of the life or whatever. But.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, oh, that's. Yes. Accurate. Yes.

[Tom Marks]

So.

[Damon Hatfield]

But I think GameCube is where we are looking.

[Sam Claiborne]

It could be like Banjo Tooie, Right.

[Tom Marks]

If.

[Damon Hatfield]

If Damon's counting Banjo is human. Like I. Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Or Conquer.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Perfect. Dark, I think came out in the new millennium.

[Damon Hatfield]

It came out in 2000, but yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

This is all getting confusing though. I don't know who. Who owns what and Nintendo, blah, blah, blah. Hey, is the.

[Damon Hatfield]

I just like, I'm struggling on Non Mario, Non Zelda. Human Nintendo characters just like that are also old.

[Sam Claiborne]

Can you play as this character in Smash Brothers?

[Justin Davis]

I'm not going to count this one. I don't know. I'm not a Smash Brothers guy, but I'm going to say probably not, but I'm not. I won't count that one.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay, okay.

[Tom Marks]

Okay.

[Sam Claiborne]

So let me just get this out of the way. How many questions do we have.

[Justin Davis]

You have asked 13 questions.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is this on the GameCube?

[Justin Davis]

Yes.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay.

[Sam Claiborne]

This is. Okay, we can get a GameCube library game, I think, in three questions, let alone five.

[Damon Hatfield]

So instant game boiling. Say again?

[Sam Claiborne]

And it's. I mean, just. It's surprising. It's. Nintendo published this or whatever.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, Nintendo. Nintendo made game with a sort of kind of human character that's not Zelda or in the Mushroom Kingdom on GameCube.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, that didn't originate in the NES.

[Damon Hatfield]

So that didn't originate on the NES. That's. That's where we're at. I'm trying to think of. I was trying to ask like genre questions, but I don't know what's useful there.

[Sam Claiborne]

What about Pokemon?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, that's technically. Because that started on Game Boy.

[Sam Claiborne]

Right.

[Damon Hatfield]

So.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yep, we're good.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. It's. GameCube, though, has weird ones. It would be like, hey, you Pikachu.

[Sam Claiborne]

No, that's a. Well, I mean, it has the dark. Dark legend. Dark Legends or something. Pokemon Legends X. I don't know. Something like that.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, there's. Whatever the Coliseum Colosseum, I think was the. Was the GameCube version of Stadium.

[Sam Claiborne]

But also I think Damon would know if you played as Pokemon.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, that's true. That's true.

[Sam Claiborne]

So let's keep Pokemon in the ranks here. Okay.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

As an option. Right. And then we have. Yeah, you can just Star Fox. That didn't start on nes, right?

[Damon Hatfield]

No, it didn't. But I don't know again, like, the question of was it humanoid or human? Like, was like. Is throwing me off.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. Zero Fox given.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. My mind is drawing a blank of just like popular Nintendo GameCube games. Or I guess we're looking for like good but hidden or maybe it's bad. Well, this is a top five for them. Underrated.

[Sam Claiborne]

I don't know if that's. I don't know. You never know. It's like it could be top 5 worst games I've ever played.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, that's fair.

[Justin Davis]

He did.

[Sam Claiborne]

I can't remember.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, Joey did say they consider it to be a top five all time favorite.

[Sam Claiborne]

All time favorite. Okay. Pickman we got. Right.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. Pikmin is. Isn't. Yeah, actually that's.

[Sam Claiborne]

But no, but didn't we say this originated in the 90s, though?

[Justin Davis]

Do we not know that you know that? You know that it did not originate this millennia.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay.

[Sam Claiborne]

F0.

[Damon Hatfield]

That's actually a really good direction play as humans. No, but But Captain Falcon is like absolutely in Smash Bros.

[Sam Claiborne]

But he doesn't know. Damon doesn't know who that is. Is this a racing game?

[Justin Davis]

Yes. That's 15.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, so it could be.

[Sam Claiborne]

What was it called?

[Damon Hatfield]

GX, DX and GX. There were two. Right. One was the arcade version and one wasn't born.

[Sam Claiborne]

I have no idea. I'm glad I even got to x.

[Damon Hatfield]

I believe f0dx and f0gx. One was at the home and one was.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, let's.

[Damon Hatfield]

I mean, yeah, I think. I think probably one of those is. Is the direction then. How many questions? We have six more questions.

[Sam Claiborne]

But Damon, did you ever play F0 on Super Nintendo?

[Justin Davis]

Yes.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay.

[Sam Claiborne]

Did this series have an amazing soundtrack for the Super Nintendo?

[Justin Davis]

No.

[Tom Marks]

Wow.

[Sam Claiborne]

All right, there we go.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, no racing game though.

[Sam Claiborne]

So what Mario Kart? What?

[Damon Hatfield]

GameCube Nintendo Racing Games Were there F0.

[Sam Claiborne]

Mario Kart and Wave Race 64? Yeah, had one on there. And downhill snowboarding type stuff.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Not all humans.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh man. I wonder if it's snowboard kids.

[Sam Claiborne]

No, no, it would be called 1080 or whatever it's called.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. Or SSX. No, that's not platform exclusive.

[Sam Claiborne]

Wait, didn't we ask about it being a racing game?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, it is a racing game, I.

[Sam Claiborne]

Guess is wave race on GameCube. See, this is. This is a hole in my knowledge, so it's difficult for me. So we get asked something about like, do you drive, you know, a vehicle that either has wheels or floats and then that would get you cart and f0. Or you know, we could ask a question about like, is this like extreme sports adjacent?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, sports was where I was gonna go if, like, let's do that. Is this a, Is this a like extreme sports esque racing game? Like that style of thing?

[Justin Davis]

Yes.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, so then it's.

[Sam Claiborne]

I don't know what these games are called. So I. I don't know. I don't know. The 1080 is all I can think of. I think.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. 1080 snowboarding, I believe is what it's called. I just don't. I'm not familiar enough with that game to know for sure.

[Sam Claiborne]

I'm pretty sure there's a jet skiing game for. For GameCube. I thought after the 64, but I always think of Wave Race success. So maybe I'm wrong about that.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, okay, so let's narrow it down further and just ask snowboarding. Are you asking, is this a snowboard? Is this a snowboarding game?

[Sam Claiborne]

Is snowboarding.

[Justin Davis]

No. You have one question and a guess.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, man. I am not familiar with Wave Race games on. On GameCube is the problem here.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

There's also just. If it's that skateboarding game where you had the physical skateboard you stood on and had to move.

[Sam Claiborne]

No, no, no. It's made by Nintendo. Yeah. I don't know. You said we have one question, and I guess it might not be. I can't remember what Nintendo's extreme sports situation was. I just don't know. So we could do, you know, is this a jet skiing game? And then do our best. But it might not be. It might be something else.

[Damon Hatfield]

Is there like a. Like a pilot wings?

[Sam Claiborne]

An Excite Trucker? See, there's no Excite or Pilot on that.

[Damon Hatfield]

Wait, there was Excite Truck. There was an Excite Truck game where you could put in. Was that Wii? Oh, yeah. Because you used the SD card. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is this a water sports game?

[Justin Davis]

Yes.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, boy.

[Justin Davis]

And I'll say, you know, the. The subtitle is not required.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, yeah. So I think it's just called Wave Race.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, I'm following your lead here, Sam.

[Sam Claiborne]

Wave race for GameCube.

[Justin Davis]

Yes, it is. It's called Wave Race. Blue Storm.

[Damon Hatfield]

Blue Storm. I do remember that, actually. Now.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is that Sonic the Hedgehog? Wow. I can't believe you got there. That was a tough one.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

2001. So it must have been a launch title for GameCube. And look at it go.

[Sam Claiborne]

Look at that fog.

[Damon Hatfield]

I don't know.

[Justin Davis]

I don't know if this is. This could be the N64 one. We're looking at 64. I don't think this is the GameCube one.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, give it a second. Give it a second. We'll get the right one up here.

[Justin Davis]

We. We gave this one blue storm a 9.2.

[Sam Claiborne]

Wow. I bet it looked incredible for that time. You know, Nintendo was at the top of their game for graphics. Here we go. Back, back to the 64. Unless it's not. I have no idea. Now that's got to be 60.

[Justin Davis]

Okay. We're being told this is GameCube, even though it looks like an N64 game.

[Sam Claiborne]

Wow. Crazy.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. What an interesting thing.

[Damon Hatfield]

Hard to tell at 240p.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, it's postage stamp size.

[Justin Davis]

You do play as humans. And actually three of these characters are from 1080. They have three snowboarding characters from 1080 in here. Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

That's funny. What happened to those series?

[Justin Davis]

I don't know. This was the last one. But wave race 64 was actually not the first game somehow the first wave race game is a game boy game. I don't know how.

[Sam Claiborne]

What?

[Justin Davis]

I know. I don't know how.

[Sam Claiborne]

Wow.

[Damon Hatfield]

Wow.

[Tom Marks]

Okay.

[Damon Hatfield]

That's a. That's a tricky one, that one.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, well, I'm glad we didn't rely on that. That was an interesting thing to try to find when the series originated as the way to figure out this game, even though it did not lead us down the right path anyway.

[Damon Hatfield]

Right. Yeah, we just had to abandon it. Just to confirm. For my own sanity, Damon, you don't consider Banjo Kazooie a human, and you know that Captain Falcon is in Smash Bros. Right?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, I know both of those things.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay.

[Justin Davis]

Okay.

[Damon Hatfield]

I just wanted to make sure.

[Justin Davis]

I'm gonna say there's no Wave Race Racer as a playable character, but there's probably a trophy in there, right? Or something.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, trophy, I think. Yes. But they don't have any sort of playable component or like assist trophy or anything.

[Justin Davis]

I mean, none of these are like characters that anyone didn't know their name or anything.

[Sam Claiborne]

Look at those reflections. They look kind of unbelievable for GameCube.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. I think this is a very good looking game for the time.

[Sam Claiborne]

What was, what was the. The writer's five things?

[Justin Davis]

No, it just said this is a top five all time favorite. And it says, however, it might be the most underappreciated Nintendo game.

[Sam Claiborne]

So they said, oh, just straight up Nintendo game. Okay.

[Justin Davis]

Because as you demonstrated, it's not a very well remembered game. Right. It.

[Sam Claiborne]

No. Yeah. I wonder what was coming out right on top of this that made it so even me. A super game.

[Justin Davis]

Luigi, Luigi's Mansion and then Star Wars Rogue Squadron. Right.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, it was a launch game.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's out in 2001 and the game, it just. It launched in like November 2001. So it has driven.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, yeah. So this was launch support. Weird.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, look, it's got an ice level. That's funny.

[Justin Davis]

Yep.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, I was really nicely, really pulling for snowboarding.

[Justin Davis]

Nicely job. It's always exciting to get it on the 20th question. Break your losing streak.

[Sam Claiborne]

Damon, was there a snowboarding game on?

[Justin Davis]

I think there was 1080 avalanche. Avalanche and 1080 snowboarding is in 64. Then 1080 avalanche is on GameCube. Thank you for the suggestion, Joey in Astoria, Oregon. Viewers, listeners, if you have your own suggestions for 20 Questions, email them to me at the email address gamescoopgn.com this episode of Gamescoop was produced by yours truly, Damon Hatfield and Nick Maye. Technical direction is handled by Nick Maye. Technical production is by Marian Franzen and Amira Keeb. Audio engineering is by Amira Keeb and post production editing is by yours truly, Damon Hatfield. Graphic design is by Nicole Kagempen. Gamescoop is an IGN production and part of the Geek Media Network. Over on the Oxventure podcast, also part of Geek Media, the Weird west returns in season two of Oxventure Deadlands. After overcoming impossible odds, the characters are now running a monster hunting agency for hire. But when supernatural forces threaten one of their posse, it sets in motion a whole new adventure. They may not all survive. Ox Avenger Deadlands is a rip roaring horror comedy perfect for fans of D and D or anyone who wants to get into tabletop RPGs but doesn't know where to start. Search Oxventure. That's O X V E N T U r e on YouTube or your podcast of choice. And that is all the scoops that we have for you this week. Thank you Tom. Always a pleasure having you on. Thank you Sam. Thank you.

[Sam Claiborne]

Thanks for the win Tom.

[Justin Davis]

Thank you to the ghost of Justin. My name is Damon. We were talking about Gradius and Life Force earlier and those games have awesome music. So right after these messages, stick around. I'm going to play a bunch of really cool Gradius and Life Force music for the pleasure. For your listening pleasure. My name is Damon, this is IGN gamescoop. And we're out. I'm Amy Nicholson, the film critic for the LA Times. And I'm Paul Scheer, an actor, writer and director. You might know me from the League, Veep or my non eligible for Academy Award role in Twisters. We love movies and we come at them from different perspectives. Yeah, like Amy thinks that you know Joe Pesci was miscast in Goodfellas and I don't. He's too old. Let's not forget that Paul thinks that Dune 2 is overrated.

[Tom Marks]

It is.

[Justin Davis]

Anyway, despite this, we come together to host Unspooled, a podcast where we talk about good movies, critical hits, fan favorites, must sees, and in case you missed ems, we're talking the Home Alone From Grease to the Dark Knight. We've done deep dives on popcorn flicks, we've talked about why Independence Day deserves a second look. And we've talked about horror movies, some that you've never even heard of, a Ganja and Hess. So if you love movies like we do, come along on our cinematic adventure. Listen to Unspooled wherever you get your podcasts and don't forget to hit the follow button. What's up, fellow TV watchers? It's Brian from the Core podcast, where we cover all things Apple TV Plus. We are wrapping up our recaps of Emmy favorite severance, but 2025 on Apple TV plus is just getting started. In April and May, the Core is recapping Seth Rogen's new Hollywood satire the Studio and Jon Hamm's dark comedy your Friends and Neighbors. We'll also be recapping the first two seasons of Apple's Sci Fi Thriller foundation heading into the third season of that later this year. Search for the core all things Apple TV plus on Apple Podcasts Spotify and YouTube.