Game Scoop! 810: The Most Excited I’ve Been for GTA Since Vice City

Summary

Episode Title: Game Scoop! 810: The Most Excited I’ve Been for GTA Since Vice City
Release Date: May 9, 2025
Host/Authors: Daemon Hatfield, Sam Claiborne, Justin Davis, Mark Medina
Podcast: Game Scoop! by IGN & Geek Media

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Introduction

In Episode 810 of Game Scoop!, hosts Daemon Hatfield, Sam Claiborne, Justin Davis, and Mark Medina delve into some of the most pressing topics in the gaming world. The episode primarily focuses on the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA 6) delay, the latest GTA 6 trailer, significant Xbox hardware price increases, and the surprising news of Gears of War making its way to PlayStation. The discussion is enriched with expert insights, lively debates, and humorous banter, making it a must-listen for gaming enthusiasts.

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Grand Theft Auto VI: Delay and New Trailer

The conversation kicks off with the long-awaited news that GTA 6 has been delayed from its initially promised release window of Fall 2025 to May 26, 2026. Daemon Hatfield expresses optimism despite the delay:

Daemon Hatfield [04:44]: "I think this is the most excited I've been about GTA in a very long time."

Mark Medina speculates on Rockstar’s decision, suggesting it might be Rockstar's "last hurrah" with an estimated production cost rumored to be around $2 billion. The hosts discuss the newly released trailer, noting its impressive graphical fidelity and the balance between cutscenes and gameplay:

Justin Davis [06:07]: "It's unbelievable just the amount of detail... they're doing it in an open world game that like open world games have like a lower standard for visual fidelity."

The team marvels at the realistic graphics, pointing out subtle details like reflections in mirrors and the lifelike movement of water:

Sam Claiborne [03:35]: "Every bloom of light on a window pane is unbelievable. Unreal."

They also touch upon the improved character dynamics in GTA 6, highlighting the relationship between characters Lucia and Jason, which contrasts with the constant bickering seen in GTA 5:

Daemon Hatfield [09:04]: "This time it seems like what Lucia and Jason, it seems like they really care about each other and they get along well."

There is a discussion about the trailer’s cinematic quality, with Sam expressing excitement over how it resembles a streaming show:

Sam Claiborne [20:13]: "My biggest takeaway from this trailer is... how much it looks like a streaming show that I want to watch."

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Xbox Hardware Price Increases

Transitioning from GTA 6, the hosts tackle the recent price hikes of Xbox hardware. Damon highlights the substantial increase in prices, noting that:

Daemon Hatfield [22:30]: "It's all just to say our talk about the Switch 2 seeming expensive is seeming a little bit more palatable now."

Mark Medina offers a theory behind the price surge, suggesting Xbox is attempting to offset losses from poor sales:

Mark Medina [23:24]: "My only theory with this is that they have decided that we are selling so few Series X and Series S consoles that they have decided that they are no longer going to take a loss on them."

Justin Davis adds that tariffs might be a contributing factor to the increased costs:

Justin Davis [23:43]: "Well, but if anything, it would be more. Right. Like a hundred dollars is not them absorbing the entire tariff."

The hosts express concern over the affordability for consumers, especially with the Xbox Series X now priced at $600 and the Series S nearing $400.

Mark Medina [25:00]: "But it's like... $800 for a console is insane that something that isn't selling that well is now $100 more."

They also discuss the absence of a PlayStation 5 Pro model and speculate on potential price increases from Sony:

Justin Davis [26:25]: "I don't think they're exiting the hardware market, but I think they don't really care."

---

Gears of War Comes to PlayStation

In a surprising twist, Gears of War is announced to be releasing on PlayStation platforms:

Daemon Hatfield [49:08]: "Gears of War is coming to Xbox, PC, and PlayStation. Anyone else surprised it's not coming to Switch?"

The hosts are taken aback by the cross-platform release, especially since Gears of War has been a staple exclusive to Xbox. This move is seen as a significant shift, potentially indicative of broader strategies within Microsoft and Rockstar:

Sam Claiborne [49:21]: "It seems like it's only a matter of time for Halo, right?"

The discussion extends to how this could affect future releases and the relationship between Microsoft and other gaming platforms.

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Impact on Gaming Industry and Future Releases

Further into the episode, the hosts analyze the broader implications of these developments on the gaming industry. They highlight the upcoming release of Elder Scrolls 6 as another major title under Xbox’s control, which, paired with GTA 6, positions Xbox at the forefront of next-generation gaming content.

Mark Medina [29:40]: "Elder Scrolls 6... that's completely within Xbox's control."

The conversation also touches upon gaming trends, such as the rising cost of games and the challenges faced by developers in meeting high expectations without extending development cycles excessively.

Justin Davis [35:17]: "These companies have lost it. Like our games are, our console is $800 and our games are $80."

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Industry Insights and Concluding Thoughts

The episode wraps up with reflections on the state of the gaming industry, emphasizing the tension between rising costs and the demand for high-quality, frequent game releases. The hosts advocate for a balanced approach where game developers can release new titles every two to three years without compromising quality or inflating prices excessively.

Daemon Hatfield [48:10]: "It just can't go faster... We goofed on Activision."

They also briefly discuss the future of game consoles, controller variations, and the potential introduction of new hardware like a PC hybrid Xbox, which might cater to the evolving needs of gamers.

Mark Medina [31:34]: "If there is a GTA 6 edition, make sure to wait for that."

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Notable Quotes

• Daemon Hatfield [04:44]: "I think this is the most excited I've been about GTA in a very long time."
• Justin Davis [06:07]: "It's unbelievable just the amount of detail... they're doing it in an open world game that like open world games have like a lower standard for visual fidelity."
• Mark Medina [23:24]: "They are no longer going to take a loss on them."
• Justin Davis [35:17]: "These companies have lost it. Like our games are, our console is $800 and our games are $80."
• Sam Claiborne [49:21]: "It seems like it's only a matter of time for Halo, right?"

---

Conclusion

Episode 810 of Game Scoop! offers an in-depth exploration of significant developments in the gaming landscape, particularly focusing on the anticipated GTA 6 release and the strategic moves by Xbox concerning hardware pricing and game exclusivity. The hosts provide valuable insights into how these changes might shape the future of gaming, balancing enthusiasm for upcoming titles with critical observation of industry trends. Whether you're a longtime fan or new to the gaming scene, this episode delivers a comprehensive and engaging analysis of the current state and future direction of video games.

Transcript

[Damon Hatfield]

GTA 6 has been delayed, but we finally got that second trailer. Plus Gears of War comes to PlayStation and Xboxes are getting way more expensive. That's all coming up on gamescoop right after these messages. Planning any exciting trips this year? I bet something you might not be planning is learning the local language. Well, with Babbel you only need a few weeks to learn. This year, speak like a whole new you with Babbel, the language learning app that gets you talking. Babbel's quick 10 minute lessons, handcrafted by over 200 language experts, get you to begin speaking your new language in three weeks or whatever pace you choose. And because conversing is the key to really understanding each other in new languages, Babbel is designed using practical real world conversations. Babbel's tips and tools are inspired by the real life stuff you actually need when communicating. With a focus on conversation, you'll be ready to talk wherever you go. I took a trip to Mexico last year and used Babbel to brush up on my Spanish. Babbel is useful for learning an entirely new language, but also for those who, like me, hadn't used a second language in many years and needed some refreshers. Need proof that Babbel gets you talking? Studies from Yale, Michigan State and other leading universities continue to prove Babel works. One study found that using Babel for 15 hours is equivalent to a full semester at College. With over 16 million subscriptions sold, Babbel's 14 award winning language courses are backed by a 20 day money back guarantee. This year I want you to learn another language. So I'm teaming up with Babbel to gift you 55% off subscriptions, but only for our listeners at babbel.com Gamescoop get up to 55% off at babbel.com GamesCoop spelled b a B-B-E-L.com GamesCoop rules and restrictions may apply.

[Mark Medina]

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[Damon Hatfield]

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[Damon Hatfield]

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

[Sam Claiborne]

Hey, it's good to be here.

[Damon Hatfield]

Justin Davis.

[Justin Davis]

Scoop.

[Damon Hatfield]

And Mark Medina.

[Mark Medina]

I'm back. Damon.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, that's kind of a mix of yours and Nick's catchphrases. I don't know if that's allowed.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, can you go back to like, all those wild west ones? Remember those? What? How did you. Partners.

[Mark Medina]

You mean to. Best game Scoop episode intro ever. Yes.

[Damon Hatfield]

I forget why you were so excited. I forgot why you were so excited that episode. Anyway, there's a lot to talk about.

[Mark Medina]

Slammed an energy drink. Yeah, I'm good.

[Damon Hatfield]

So much to talk about. Lots of news happened this week. We'll talk about the Xbox raising prices of hardware and games. We'll talk about Gears of war coming to PlayStation after all this time. But first, Grand Theft Auto 6, which was. Was at once one point promised for fall 2025, now delayed deep into 2026. May 26, 2026, I believe it's the only game with a date in 2026 as of right now. And of course, it'll be interesting to see how release dates fill in as everyone. No one wants to be around the Release date of GTA 6.

[Justin Davis]

No.

[Damon Hatfield]

But we did get this new trailer.

[Mark Medina]

One company.

[Damon Hatfield]

Wait. Oh, except they're volume.

[Mark Medina]

They said that they are releasing a game on that day.

[Damon Hatfield]

I know. Yeah. Which is cute. That's. That's good. I like that.

[Sam Claiborne]

And Nintendo, who will be like, I've never heard of that gta. What does it stand for?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, that's true. But first of all, we got this new trailer that everyone seems pretty excited about. I have to admit, I. I think it. I think it looks great. We were talking about it seemed to be mostly, if not all, cutscenes, but then today Rockstar is like. It's half cutscenes, half gameplay. And I'm like, okay, grandpa. Okay. Yeah, that. It's. I. I'm sure it's half gameplay. Okay. Anyway.

[Justin Davis]

Look at that water sloshing around in those beers.

[Damon Hatfield]

I know.

[Justin Davis]

It's unbelievable how good this game looks.

[Sam Claiborne]

Every bloom of light on a window pane is unbelievable. Unreal.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yep, yep, yep. It all looks really good.

[Mark Medina]

The review mirrors have reflections in them now. It's weird you don't notice some of this stuff. Like he opens the cash register and you see the change kind of bounce around.

[Justin Davis]

Yep.

[Mark Medina]

It's like it's just real life now. And you. So you don't notice how good it looks.

[Justin Davis]

That is what unlimited time and money can buy you. Is the. Is the beer sloshing around in the container.

[Sam Claiborne]

I don't think this is sustainable. This might be the last game that does all of this.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, that's what I was, I'm like, that's exactly the point that I was saying the other day is so this is the last one that's going to be like this. And not just because it's cost them, you know, a rumored $2 billion to make the game, but also like some of the original Rockstar founders and GTA creators, you know, have moved on to go do their own thing during their production of this game. So it's like, man, this is if this is the last hurrah. What a, what a one to go out on.

[Sam Claiborne]

We were just looking up the GTA 5 release date for Xbox 360 and PS3. This is two and a half consoles later.

[Justin Davis]

Let's see. I, I'm 40. So how many GTAs do I have left after this? Two more maybe.

[Sam Claiborne]

We used to get a GTA every year and like if, if, if, if we were unlucky, we'd get a Game Boy 1 or whatever too. Yeah, you know and then there was like the Chinatown wars era where you just get, and then there was like the what is the Vice City stories on psp. They were just everywhere. Just get a GTA all the time and then no, just stopped.

[Mark Medina]

The PS2 had three mainline GTAs.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yep.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, I heard you guys talking about GTA 5 when we were getting all mic'd up and you, you, you seem surprised that it was. You played it on 360.

[Mark Medina]

Yep.

[Damon Hatfield]

For the first time.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

But why surprise? Just cuz it came out the same year as the PS4 and Xbox One.

[Mark Medina]

I, I've been at IGN almost. Yeah, I know, that is weird. I've been at IGN almost 10 years in October like between my full time contract work and then, and then full time staff. A Grand Theft Auto has not come out since I've worked at ign. Like a mainline Grand Theft Auto. Yeah. But Red Dead 2 did come out in 2018 so there's just nobody doing nothing.

[Justin Davis]

I'm sure you know ign, if we haven't, I'm sure we're going to. But there's a million other people doing like tiny details in the trailer. Like it's unbelievable just the amount of detail and like if you like. I do video games for a living and it's my main hobby. It's the main thing I'm interested in. You kind of learn to like see the Matrix, a little bit of like.

[Sam Claiborne]

Look at the glass. Justin look at the glass.

[Justin Davis]

I know. Or just like most video games, including really, really good, really high end video games have like asset reuse or like, you know, if there's something that's only going to be used and displayed one time, like some cool weird statue, like they make a set piece out of it or it's a linear game, like Uncharted and you're going to have to climb all over it. Right. And that's why they put so much time into. It's like building a set in a movie. It's like we're going to spend eight minutes in this scene, so we need to build a set. Whereas GTA has that has that Naughty Dog level, just insane level of detail that every other company on earth has to put in their like 8 hour linear game. But they're doing it in an open world game that like open world games have like a lower standard for like visual fidelity and like character art and unique assets. Like, it's honestly flabbergasting to me that this exists.

[Sam Claiborne]

It looks this, the graphics in this look better than the Last of Us TV show.

[Damon Hatfield]

Side note. No, we're not gonna spend a lot of time on this. Did you guys like the last episode?

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, I just watched it last night. It was all right.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah. Okay.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Seattle looks so good in it. It does look really cool.

[Damon Hatfield]

You know, I liked it and the.

[Sam Claiborne]

Guitar scene was cool.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's the. I think it's the most like gameplay episode we've had a long time. It's just like, it's kind of like. It's very much like filming the moment to moment gameplay. And I, I would just, I'd be curious to know people who haven't played the game if they pick up on that. But anyway, I thought it was good.

[Mark Medina]

I'm very curious what the counting was like. Why was Dena like. She's. She's doing the like hand.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh yeah. She's counting how many and she.

[Sam Claiborne]

And then she previous episode that she's good at identifying how many infected are in a building by that.

[Mark Medina]

It's like I understood that that's what she was doing. Every time she heard a scream, she was adding a number and then she gets to five and then just hundreds come around.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, well, she did count five.

[Mark Medina]

There were at least five of them.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

The thing that keeps cracking me up about that series is that there's like the central casted characters which are all whatever. We're used to them now. We know who they are, everything, everybody that they show, like in like the WLF or like, you know, in any crew, anything is like a group of like casted, like you know, 20 something OC back background characters. It's so funny. It's like, it's like everybody just looks like an actor all the time. And it's like in the apocalypse. It's just so weird.

[Damon Hatfield]

I know what you mean.

[Mark Medina]

Hey, but Jeffrey Wright reprises his character from the game.

[Damon Hatfield]

That's cool. And I like, I liked his introduction too.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, that was good. That was a scary little scene.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, back to GTA 6. I'm really, I'm feeling more and more excited about this. I think this is the most excited I've been about GTA in a very long time. Vice City is my favorite in the series up until now. Of course, we're returning to Vice City, although it's not an 80s setting. But I think the other thing that has me excited is that by the end of GTA 5, I was so sick of those three characters just arguing nonstop. Like they never stop arguing the entire game. But this time it seems like what Lucia and Jason, it seems like they really care about each other and they get along well.

[Justin Davis]

Except, I mean, there's a persistent. And this isn't a spoiler of any kind, it's just Internet rumor and speculation is that Jason is a cop.

[Damon Hatfield]

Sure, I know. I get that. Part of the reason for that is when he's picking her up, the. The policeman there says, have I seen you around here before? And Jason's like, you might have. Something like that. Yeah. So, yeah, sure, that's a theory. But at least from everything we've seen, they seem to care about each other. At least it looks like there's not going to be people just arguing nonstop for 12 hours.

[Justin Davis]

Right. I mean, it is weird. I've seen some people be a little bit weird about, you know, sort of the romance and sex in the trailer and then, and then there's this pushback on like, you know, get over it. Right. Like that can be in video games. But I do think part of the reason why hits a little bit weird is video game romances. As you're normally romancing an npc.

[Sam Claiborne]

And that's a good freeze frame.

[Mark Medina]

Justin froze on the perfect frame I've ever seen in my life.

[Damon Hatfield]

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[Justin Davis]

Did I just. Am I. Can you. Am I still.

[Mark Medina]

You're back now.

[Damon Hatfield]

You're back.

[Sam Claiborne]

You were talking about.

[Justin Davis]

Okay, okay.

[Damon Hatfield]

You were saying you normally romance NPCs. That's. That's the last game, right?

[Justin Davis]

So it's strange. Like, when you're playing a video game, you identify with the main character and it's not like you think you are Trevor or whatever, right? Like, but you. Like, you're playing as that character, but in this game, you play as the two of them. So it's slightly strange if they have a romance where you're like, but they're. But these. But they're me. I don't know.

[Mark Medina]

They're both me.

[Justin Davis]

It hits a little bit different.

[Damon Hatfield]

It doesn't bother me. I think it's self romance.

[Sam Claiborne]

The. The crux of this couple being at the center of all the story and everything, which I hope is what it is. And it's not like something that they're like, you know, I hope this isn't the first two hours of the game. Then all of a sudden, like, Trevor's in it or whatever. And the reason I say that is, like, you do, like, what happens in all those other games is that you play as a psychopath, right? Like, no matter who it is, like Tommy Versetti or whatever, like, you end up just like, running down people and telling jokes, you know? And I think it changes the calculation like it does in Red Dead where you have this, like, family. In Red Dead, right? That game is about a family, and how is that family going to survive as, like, the world around them that they live in is going away? Like, if this is about, you know, this couple and, you know, their relationship and the crime that they're doing, like, Bonnie and Clyde style, that changes the idea of every single, like, GTA thing. Like, when they start showing the streets here and, like, showing what's happening, like, how realistic it is. Like, it makes you uncomfortable. Like, do you really want to do the thing where you're running over as many people as possible? Like, I'm glad that they're pushing us to be like, this is not about three psychopaths this time. It just isn't. And then what does that change? Well, I don't know. Maybe it doesn't change it for the better, but it changes.

[Justin Davis]

Is true. It's like the GTA style mayhem or video game violence in general hits differently as like visual fidelity increases of like in GTA 3 where it's like, hahaha, I was with a hooker and then I beat him with a baseball bat. And like, but they look like. But they're made out of like six polygons killing real people. Right. Like so you know, I. And, and the poverty aspect of it and how that ties in with crime, like that's been obviously getting more and more sort of to the forefront of, of GTAs ever since. Ever since four, probably.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, May 26th, I was, you know, I was thinking, I, I was thinking, man, all the games of fall must have be breathing a sigh of relief, but actually we don't have very many fall release dates at this point. Actually it has not filled in. Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

So why. Wait, why did Border, Why did Borderlands.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, that Borderland theory ended up being. Yeah, nothing. We were like, oh, they're getting out of the way of gta. Guess not.

[Sam Claiborne]

Even though they said they weren't.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. So I think the only big.

[Justin Davis]

Oh yeah, but I think the only.

[Damon Hatfield]

Big fall dates we have right now are Borderlands 4 on September 12, Marathon on September 23, and Ghost of V on October 2. But I guess on after like summer of gaming, like early June, that's when those release states start to fill in.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. I mean, you know, we know what the soonest Nintendo games are, but we also know there's two others out later this year. Right. Pokemon and Metroid without date. So those are, those are fall games. I mean Call of Duty and Battlefield never don't come out in the fall. Right? They, they're, they're, they're like always in November or October. Right. So those will be out too.

[Mark Medina]

Oh yeah. And I think Battlefield 6, I think they just said something about like they weren't worried or whatever, but. So I'm pretty sure that that's a non, non release date. But fall game.

[Justin Davis]

I wonder, I wonder if GTA comes out in May.

[Damon Hatfield]

You think it'll be delayed again?

[Mark Medina]

I, it could be.

[Justin Davis]

Like, I'm just, I don't, I'm. It's just, just idle speculation on my part. Like I think they give themselves the, the room to like.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, I think it is because you know, everything they were talking about, about it being PS5 footage is like, that's a good sign, for example. Right?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

And my other gameplay, you know, all that stuff.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, they, they gave a date like an actual, like it is the 26. Not just may or spring, but all.

[Sam Claiborne]

They need to change that to be fair, Mark, is A tweet with a black background, right?

[Mark Medina]

True. Yeah, 100%. I, yeah, well, I, I think, I.

[Sam Claiborne]

Do think they're going to hit it though. I, I think they're. It's just too much writing on it for 2k at this point to even, even, you know, have had this delay, first of all. Take two. Yeah, sorry.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, since it's the only game with, with a release date period in 2026, nothing near it, however it is, that date is right smack dab in the middle of the week between the Mandalorian and Grogu and an untitled DC film. And I just, it just makes me wonder like, GT when GTA 6 launches, it's gonna, it's going to be, it's going to make the most money in any entertainment thing has ever made immediately and everyone's going to be home playing it. If there's anything that's going to force like a movie to move, I think it would be that maybe not Mandalorian Grogu, because that has a very broad, even like younger demographic, but I think this untitled DC movie has got to go. We got to get that out of there. Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's also going to cost the most money to play. Right?

[Damon Hatfield]

I mean, that's the other thing.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mark Medina]

I mean, we might have to delay IGN Live next year, guys.

[Justin Davis]

I also talked at length about how I wasn't very interested in a PS5 Pro. Don't want one, don't think it's a good value. But then I saw GTA and I'm.

[Sam Claiborne]

Like, I know it will. I mean like, yeah, it's shocking that the PS5 Pro is like the only 1.5 system. Right? Like, there's no Xbox equivalent and there's no PC version of this reminder. So where is it going to look the best, like just by default, PS5 Pro.

[Damon Hatfield]

Earlier today I was talking with Ryan McAffrey on Next Gen console Watch and he actually traded in his base, his launch PS5 model and GameStop gave him 320 bucks for it.

[Mark Medina]

I was like, I would actually recommend it because like, you know, all this tariffs, talks, but like also GameStop, I always get spot and stop mixed up. GameStop has like kind of killer deals for trade ins right now.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, so here's. Here's the reason to wait though is what if they do a GTA 6 edition?

[Justin Davis]

Oh yeah.

[Mark Medina]

That they have the marketing rights.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. The trailer does have that moment with the fake PS5 in it. And another, another thing I was thinking about is like, as these games get more and More and more realistic. Like how much harder it is for them to fake. Like, oh, now we need a fake game console and fake car companies and fake beers and fake like it used to just be like Life Invader and it's like Facebook. Hahaha. But now it's like just everything. They have this whole parallel universe of like fake states. And like I think Trevor was from the fake city that manhunt takes place in. If I Remember right, in GTA 5. It's like that's just exhausting. They've, they've. There's all this GTA lore now. It's like, it's like the Tom Clancy verse of like. There's like, there's like 30 years of like fake presidents now.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

And then you have Kojima and he's just like, yeah, Monster energy is in my game. They survived.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, people even notice there's two, two different currencies in this trailer that have the presidents from Red Dead 2 them.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh my gosh.

[Damon Hatfield]

Indicating that they're in the same timeline. Just whatever, 200 years apart.

[Sam Claiborne]

So great.

[Justin Davis]

I mean that is really great.

[Mark Medina]

Yo, I want to go to Valentine in Grand Theft Auto.

[Sam Claiborne]

Maybe they'll have like, like capsule episode type things like that, you know, where you like, like, like in Red Dead there's one of those where you go to like, what is it, Cuba or something? But yeah, it'd be really, really cool if they had like a, you know, a quick, quick scene set in Arizona. What is it called? Not Tombstone. That's the real place. But yeah, that'd be neat. My biggest takeaway from this trailer is not really graphics or anything. It's that like how much it looks like a streaming show that I want to watch. Like it has this, it exudes this, this cool and you know, kind of look and dialogue and even casting that seems like the shows that are popular right now. Very interesting.

[Mark Medina]

The way his shirt wrinkles as he walks is just nuts. So nuts.

[Justin Davis]

All of it's nuts, man.

[Mark Medina]

It's hard to. Because I, I can see the gameplay moments. We were. I was working with a social team earlier and we found an exact. I'm sitting here scrubbing through Red Dead 2 walkthroughs to try to find a moment. There's a moment at the beginning of this trailer where he's shirtless and he turns around and, and goes through a door. The only thing that's missing is for the black bars to go away.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Cuz that we found that exact scene in Red Dead. Arthur Morgan turns around and he Walks into a thing and then the black bars go away and you take control of him. So it's like a lot of these are like, you're like, where's the game play? And it's like, it's after probably half of these moments driving in the car.

[Sam Claiborne]

There'S all these shots. Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

I, I'm expecting what's gonna happen is you're gonna see him driving in the car and then the camera's just gonna zoom out and then the black bars are gonna go away.

[Damon Hatfield]

Sure.

[Mark Medina]

That's what they're considering. Gameplay. They just aren't showing, you know, you running around as the character yet.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, I don't really consider that gameplay, but whatever.

[Sam Claiborne]

They keep on showing butts. It's like the whole trailer is all butts. And so maybe all the gameplay is where it's shooting a butt walking. Because that's just what, that's the stylistic choice in this game. It's a new. It's a new third person view with, you know, a two cheeks view. Third person, two cheeks.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, but Cam. Yeah, they just invented a whole new genre.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, exactly. And so for 20 questions, we can keep on asking.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. You know, does your character have two. Does your character have two cheeks?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay. GTA 6, everybody's excited. Moving on to this Xbox price increase. Man.

[Sam Claiborne]

What good timings.

[Damon Hatfield]

What good timing. Right now, A Xbox Series X 2 terabyte Galaxy Special Edition costs more than the PlayStation 5 Pro. They pretty much. They rose prices pretty much 20% across the board with all their hardware, meaning that your. Your Xbox Series X is up 100 bucks. The base model now costs $600.

[Mark Medina]

My. My only theory with this is that they have decided that we are selling so few Series X and Series S consoles that they have decided that they are no longer going to take a loss on them. That they are like, like, why else would they raise the prices like this?

[Justin Davis]

Well, it's tariffs.

[Mark Medina]

That's but a hundred dollars that is so expensive.

[Justin Davis]

Well, but if anything, it would be more. Right. Like a hundred dollars is not them absorbing the entire tariff.

[Sam Claiborne]

The tariff is doubling the price.

[Justin Davis]

Right, right. Yeah. I mean, well, the cost, you know. Yeah. And that's the thing. We don't know. Yeah, exactly. Like, we don't know what it's based off the cost of the item that they paid to manufacture the item. And so, you know, we don't know how much that is. Like, but, but, yeah, so that, that's, that's, that's why they're doing it. I, I mean, I, we're operating under the assumption on the commerce team that like a PS5 price rise is incoming too. I'm a little bit surprised it has. It hasn't happened already.

[Mark Medina]

I mean, that's why I keep saying, but just buy a PS5 Pro now because it's going to go up in price for sure.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. Because like PlayStation fives were outselling Xbox by many factors when there was price parity. Right. So like why, why is. Is PlayStation is going to sit idly by and like, oh, now we can just undercut them. Like, they don't need to. If anything, they could, they could probably comfortably increase their prices more than Xbox did.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah. And nowadays I think it, I think it's like five to one that they're, that they're.

[Damon Hatfield]

I think it's more like three to one. But sure, it's a lot.

[Mark Medina]

But it's like. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what to say. It's. It's insane that something that isn't selling that well, like it's now 100 more. I think the Series S is like almost 400 bucks now.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. I mean, I, I don't. In my opinion, I don't think there's any kind of like deeper like, oh, you know, we're behind or we're ahead or we're doing it for this strategy. It's like they were, they were. They were going to lose too much money not raising the price. I think they really just had no choice. Like their. How much it cost the company to get Xboxes into the United States went up a lot. Right. And so therefore they have no choice but to increase the price of the console.

[Sam Claiborne]

So I can see that PlayStation has a Pro out. They're going to be pushing Grand Theft Auto on it. They have, you know, their existing system that's selling well. Like this is. This is the rubber band effect that PlayStation needed. Like, they don't have the things that Xbox has over the. Over and over again. Xbox has had a really good run and like, just to see this, like push the PS5 even higher as like, it's basically going to be seen as a PS5 Pro lead game, the killer app. Right. It's so crazy that they're raising the price right when all that conversation happened. Like, if you were thinking about buying a Series X, like, there's no way you'd get that to play Grand Theft Auto on.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

I mean, but you got Gears of war coming to PS5.

[Sam Claiborne]

Exactly.

[Justin Davis]

I think that Microsoft is. I don't want to describe them as exiting the console market in the way that Sega did. Or some companies are just like, we don't make hardware anymore, we're done, goodbye forever. But Microsoft is just really, really doubling down on Game Pass, right. And games as a service. And I suspect we speculated about it, we have been speculating about it for years. But like I think, you know, Game pass on the Switch 2 or on the PS5, I think it's incoming, I think it's eminent. And then I, and then they'll release. I do think, I think Microsoft is going to have a new xbox. They're going to, you know, they have the Xbox Handheld. Like, I think, I don't think they're exiting the hardware market, but I think they don't really care.

[Damon Hatfield]

I think that's right.

[Justin Davis]

If they're winning anymore.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, I think they just, they've moved the focus of their business into Game Pass and into software, which we can talk about a bit. You know, they're finding a lot of success selling their software on PlayStation. But they, since Microsoft is, you know, upwards of $3 trillion company, they can afford to just sort of keep, keep their hardware business going as kind of, as kind of a hobby, you know, or it's kind of a niche part of their business. Right.

[Justin Davis]

Well, they just, they won't sell the consoles at a loss and they'll say, hey look, these games are the best. These, this hardware is the best way to play xbo, you know, and you know, buy it or don't like. I'm sure they'll come up with the.

[Mark Medina]

Theory is, is that they are going, you know, PC hybrid on their next generation and, but that, that would cause it to be quite expensive. My, my. I, I'm, I'm wondering what the strategy is because it's like if you have Game Pass, if you have this service, your goal for that service would be to get it everywhere. Right? Like, remember when Netflix first came out and then all of a sudden like, remember, remember for the Wii you had to get a Netflix disc because it was just, they were just apps weren't so much of a thing back then, but they, the goal to growing Netflix was to get it everywhere. And so that, that seems like it should be the goal for Game Pass, but the, unless this handheld that they're going to come out with, not the, not the one that was leaked today, but the actual proprietary Xbox handheld, unless it's like super cheap, but I can't imagine it would be. But if their next console is a PC hybrid, that's 1200 bucks I don't know because I just don't believe in cloud gaming, to be honest with you. I don't believe that this is going to be a thing anytime soon. Well, I mean, we live in California where it's good and I know, Justin, you say you use it a lot in Iowa, but it's like there are so many places that it just doesn't work that great. And I personally have tried it several times, Stadia and Cloud and the Portal, and it just always feels worse. It, it's never going to feel as good as an actual like native game. I just can't picture it ever fully taking off. So like Xbox probably.

[Sam Claiborne]

If you think about like what the biggest games on the horizon are, there's probably, you know, a ranking where you can put GTA 6 the top and then Elder Scrolls right under it. Right. But Elder Scrolls, what's that?

[Damon Hatfield]

Night Rain?

[Sam Claiborne]

No, Elder Scrolls.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, I'm sorry. Elder Scrolls 6. Gotcha. Gotcha.

[Sam Claiborne]

Or 7? 6. 6. Yes.

[Mark Medina]

6. Yep.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. I mean that's the biggest next thing. Right. And that's completely within Xbox's control. So whatever you think happens, whatever is going to happen, that is the biggest thing that's going to happen after GTA 6. And it's all within them. They can say we're going to put this out everywhere. They can say it's going to come out on our new Xbox first. You got to sit with that for six months. They can do whatever they want, so they have options.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, yeah. I'm looking for future Elder Scrolls, you know. Yeah, do doom. The Dark Ages we know is day and date, Outer worlds is day and date. But we have perfect Dark Fable and Elder Scrolls 6. And I, I think by the time those games launch, they'll just be day and date with play.

[Justin Davis]

I, I kind of don't understand. I mean, you know, what do I know? I've never run a trillion dollar, you know, video game business. But like, like why isn't it policy that just, hey, we're going to release our games on PlayStation but they're all going to be six months later. Like, I don't, Yeah, I don't kind.

[Mark Medina]

Of like what they're unofficially doing. Right. They did it with indie, obviously things like Forza is then porting a back library. But like, you know, a vowed is going to come to, you know, it's going to come to PlayStation probably this year. It'll just be late.

[Damon Hatfield]

That is good. That is it Just a thought just occurred to me. You know, they're putting their games on Nintendo Switch 2 when appropriate. What if Perfect Dark could come to Switch 2? That would just be. That would just be nice, right? Just be nice to have Perfect Dark on Nintendo again. So I've got this, like, list of all the hardware and the price increases, and I just had no idea that the Xbox controller situation was so confusing. Are you guys aware how there's six different levels of Xbox controllers?

[Justin Davis]

What?

[Damon Hatfield]

So there's Xbox Wireless controller core, that's 65 bucks now. Then there's the Xbox Wireless Controller color, which I guess if you get it in any colors, that's five bucks more.

[Sam Claiborne]

Then there's the Xbox Some color job.

[Damon Hatfield]

Then there's the Xbox Wireless Controller Special edition. Then there's the Xbox Wireless Controller Limited edition. Then the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series two core and the Elite Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series two Full. That's six different levels of Xbox controllers, and I just didn't.

[Mark Medina]

And if the rumors are to be believed, which they probably are, there's about to be nine, because there's the new Elite. There's the cloud gaming controller that's going to connect directly to wi fi, just like Stadia had. And then there's the new Xbox controller that has dual sense features. So leave some room on your list. Damon.

[Damon Hatfield]

I hadn't even heard about that one.

[Mark Medina]

All three of them are rumored, but they've been rumored to the point where they're probably true.

[Justin Davis]

There's two Elite controllers now, like the Elite Core and the Elite Whatever.

[Damon Hatfield]

Full is what they call them. Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

What is that?

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, I don't know the Core, but.

[Damon Hatfield]

There's a whole $50 difference in between the two.

[Justin Davis]

Okay, okay.

[Mark Medina]

The Core, I have it, but it's in my other room. It's the white one that. That you can hook the paddles and stuff to it, but they don't come with it.

[Justin Davis]

Right, right, right.

[Mark Medina]

But it's still an Elite controller. It just doesn't have any of the accessories in the carrying case and all that.

[Sam Claiborne]

Crazy, right?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, I remember now. Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, yeah, the Elite.

[Justin Davis]

I mean, Damon, you can say what you want. I think that's too many.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yep, I think so too. What I also think is funny is net. You know, now that we're talking about $730 Xbox Series X and $600, $700 PS5 Pro. It's all just to say our talk about the Switch 2 seeming expensive is seeming a little bit. It's a little bit more palatable now.

[Justin Davis]

I know. I mean, it saves if. If there is a PS5 price rise. I mean, Maybe Sony's found some way to not do that and continue pressing their advantage. But, you know, if that console goes to 600 bucks or whatever, like, then. Yeah, then, like, suddenly the switch. Switch. Two prices saved, right?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yep. They're back to being the budget.

[Sam Claiborne]

And this is why. This is what fundamentally is inflation. Right. It's like. And this is brought on by, you know, a political decision this time, not because of like a million factors. The tariffs are making everything raise up by a huge percentage. And you know, I do. They don't go down again.

[Mark Medina]

So it's like prices never.

[Sam Claiborne]

The threat. The threat did it. It's not like the costs are going to do it. It's the threat that did it. Right.

[Mark Medina]

The only unexplained Xbox thing that you. I don't see how you can blame on tariffs is there the fact that they were the first ones to raise games to $80. Like, they've already said all their fall games will be $80. Why are digital games $80?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, well, Nintendo did that first.

[Mark Medina]

They raised it to 70 or. Sorry, did they say 80 or 90?

[Damon Hatfield]

Mario Kart World is 80.

[Mark Medina]

I don't remember. I don't remember what Xbox. Did they just match it? I thought they went higher. I can't remember.

[Damon Hatfield]

They just said their games are gonna be $80 in the fall.

[Justin Davis]

The $80 band aid has been torn off.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah. Yeah. Geez. Well, game pass.

[Justin Davis]

Do you remember, like, I know you already said we got a GTA game every year. There were three mainline Final Fantasy games on the PS1, Final Fantasy 7, 8, 9. I feel like I do. I have a genuine concern that just video games are just cooked now. Like, it. They take 15 years and a billion dollars to make, and then they get. They get a 7 out of 10. And then angry YouTube faces are really angry about them.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, you need to have. You need to have so many companies making them to get to that. Back to that delivery schedule that can afford to and also take a loss sometimes. Right.

[Mark Medina]

But then they fail. I think that that's why Claire is being seen as this, like, weird thing. Because the game was 50 bucks. It didn't have the biggest budget in the world at 30. 30 developers, which is like, where the most of the budgeting comes from. And it has come out and sold a ton. And it reminds me of, like, lies of P. Right. Like fromsoftware makes really good games, but then you have this, like, kind of double A. Hey, we made a really good game too. And games can still be pretty, but the scope is within Range. And that game did amazing as well.

[Justin Davis]

These companies have lost it. Like our games are. Our console is $800 and our games are $80. Meanwhile, the three best reviewed games of the year are $50, $30 and $50. And that's Expedition 33 and Split Fiction and Blueprints.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, man.

[Sam Claiborne]

That's generally Nintendo strategy. Right? Keep a cheap console and then put out amazing $50 to $60 games like that has. That has been their strategy. That's why it is surprising that we're facing down the next level of cost for them.

[Mark Medina]

I don't know what makes a game 50 or $70, but if you told me Claire was a $70 dam, I would just believe you. I. I don't know why this game was only $50. It's just as feature complete as any $70 game. Yeah, and prettier than most of them.

[Damon Hatfield]

Did they publish it?

[Justin Davis]

Prices. Prices. Market.

[Mark Medina]

It is an indie. Yeah. Yes, it is an indie.

[Justin Davis]

You know, so there's, there's perceived value. Like there's actually an argument that like you don't want to price your game low because then it has a perception of being a budget game. But like it obviously didn't work against this game.

[Mark Medina]

Well, and this game has famous voice. Like, I'm not gonna say like Jennifer English and Ben Starr aren't, you know, famous as far as voice actors go. But this game has Charlie Cox and Andy Serkis. Like they have actual Hollywood talent.

[Damon Hatfield]

I did not know Andy Serkis was in this.

[Justin Davis]

Oh yeah, that's great.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, he's in the game.

[Sam Claiborne]

You barely see him for a long time.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, you, you don't see him for. You see him at the beginning and then you don't see him for a while. But then he becomes. He's around.

[Damon Hatfield]

Are you playing this, Sam?

[Mark Medina]

Quite a bit.

[Damon Hatfield]

Expedition 3.

[Sam Claiborne]

I'm done with it though.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay. It didn't hook you like it has done.

[Mark Medina]

As in he didn't beat it done. As in he's just done playing.

[Sam Claiborne]

Mark, why don't you tell them why I stopped playing this game?

[Mark Medina]

I don't remember why. All your excuses were bullshit.

[Sam Claiborne]

You don't remember any of my reasoning.

[Mark Medina]

I can barely. I don't know. I remember your reasoning. I just don't agree with them.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, see, Mark's. It's too real. So he's refusing to elaborate on the points I. Well made. I think this game's a total energy vampire. Like, it has a really, really good set of setup. The combat's great, and then you fight a billion Enemies the same way for too long. And I don't like it. Like, yeah, I don't have time for that.

[Mark Medina]

I'm a. I'm a really, really big old school Final Fantasy fan.

[Sam Claiborne]

And you haven't played 60,000 of them like I have.

[Mark Medina]

So th. This is Final Fantasy 1013 mixed with.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay, those are not old school Final Fantasy games.

[Damon Hatfield]

Those are not old.

[Sam Claiborne]

Let me just throw it out there.

[Mark Medina]

Those Tang came out when I was in. I. I was going to say mixed with the open world.

[Sam Claiborne]

Isn't that a game famous for having action combat?

[Mark Medina]

Which one?

[Sam Claiborne]

Isn't 10 famous for having action combat? Or is that before that?

[Justin Davis]

No.

[Mark Medina]

12 was tennis turn based.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah. 10's 12. 10 is turn based. 12 is action. 13 is turn based. But it's like that walking down a corridor. But there's like areas to explore. That's both 10 and 13. But then there's an open world where it's like when you're not in these corridors, you, you know, the camera zooms way out. It becomes basically top view. Yeah, that's what I'm. So it's like. Then it becomes there's. There's places to explore on this open world. You get. Eventually you get a boat and an airship. I don't think that that's a huge.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

I just don't like the repeated encounters. I don't like how they respond. I don't like how it's the same battle over and over again. And then I don't like how the, the, the, the areas look so globby and samey that you're like, I'm just done exploring this. Please tell me where to go next. And you just go around in the circle over and over and over again until you find the grapple point and then you find that one. And then you go fight the same enemies over and over again. And then you get to a boss. It's like, oh, now I get to do something different. This boss is like playing Simon. That's cool.

[Mark Medina]

You can run past the enemies when you're done with this discussion.

[Justin Davis]

Hurts my heart.

[Sam Claiborne]

You can run past them if you want to be under leveled and play a boss for 30 minutes and then play that same boss a second time to get all the timing right. Because you didn't. There's no way for you to learn it without replaying the boss. That is all this energy Vampire. I don't need that in my life. I want. Sometimes in a game. This game is like every enemy is going to take five minutes every. Every boss is going to take 10 minutes.

[Mark Medina]

The giant bright pillar in the sky that has a giant 33 on it. That's the way to go. That's where you're headed every time.

[Sam Claiborne]

That part's great. I love the setup of the game. It's really cool. But yeah, there's no way I'm going to get to the point where I'm laying down 8,700 just to just to take out the same enemy and the same amount of turns. That's completely stupid. And I don't need to do that in my life.

[Mark Medina]

My only and I won't even say like complaint but my only like this is just old school. Kind of like the older RPGs and I forget that this was a thing is that you level up and get items too quickly in this game. Every time you get to a rest point you have attributes to attributes to to to dole out. You have new spells you have to buy. You can only have six spells.

[Sam Claiborne]

Colin Robinson based skill system that it also has. Every single thing in this is designed to suck your energy away. And then I really want this. It is energizing to see the character interactions and everything though. But it never recharges me enough. But I got past that village of the little dudes.

[Mark Medina]

I absolutely insane.

[Justin Davis]

Insane take just completely like this game. This game more than like any other turn based RPG in decades. Like respects your time.

[Sam Claiborne]

Like it moves the problem Justin. It's this turn based RPG and the decades since they fixed those and got rid of them.

[Mark Medina]

I don't even look at my spells because I did this with metaphor as well. Once you understand where your spells are. I don't even look at them. I just square R2 square X. Like I'm not looking at the menus because. Because I know. And as fast as you could push the buttons is as fast as the menus go. I love it so much.

[Justin Davis]

Yep.

[Mark Medina]

I like yeah it's man I and the music. Oh my gosh. The music is so good in this game.

[Damon Hatfield]

Apparently.

[Mark Medina]

It's like I'm wearing a Claire 33 sweater. So like you can already tell I'm in based. There it is.

[Justin Davis]

Where'd you get that? Where'd you get that Expedition 33 merch from?

[Mark Medina]

I got this from the IGN store and it's an amazing sweater. It's very comfortable. And it got here 10 minutes before game Scoop started filming. My wife ran in. She was like here, you can wear your sweater on Game Scoop.

[Justin Davis]

I was like I I called him up and said Mark's Getting ready to record.

[Damon Hatfield]

I sent him a drone, dropped it by.

[Sam Claiborne]

I've said people won't hear them, but I've said a lot of nice things about this game and we continue to say nice things about it. Our staff loves this game. Like, it's going great. They're all going to stop playing it in 30 hours because they're going to get sick of it like I do.

[Justin Davis]

But they do also how long the game is the game.

[Sam Claiborne]

I actually heard that that might not be true, that our team was Saying it's more 40 to 60 hours.

[Justin Davis]

If you're wandering all around. Maybe 40, I think.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

There's something. There's something special about playing a Game of the Year contender. And, you know, it's a Game of the Year contender. And that's how I feel when I play this game. I'm like this. There's no. So, like, when we do Game of the Year, right, it's like six. Six nominees. I don't know if Claire will win. It could. And I'd like, you know, at this point, I think that that could very much happen. But I know that it's in the top five or six games of the year. Absolutely. And there's something about playing a game that you're just like, this game is going to win all the awards. It's so good.

[Justin Davis]

It's a lot of maturity in the storytelling. I think it's so sad. Yeah, it is very sad. And that's actually why I haven't been playing it as much. Yeah, I. I like.

[Sam Claiborne]

Lo and behold, Justin's putting down Claire Obscure and moving on to the next thing.

[Justin Davis]

Because it's very. I said it on the show last week and I'm increasingly of the opinion. I still don't know the end. So, like, this isn't a spoiler and please nobody spoil it for me. But like, it's like this game seems like a tragedy and like that seems like where it is heading from, you know, just kind of a narrative standpoint. And so, you know, it's like, it's. It's emotionally devastating to play, often a little bit like, it's.

[Mark Medina]

It's.

[Justin Davis]

It's got Last of Us vibes in that way. Right. Like, it can be kind of a hard play, but it's trying to be that. It's just. It's just challenging from a storytelling standpoint. But I have absolutely nothing, no negative to say about the combat system and the style and the characterization and like to say that the game doesn't respect your time. I think that this is the turn based RPG that best respects the player's time in, in I, I don't know, 10 years probably. Like we, I mean mark, you hit the nail on the head.

[Sam Claiborne]

I will grant you that. Very low bar.

[Justin Davis]

If you're gonna do a battle, you know, a hundred times or five hundred times, then like milliseconds, menuing matter, right? And like the menus in this game just being immediate and snappy and you can just, you just do your moves and then they just pop off. It just feels great. It's perfect.

[Sam Claiborne]

But like I agree with you there because like, you know, you play Octopath or something, it's never gonna do that. There's a thing that turn based, you know, games do when you play retro ones now where once you get to a point where you're like, I'm not going to lose too much life and what's the difference? You can auto resolve the battle and I just don't understand why they don't put stuff like that in. I don't want to run around things, I want the xp. But like once you return to an area and you're like, I can beat these people but it's going to take a minute and a half each time that adds up.

[Justin Davis]

It adds up quite a bit. And I know you're referring to like you, this game is a very normal, like you level up and get more powerful and then you totally kill things in one hit. So I'm not quite sure, you level.

[Sam Claiborne]

Up and you go to the next area and they're just as powerful as you are. It does. I know that it's not a rubber banding system but you go to a new area and that's how long the battles are going to take because that's where they want to focus. They want to focus on like how cool parrying is and you know, and like how everybody has a different type of thing to learn but it's, it's endless and it never stops. And I got sick of it before other people did.

[Mark Medina]

But I mean it just sounds like turn based RPGs aren't you think?

[Sam Claiborne]

I mean they very much, I just want to point out they very much are so like, but I don't know.

[Justin Davis]

That turn based RPGs are very much your thing where like whatever, like no one's required to like anything but like this is widely regarded as the best turn based RPG to come out in, in many, many years. So I don't know, are they like.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, this, this moment of him yelling at that gesture Was so good. I still, I like how much I agree with Justin. The game is very tragic and. And I don't know the end of the game either. And it definitely feels like one of those games where even if they win, they still lose. Like you, just you. As you walk through this game, there's just piles of dead bodies everywhere from previous expeditions.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

You know, 70 years of people just dying, throwing themselves at this thing. But I do like that they do kind of throw some funny, you know, Final Fantasy esque, silly moments in the game.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Where are you at, Damon?

[Damon Hatfield]

No, I have.

[Sam Claiborne]

How much you.

[Damon Hatfield]

I haven't even started.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Because I've been playing redacted, which we can talk about very soon. But yeah, I still needed to check the scheme out the way what you're saying about it makes me even more intrigued to see if it's for me. But going back to Justin's original point, I do believe this is the model that should be. It should not take 10 plus years to make a game. Get your games out. I knew we used to complain about annualized franchises year after year, but let's go back to something like every two or three years we get a new game in all of our favorite franchises. It just can't.

[Justin Davis]

That's it.

[Damon Hatfield]

Go ahead.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, it's a good point, Damon. Of like, we goofed on Activision. So much for annualizing Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk and. But it's like, well, guys, please, I'm sorry.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, it's better than sorry.

[Justin Davis]

I take it back.

[Damon Hatfield]

10, 15 even.

[Mark Medina]

Like doom. I'm not going to say Doom games are easy to make, but every Doom from this new, new trilogy has been four to five years apart from each other.

[Justin Davis]

I would love to have a Tony Hawk every year again.

[Damon Hatfield]

Just do it.

[Justin Davis]

Just release the Tony hawk every year. 50 or 60 bucks.

[Mark Medina]

You could play Call of Duty every year.

[Sam Claiborne]

I mean, a 2D Castlevania, we could be doing those.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yep. I would, I would happily take a 2D Castlevania every year. Once again.

[Justin Davis]

I know it's like, this is, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe we're the problem, right? Where we're like, release. They released all those Castlevanias are out of new ideas. And then they're like, fine, we won't make them anymore. And I'm like, wait, no.

[Mark Medina]

Give anything for you guys. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay. Gears of War is coming to PlayStation. It's. What is it called? The Gears of War Reloaded edition, coming out August 26th later this year. I just, you know, it's Just, it's just an interesting time, right?

[Sam Claiborne]

Because we're interesting headline, you know, one you don't expect to see.

[Damon Hatfield]

I mean, I think we were expected it at some point.

[Mark Medina]

I'm.

[Damon Hatfield]

I'm a little surprised with.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's just, I'm just saying the era we live in is crazy.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Sam Claiborne]

We wouldn't have predicted this 15 years.

[Damon Hatfield]

Ago and I'm just surprised with the cadence of Xbox games. Coming to PlayStation, it's like fast and Furious. It seems like it's only a matter of time for Halo, right?

[Mark Medina]

Oh, 100%. I think Halo is right around the corner yet seeing Forza because like I've played, I played Indiana Jones on PS5, I'm currently playing it. It's great. Seeing Sea of Thieves on there was a little weird. But like for Microsoft, the big three, right, is Forza, Gears and Halo. And I have Forza Horizon 5 on my PS5 and it just looks so weird and like on the PlayStation Store it's like pre order Gears of War, like what? Yeah, it's super strange.

[Sam Claiborne]

Gears of War is like straight up mascot shit too. Like it's really funny that like, you know, these faces of Microsoft are on it. Unlike Indiana Jones or even Forza, which is cars. It's just like the faces, you know.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Marcus Phoenix.

[Damon Hatfield]

I mean the top three PlayStation Store games in April were Oblivion, Minecraft and Forza. So we were talking about earlier, they seem to be shooting themselves in the foot with raising their prices, but their strategy for getting their games everywhere is really working. And I was crazy.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's a crazy fact, Dave. And I didn't know that.

[Damon Hatfield]

I would love to know what PlayStation. I would love to know what PlayStation executives think about the facts that the top three selling best selling games on their platform are Xbox games.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, well, PlayStation is not releasing games first of all.

[Mark Medina]

Yep.

[Justin Davis]

They stop, you know. And so I also, I say this with love and I say this as an Xbox fan, but people are already not buying Xbox consoles. So if you're already not selling your console through to fans, it's like, well, all right, fine, like we might as well make some money releasing our games on PS5.

[Mark Medina]

There seems to be this like good guy mentality. I don't want to harp on Xbox too much, but it's like, well, they're giving you guys the games. Why aren't you guys giving us Spider man and stuff like that? And it's like, what business sense would that make, right? Get putting Spider man on a console that's, that's not what's happening?

[Justin Davis]

This is, this is.

[Mark Medina]

They're becoming a publisher.

[Justin Davis]

This is a move from the. From. Who's it from the. From the company in last place.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yep.

[Justin Davis]

The company in first place doesn't do.

[Damon Hatfield]

That in the year 2000. If Sega were a $3 trillion company they probably would have continued to make hardware while they put their games on Nintendo.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Because they could have afforded.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, well and, and I'll just say like. And I'm not going to speak for a company like machine games or anything like that but like I recorded a devs react with them for Indiana Jones and they talked about their game being on PS5 and how happy they were for that to happen. I don't think it has anything to do with the PS5 itself. I think it just has to do with. Developers want people to play their game 100 and the more places that these games go the happier these develop. You know these people that make this art, they're gonna be happier about it.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. They sell more games that more people play their games. It's all. It's such a win win for them. It's a great situation. But they didn't know that when Microsoft bought them. Right. It's scary. You don't know what's going to happen. You don't know if that's going to take your company because you're tied to a system that's not selling well. You know.

[Damon Hatfield]

So Gears are where reloaded coming to Xbox, PC and PlayStation. Anyone else surprised it's not coming to Switch to. I mean It's a 2006 game. It's a 20 year old game.

[Sam Claiborne]

Complicated.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh maybe because you're. You're right. It's probably because of all the multiplayer stuff.

[Mark Medina]

You're right.

[Damon Hatfield]

I didn't think about that.

[Mark Medina]

It could. The Doom games, both of them are on. On Nintendo they just came like way later.

[Sam Claiborne]

So we don't really know what the Microsoft stuff for switches. Like did Minecraft get announced yet? I don't think so for Switch to but I've seen.

[Damon Hatfield]

I don't think so.

[Justin Davis]

I don't know.

[Sam Claiborne]

I don't. I don't know what's. What it's gonna be like. I mean obviously Oblivion could run on it.

[Justin Davis]

Skyrim ran the last one. I mean I don't know. Is it that obvious? Like this is the thing of like the Switch until the Switch 2 comes out. Like we still like. Digital Foundry strongly speculated that the console is probably about PS4 powered and so it's in a weird place power wise you know, significantly more powerful than the Switch, significantly less powerful than the current gen Xbox and PlayStation. So it's like, where does that leave it for a game like Oblivion? I don't know. You know, we'll find out.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, I want to know how powerful it is next to the Series S because both those games run on Series S. Sure.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, Series S might be a good point of comparison. I don't really. Yeah, I'm not sure.

[Damon Hatfield]

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[Justin Davis]

Get that.

[Damon Hatfield]

Three months for 15amonth. That is nothing.

[Justin Davis]

15?

[Damon Hatfield]

You can't buy anything in this day and age for $15. It is a pretty excellent deal, especially for mobile service. You know, I mostly use it to just scroll on social media and click things that I like anyway. So why am I paying like several hundred dollars a month to do that? I'm going to be checking out Mint Mobile. Absolutely. This year. Skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. Get your summer savings and shop premium Wireless [e-mail] GamesCoop that's mintmobile.com GamesCoop Upfront payment of $45 for 3 month 5 gigabyte plan required equivalent to $15 a month New customer offer for first 3 months only. Then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details.

[Sam Claiborne]

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[Damon Hatfield]

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[Damon Hatfield]

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[Sam Claiborne]

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[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, it's show and tell time. I have something I'd like to share with the class. I bought myself a new toy. We'll go to our Toy Cam here. My over the shoulder Toy Cam. Toy Cam. Oh, let me put in the middle. Whoa.

[Justin Davis]

What is this angle?

[Damon Hatfield]

Hi everybody. Hi everybody. I picked myself up the Miyu Flip, which is a retro gaming handheld. It's a weird angle Here.

[Sam Claiborne]

Game Boy SP style.

[Mark Medina]

It is Game Boy sp. That's awesome.

[Damon Hatfield]

It is Game Boy sp. Wow, form factor here. As you can see, I've got punch out booted up here. So, yeah, it's just like the Game Boy sp. It feels good. It's got the clamshell case, the screen is nice and bright. And you might notice it has two analog sticks down here because that's. Because it can emulate. It can go PlayStation, N64, Dreamcast, and PSP. That's where it stops. It doesn't do PS2 or GameCube era, but it can do all those others. And I really like it.

[Justin Davis]

The sticks are a great place to.

[Sam Claiborne]

Put your software backups.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yep. This is where all my software backups go. The sticks even click in so you can do L3 and R3. A little bit cramped, but if I'm being honest, I'm not really looking to emulate those types of game. I'm more of an 8 and 16 bit in arcade retro gamer. But the. One of the reasons I went with this is ease of setup. Because like Justin, you have a Retroid wreck. A Retroid Pocket.

[Justin Davis]

I have a Retroid and I have an ODIN Pro as well.

[Damon Hatfield]

I'm very interested in Retroid. It seems so daunting trying to set it up. Whereas this ships everything. All the emulators are on it and there's. It's. The folder structure is very easy to read. All you do is drag and drop ROMs and you're good to go. This is the Mew Flip. I like it a lot. It's only 80 bucks. That was also attractive to me.

[Mark Medina]

Whoa.

[Damon Hatfield]

I would recommend it.

[Justin Davis]

And maybe not anymore.

[Damon Hatfield]

I'm just going to say I would recommend it. However they have. They have since paused shipments to the U.S. so thanks, Obama.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

All right.

[Mark Medina]

Still hanging around.

[Damon Hatfield]

That's the end of our over the shoulder cam. All right.

[Justin Davis]

Why don't we just leave the camera like that though?

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay.

[Mark Medina]

No, I want to see Cayman counting for. For 20 questions.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, it'll spoil 20 questions.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay. That brings us to video game 20 questions. Our suggestion this week comes from Walter in an undisclosed location. Let the questioning begin.

[Mark Medina]

What was the most recent console that you said that that flip thing could play? Like PS1.

[Damon Hatfield]

PSP.

[Mark Medina]

PSP.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

PSP. Okay. Can this game be played on that console you just showed us?

[Damon Hatfield]

No. Oh, good question.

[Mark Medina]

So it could either be like Atari or anything after psp. Oh, could play Atari.

[Damon Hatfield]

You think it can?

[Justin Davis]

Why do you think it could not play Atari?

[Mark Medina]

I just didn't know if it did or not. Not. Not if it could. My PS5 could play Atari games. It doesn't.

[Justin Davis]

I don't understand what we're talking about.

[Sam Claiborne]

Did this game come out in 20, 20, 25?

[Damon Hatfield]

No. Very specific question.

[Sam Claiborne]

I know. I just. We've been getting a lot of, like, really contemporary games recently, so I want to knock that. That one out.

[Justin Davis]

Can you play this game on the switch?

[Damon Hatfield]

No, it's not.

[Justin Davis]

Not Minecraft.

[Mark Medina]

Is this game exclusive to the platform it was released on?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Justin Davis]

Is this.

[Mark Medina]

What is it, Justin?

[Justin Davis]

I don't know. Is this. Is this a role playing game or action adventure game?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes. That's five.

[Justin Davis]

Is it an action adventure game?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Justin Davis]

Okay. Rpg, y' all.

[Mark Medina]

Okay.

[Justin Davis]

Is this. Is it a turn based RPG?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Sam Claiborne]

Does it have a. Well, does it have 3D graphics?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Mark Medina]

Is the series that this game was released in still releasing current games today?

[Damon Hatfield]

In theory, supposedly.

[Justin Davis]

But, like, I'll believe it when I see it.

[Mark Medina]

Knights of the Old Republic.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. Let me ask you this, Mark, like, that there's not been a GTA game in, like, 13 years. So is that still releasing games?

[Mark Medina]

I would say so. The game, the new game, has a release date.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah. Damon wouldn't say, like, I believe it when I see it, but like, something like code, it's just.

[Justin Davis]

It's just a dicey question because there's games that are, like, you know, not officially dead, but it's like, well, you know, nobody makes video games.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is this a Western RPG?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes. That's 10.

[Sam Claiborne]

Was it developed by Bioware or Bethesda?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

So we're looking at, like, Mass Effect or.

[Mark Medina]

Fallout.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. Or Cortor. Maybe. You were right.

[Sam Claiborne]

Those are all good. Good ones.

[Mark Medina]

For Damon's reaction to in theory, let's nail it down. Okay. So is this Bioware?

[Damon Hatfield]

Did Sam not already ask that?

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, yeah.

[Mark Medina]

I thought you said Bioware or Bethesda. So I want to nail down which one it is.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes, it is Bioware.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is it based on a license?

[Damon Hatfield]

Hold on. Ask me one question at a time.

[Justin Davis]

Sam's Kingo.

[Damon Hatfield]

Is it based on a license?

[Sam Claiborne]

Based on a license?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, okay. Well, then it might just be Mass Effect.

[Justin Davis]

Is it science fiction?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Sam Claiborne]

Could be Sonic.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. I was gonna say. Let's not. Let's. Let's just take a moment.

[Mark Medina]

Is it part of a legendary trilogy?

[Damon Hatfield]

No. And that is 15.

[Mark Medina]

What?

[Justin Davis]

It could be Andromeda.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, it could be Andromeda.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is this the only Mass Effect that Mark played?

[Damon Hatfield]

Not anymore.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, it's true. I finished. Mass Effect 1. Holy smokes. Dude, the beginning of Mass Effect 2 is insane.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, dude.

[Mark Medina]

The whole Normandy just explodes. It's just like, hey, you remember the Normandy? Not anymore. Yeah, I was like, what is happening.

[Justin Davis]

Dude, we shared this with you on the show.

[Damon Hatfield]

I know.

[Justin Davis]

Like, you're. It's unbelievable how much of an upgrade, how much better 2 is. Every single companion plot line, every single planet. That whole game is just nothing but bangers.

[Mark Medina]

I. I'm playing as a vanguard still, and I'm, like, teleporting to enemies and stuff like that. I'm like, oh, this gameplay is so much better. And Miranda rules. Wow. It's. Yeah, it's quite the upgrade.

[Justin Davis]

What from Isn't she the racist?

[Sam Claiborne]

No, no, that's.

[Mark Medina]

No, that's from the first game. That's Ashley Kaden or Ashley?

[Justin Davis]

Ashley. Ashley, that's right. Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

She's a space racist, but it's been a long time.

[Damon Hatfield]

Is Miranda, like, an Android?

[Mark Medina]

No, no, I just don't remember.

[Damon Hatfield]

Sorry.

[Mark Medina]

Human woman.

[Damon Hatfield]

I don't remember.

[Sam Claiborne]

I think she. Her, like, specialty is that she could use a little bit of the magic powers, but.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay. Okay. Anyway.

[Justin Davis]

Is it Mass Effect Andromeda?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes, it is Mass Effect Andromeda.

[Sam Claiborne]

I was gonna ask if it had a funny. A case of Funny Face syndrome.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Remember that problem with it?

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. Yeah. I was. I was surprised. This has not been ported to, like, not. It's not on Switch and it hasn't gotten a current gen upgrade.

[Mark Medina]

No. Yeah. You have to play 60 FPS. You have to play on PC.

[Sam Claiborne]

And you know why we don't have Mass Effects now? It's because we all complain that this one was made too hastily and we got it too fast and it wasn't good enough.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. I'm telling you, man, the video game industry is cooked. You can't make games anymore. It's just too hard. Too hard to do.

[Damon Hatfield]

They used to be able to do.

[Sam Claiborne]

Perfectly Cromulent to me.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

If you want to see funny faces, play Oblivion.

[Damon Hatfield]

That's Oblivion.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah. Oh, man. I was watching a video on how to do the Persuasion minigame because it's nonsense.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

I love watching those videos. I'm like, if they make this face and they're all like, what the heck is going.

[Justin Davis]

If they turn into the. If they turn into the Joker.

[Sam Claiborne]

That game is such, like. You know, the. The concept of being just, like, such a video game, it just is. And it, like, wears it on its sleeve, and I have so much fun playing it.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

I I can't wait to get back to it. I, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

[Damon Hatfield]

So Mark, now that you've had a taste of the original Mass Effect trilogy, how have your thoughts on Andromeda changed?

[Mark Medina]

No, so I said it on Slack. I was like, okay, so I'm going back and I'm playing all the Mass Effect games. I just finished Mass Effect 1 and by far Andromeda is still the best.

[Damon Hatfield]

Mass Effect game I've ever played.

[Mark Medina]

It's way better than Mass Effect 1.

[Sam Claiborne]

I mean, who knows? Nobody always ever played better thanromeda to make that distinction.

[Damon Hatfield]

I haven't played Andromeda, but I know there's absolutely no way it's better than two.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, I haven't played Andromeda either. Like I, I said this the last time you made that comment. It doesn't really offend me, but like, it's missing the context of like Mass Effect being revolutionary for its time. Right. Like it was unbelievable. But like on a one to one like game, it's like I would. I could see how somebody could like.

[Sam Claiborne]

2 removed the Mako entirely and had the planet scanning. Is that right?

[Justin Davis]

Yes.

[Mark Medina]

The Mako's not in two.

[Damon Hatfield]

No, I don't remember.

[Justin Davis]

Well, there's make, but you can't. You're not like bopping all around planets.

[Sam Claiborne]

You might get the open world, right?

[Justin Davis]

Yes. Yeah, they replaced that with the planet scanning.

[Sam Claiborne]

Look at this guy.

[Mark Medina]

That's Dan Stapleton's character.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, is it?

[Justin Davis]

I remember, I remember he got in trouble because they had like, you know, we thought that this was going to be like the big game for the next year. And then all of our footage was just this goofy.

[Mark Medina]

Just like him. It looks like Dan, if it was one of those, one of those plants where you like you, you, the chia pets or whatever.

[Justin Davis]

That's what it looks like.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's Ton Staple Dan, his alter ego.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, it does work as a way of like beautiful. It is like visual DRM of like no one else can steal and use our footage.

[Damon Hatfield]

It is.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Mass Effect Andromeda. Nicely job. Thank you for the suggestion, Walter. In an undisclosed location. Viewers, listeners, if you have your own suggestions for video game 20 questions, email them to me at the email address gamescoop.com and one side note, you mentioned Kotor speaking of Star wars. Over the weekend, watched Return of the Jedi with my son. Oh, I forgot a show and tell. Okay, Joe, we have to go back.

[Mark Medina]

To the over shoulder, back to the hand can.

[Damon Hatfield]

I forgot one of my shows. My shows and Tells. Here we go.

[Sam Claiborne]

People love the the post credits show. Tells.

[Damon Hatfield]

I know, I know that. I. I viewer listener. They only. The only the listeners get them. So hopefully you know that to stick around for a post credit scene, you never know what you're gonna. What's gonna show up. Anyway, for Easter, my son made this in preschool. It's a little Easter Bunny ears headband. But they got to decorate them. So I just wanted to show off what Kingo. How he decorated his. So starting over here, he's got Mario and Luigi, red and green with a goomba. And then here's Astrobot.

[Sam Claiborne]

Nice.

[Damon Hatfield]

And then this is Little Kitty Big City. He's got the cat, a building and a bird. This is.

[Mark Medina]

Wait, which one's the cat?

[Damon Hatfield]

The in the middle has the ears.

[Mark Medina]

Okay. I thought that was a beak. I. I thought you were gonna say that that was Untitled Goose Game.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, no.

[Mark Medina]

But nope, I see it now.

[Damon Hatfield]

This one is Spider Man. And then we end with Split Fiction. The red and the purple. I know. For the two ladies in it. And then it's Ratchet and Clank.

[Mark Medina]

What a. What a man.

[Damon Hatfield]

This is my son. I am so proud.

[Sam Claiborne]

That's amazing.

[Damon Hatfield]

Of my son. So I don't keep all of his art, but I will be keeping this Easter headband for forever. I will keep this forever.

[Mark Medina]

I would like an IGN Live poster of that.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yep. Yep, that'd be good.

[Sam Claiborne]

Little Kitty Big City is such a good game.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's a very, very cute game. He likes playing a lot. He needs me.

[Mark Medina]

It's.

[Damon Hatfield]

There's a lot of reading in it, so I have to be there to read it for him.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. Anyway, it's also secretly at Metroidvania.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. The other thing I was going to say was we watched Return of the Jedi, and my takeaway from this viewing was that, you know, with the special editions, I think pretty much everything that George Lucas changed from them made them worse. I mean, here it is.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, it's worse.

[Mark Medina]

So bad this, like, music video.

[Damon Hatfield]

And at the time, I was pissed that they put Hayden Christensen's ghosts in at the end, but today, all these years later, with, you know, my son's only reference point for Anakin is Hayden Christensen. It makes sense. I'm okay with it today. I'll give you this one, George.

[Justin Davis]

I think the ghost is fine. The dance number is horrible.

[Sam Claiborne]

The original dance number is pretty stupid.

[Damon Hatfield]

But at least there it was.

[Sam Claiborne]

I. I don't think one like I like. At least they put Boba Fett back in it.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

This is What? I like watching Star wars with my kids because they're a good lit. Like when they see this scene, are they going to be like, oh, haha, that's so fun. But like no, both of them as like little kids were like, what is going on?

[Mark Medina]

Like what did she just. And then she just strangles him, right? Yeah, like during it, it's great.

[Damon Hatfield]

Not during it, but it's a little bit later.

[Sam Claiborne]

Jedi looks so good. Like the sail barge looks really good. Even the special edition. And then the, the. The battle at the end when it's going between the Luke fight and then the space fight is. Is unbelievable. The Ewok stuff is in there too and it's fine. But that looks good too. Like the, the base in the forest and the atst outside of it and stuff. Like yeah, that stuff looks awesome on film. It just looks so good.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, it has a different vibe than the other two. I know it's a different director and I don't know like what else this director. I don't even know the director's name of Jedi, but for some reason it has a different feel and a different vibe from the previous two. But it's great. We had a great time watching him.

[Mark Medina]

Empire have a different director as well.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, yeah, that's Irving Kirschner, I think.

[Sam Claiborne]

I think it's Lawrence Kazden.

[Damon Hatfield]

I don't think he directed it though. Anyway, you can look it up.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, you can look it up while I tell everyone about the fabulous deals they can find on Humble. So it's a great time to get some amazing deals through Humble, where every purchase helps support charity. This may check out the Doom and Wolfenstein Mayhem bundle. You pay just 28 bucks to unlock the complete Doom and Wolfenstein collections. The bundle now also includes Doom VFR, Wolfenstein Cyberpilot, Wolfenstein Youngblood, and a $10 coupon for the IGN Store. Justin, as a Choice member, you'll also save up to 20% in the humble store, including on new releases, pre orders and big sales. Whether you're shopping the store, grabbing bundles or subscribing to Choice, every purchase supports a great cause. Also remember IGN Live is coming up June 7th and 8th here in Los Angeles. You can come see Game Scoop live. Go to ign.comlive and use promo code Scoop for a special $15 ticket price. 15. And if you're watching this video, just scan the QR code on your screen. All right, Sam. Who directed Return of the Jedi?

[Sam Claiborne]

It was Richard Marcand. I of course, knew that. It's so stupid. But he is very obscure. He didn't do like a bunch of things that you know about, but. But he's just buddies with George Lucas.

[Damon Hatfield]

And he's like, hey, you want a drift? You want to drink?

[Sam Claiborne]

He did something called Eye of the needle after 1981, which I really want to see now. And then he did a courtroom thriller called Jagged Edge starring Jeff Bridges and Glenn Close in 1985. That looks like it.

[Damon Hatfield]

Cool. It's so random. Made one of the most iconic movies of all time and then just drifted off into obscure.

[Sam Claiborne]

We got to see Jagged Edge. It's got.

[Damon Hatfield]

I guess so.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's got the Castle Tron in it.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, that is all the scoops that we have for you this week. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Justin. Thank you, Mark. Thank you to Joe, Burton, Amir and everyone else working behind the scenes to make this episode possible. My name is Damon. We'll be back next week to talk about redacted and route. This episode of Game Soup was produced by yours truly, Damon Hadfield and Gilbert Atienza. Technical direction is handled by Jobert Atienza. Technical production is by Marian Franzen and Amir Raqib. Audio engineering is by Amir Raqib and post production editing is by me. Graphic design is by Nicole Kagempun. Game Scoop is an IGN production and part of the Geek Media Network.

[Mark Medina]

It's an incredibly exciting year for Nintendo fans. The Nintendo Switch 2 is finally here and there's so much to dive into. That's why we record Nintendo Voice Chat on Thursdays to catch all the big news from Nintendo's regular announcements, then release new episodes every Friday morning. For the latest Switch 2 updates, first impressions and lively discussion. Tune in to NVC, IGN's weekly Nintendo show hosted by me, Logan Plant. I'm thrilled to lead the show into the next generation alongside an amazing panel of Nintendo experts, Rebecca Valentine, Jada Griffin and Seth Macy. NBC is part of the Geek Media Podcast Network with new episodes every Friday morning on Apple, Podcasts, Spotify and wherever you get your shows with full video versions on IGN.com and YouTube. Join us and get the thing this Friday on Nintendo Voice Chat.

[Damon Hatfield]

Hey, listen. For all the latest news and discussion around the always busy and always changing.

[Sam Claiborne]

World of Xbox, be sure to check out Unlocked. It's IGN's weekly Xbox show hosted by Ryan McCaffrey, who's been covering Xbox professionally.

[Damon Hatfield]

Since 2004, Miranda Sanchez, an Xbox expert and super fan who's been playing Xbox since she was a kid and Michael Hyam, an RPG guru whose Xbox roots run deep. New episodes of Unlock drop every Thursday on Apple, Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your shows with full video versions on IGN.com and YouTube. Unlocked is produced by IGN and part of the Geek Media Podcast Network. This is Steve Downs, the voice of Master Chief Sierra117, and you're listening to.

[Sam Claiborne]

Podcast Unlocked, the world's number one Xbox podcast. Now finish this fight.

[Justin Davis]

Master Chief out.