
DLSS 5, Resident Evil Requiem, Slay the Spire 2, Crimson Desert, metroidvanias, and more.
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Damon Hatfield
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Sam Claiborne
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Damon Hatfield
What's up everybody? Welcome to IGN gamescoop. I'm your host, Damon Hatfield. Joining me this week here in studio is Pear Schneider.
Pear Schneider
Pear Scoop.
Damon Hatfield
We're also joined by Sam Claiborne.
Sam Claiborne
Hey, Happy California Summer to People that celebrate.
Damon Hatfield
Exactly. It is hot as heck in LA today. Mark Medina is also here.
Mark Medina
Scoop. There it is.
Sam Claiborne
There is a little bit of a difference in excitement and tone in the introduction and the acceptance.
Mark Medina
That was the number one comment on the last podcast. So, I mean, this is an honor of that. Okay, here's my catchphrase for one episode.
Damon Hatfield
Okay. Temporary catchphrase. I love it. Well, we got a great show for you this week. I finished Resident Evil Requiem and pair
Pear Schneider
started Resident Evil Requiem because Damon asked me to.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah, I politely suggested that he have something about it to say for this episode.
Sam Claiborne
Technically, Damon also started Resident Evil Requiem again this week.
Damon Hatfield
That's true. That's true. I did start my second playthrough immediately. Very nice. And Mark started playing say the Spire 2 and Crimson Desert is out now. So there's all this stuff we can talk about. But first, let's talk about DLSS5 from Nvidia, which has made. Made some headlines this week.
Mark Medina
This is.
Sam Claiborne
Oh, I haven't heard. What. What went wrong.
Damon Hatfield
Surely you've heard about this by now. They have a sort of a. A trailer show showing off the latest tech. This is the AI tech that is forthcoming later this year.
Sam Claiborne
Will.
Damon Hatfield
Will apparently will give your video game characters completely new faces.
Sam Claiborne
Too attached.
Pear Schneider
I don't know. Hold on.
Sam Claiborne
We. Before goes into this, we need to. Here's a disclaimer that we are using DLSS5 on our faces this week. That's why we all look so vibrant. Be aware.
Damon Hatfield
See this glowy shoulder? You had to do the wipe. You had to do the wipe.
Pear Schneider
Oh, man.
Sam Claiborne
And then I just become Grace.
Pear Schneider
Look at Sam's. Look at Sam's edge lighting. It's great, but it's not accurate.
Sam Claiborne
Well, yes, exactly.
Pear Schneider
It's not. He should be lit by the machines. You can tell. It's.
Sam Claiborne
I'm not wearing mascara, but you can see the mascara just, you know, come across.
Damon Hatfield
It's the mascara that the developers originally intended.
Pear Schneider
That's right.
Mark Medina
Yeah. His frame rate's low, though.
Sam Claiborne
What do you put on before going to your mom's murder site?
Pear Schneider
I like how Sam goes, don't let Pear talk. Because he. He knew I was going to say something nice.
Damon Hatfield
Oh, you see, all I have to
Sam Claiborne
say is jokes about dlss. So let's have Pear say all the serious stuff and then I'll get back to my jokes.
Pear Schneider
I mean, the.
Damon Hatfield
The way old Grace.
Pear Schneider
First of all, the reactions are of an early demo implemented on games that are familiar to us and like, yes, Grace. Grace with the power of A green wipe turns into Jack Power's daughter. Like there's a, there's a. There's a definite difference in the face and what it looks like. And yes, you can complain that the artists vision is being altered by this tool but like it is also it is a tool. And when I look at the background in this game, it does create a more realistically lit scene from like a first, first impression. Right. And so when I'm thinking about this tech. I've played games, I'm a big Formula one fan. I've played Formula one games and they always. They still look very artificial and I crave realism in the visuals for my F1 racers and, and if they are able to come up with new lighting techniques, whether AI driven or not, that makes the track look more real. I'm all for it. Now the way they demonstrate, they just
Sam Claiborne
look a little tired today.
Pear Schneider
That's right. They will apply mascara to the race cars as well. But they demoed it like this and people obviously had a lot of reactions because yeah, the characters look different from perhaps what is intended. Like the big one in Hogwarts Legacy. There's a shot of that's clearly Max from IGN in Hogwarts Legacy. And then they apply the filter and it looks like a completely different person. Right. So to somebody returning to the game it looks very, very different. But like if this is a tool set that developers can use and the artists have control over and can say this is what I want my game to look like and they're striving to make a realistically looking.
Mark Medina
This is the one. There's Max. Look, that's Max. Pause it. After Magic Max gone. That is the face of a man who is pushing his mobile. Gotcha game. Like that's what that looks like.
Pear Schneider
There's a bit of that.
Sam Claiborne
Do you think it's weird that they add that same cigarette stand to the back of the Hogwarts village there too that they did in the Resident Evil.
Pear Schneider
Yeah, no, that's true. But anyway, like my, my viewpoint is it's technology that allows us that. That may. I don't know if it is gone. All right. Like we're seeing marketing stuff. Look, this is with dls. Dlss. Way more realistic. Anyway, it's a tool set. It's going to get tweaked. It's going to. If, if it could be a really impressive tool set for developers to use when they're striving for realism. Do you guys remember that GTA footage that somebody created an engine that just sort of Changed the lighting to be more realistic. Like it was a mod and people went gaga over it. Like I feel like it's got that sort of look to it as well. It's not the perfect solution for every video game. I think the developers are going to have to make the decision whether they want to enable the feature or whether they want to leverage it or not. But like from a technical perspective, getting more advanced lighting for games without the cost of bigger, beefier hardware could be a good thing.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah, I think the technology is interesting. I don't really have a problem with using AI to give video game characters more realistic lighting. I don't know why it would give Grace a completely different face and why that face is very clearly the AI face, the mid journey face that we've been seeing for two years.
Pear Schneider
I'm totally with you on that.
Mark Medina
Yeah, yeah. They're all going to just end up looking the same.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah.
Mark Medina
But you know, some artists, some video game artists have come out and said that they, that they did not approve, they did not know that this is what was happening. So we're gonna see if it's actually
Sam Claiborne
like everybody that participated in this are on the record saying they participated with the Nvidia upgrades.
Pear Schneider
Yeah, but, but maybe, maybe, maybe the.
Mark Medina
But they didn't know it would change the faces is what their issue is. Just put about out an article about it today.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah, you know it. I think that backlash has been really interesting because the same, you know, like 4chan in cells that, that add mods to add big boobs to every single character in every game are out here being like, you changed the face.
Pear Schneider
Well, why did you change the face?
Mark Medina
The Starfield ones look okay because every NPC in that game is a char.
Pear Schneider
I was gonna say, like I, I get the argument that it introduces dead eye with some of them but like I thought the Starfield ones look good. I think FIFA's backgrounds look better like that. I, I think that looks better. There's got. There is going to be a little bit more of an uncanny Valley problem.
Sam Claiborne
Right.
Pear Schneider
When things, when the lighting is so realistic looking and they have that dead eye stare without a spark in the eyes.
Sam Claiborne
But look, Bethesda games already have that. I mean, you know what I mean? Like, like there's already these games that have these like dead stares that are already looking terrible.
Pear Schneider
Tech demo. Let's see where it goes.
Sam Claiborne
Mark. Wait till they come for your girl. And Stellar Blade.
Mark Medina
I know, well, and that's kind of what I'm saying is like, no, she's already Perfect. No, DLSS can fix her. She doesn't need to be fixed. I'm down with the like side vendors. Yeah, there she is. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know about main characters.
Sam Claiborne
Mark, what if you can use DLSS5 to add this character to every character and every. So you're. What's this character's name?
Damon Hatfield
Eve. Eve.
Sam Claiborne
What? If you could just make Grace Eve, Wouldn't you be happy about that?
Mark Medina
No, that's a mod. I don't mod games.
Pear Schneider
Okay, now we're not going to get anything. We're not going to get anything fun out of Mark.
Damon Hatfield
It would be.
Mark Medina
You're not going to get anything fun out of me. I'm too.
Sam Claiborne
Oh, yes, we are. Because we talk about Crimson Desert.
Damon Hatfield
We got.
Sam Claiborne
We got Mark's own third rail coming right up.
Mark Medina
Dang it.
Sam Claiborne
Switch at the station.
Mark Medina
I don't have any opinions on Crimson Desert.
Damon Hatfield
I would like to see DLSS5 what it does for something like Forza, like a racing game.
Pear Schneider
We're not looking at a fan. That's exactly it. That was my point. And by the way, if developers are creating the characters with that sort of engine, with that lighting in mind, it is expressing their artistic vision.
Sam Claiborne
Right?
Pear Schneider
But also, it doesn't mean that suddenly a cel shaded game should be rendered with realistic lighting and all of that.
Damon Hatfield
Right. I also wonder, could it be used on older games?
Pear Schneider
It'll look really funny.
Damon Hatfield
Like what? Like games like Metal Gear Solid where they just have kind of like very plain faces. Like, what could it do for that?
Pear Schneider
I mean, in theory, it's not supposed to change the geometry, Right? It is supposed to calculate lighting differently. And by the way, there may be inaccuracies. Right. Maybe the direction of the light source is actually not correct, but. And when you're viewing like a one second scene like that, you're like, oh yeah, it looks more realistic. But when you're playing the game, we're like, wait, why doesn't the sun. Why is the sun coming from behind now? Right? Like they're. There's all these things we just don't know from this short demo. But my point was like, I get why people are worried about, you know, it subverting artistic vision. And I think that's a real thing and we need to care about it. But at the same time, I don't know why everybody's so pissed about this.
Sam Claiborne
I think they're pissed about it because faces look stupid.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah.
Mark Medina
Yeah.
Pear Schneider
But that looks odd. Do you think that looks bad? Like if you know, if you didn't personally know this lizard, a lot of
Sam Claiborne
people I love that lizard. Looks so much cuter.
Mark Medina
It's just the aiification of everything. It's just worriso that the artists are, they're gonna be like, well, we need less, we need fewer artists because, you know, you could just make whatever and then we'll just use AI and they'll all just end up looking the same.
Pear Schneider
Yeah, but this, I don't see how this replaces people.
Damon Hatfield
No, but like, people don't want generative AI in their games. And this Grace looks like they put an AI filter.
Pear Schneider
Yeah, that's.
Damon Hatfield
Nvidia says no, that's what they did, but it looks like they did. So that's, that's the problem.
Pear Schneider
I think the lesson in marketing for Nvidia is like, don't change grace, man.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah, Grace. Grace.
Mark Medina
Do not change Grace.
Damon Hatfield
Leave her alone. Have been through hell and back together. That she is my homegirl.
Pear Schneider
Yeah, yeah.
Mark Medina
Leave her alone.
Pear Schneider
You got. Yep, There you go.
Sam Claiborne
Rip through almost as much blood as Lara Croft and Tomb Raider. That first remake.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah.
Sam Claiborne
For that first.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah. Okay. Well, speaking of Grace, Pair has started Resident Evil Requiem.
Pear Schneider
Yes. Because you made me. And just to be clear, I, I actually I downloaded, I pre preloaded it. I wanted to play it. Huh. Play on Switch on PlayStation 5 Pro. I, I had it all queued up and then something else came out which was fire emblem on GameCube. And you know, there was, there was way more GameCube. It was just way more important for me to tackle. No. And then procopia came out and I was, I was actually on vacation, so, so I couldn't play it.
Sam Claiborne
Copy.
Pear Schneider
No, I'm, I, I like Resident Evil games. I've played every game in the series. I think as far as not maybe the gun survivor stuff, I never touched that. I am as, I will say, as I'm getting older. Look at Mad Eye Moody. As I'm getting older.
Mark Medina
There he is.
Pear Schneider
I, I have to say, I don't love games that put me on the back fe foot and have me running away. And of course, Damon, this game immediately
Damon Hatfield
does it, but only half the game does that.
Pear Schneider
Yeah. So, so I, I, I played and I'm like, oh, this is like the Indiana Jones game I just played where you get to explore an area is like, ah, Giant monster girl. Yeah.
Mark Medina
It is just, just that opening section.
Pear Schneider
It's really, it's really nicely made. You know, I loved Resident Evil 4 when it first came out. I remember playing it pre release and so it's great to have Leon back.
Mark Medina
I will.
Pear Schneider
I will definitely finish this. It is as weird as every Resident Evil game. Like the, the way the characters interact with each other and I love it.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah, I loved it. I finished it.
Mark Medina
I love.
Damon Hatfield
I actually love the whole thing. I don't agree with those. So the part that you're in now, like the hospital, the care center.
Pear Schneider
Yeah.
Damon Hatfield
Some. That's kind of like the first half of the game. Some people think that's the good half and then the back half is. Is boring or something. Yeah, I don't feel that way. I like the whole thing.
Pear Schneider
I thought people would be more upset at the first person sequences that were underpowered and just running away and like. And obviously that's been a part of many Resident Evil games for a while where you have. You have this sort of unkillable enemy that. That stalks you.
Mark Medina
Yeah.
Pear Schneider
I thought people wouldn't. Wouldn't like the first person view on that.
Damon Hatfield
I thought you can change it.
Pear Schneider
Yeah, I thought. I did not change it. And like when you're running away from the girl, it's so creepy that you can't see behind and can't see how close she is.
Mark Medina
It's.
Pear Schneider
It's really effectively made and you can tell like how good and deliberate that choice of viewpoint was in those sequences.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah. Sam and Mark, do you remember, like the scene that they introduce the girl? Yeah. Because I started my second playthrough. I just re experienced it. It's so good because that you open the door, dead guy falls in front of you and you're staring down at him and then, yeah, this giant hand just sort of comes out in front of you, picks him up and eats his head. It's so good. Anyway, so I finished it. Sam and Mark, we still need to do a spoiler cast at some point. Not today with. But yeah, I immediately started Just do it right now. I immediately started my second playthrough, which I never do, but I really wanted to do get the unlimited ammo, the infinite ammo.
Mark Medina
You're in the rog like mode now where you're just. You're farming challenge points.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah, yeah. The farm challenge points. You need 50,000 to unlock infinite Ammo.
Pear Schneider
I. The visuals are really nice. I. I do wish Grace had worn a little bit more makeup.
Damon Hatfield
Well, maybe wait and play it again.
Mark Medina
It's coming.
Damon Hatfield
Six months.
Mark Medina
It's coming there.
Damon Hatfield
What was I saying? Parent interrupted me. Oh, yeah. So there's kind of two ways to do it. You can either beat the game in under four hours. Or you can beat it without healing. So it took me 17 hours to beat it the first time, so I wasn't really sure how feasible it would be for me to do four hours. So I'm trying to do the no healing run. You bump it down to casual.
Sam Claiborne
It's totally possible. Well, you're also doing the no crafting. That's the other thing you have to do.
Damon Hatfield
I kind of think I have. I think you have to do either or. How can I not craft and not heal?
Sam Claiborne
Well, but they're only worth 25k, so you have to do both of them.
Damon Hatfield
Okay. Well. Well, I haven't crafted or do casual.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah, it's easy, Damon. It really. It's really on. Easy. It's not. It changes the game. It makes it into an arcade game. You will be fine with the amount. You just use your. If you got that infinite.
Damon Hatfield
I did get the infinite knight.
Sam Claiborne
You don't need that. But, yeah, with that, it's pretty helpful. You just go up to enemies. You just slash them over and over again.
Damon Hatfield
What about the blister heads?
Sam Claiborne
Yeah, you can just. By the time that happens, you're running.
Damon Hatfield
Okay.
Sam Claiborne
You're just running from them. Okay. All right.
Damon Hatfield
Well, anyway, I'm. I'm back in.
Sam Claiborne
But, yeah, you won't have a hemolytic ejector the whole time, which is kind of.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah, but that's, like, one of the most fun parts of the game.
Sam Claiborne
I know, but think about how great
Damon Hatfield
it'll be up with infinite when you get that. This is so fun because the. That you just can pop him with one hit.
Pear Schneider
All right, so, Damon, you. I will tell you that you are the cause of my dog running away too. She was. She was on the couch next to me when I started playing. And after, like, five minutes, she noped out.
Damon Hatfield
Okay.
Pear Schneider
She left the room.
Mark Medina
Too scared. Too scary for the dog.
Pear Schneider
She was, like, looking.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah. Are really messed up. Like, a lot of the noises.
Damon Hatfield
I feel like you have to play with headphones for this game also. Yeah, but, like, the spatial. You can tell exactly where zombies and. And the girl are walking. Also, the blood splatter when you attack zombies is so good. It splatters on the walls. It's probably on the floor. And then when. When you walk through it, you'll leave blood prints.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah.
Pear Schneider
It's awesome.
Sam Claiborne
It's crazy tech.
Mark Medina
Yeah.
Damon Hatfield
So in my second playthrough, I'm back in the care center. I just did my first loop through the west wing when you go through the kitchen and then upstairs and then Past the singing girl and then you get the. The gym that gets you into the parlor. And then the first of the three. What are the courts that. To actually get out of the hospital? That's. That's what I just did last night, and that's where I am. But it's.
Sam Claiborne
It's totally the basement on my playthrough two right now.
Damon Hatfield
Okay, cool. Wait, you haven't finished it the second time, Sam.
Sam Claiborne
Mm.
Damon Hatfield
Okay.
Sam Claiborne
But the hardest part is the grace
Mark Medina
the second time where I'm past the
Sam Claiborne
hardest part, because after that, you're. A lot of the times you're playing as Leon and you just have so much. It's easy. So it's like you can just kill things really easily and it doesn't matter. For crafting for Leon, the grace, not crafting, is a little bit weird. You have to get used to it. You have to get used to using your pistol a lot and your knife. But it totally is fine on easy because you. You regenerate your health and you don't need to use health items anyway.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah, I remember you regenerated your health. And then when you. When it's a chapter break, like if I go to Leon, when I come back to Grace, is she fully healed?
Sam Claiborne
I believe so, yeah.
Damon Hatfield
Okay, cool.
Sam Claiborne
But even then, like, half health is fine. Like you're gonna be. It's just fine. Like it's. It's kind of a breeze.
Damon Hatfield
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Sam Claiborne
The longest part of the process, I'm
Pear Schneider
thinking is going to be staying on
Damon Hatfield
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Pear Schneider
I mostly use it to just scroll on social media and click things that I like anyway.
Damon Hatfield
So why am I paying like several hundred dollars a month to do that and stop paying way too much for wireless just because that's how it's always been. Mint exists purely to fix that. Mint Mobile is here to rescue you with premium wireless plans starting at 15 bucks a month. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Bring your own phone and number, activate with ESIM in minutes and start saving immediately. No long term contracts, no hassle. Ditch overpriced wireless and get three months of premium wireless service from Mint Mobile for 15 bucks a month. If I were in the market for a new wireless plan, I'd be looking at Mint Mobile. If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans@mintmobile.com 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. All right, that's where I am with my second playthrough of Resident Evil Requiem. And Mark, you started playing Slay the Spire 2. I talked about, I gushed about how much I like it last week. How are you finding it?
Mark Medina
Yeah, so who's, who's the one with the orbs? Is that the Evoker?
Damon Hatfield
I don't really know their names, but I know the one you mean.
Mark Medina
I think, I think it's him. Man, he is so much fun. I'm really, really enjoying the game. Yeah, I, I, it was, like, 30 minutes before bed, and I'm like, I didn't know what to do. And I was like, you know what? Let me just finally give the Slayest Spire game a try. And just like, Nick, I, I, you know, they make you start as. What's his name? The Ironclad or whatever. And instantly I was like, oh, yep, this is great. This is super good. And every time you do a run, you unlock a new character. For the most part, there's five, depending on how far you got. Yep. And they all play pretty different. Like, the cards you get are, you know, the, the cards you could end up getting served are, Are mostly the same, but they all have, like, different, like, perks and stuff like that. Well, the cards, the cards are, are like, you'll get your strikes and you'll get your blocks and stuff like that, but the cards are tailored towards that character's.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah.
Mark Medina
Moveset. Right. So it's like the Ironclad, he's like, he's like a warrior, right? He. Nothing special about him except for that he gets healed after every battle. He's the only character that that happens for. But then it's like, you'll go to, like, this guy, he's being carried on a throne. So, like, that sword. Yeah, the Regent. So that sword is something that you're constantly powering up and then can use against enemies. The Evoker has these orbs that go off every time you finish a turn. And you can do all these different crazy things with the orbs and make it where you're never even attacking because the orbs just do all the work for you. It's really, really fun. And then there's, like, a lady with, like, two daggers that's more about poisoning enemies.
Damon Hatfield
The poison builds, right?
Mark Medina
Yeah. Right. Now, like, before yesterday, I was just in the phase of, like, learning the character, seeing which one I like playing as whatever. Now I'm in the phase of actually trying to make builds, like, actually recognizing. Okay. The game is pushing because, you know, you start with just a very basic deck, and then it's like, okay, the game is actually pushing for me to, you know, do this, like, just, like a roguelike. Right. And so then it's like you start building cards towards that thing. And, man. Yeah, I'm having a lot of fun. I installed it on my Legion GO s. It is perfect for that. And I just sit on the couch and I just play Slay the spire.
Pear Schneider
Are you writing the guy? Are you writing the guide, Mark?
Mark Medina
No, no. Luckily, I employ a freelancer named Lynette who has played a thousand hours of the first game.
Pear Schneider
Okay.
Mark Medina
So she's just kind of solo doing the guide for the second game, and she has already played, like, amazing plus hours of this one, so I'm super tempted. Yeah, it's great.
Damon Hatfield
Did you play.
Pear Schneider
Did you play the original? I played the first one. Yeah.
Sam Claiborne
I liked it.
Pear Schneider
My son's, like, completely. He's got over 100 hours already, too. I'm sure.
Sam Claiborne
I.
Pear Schneider
It's just, you know, this other brand new game called Pokemon, Gale of Darkness came out.
Mark Medina
Yeah. Yeah.
Pear Schneider
Tough to find time when these brand new games come out.
Damon Hatfield
You're like Nintendo Switch Online's number one customer.
Pear Schneider
Honestly, I think. I think there are games on there that only. Only I have played.
Damon Hatfield
Maybe.
Mark Medina
Yeah. They're like one person. This game's also super early access, so it's fine to wait. Like, there's still a ton of content.
Damon Hatfield
There's a ton of content.
Pear Schneider
Unlock.
Mark Medina
Yeah, you'll unlock these. They're called Epochs, where it's like, it's basically a milestone. And most of them are drawn, like, I would say 70% of them. The art is just Ms. Paint because they're just all placeholders right now. So you can unlock them, but, like, yeah, very much. Still an active development. And also, I. I don't know how to unlock the last character, so maybe he's not in the game yet. Evoker was the last character I've unlocked.
Damon Hatfield
I think that's all there is for right now. That's five characters.
Mark Medina
Okay. There's a slot for another one, so.
Damon Hatfield
No, that slot is to pick one at random.
Mark Medina
Oh, interesting. Got it. Okay.
Pear Schneider
I didn't know that Sam Damon is on the guide now.
Mark Medina
Yeah, he noticed this one thing. Get him on the Guide and. But yeah, I love it. It's very, very fun. Give it a shot. If you are. If you are a fan of the first one or like, card building. Prud likes. It's very cool.
Damon Hatfield
I'm not saying Sam would like this one, but he did. Like, he didn't end up liking Blotro. And there's so many similarities. Just being a deck building roguelike where you know, you're constantly adding cards to your deck, but you need to build it so you only have, like, you have access to your best cards. You want to flush out your less powerful cards as you go along. And you know how in Blotch, before you Play a blind, you can choose to skip it and for, like a reward.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah, Right.
Damon Hatfield
But then you're missing the rewards you would get at the end of the blind. It's the exact same thing here as you're planning your route up the spire. You can go to an event room where. Which is in a battle. You might get something good there, but then you don't get the rewards it would get from the battle. So it's all. It's all like that.
Mark Medina
You. You could choose to not fight regular enemies and go after a boss enemy. Yeah, he'll get. It may mess you up, but you'll get better rewards. It's just so cool, man, because it's like. So you can't really see it on the screen because our portraits are. Are covering the bottom left layer. But when you're. When you're in the battle, you'll see on the bottom right. See right there, that little book that says A1, that's your discard pile. And so you only have like, I don't know, like 15 cards at the start, maybe. So you're just constantly cycling through the deck. And those cards will. Those cards can dictate what gets put in one deck. But eventually it's like you want a lot of, like, a really good card. Right. Because once you go through all those cards, which is usually two or three turns, those all get put back into your draw pile. And so it's all about maximizing the chance of getting cards that play to your build.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah.
Mark Medina
And it just gets really, really addicting.
Sam Claiborne
Yep.
Damon Hatfield
But once you get. Once your deck gets to about 20 cards, you want to start getting rid of your starting cards anyway. I don't know why we're giving a live game help for him right now. It's very. Oh, and Mark, I also think that's
Mark Medina
all the art right there.
Damon Hatfield
I think the visuals are just placeholders massively improved over the first game you get.
Pear Schneider
You're giving live game help because three out of four people on the show today are from game help.
Mark Medina
Yeah. This is the game help.
Damon Hatfield
That's true.
Sam Claiborne
Well, and I would say probably three out of the four people listening probably are playing this game because there's 600,000 people playing it on Steam.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah, it's up to 600k now.
Mark Medina
Wow.
Sam Claiborne
Insane. Or it was. I think that's where about where.
Mark Medina
Damon. You know what? I barely figured out last night, and maybe this was the first game, but I just completely forgot. Jober, can you pause the video right now? Okay. I didn't know this but you see the symbols over the snake, the little sword, and the. The, you know, that says eight and then the five times two. I did not know that that means that that's what they're going to do next.
Damon Hatfield
What?
Mark Medina
I'm an idiot. That's the whole thing here.
Damon Hatfield
How would you play the game without knowing that?
Mark Medina
I would, like. I would, like, put all. Like, I'd be like, oh, man, I'm low on health. And so I'd, like, spend a bunch of cards defending myself, like, to raise my armor. And then it's like, ah, they did. They just did a lower strength move. I didn't know. And then I was like, wait, hold on.
Pear Schneider
Thank goodness.
Mark Medina
That's what they're gonna do next. And then you mouse over them, and it's like this character is intending to hit you with a. Yeah, that's how
Damon Hatfield
you know how much you need to block.
Mark Medina
And I was like, what?
Pear Schneider
I don't know, Mike. Thank goodness Lynette is working on this.
Damon Hatfield
I don't.
Pear Schneider
Yeah.
Mark Medina
So then it becomes a math game. Then. Yeah, thank God Lynette's on this, because, man, I would be like, guys, the things it doesn't tell you. So then it becomes all about math. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna take this hit, but, like, can I minimize it? Can I kill him before he does this? So then, like, do not. And you, like, all of a sudden, you got the notebook out and you're like, all right. Yes.
Damon Hatfield
Welcome to 2019's Slay the Spire.
Pear Schneider
Hilarious.
Mark Medina
Okay, well, what a video game.
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Damon Hatfield
about another game that you're an expert in, Mark. Crimson Desert.
Mark Medina
Oh, boy. Crimson Damon.
Sam Claiborne
I didn't know very well.
Mark Medina
Damage, dude. Dude. So you can walk in the game. I didn't know that.
Sam Claiborne
They don't tell you, but how do you run?
Mark Medina
Like Red Dead style, baby.
Pear Schneider
You got a pump, right?
Mark Medina
You got to tap a button. Yeah. So Crimson Desert is a video game that I like quite a bit. Yeah, I like it. I like it a lot. I think it's very addicting. I think it's very fun. The story is. I'm not even gonna say the story is bad. The story is nothing. There is no story in this game.
Damon Hatfield
Okay?
Mark Medina
There are things in this game that just. They never get explained. It doesn't matter. Spoiler for the first five seconds of the game, your character dies and he just comes back to life. It is never. It doesn't matter. Who cares. Your goal in this game is to get the gray mains into a camp with you. Right? Like that should like your main goal. Cliff is he's basically a witcher who will just do anything for free with anything you need. He will just do it. He is more than happy to take on any menial tasks that you give him, which is like very mmo. Like, right? Like he's just, what do you need me to do and what will you give me for doing it? I have no qualms about anything you ask of me. That said, the combat is very fun. I think it's very fun. I think exploring the world is super. Fun. There is something around every corner you cannot walk. More than CD Projekt Red has a 45 second rule where you have to find something interesting in your game every 45 seconds. This game is like the 10 second rule. There is something to do around every corner, which is great, but it makes it where you never progress. I think the powers are very Zelda, like Tears of the Kingdom. Specifically, you get moves ripped directly from that game, which is the Ultra Hand and stuff like that. And they control almost identically like they do in Tears of the Kingdom where you can use the D pad to kind of like move the object around and push and pull. Stuff like that. I love those kind of puzzles. They're not as clearly. They don't really explain how to do them. Like. Like things aren't as easy to figure out as like Tears of the Kingdom mostly because of just how the world is. It's, you know, ultra realistic. So things are just like. You're like, whatever. I don't know. I. I really like the game. I think it's super fun and. But. But what I'll say is if you play the game and you don't like it, that's completely valid and I get it. And I agree with every point you'll make about why you don't like it.
Damon Hatfield
Like what would you.
Mark Medina
Great.
Damon Hatfield
What would you say? Is it Some. Some people are hoping it's something like Dragon's Dogma. Is it anything like that?
Mark Medina
No. Kind of. Maybe. Not really. No. Because a lot of the. A lot of. I'm gonna go with no. A lot of the stuff you fight, you're just. So. So what this game does is when you get new a fight like he's in right there. What the game will do very, very early is it will just throw waves and waves of enemies at you. It is. It is not uncommon for you to be fighting 20 to 3, 30 people at once. That is just how the game works because the combat's very easy. Something else to note about the. Something else to note about the game in general is Cliff does not control how you think he controls. He looks like an Assassin's Creed character. He's not. He moves much more closer to an Arthur Morgan. He's very heavy. He. You have to like tap X to run.
Sam Claiborne
He.
Mark Medina
He. He has a weightiness to him that is. That is that it's not how it appears on screen.
Pear Schneider
Seems appropriate given that he's heavily armored.
Mark Medina
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so yeah, you're not just like sprinting around and doing stuff because you'll like run out of stamina super quick. You, you are very heavy character. The combat's also a little strange. Takes a little bit of getting used to. You, you have a light attack and a heavy attack. You're not mashing those buttons, you're just holding them. So if you hold R1, that's, you know, those are the combos you're seeing is this person is likely just pushing one button.
Pear Schneider
So is that the. The MMO routes? I mean, like, when I first saw it, I put it high up on my wish list because it, it looked. The trailers and what I saw at Gamescom looked like a combo between Witcher 3 and maybe Breath of the Wild. Right. Like, there's a lot of high flying traversal stuff. But the game is much closer to an MMO in single player.
Damon Hatfield
Right.
Mark Medina
It's super. Like, you could tell this started as an mmo.
Pear Schneider
Yeah, yeah.
Mark Medina
From the creators of Black Desert Online. You could tell that this began and then they were like, nah, because you'll unlock a second character very like very early. Like chapter three. Her name's Damien and she Damianfield is Damien, Damien Hayfield. And she is useless. Like, she's cool, but she's cool to play as. But like, she does not talk. Most of the main missions you cannot do with her. They say these are Cliff's missions. She's useless. Why is she even in the game? I don't know. Maybe I'll find out later. But when you get her, there's no point to play as her. And in my opinion, that's like MMO holdover of like different classes or like
Pear Schneider
a little differently or like they looked at Assassin's Creed Shadows and they're like, they tried to go into like one of the dungeons and got the message that, you know, now we can't. Can't play here or something. And they're like, we got to do that too.
Damon Hatfield
So is it accurate to say the moment to moment combat is Dynasty warriors and the boss fights are Elden Ring?
Mark Medina
Kind of.
Damon Hatfield
That's what it looks like to me.
Mark Medina
No, no, no. Yeah, kind of. I wouldn't say Dynasty warriors in the sense of like your dynasty, where you know, you're swinging and you're hitting five, six enemies at once. That's not really how this plays that when you are engaging with an enemy, you're. You're typically engaging with that one enemy. So if you're holding R1 and you're doing your light attacks, you are hyper focused on one enemy and you're going towards him. Now if somebody runs up behind you and starts to swing their sword at you and you push L1, which is the block, slash, parry, you would your character, almost like Assassin's Creed or Batman. Arkham, like will turn and parry their attack. And now you're engaging with them. So almost more closer to an Arkham, but not quite like that.
Sam Claiborne
But boss fight.
Mark Medina
The bosses are like Elden Ring in the sense of like they have patterns and stuff like that. The bosses are not fun. Look at this game.
Pear Schneider
Look at their talents.
Mark Medina
They're not cool to play. Yeah, this is Dragon's dogma now. So here's another thing I'm gonna pivot to really quick stuff like this. This is not one of those games that gets fun after 10 hours. 20 hours, 30 hours. There's videos going around on Twitter of Cliff doing these insane things, insane moves. You are not seeing any of that until you are 80 or 90 hours. None of that is unlocked early. Mitchell, one of my co workers, has played the game 75 hours and he has not seen a single magic spell in this game. Yeah, and our review still mostly plays as it did when he first started.
Pear Schneider
And our Reviewer Travis has 110 hours plus now. Yeah, 110 hours when he wrote this sort of review in progress. And he says, I don't think I can, I can issue my final review because like I. There's too much I haven't experienced that I want to, you know, I want to get more clarity on. I want to see what the end game is like. I mean his point was, his point was that the boss battles are just not that fun. Like they feel out of sync and out of balance. They're not with the combat. Yeah. Cuz this look cool to me.
Sam Claiborne
I got to say.
Mark Medina
This does look cool. I don't know when this happens, but this does look pretty cool. No, they just like, it's, it's just, you know, it's dark Souls without any of that kind of like dark souly polish. Right. Like you're just kind of like mashing the dodge button and trying to like see if you can kind of read the tells of what they're doing. They've also nerfed a lot of the bosses. So it's, it's, it's, it's tough from a standpoint of like how much we've played. This game is still very much an active development as well. They are changing things constantly. When we were playing the game, when we were first handed the game, we key items, took inventory space. You had 20 spaces of inventory. There's no storage in this game. And they went back and right before launch made it where key items no longer take inventory space and they added 30 more slots of inventory. This, they are very much. I think this game is good now. I think it's going to be pretty good in a month and I think in a year it'll probably be great.
Pear Schneider
So they're going to know, do you think?
Mark Medina
I think that they are still very much in active development with this game. I think it's enough for them to sell it. I think they're going to keep changing things because they have made four. I'm not talking about day one patch. I'm talking about there have been four major updates since we got code two weeks ago. Oh, wow. That have drastically changed things about the
Sam Claiborne
game, made it easier. And. And there's a lot of conspiracy theorizing that, you know, people that don't like this game are people that are bad at it. And that's just, it's just. It's irrelevant. It's like they're playing a different game than you will ever play. And this is not the first time this has happened. This also happened with Elden Ring. Mitchell played a much more difficult version of Elden Ring to write a strategy guide for.
Mark Medina
We all did.
Sam Claiborne
Than anybody here will ever see.
Mark Medina
They nerfed Radahn.
Pear Schneider
You're saying journalist mode is the hard mode?
Sam Claiborne
It's generally hard mode, yes. And then another thing that you should
Mark Medina
be learning now that we have beta tested the game, the normal people complain.
Pear Schneider
Yeah.
Sam Claiborne
Another thing you should be wary about is that we said, hey, we can't fully score this game. We're 120 hours in. There's clearly so much more to see. Plenty of people just slapped a score in this game without saying anything like that. And there's no way that they be. They just. We know what the limitations on those people were and it just seems, you know, like extremely unlikely that people would have got, you know, past the points that a lot of the people we were playing with got to. So it's kind of weird right now, to be honest.
Mark Medina
It's not even theorizing. A lot of them say in their reviews that they haven't been.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah, yeah. Or that. Yeah. So that's unfortunate. I. There's a funny anecdote. So we had a. So we make these big interactive maps for games and one way that you can make a big map is you can make the game easier by turning on cheats and then run around the map. So we Had a coworker doing that. And again, not for review or anything critical or anything like that. They're like doing a job which involves running around in a game. And that the editor got much further than most people probably on earth have gotten and was. Would have to fight these late game bosses with cheats on and with infinite health. And they would take 40 minutes.
Mark Medina
Yeah, he would just, he would just prop up his controller, hold it against the R1 button, and he would just walk away because your character engages and so as you slash, they'll kind of move forward and that's. That's all it took. So he was cheating. He had cheats on.
Sam Claiborne
But that's just showing you and you can't do much. Like, it's a. It's a. It's just showing. There's probably some, some major balancing issues with the game right now because once people get to that, they will probably bounce off of that. It's not like Silksong where like, well, clearly somebody handcrafted this to like make this perfect boss fight that you're going to want to try a million times. It's more like, can you make enough hamburgers to grind out this boss that has no obvious, like, you know, cool strategy or anything. You just, you just have to outlast it like that. That. That ain't, that ain't great news. And our reviewer will, will definitely be reporting more on that.
Mark Medina
Yeah, a big narrative right now.
Pear Schneider
This.
Mark Medina
You know, I'm not very much into discourse for social media when it comes to stuff like this because people will. The game releases and at the time of this recording, it releases in two minutes. They will figure it out for themselves. But what I will say is there's a lot of like, oh, journalists scored it low because they didn't, you know, the game doesn't hold your hand. It's not about that. It's not about holding. We gave elden ring a 10. That game does not hold your hand at all. It's not about a game holding your hand. It's about a game breaking its own rules constantly. And that happens. You have a, A Zelda like glider. It works almost identical to the glider in this game where you kind of turn into a crow. It's a, It's a very short glide that you run out of stamina very quickly on. In chapter four, you fight a boss, the tool. There's no tool tips or anything. The boss is flying around. Game does not tell you that suddenly your glide is a fly. You push it and all of a sudden you can fly. The game doesn't tell you that. So it's not about like, oh, it doesn't hold your hand. It's about it literally breaks its own rules and then just doesn't tell you. And then you're like, what am I supposed to be doing here? And then you're like, oh, what the heck? Like it's very, very, very strange. You know, I don't think it's going to be for everybody, but if you like open world games where you could just run around and do a million different things, I think you're going to love this game. I just love the. That is what I like doing.
Pear Schneider
I love the look and I love the creatures. I mean that's what attracts me to it. And like I can handle a little bit of jank. Like honestly, if you go back to the earlier Witcher games, they didn't feel great. Even Witcher 3's combat doesn't feel amazing. But that game sold me because of the world. The immersion, the monsters and the side stories. Every side quest is like a freaking chapter from a book and it's self enclosed in many ways. That's what soulta.
Mark Medina
You're not going to get that here.
Pear Schneider
But the combat is much better in a game like you know, freaking Tears of the Kingdom or something. So if this is, if it's, if it's more about immersion in world, I'll probably have have a good time with this.
Sam Claiborne
I'm worried about like I want the immersions in world, but I am worried about getting gated every once in a while by like something that has nothing to do with what I've been doing. Like I've not been working on beefing up my character for a boss fight. I've been working down another path. But it sounds like you're still gated by those boss fights.
Mark Medina
Oh, my phone just lit up. Crimson desert, ready to play. Sorry boys.
Sam Claiborne
Goodbye.
Mark Medina
Yeah, that, that does happen. This is. This. It's weird. It's also another weird thing that Pearl Abyss has said. This is not an rpg. What? This is the most RPG game.
Sam Claiborne
They're trying to distance themselves from it being a MMO rpg.
Mark Medina
Yeah, this is an rpg.
Pear Schneider
Yeah, yeah.
Mark Medina
Stop listening to what PR people.
Pear Schneider
I actually, I actually have an issue. I have an issue with that.
Mark Medina
Right.
Pear Schneider
Like we, we run the IGN games database and we assign genres to games and we often make changes over what people list. On Steam. On Steam, sometimes people will genre spam their games so that they show up for many, many searches.
Damon Hatfield
Right.
Pear Schneider
Like famously Nintendo when it had no role playing games on the N64. Kept calling Ocarina of Time an RPG. At least in the west that's an action adventure. There's. There's one RPG in the, in the Zelda franchise. Early on that was Zelda too. So it's like, yeah, like it. Sometimes it doesn't. It's not. The developer speaks the truth. And some people say, like, they would know. It's like, no, they don't.
Mark Medina
No, like you don't level up. Okay. Like, there's no like, oh my. Cliff is level 14. That's not how it works. Your gear, your weapons, they all have numbers. They all have upgrading. You know, you upgrade your sword, it did 14 damage. Now it does 16 damage. That's an RPG. When you do level up, you basically just get what's called an abyss core and that you. Those are your skill points. Putting things and skills to raise your stamina. Now my stamina, it was 180, now it's 220. That's an RPG. Yes. Cliff himself is not level 20. Level 30, like an Assassin's Creed. But everything else is RPG. Like it. It's an RPG.
Pear Schneider
Games, games are so mixed up. All the like nowadays it's like there are games with RPG elements and like you just gotta, you just gotta make.
Mark Medina
This is an open world RPG action RPG in every sense.
Sam Claiborne
Well, it's half fishing though, right? So it's half of a fish with it.
Mark Medina
With a, with a dash of fishing
Damon Hatfield
in this footage there. This, you know, the battle is having. Happening over this puddle. The reflection is amazing. In the puzzle. In the puzzle, dude.
Mark Medina
So graphically. All right. One of the prettiest games you'll ever play. Holy smokes. This game is gorgeous. So I'm playing an incredibly well optimized screw. Unreal Engine 5. Stop making your game in Unreal Engine 5. This game is not Unreal Engine 5. Oh, I say it every episode. This game on my 5070 ti, no DLSS, none of that. I'm getting native 65 frames, 4K, everything set to cinematic with full ray tracing, everything. It's gorgeous. It runs so well and looks so good. The reflections are incredible. The foliage is insane. All of those trees can be cut down.
Damon Hatfield
Cool.
Mark Medina
It's nuts how much like it can be interacted with. You could cut down that tree, pick it up, use your ultra hand to throw. You can do whatever you want.
Sam Claiborne
So nuts. We were unable to play this game on console, by the way. So, like, I'm really interested in seeing how that turned out. And I have not heard, you know, negative stuff about it. I think somebody got it exclusively for PS5 Pro and tested it and that's the only indication I have that it even exists for those consoles.
Pear Schneider
See, that stuff makes me nervous.
Damon Hatfield
Whatever.
Pear Schneider
But yeah, I don't know.
Mark Medina
Yeah. Well, this game is optimized for the new PSSR2 if you're playing on PS5 Pro. So it should and Digital Foundry did do their full breakdown for for this running on PS5 Pro and they said it runs great. Sure there's gonna be frame dips, but
Pear Schneider
that's console I may have to play it.
Damon Hatfield
It looks really incredible, dude.
Mark Medina
It's really fun. I I'd love to know other people's opinions of it. I want to know people's opinions on it that aren't working on it for game help because for game help this game has been miserable. So I'd love to know what people that are just playing the game for fun think. Because I think it's really fun.
Sam Claiborne
All right, all right.
Mark Medina
Spoilers. I haven't really been playing it for game help. Spring starts at the Home Depot and
Damon Hatfield
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Mark Medina
Fire up the flavor with our wide variety of grills for under $300 like
Pear Schneider
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Mark Medina
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Sam Claiborne
Bring it this season with grills that
Mark Medina
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Pear Schneider
at the Home Depot exclusion supplies. See homedepot.com Pricematch for details.
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Damon Hatfield
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Damon Hatfield
All right, let's check in with the listeners.
Sam Claiborne
Hey howdy listeners.
Damon Hatfield
Listeners remember you can always reach us at the email address gamescoopgn.com Just like Roe in Ottawa, Canada, Rose says, I just started playing Memories in Orbit on Game Pass. It is a beautiful game with awesome music, traversal and platforming and combat. Anyone played Mio?
Pear Schneider
No, not yet.
Damon Hatfield
Great boss fights. I would call it Silksong Lite over The years Metroidvania and roguelikes have become my favorite genres. Wondering what each one of you would pick as your favorite modern metroidvania, say 2010 and beyond.
Sam Claiborne
We're doing this with Mark.
Mark Medina
Oof. You know I'm on the show, right?
Pear Schneider
No, I would say for me it's Metroid Dread song.
Damon Hatfield
Metroid Dread.
Pear Schneider
For me it's Metroid Dread. I mean, I think that's a copa. I really like Prince of Persia too. I thought that was fantastic.
Sam Claiborne
Yep, Prince of Persia's mine. Easily, easily. No contest.
Damon Hatfield
Wait, what about the, the dung beetle one?
Sam Claiborne
Well, how modern are we going?
Mark Medina
That's like 10 years ago you said 2010.
Sam Claiborne
He.
Damon Hatfield
This ro just has. Yeah, 2010 and beyond. And after that, what was the name of the pinball? Metroid Video Island Island Express.
Mark Medina
Yeah. Yeah.
Pear Schneider
See, I, I, I like that game a lot, but it wasn't like, I ran into areas where it wasn't fun. Like, I got a little frustrated in that one. And it wasn't because of, like, Dread. I got frustrated with some of the difficulty of the bosses. But this one, I just sort of got lost sometimes a little bit in that world. So I didn't think it was that, like, it could have gotten a little bit more tweakage. But, you know, like, if you happen to be into Metroid other games and
Sam Claiborne
not as much as other games, you did better than Axiom Verge.
Pear Schneider
Yeah, I did too. If you happen to be into pinball and Metroidvanias, I don't know anybody like that. It would probably be your game of.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah. Besides the pinball stuff, it's really cute and charming. The way that they integrate the pinball all stuff into it is really funny. And the dung beetle's funny.
Damon Hatfield
He's a mailman. Right? He has to, like, deliver mail.
Pear Schneider
No, it's a good game. I like that one.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah, that was one.
Mark Medina
I would say the Ori games, like, they're pretty and they have really good music.
Sam Claiborne
Yep.
Mark Medina
Yep.
Damon Hatfield
Sam, did you pick.
Mark Medina
I just looked at, at a list, I just looked at a list of the top 25 metroidvanias, and I, I have not played any of those games.
Pear Schneider
What?
Mark Medina
They also had Shantae on there, which is weird because Shantae is not a Metroidvania.
Sam Claiborne
No, some of them are.
Mark Medina
Some really. Well, they had Half Genie Hero, and I don't think Half Genie Hero is a Metroidvania.
Sam Claiborne
I'm sure that one is.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah, I think they're all Metroidvanias, actually.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah, I love those games. This is great. Shantay's really good.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah.
Mark Medina
Yeah. No, I. I famously do not really play metric.
Sam Claiborne
What are we missing? What's in IGN's top five?
Mark Medina
Well, this wasn't from IGN.
Sam Claiborne
That's from another website that doesn't even exist.
Pear Schneider
I didn't know what other website.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah, I'd shut out Bloodstained.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah, I never beat Bloodstained. You reviewed it, right?
Damon Hatfield
Yeah, Bloodstained.
Sam Claiborne
It was really fun.
Damon Hatfield
I gave it an 8 out of 10.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah. The new Castlevania might be the best. Metroidvania.
Pear Schneider
Yeah.
Damon Hatfield
The one that's. Hopefully that's out this year. But speaking of that one.
Mark Medina
Okay.
Damon Hatfield
What?
Mark Medina
Hold on. Sorry. Can I answer Sam's question really quick? So we did have a best Metroidvanias list.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah.
Mark Medina
So, number one, Hollow Knight. Hollow Knight. Number two, Will of the Wisps. Number three, Silk Song. Number four, Animal. Well, number five, Guacamelee 2.
Pear Schneider
I actually really. Those are all great guacam. I really liked Animal. Well, I thought it was really cool.
Sam Claiborne
Keep going. What's. What's six? What's 670?
Pear Schneider
You didn't play any of these.
Mark Medina
Mark.
Pear Schneider
Mark. You seriously.
Mark Medina
No, I'm not playing. I've not played any of those. I'm too old.
Pear Schneider
Wait a second. You're looking at me and you're saying you're too old.
Damon Hatfield
He's the youngest one here, but he's too old for Metroidvanias.
Pear Schneider
Too old.
Mark Medina
All right. Bloodstained, Ritual of the night, Steam World Dig 2.
Pear Schneider
Oh, I love that.
Mark Medina
Roots of Persia, Lost Crown, Axiom, Verge, cave story number 11.
Sam Claiborne
We're including caves Express.
Pear Schneider
I'm not a cave story guy, but
Sam Claiborne
out of those, I think we picked out the right ones. Some of those I wouldn't. I wouldn't recommend at this point. Even Axiom Verge 2, I think, was better than Axiom Verge. I think that's unpopular opinion, but I still wouldn't recommend it. There's a lot of these games go way too Metroid by the books, and if you do that, it's a little obvious, and I don't think it works as well. Bloodstained is awesome, and the NES version of Blood Stained is really, really fun, too.
Pear Schneider
That's not a Metroid Steamboat Dig too, though.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah, that's probably my favorite just traditional Metroidvania game.
Pear Schneider
Yeah.
Damon Hatfield
Of this time period.
Pear Schneider
I forgot. I forgot about that one.
Mark Medina
That.
Pear Schneider
That's definitely in my digging Mechanic.
Damon Hatfield
It's like, what? It's what if. Mr. Driller. Fun for more than two minutes, and
Pear Schneider
it's a crazy evolution. The first game had randomized environments. The second one is a true Metroidvania with like handcrafted levels. It's just.
Damon Hatfield
It's so good.
Pear Schneider
Wonderful.
Damon Hatfield
They. They make all these other Steamroll games. Let. Let's maybe bring the focus back.
Pear Schneider
This one's fun, but let's.
Damon Hatfield
How about Steam World Dig 3? How about that?
Pear Schneider
Yeah, they're doing it.
Damon Hatfield
The other one I would throw on there if the panel will allow it would be Dead Cells, which is not a traditional medium, but yeah, that's interesting.
Mark Medina
I do rogue dead cells.
Pear Schneider
I mean I love to rogue to be Castle.
Damon Hatfield
I mean it's the Metroidvania procedurally generated. But you do find there are items you find that will unlock areas in future runs. So I don't know.
Pear Schneider
Yeah, good mix up.
Sam Claiborne
Well then I'm going to put mini sheet adventures in there because it is. I know it's supposed to be a Zelda like Zelda, but. But you know, as in terms of a 2D game that you find new areas and have to go back to other areas to open them up. It is structured the same as Metroid and Zelda were the same type of game, but they were. One was sideways and one was top down. That was the distinction at the time. So where we go from there is a little bit messed up because we just decided that Castlevania matters more.
Damon Hatfield
Minishoot is on Switch now. Yep, you can play there.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah, I played it.
Pear Schneider
I played on Steam Deck. I mean it's linked to the past with a little Twin Be ship, basically.
Sam Claiborne
Oh, I love Twin be.
Damon Hatfield
Okay.
Sam Claiborne
What's that called here? Stinger. Right.
Damon Hatfield
Stinger.
Pear Schneider
Wow.
Damon Hatfield
This is Parker from Seattle. I am currently watching an old game scoop episode on YouTube which I know the panel has agreed is a crazy thing to do.
Pear Schneider
Justin told me that's just Justin.
Damon Hatfield
Not correct. It was just Justin and I think he's been just. Just corrected. It is there is nothing strange he regrets ever saying that watching old Gamescube episodes. On episode 410 from October 21, 2016, Damon, Jared, Sam and Justin were reacting to the announcement.
Sam Claiborne
Ooh, ooh.
Damon Hatfield
The announcement trailer for the original Nintendo Switch and making some predictions for Nintendo's next console. At the 5 1/2 minute mark, Sam said the following. You know what's really exciting? I have. I should have had a clip. You know what's really exciting about it is that you could potentially couch it in some sort of cardboard like thing and play virtual boy games on it, thus kind of predicting. So that was what Sam said.
Sam Claiborne
I'm in a big lawsuit about this right now and I won my money.
Damon Hatfield
Predicting both Labo and the newly released Virtual Boy accessories. Pretty insane production to stumble upon from almost 10 years ago.
Pear Schneider
That's. That's amazing. But to be fair, I think when Sam said it, he said there's no way in hell. Like I don't think I. Anybody would have predict, predicted Nintendo would acknowledge the existence of Virtual Boy, let alone make a hundred dollar accessory to play it.
Sam Claiborne
So I think we can all accept that Sam talks enough that a broken clock is right.
Pear Schneider
That's right.
Mark Medina
That's what happened to him. I have a better Miyamoto watches scoop. That's. That's what I'm taking.
Sam Claiborne
I have a better rate than, than the broken clock. And please, once again, somebody tell my wife that many years ago I said something and it was totally right and came true.
Damon Hatfield
Have you been enjoying your. Your new virtual book accessory? Playing it every night.
Pear Schneider
It's one of those things where like I really like it but I just can't play it for a long time because it's like it's so uncomfortable.
Mark Medina
Such marks.
Pear Schneider
I have to like nail it to the wall so that I can stand
Damon Hatfield
upright or something like that was the problem. The Virtual Boy should have. They should have just been a wall accessory that you stand and you lean into.
Mark Medina
Just put it in the corner.
Sam Claiborne
I should be at Toys R Us. They made kiosks that you would walk up and kind of just like, kind of nestle into like that.
Pear Schneider
It should have been a virtual wall. Yeah. Not a boy for the tabletop.
Mark Medina
You're just describing a tv.
Pear Schneider
The thing about this thing is like the games are actually better than you think.
Sam Claiborne
They.
Damon Hatfield
They're still Nintendo games, you know.
Pear Schneider
Yeah. And like Wario especially. It's like that. That's a really good game.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah. They're. They're releasing some of the cool other ones too. Mario Clash is coming. That's a cool Mario Brothers game. It's good stuff. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I take this everywhere I go and we have playdates in the. In Dolores park here in. In the Mission. Everybody comes over and says I got next game for Tell a Row Boxer. You know, it's a cultural moment.
Mark Medina
Like it takes the eyeballs and like it May. It's actually 3D when you play.
Sam Claiborne
Is it 3D? Why do we invite Mark on this?
Mark Medina
I'm just asking. I've not played it.
Sam Claiborne
Boy.
Mark Medina
I just. I wouldn't know if it was like actual like if they actually.
Sam Claiborne
Shut up.
Pear Schneider
Fair?
Mark Medina
What do you mean?
Pear Schneider
The whole gimmick was 3D.
Mark Medina
I'm playing. I'm playing the. I played the role of the audience. I knew the answer.
Pear Schneider
No, the audience is more informed. The audience has played a Metroidvania.
Damon Hatfield
Mark, Mark, I guarantee you everyone in the audience who has played Slay the Sky are knew what those numbers were above the enemies.
Pear Schneider
Mark, tell us more about. Tell us more about the Godfather 2. Tell us more about the Godfather 2.
Mark Medina
I'm starting to learn I might not be a gamer. Paradise is really good.
Sam Claiborne
Paradise Season 2, just to get Mark out of the. From under the bus, going back what the reader was saying. And by the way, people are posting videos of us a long time ago and that's really funn. But there's a. At the time, in the office, before Oculus or kind of like right around that time, they would issue cell phone cardboard boxes that you could wear in your face. Right? And that's exactly where I got that idea from, is that we had one of those, like floating around. And what it does is it bisects the phone. Your eye sees the different screen. And that's exactly how the virtual boy accomplishes 3D in this form.
Pear Schneider
The new virtual board.
Sam Claiborne
Dissecting it, the old one did, through a mirror that flicks back and forth 120 times a second and bounces a single dot of light on it. Instead of. It's just absolutely.
Pear Schneider
It is the most technologically advanced way to give you a headache. Like, it is really impressive technology.
Sam Claiborne
Yep.
Damon Hatfield
Okay, Mark, I heard you mention Paradise Season 2 so we can do extracurricular activities.
Mark Medina
I was just trying to get out of that.
Damon Hatfield
But Paradise, Please have not started yet.
Mark Medina
No spoilers.
Sam Claiborne
Now, hold on, Mark. Is Paradise Season 2 a TV show?
Mark Medina
Technically, it's streaming on Hulu. Does that make it a TV show?
Pear Schneider
I don't know. The only good. The only good TV news out there is that Tokyo Diner, after a hiatus of like almost a decade, is returning with new episodes. Thank you very much. The best TV show Netflix produced the season. It was Japanese TV before. Nobody who listens to the show has ever heard of it. And it's fantastic.
Mark Medina
No.
Sam Claiborne
What about the wine one?
Pear Schneider
The what?
Sam Claiborne
The wine one. You like that one?
Pear Schneider
Drops of God. The manga. Manga adaptation.
Sam Claiborne
It's.
Pear Schneider
It's very good. It's got a second season on Apple tv. You guys are not going to like it because it's for cultured people.
Sam Claiborne
Wow. Is that a fermentation joke?
Pear Schneider
It's good, that one. It's in French, English and Japanese. So good luck.
Damon Hatfield
Okay, Mark, I set you up. You didn't say anything about Paradise.
Mark Medina
Yeah, Paradise. Season two, possibly better than season one.
Sam Claiborne
What?
Mark Medina
I think it is insanely good. It is so good. I can't believe it.
Pear Schneider
But it doesn't have the gimmick reveal. Is it. Is it? Okay, don't say anything. Don't.
Mark Medina
But it still follows the format of every episode is like 60% flashback. It still does that every episode. All right. Yeah, it's still. It still does that every episode, so. Well, except for the first episode. The first episode is like introducing a character. So it's just. Oh, no, that one's still flashback too. But yeah, there's. There's. There's that. And then from then on, then the rest of the show, like, when you watch the first episode, you won't see a recap of the first season. Don't be alarmed. That's because the first episode has nothing to do with anything that happened in season one.
Sam Claiborne
That's very Lost, right?
Mark Medina
Yeah, it's very.
Sam Claiborne
Just to watch an episode about this character.
Mark Medina
Yeah.
Sam Claiborne
In the past.
Mark Medina
Think of it as episode three from Last of Us, Season one, where they had that, like.
Pear Schneider
I don't know which one that is.
Mark Medina
I know it's. It's the. The Nick Offerman.
Pear Schneider
Oh, yeah, yeah. The best episode. Okay. Yeah, that was.
Mark Medina
Yeah, that is basically this. It's like. It has a lot to do with the world, but, like, it is. It is. Does not address anything that's actually happened in Paradise. Then in episode two, then it's like, okay, here's a recap of episode one. Also, that guy that they just showed, his name is Link and he is named after the video game character.
Pear Schneider
Excellent.
Sam Claiborne
Very well, that's the second big reference in paradise to Nintendo. Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Medina
Oh, they're not done. I'm not going to spoil anything, but they are not done with the Nintendo reference.
Sam Claiborne
The crux of the final events of that season all are about a video game system.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah. About the week.
Mark Medina
And they are. Should let me have the Wii.
Sam Claiborne
Mark, how far were you through the second season when you realized that twist for the first season?
Mark Medina
Wait, they're in a bunker. Hold on. Okay. I will say halfway through Night of the Seven Kingdom, and I was like, wait, is Egg a Targaryen?
Sam Claiborne
Yes.
Mark Medina
My wife's like, duh.
Sam Claiborne
Like, oh, let's do. Let's. Let's get a third big spoiler in here just to make sure Mark's week goes great. What do you got, Mark?
Mark Medina
I'm also watching the Pit and the Pit is fantastic.
Damon Hatfield
Okay, the Pit. I. Is good, but I can't watch it.
Mark Medina
There's nothing to spoil about the Pit. It's very good. And it's just.
Sam Claiborne
Isn't there a video game thing in that you got.
Pear Schneider
No. You guys watching Steve Carell, the Rooster?
Sam Claiborne
Yeah. So good.
Damon Hatfield
Oh, I've heard good things, but no, it's pretty good.
Mark Medina
I've heard it's great.
Sam Claiborne
It's only two episodes in. I've watched them both twice because I made other people watch it, and so then I had to supervise. It was a great rewatch already. But yeah, it's really. The production crew behind Ted Lasso, plus Steve Carell and. Absolutely. And then a little bit of an HBO gloss over it. Right? Amazing cast. The cast is so funny. They're so great. His daughter's great in it. And. Yeah. It's just. It has Jamie Tartt.
Damon Hatfield
Oh, cool.
Sam Claiborne
Do, do, do, do, do, do. Jamie Tartt.
Damon Hatfield
Oh, yeah, there he is.
Mark Medina
Oh, there he is. Yeah, there is.
Sam Claiborne
And he plays. Yeah, he's great. I. I can't wait for y' all to watch it. And we'll be talking about next week.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah.
Mark Medina
All right.
Damon Hatfield
I'll watch this tonight. And then you also saw Project Hail Mary.
Pear Schneider
Oh, I'm so jealous.
Sam Claiborne
I did.
Damon Hatfield
Is it out now?
Sam Claiborne
It's one of my favorite action movies ever.
Damon Hatfield
Did you see an early scre.
Pear Schneider
Early screening, Right.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's out for everybody listening, though. They can go see it right now because it's out when this episode comes out. Dude, it's so. I love the book, actually, Pear mentioned because, like, I was a little burnt on the author's second novel, which I
Pear Schneider
believe is called Artemis. Artemis.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah. It's not that I like the Martian. And then. And so. And then Per's like. Actually, the third book is really good. Like. Like the week it came out, I think you told me about it, read it, couldn't put it down. Loved it. And I thought this would be the worst thing ever to adapt to a movie, and it's so good.
Pear Schneider
I thought they would screw up.
Sam Claiborne
They needed to find the right people, and they need to find the right cg, and they needed to do it. All right. They cast Rocky great. And they cast Grace great. They're just amazing.
Pear Schneider
I thought they would screw this up just with the CG stuff.
Sam Claiborne
What this movie is, it's a big series of things that I don't want to give away because the plot is great, but it's a space movie about humanity going to the stars. For the first time and a bunch of scary, great thrilling action things happen and there's also just very unexpected twists. And then throughout the whole thing is this emphasis on humanity can solve problems like Star Trek has, which feels especially I think, hopeful and unusual for this time that we're in right now. But then also things go really wrong with those plans and it's, it's great.
Pear Schneider
It's like. It's like Armageddon, if Armageddon wasn't dumb.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah, yeah. Is it the same author as the Martian or is it.
Sam Claiborne
Yes.
Pear Schneider
Yeah, yeah.
Sam Claiborne
Okay.
Mark Medina
Yeah, Andy, we. Andy Weir.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah, Andy Weir. And who did the Martian? Artemis, which was the second one he did.
Pear Schneider
Yeah, we've got a. On our YouTube channel, we have an interview with him. He used to work for Blizzard.
Damon Hatfield
I did not know that.
Pear Schneider
I think he got fired from Blizzard actually and then pursued his writing career. Yeah, he's just knows technology really well and is. Is really tuned in with pop culture and video games, but not in a ready player one, I gotta mention everything kind of way.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah, yeah. Well he. What he did come from a background of that being the ready player one of science though, right?
Pear Schneider
Well, yeah.
Sam Claiborne
You know, this plant is mainly made out of carbon so I need to make a high nitrogen soil. So I'm going to make that with poop. Like that was like the whole like conceit of that and there's a little bit of that and a lot of that in this book. Very moderated for the movie and great kind of scenes with the character thinking and stuff, but doesn't explain it and then you see the results and it's really smart. So the other thing this movie does is that they did a bunch with practical sets in this movie and the anti grab and stuff is really amazing. And Ryan Gosling, by the way, unbelievably funny. He's just funny and he's good at delivering lines and every joke falls. So it's like one of those Indiana Jones type action movies where your central lead is so charismatic that everybody's smiling the whole time until it's scary for a little bit and then smiling again. It's like a Disneyland ride. But what I was gonna say real quick is that this game, this game, this movie has a bunch of space scenes in it where they do the full silence. So the theater was dead.
Mark Medina
Oh, I love that.
Pear Schneider
Oh, that's excellent.
Sam Claiborne
Some of the most absolutely tense messed up things that could possibly happen while a person that has no idea how to navigate a spaceship, especially do a spacewalk, is doing And. And I, you know, everybody was just, like, holding their breath and just watching, and it was like. It was a theater experience. That's great.
Pear Schneider
Weir keeps remaking this old story called Robinson Crusoe on Mars, basically, where it's like you need, you know, lone. Lone guy needs to figure out how to solve all these big, big problems. And then he's got this sort of like James Bond level threat above it, too, in this movie. Yeah. Like in the book, at least I've got tickets for IMAX for this weekend.
Damon Hatfield
Oh, cool.
Sam Claiborne
And so this has another set of flashbacks in it, and I'm just gonna say that, then say my next thing, which is that it also has a lot of really interesting buddy comedy stuff in it and things that you would not expect. By the way, it has a great character from the bear that shows up, which is really interesting.
Mark Medina
Oh, cool.
Sam Claiborne
But ye. It's really, really, really good an actor. I mean, cool.
Damon Hatfield
I'll see that for sure. Yeah. All right.
Sam Claiborne
Can't wait for y' all to see it.
Damon Hatfield
All right, that brings us to video game 20 questions. Our suggestion this week comes from Corey L. From Herndon, Virginia, who says, hi, Damon. GamesCube is my favorite podcast, and I've been slowly working my way through all the episodes in chronological order over the last couple of years, and now I'm only about one year behind Justin.
Mark Medina
Every game Scoop episode is evergreen. That's. That's just. That's what it is. Nobody does this for any other podcast. That's all I'm going to say.
Damon Hatfield
One of the reasons I love the show is that you and I have a lot in common. We both have young gamer children running around. My oldest daughter's about to turn six. Our tasting games almost always lines up, and most importantly, we're both big horror film fans. That last.
Pear Schneider
I'd like to make a guess. The game is R type 3.
Damon Hatfield
That last one is why I got one.
Sam Claiborne
Abodox.
Damon Hatfield
Well, I was surprised to hear in an episode from last year that you've never seen any of the Saw films. What? Imagine my shock. I'm writing to ask if that is still true to this day, and if so, how do we go about fixing it? Well, I'm no mind reader. I feel fairly confident that you'd love the series. It certainly has its highs and lows, but the first several films are fantastic, and the original is damn near a masterpiece. I suspect those that haven't seen it imagine something comparable to terrifiers, but I think it's much more like its contemporaries. Hostile And Wolf Creek because it does not skimp on the suspense, dread, or atmosphere in the way arts outings do. Anyway, please give an update on gamescoop if and when you check the series out, assuming you haven't already in an episode I haven't gotten to yet. Thank you and pass my gratitude to the rest of the Omega Cops for all the years of entertainment. Wait, so he's not even listening to contemporary episodes, so he's.
Pear Schneider
But he's bored with what we have to say now, and he's gonna hear
Damon Hatfield
my answer in a year or so. No, I saw a great email. I've never seen. I've never seen any of the soft films and not out of it.
Mark Medina
Very. Not very similar to Hostel.
Pear Schneider
I don't want to make the listeners sad, but I just don't like them. I'm like. I'm.
Mark Medina
I would say the first three are worth it. Don't go anymore after that.
Pear Schneider
Yeah, I get. I get what people like about them. They're really suspenseful, but they're, like, at a level that I'm like, yeah, tap out.
Damon Hatfield
But I like terrifier, so I might.
Mark Medina
It's more of a. Saw is more about the mystery of it all. It's like figuring out who did what and getting hit at the end with this.
Pear Schneider
Like, it's got. It's got a little. It's got a little torture porn angle to it. Yeah, yeah.
Mark Medina
It's, like, hostile in that sense, but, like, hostile is just torture porn where saw is like. There's actually. But after three, then it just goes off the rails.
Pear Schneider
You should watch one. Let us know what you think.
Damon Hatfield
I will.
Sam Claiborne
Grosser. The pit or saw?
Mark Medina
Saw.
Damon Hatfield
Really? The pit's pretty gross.
Mark Medina
Yeah. Dude. There's a part where Chester Bennington is, like, glued to a car seat and he has to, like, reach for something. It, like, rips his back off.
Pear Schneider
Yeah.
Damon Hatfield
All right, I will start with the first one. I'll just start with the first one.
Mark Medina
Yeah, just watch the first one. Gary Ules.
Damon Hatfield
Corey L. Also included his game for 20 questions. So with that, let the questioning begin. You might be able to use. You might be able to use that. That. That knot. What you've just learned from him to help.
Pear Schneider
And this is not the.
Sam Claiborne
Like, when you're a kid, you get. I was. I grew up in Arizona. You get in a car and you sit.
Pear Schneider
Oh, yeah.
Damon Hatfield
The hot.
Sam Claiborne
The car seat. And, like, that's where you get the idea for that movie.
Mark Medina
Because you're like, yeah, yeah, it's that.
Pear Schneider
I hope this is not the Veri day option of. Of 20.
Mark Medina
That was tough.
Damon Hatfield
It's not.
Mark Medina
I feel really dumb for. For not ending up.
Pear Schneider
Damon, let me ask you. Let me start off with this question. If I took this game to a GameStop or any game where I can trade in games and get money, would anybody get excited over this one?
Damon Hatfield
I would.
Pear Schneider
Okay. No, but I'm like, am I. Would it. Would I get some cash? Cash for it or.
Damon Hatfield
I don't know, the actual value?
Pear Schneider
Oh, okay.
Damon Hatfield
I don't know.
Pear Schneider
Okay. Okay, fair.
Damon Hatfield
If you want, I can look it up and then you could ask.
Pear Schneider
Nikolay figured out that there's a boxed copy of this game, so it's not all digital.
Mark Medina
Okay, well, is this. Is this pre2010?
Damon Hatfield
Yes.
Mark Medina
All right. It's a lot of years in there.
Sam Claiborne
Should we ask if you can make RPGs in it? Because if we had done that last
Mark Medina
week, the one question we forgot to ask.
Pear Schneider
Do you play as a humanoid character?
Damon Hatfield
Yes.
Pear Schneider
Okay.
Sam Claiborne
Did we get that? Wait, do we have an era at all? We don't.
Pear Schneider
Before 2010.
Mark Medina
Before 2010.
Damon Hatfield
The pre2010 era.
Mark Medina
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam Claiborne
Is it. Is it from last century?
Damon Hatfield
Yes.
Pear Schneider
Oh, okay. So.
Sam Claiborne
Oh, wow.
Pear Schneider
So Nintendo PlayStation, Super Nintendo backwards, Saturn.
Mark Medina
Not Manhunt.
Pear Schneider
Not Manhunt. Oh, I see. You were thinking of the saw stuff. Okay. This is like you. I feel like we've had, like, Splatter House and stuff like that, Right? Have you guys?
Sam Claiborne
Is this a spooky game?
Damon Hatfield
Not a spooky game. That's fine.
Pear Schneider
Oh, okay.
Damon Hatfield
All right.
Mark Medina
But, yeah.
Sam Claiborne
Did this game come out in the era of the ESRB rating?
Damon Hatfield
No.
Pear Schneider
Okay, so before.
Sam Claiborne
Was this originally an arcade game?
Damon Hatfield
Yes.
Sam Claiborne
Did it. Did it originally. Was it originally controlled by a joystick in the arcade?
Damon Hatfield
Yes,
Pear Schneider
But I. I mean, my mind was going to like any of the sort of Friday 13th inspired horror stuff, but, like, if he's saying, like, not a spooky game, spooky means, like, not horror at all. It's not just. No ghosts. Like, is Casper a spooky game? This is not a question. Not a question.
Mark Medina
Yeah, yeah. Is Casper a spooky game?
Sam Claiborne
Is this from before 1983, the video game crash?
Damon Hatfield
No.
Mark Medina
What's the mansion game? Maniac Mansion. Is that an arcade game?
Pear Schneider
No, no, that's a. That's a point and click adventure.
Sam Claiborne
Was this developed in Japan?
Damon Hatfield
No. And that is 10.
Mark Medina
Wow.
Pear Schneider
Okay. Arcade game. And it was not before 1980. What?
Sam Claiborne
It's between 83 and the ESRB ratings, which is 1994.
Pear Schneider
83.
Mark Medina
And too old for Metroidvania is too young for this game.
Pear Schneider
So
Sam Claiborne
there's not a lot of companies that made arcade games in America.
Pear Schneider
So it's NES to early super NES age. Genesis.
Mark Medina
Yeah. Master System, but had to be Game
Pear Schneider
Boy, but also arcade.
Sam Claiborne
All those are Japanese. Did this have an NES version?
Damon Hatfield
Yes.
Pear Schneider
There you go.
Sam Claiborne
Okay.
Mark Medina
Is it that scary game on the Magnavox Odyssey?
Damon Hatfield
Greatly narrow it down.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah. And it's not Chiller, because that used a light gun.
Pear Schneider
It's also spooky.
Mark Medina
Yeah, well, with that technique, I guess we technically haven't, you know, asked that. We asked if it was, like, scary.
Sam Claiborne
No, Spooky.
Mark Medina
Oh, we did ask if.
Damon Hatfield
Are you kidding? Literally, the guy said he wants something spooky.
Mark Medina
Yeah, yeah. But, like, yeah, that could be. That could, you know, anything. Like, it could be Castlevania, but it's not, you know.
Pear Schneider
Yeah, Castlevania.
Sam Claiborne
I think that Spooky. Exity.
Pear Schneider
It would not be.
Sam Claiborne
Anyway, is. Was this developed by Atari?
Damon Hatfield
No.
Pear Schneider
And it's not Japanese.
Damon Hatfield
You said not Japanese.
Pear Schneider
Okay, so, like, who makes arcade games that be like, Midway during that age? Yeah, Williams.
Sam Claiborne
Menway Game.
Damon Hatfield
No, God damn it.
Sam Claiborne
Whoa. Atari, Midway, Williams.
Pear Schneider
That's Midway.
Sam Claiborne
But he wouldn't. I don't think he would count.
Pear Schneider
He would know. He's a smart boy.
Sam Claiborne
Maybe it's Sinistar.
Pear Schneider
What about American?
Damon Hatfield
Center Sinister is very spooky American.
Sam Claiborne
That's true. No, that's true. And also didn't come out to that. To the nes. I'm thinking, like, you know, Ghostbusters. Yeah. It could be based on a license.
Pear Schneider
That's spooky. Why are you picking spooky stuff?
Sam Claiborne
But.
Pear Schneider
But, but.
Mark Medina
Because it is spooky.
Pear Schneider
It is not.
Sam Claiborne
No, it's not spooky. It's not spooky. We're returning to this question a third time.
Mark Medina
Mark.
Pear Schneider
Not spooky.
Mark Medina
I keep. Yeah, I keep getting lost. Mark, I want you to take out
Pear Schneider
a pen and write, not spooky.
Sam Claiborne
What do the numbers mean?
Mark Medina
Yeah, you heard the numbers, Mason. I. My brain is melted, bro. This has been a week.
Pear Schneider
It's all good. Should we narrow it down to genre? Maybe spooky.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah, right.
Pear Schneider
I mean, like, NES is either. I mean, most. Most of it is stuff. Most of it is shooting or platformer
Sam Claiborne
licenses, I think would be likely, but that would be like LJN or something.
Mark Medina
Yeah, I don't know.
Sam Claiborne
Ljn to get ported, though, and be an American company is very, very unusual. Very unusual.
Mark Medina
I. I'm just not familiar with what would have been in Arcades around that time.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah, the 80s, Williams.
Pear Schneider
I mean, we're at the. We're at the table.
Sam Claiborne
Like, what about Dragon Slayer?
Pear Schneider
Dragon Slayer.
Mark Medina
Very different game from the arcade to
Pear Schneider
nes that is not spooky. Except for the skeleton.
Mark Medina
It had a layer. Well, when you died. When you died, you became a skeleton.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah, it does have spooky parts.
Pear Schneider
Yeah, there's
Sam Claiborne
Gauntlet. Well, that's Atari, though.
Pear Schneider
Yeah, I know. Everything I keep thinking of. I keep going through all the games in my head and everything is either Atari or it's. It's Midway, at least.
Mark Medina
How many questions do we have left?
Sam Claiborne
Oh, did this game have seven? Does this game have two player?
Mark Medina
Yes. Gauntlet could be. Gauntlet.
Sam Claiborne
Was it co op?
Damon Hatfield
Yes.
Mark Medina
That's 15 contra.
Sam Claiborne
So that's economy. So that. Yeah, I think there's like not Sunsoft go, oh, gosh, later. No, I know. So I'm trying to think of like the companies that would make this stuff like gun. The light gun games, back to Capcom crap. No, it's not light gun. It could be like a licensed game, like an alien or Terminator or Revolution X or something like that.
Pear Schneider
They're all those. Oh, you mean all those commando. Those, Those. Those are actual gun games. The sit down ones.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah. I'm just trying to think what would have gotten a poor, like Punisher or something. Yeah, like something that would have been.
Pear Schneider
Most of them are from Japan. That I can think of as well.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah, a lot of them are.
Pear Schneider
Yeah.
Sam Claiborne
Is this a licensed game?
Mark Medina
No.
Pear Schneider
All right, well, that settles that. And it is. You play as a humanoid character.
Sam Claiborne
Two player co op.
Pear Schneider
Two player co Op. And Yeah, I mean, can't be like the Berserk.
Sam Claiborne
We don't even know if it's violent.
Mark Medina
Battle toads.
Sam Claiborne
You might just be pushing.
Mark Medina
Who made battle toads rare?
Sam Claiborne
Trade West.
Pear Schneider
Well, trade west, but yeah, yeah, Rare.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah, that's right.
Mark Medina
Battle toads. Ever in the.
Sam Claiborne
Or double or double dragon? Yeah, but that's. That was Japanese.
Pear Schneider
That's Japanese. But. But battle toads is not. That's a good one.
Mark Medina
When you pause the game, does it go.
Pear Schneider
Was that a real question?
Mark Medina
I don't know.
Damon Hatfield
I want you to open up every round of 20 questions with that question.
Mark Medina
Hey, you always start the show with a song.
Sam Claiborne
How many questions?
Mark Medina
You're welcome, buddy.
Pear Schneider
We have like six left or something, right?
Damon Hatfield
Three questions and a guess.
Pear Schneider
Not so yet.
Mark Medina
Oh, God, we burned through.
Sam Claiborne
Rare game, huh? Should we just ask?
Mark Medina
Rare.
Sam Claiborne
Rare game.
Pear Schneider
Well, the arcade version. Oh, this is the.
Sam Claiborne
Any.
Pear Schneider
We're guessing the NES version. I mean, whatever.
Sam Claiborne
Arcade versions of Battletoads.
Pear Schneider
Is this a rare game?
Damon Hatfield
Meaning was it made by Rare?
Pear Schneider
Yeah, yeah.
Damon Hatfield
Yes, one version was
Pear Schneider
that is Battletoads then?
Mark Medina
No, it is Battle Toads.
Pear Schneider
Right.
Sam Claiborne
Because you play as a humanoid character.
Pear Schneider
Yeah.
Mark Medina
Oh, that's right. You don't play as a toad named Pimple, Zit and Wart.
Pear Schneider
Well, he's humanoid. No,
Mark Medina
they're humans. They walk up.
Sam Claiborne
Right.
Pear Schneider
I think that qualifies as humanoid now.
Mark Medina
So if it's not Battletoads rare for
Pear Schneider
the NES, I mean, they made like.
Sam Claiborne
They made 60 games, man.
Pear Schneider
They made. They made all sorts of. What else?
Sam Claiborne
And this would have been a port that they.
Pear Schneider
Killer Instinct is not that old.
Sam Claiborne
Right.
Pear Schneider
That's 90s.
Sam Claiborne
But it could be that because we. We stretched. No, I mean, that's not any. It's an NES game, but it could be a game that had a pretty bad NES port.
Pear Schneider
Yeah, just totally. I'm not that familiar with NES era stuff and, And I. I know Rare after that.
Sam Claiborne
You could ask if it came out in Super Nintendo also. Funny games. It did.
Pear Schneider
That's. But that's not going to help us. We're narrowing it down with. With. With Rare. So one of the versions was made by Rare. Should we ask if it's a Battle Toads game in the series?
Sam Claiborne
No, I. I feel like the humanoid question eliminated.
Mark Medina
Eliminates battle.
Sam Claiborne
To me, that's what that did when I asked Humanoid that route.
Damon Hatfield
Like.
Pear Schneider
Like, isn't ET a humanoid?
Sam Claiborne
Hands and a head.
Pear Schneider
ET's got like. He's got a little belly. He's got a little petty. Petty feet. He's got a long neck, but he's a humanoid.
Sam Claiborne
I'm calling ET Rule.
Pear Schneider
Like, Jabba is not humanoid. He's slug.
Sam Claiborne
Well, but in the new movie, Jeremy Allen White punching people.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah.
Pear Schneider
Yeah. All right. Well, I think only Sam knows the NES era really well from us.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah. Well, I mean, if you want to think. If you think it's a battle toad skin.
Mark Medina
I.
Pear Schneider
To me it sounds like. But like, I can't think of anything where Rare made one version other than Battle.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah, they did for like Digger T Rock and like, what the hell is that? All this.
Pear Schneider
That's made up Sam.
Sam Claiborne
It's just stuff that they did. They got. They got. They might have even made like the port to PC or something.
Pear Schneider
Wait, did they make. Oh, God.
Sam Claiborne
Games or something?
Pear Schneider
There's. Oh, there's a. There's a.
Sam Claiborne
Remember?
Pear Schneider
It's killing me.
Sam Claiborne
Have we mentioned this game series in any way yet?
Damon Hatfield
No.
Pear Schneider
Oh, it's not
Damon Hatfield
that brings you to one question and one guess.
Mark Medina
Oh, no, we're doomed.
Damon Hatfield
Yes.
Pear Schneider
I. I hate causing dead air here while thinking, but there was. I recently looked at a rare game where they made an adaptation Pirate one one One of the versions. And I think it was ljn.
Damon Hatfield
I would think that that Rare handled what version of this would be news to everyone. So I don't think that's the rare really part is not gonna.
Pear Schneider
Well, I was working on like obscure games database stuff.
Sam Claiborne
I'm just. I mean, I think just like a co op game coming to the NES from Arcade is the. Is the crucial thing here. It's just hard for me to come up with a game that's not made by the companies we've mentioned already. So I think it's like some kind of like Rambo thing or something like that. Yeah. James giving a lot of eye.
Mark Medina
We are on such a losing streak. And I. I don't know, man.
Sam Claiborne
Co op. I mean, they're usually in co op games. You're running around shooting with your buddy, right?
Pear Schneider
Yeah. Did they make Rambo like.
Sam Claiborne
Or a licensed. But so, okay, so there's a bunch of these.
Mark Medina
There's like Ikari Warriors.
Sam Claiborne
Warriors. There's Commando. I. There's Gun Knack. I don't know what they're all called. Gun Smoke, whatever. All this crap.
Mark Medina
It's probably Akari Warrior. Lock it in.
Sam Claiborne
I don't know who made Akari Warriors.
Mark Medina
Let's pack it up. Rare made one of them. I don't know.
Sam Claiborne
Is this a game where you run around shooting stuff?
Mark Medina
Oh, yeah, and that might be a car.
Damon Hatfield
Brings us to the last question, which
Sam Claiborne
has to be Akari.
Pear Schneider
Yeah, I think it's a.
Mark Medina
Is it Akari warriors that was developed in Japan?
Damon Hatfield
No, not a car. This is the 1988. Arrest them up, Narc.
Pear Schneider
Oh, Narc.
Mark Medina
Oh, God, look at that. His gun's not even in his hand.
Damon Hatfield
Joe, you got to show the arcade version. This is the NES version, which was handled by Rare.
Pear Schneider
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Damon Hatfield
The arcade version was Williams.
Sam Claiborne
I thought we eliminated Narc because we. We asked if it was Midway.
Damon Hatfield
It's not Midway. It's Williams.
Pear Schneider
Oh, you are Sly fox.
Damon Hatfield
I'm not Sly. It's Williams.
Sam Claiborne
I would have got this instantly.
Pear Schneider
Yeah, I convinced myself it was that Midway.
Damon Hatfield
It looks so good.
Sam Claiborne
I mean.
Mark Medina
Oh, it looks so much better.
Sam Claiborne
It's literally.
Mark Medina
Wait, hold on. What was that animation of him getting in the car?
Damon Hatfield
This is the same photo Digitized digitization tech that would end up in Mortal Kombat. Yeah, like this me. 10 year old me walking by this in the arcade. This blew my hecking mind.
Pear Schneider
Yeah.
Mark Medina
Heck yeah.
Damon Hatfield
And the fact that.
Mark Medina
Look at that. Melts into the street.
Damon Hatfield
Not the best gameplay footage.
Mark Medina
Look how.
Pear Schneider
Look how fun this is to constantly drive into the dumpsters.
Damon Hatfield
Dude, you got a rocket launcher. You shoot enemies with the rocket launchers in their body parts just fly all over the screen. This is crack for me.
Mark Medina
We should have gotten this looks like the i5. So I think it's pretty accurate.
Pear Schneider
For those not familiar with the arcade days, but Williams, it was Bally Williams before that became Williams became Midway, became Atari Games. So that is the. The same development house out of.
Sam Claiborne
What.
Pear Schneider
What are they Milpitas?
Mark Medina
Are those protesters?
Sam Claiborne
Yes,
Damon Hatfield
this is. I do not remember.
Sam Claiborne
Midway's in Chicago.
Pear Schneider
Yeah, that's right. It was in Chicag, Chicago first.
Damon Hatfield
Anyway, look at that. This came to the NES from by way of Acclaim. And they were apparently very worried about this hyperviolent game coming to nes. I've got the instruction manual here. So the first page says. Dear gamers, we had Acclaim our. We're pleased to present Narc, the first video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System. With a strong anti drug message. Narc takes gamers through the supreme larger than life war on drugs. With exciting colorful characters such as Max Force, who wages justice against a number of sordid enemies. And although the fast paced action in Narc is sometimes extreme, it conveys what may often be the harsh realities of the drug environment.
Pear Schneider
Yes, it's a documentary.
Damon Hatfield
Nevertheless, it is a fictitious representation of how the battle against drugs may be won. Yes, a killing machine walking around with two machine guns and a rocket launcher mowing down every drug dealer they see on site is one way the war on drugs might end.
Pear Schneider
That's right. It is actually closer to reality now. Minus the clown. Minus the clown.
Mark Medina
He's just an ice agent.
Sam Claiborne
Yes, they definitely. The enemies are throwing needles at you.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah, they throw. I mean they throw needles.
Pear Schneider
That's what they do in real life too.
Mark Medina
They're trying to turn you into zombies.
Damon Hatfield
I like how our.
Pear Schneider
Our narc just picks up all the money.
Damon Hatfield
It says all new nude. This is just in an arcade game. Any kid can walk back all nude.
Sam Claiborne
Wow. Well, this is void.
Pear Schneider
This is where you congregate though, Damon. That's because it's a documentary. Yeah, the clowns.
Damon Hatfield
Oh yeah. You can burn the bodies. They. They burn.
Mark Medina
Put that lady down. This. This game is so many.
Sam Claiborne
Is this a kinky pinky maybe.
Damon Hatfield
Designed by Eugene Jarvis that are of
Pear Schneider
defender and Robotron and all sorts of llama related stuff.
Sam Claiborne
Watch out for those street walkers.
Damon Hatfield
Anyway, Narc. Nicely attempt. Thank you for the suggestion.
Sam Claiborne
We're on like a four week losing stream.
Pear Schneider
We should have had this one.
Mark Medina
This is bad. We should have had.
Damon Hatfield
Thank you for this.
Mark Medina
Can we do like Mario 64 next week?
Damon Hatfield
Corey L. From Herndon, Virginia. Mario 64?
Pear Schneider
Yeah, I feel like this was still a verde option. This is.
Damon Hatfield
This is not verde. It was totally very. This is mild.
Mark Medina
No, we learned that verde means it's not a game.
Damon Hatfield
Sam will appreciate that. You don't kill the dogs.
Pear Schneider
No, you shoot them small, return them
Damon Hatfield
to their puppy form. You give them more, a new lease
Pear Schneider
on life, they all drugged up and then you shoot the drugs right out of them.
Sam Claiborne
It's a vision of what could happen if you shoot up a dog.
Damon Hatfield
Yeah. Okay. Hey, listen. It's time for a brand new month of gaming. Jump into the Humble March Choice bundle and score an amazing lineup of titles. Right now you can grab Tempest Rising, Chance of San arm sworn, Etrian Odyssey 3, HD Bread and Fred Zero Hour, Small Land, Survive the Wild and Hard West 2. This all supports the Malala Fund, an organization working for a world where every girl can learn and lead by breaking down the barriers that hold back the more than 130 million girls out of school today. Head to humblebundle.com through April 7th to start playing now. And that is all the scoops that we have for you this week. Thank you, Peer. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Mark.
Sam Claiborne
Thank you.
Damon Hatfield
Thank you to Jobert working behind the scenes to make this episode possible. My name is Damon. This is IGN gamescoop and Round.
Mark Medina
Attention. Dark one. Oh, no.
Sam Claiborne
The knife man.
Mark Medina
Five, one. One. Let's. You're busted. You're busted. You're busted. You're busted. Oh, no.
Sam Claiborne
The Knock Knife Man.
Mark Medina
Oh, no, no, no, no.
Pear Schneider
The Knife Man.
Mark Medina
In the comments section of Game Scoop, we've been hyping Jobbert up quite a bit. So yeah, I'd love to do a IGN Live jobbert reveal. Oh yeah. Could be really fun.
Sam Claiborne
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Pear Schneider
I was thinking maybe he's using AI filters on his face.
Sam Claiborne
It was out of focus last week.
Damon Hatfield
It's just DLSS5.
Pear Schneider
Yeah, it's DLSS5.
Mark Medina
Yeah.
Sam Claiborne
Let me add some eyeshadow.
Mark Medina
Sam all of a sudden just has Fabio hair.
Damon Hatfield
So. Sam, our thumbnail is going to be Sloppy Grace with the headline, look how they Massacred My girl.
Sam Claiborne
It should be. Look how they Mascaraed My girl.
Damon Hatfield
That's good too. Oh, my God. That's so good.
Mark Medina
Oh, yes. I don't think this is why you crowdsource. This is why you crowdsource. That's good.
Sam Claiborne
I don't think people actually get that, but it's funny.
Mark Medina
Oh, they would maybe have some faith, step too far.
Sam Claiborne
Did you hear the title of next gen console watch I came up with this week?
Pear Schneider
No.
Damon Hatfield
I remember DLSS 5 are faces fixed or.
Mark Medina
Yeah, I did see that.
Pear Schneider
Sam, your talents are wasted on Game Help, man.
Damon Hatfield
Someone on YouTube said he thinks I insert myself. Someone on YouTube thinks he genuinely thinks Sam is one of the funniest people on the Internet.
Pear Schneider
I think Sam's pretty funny too.
Damon Hatfield
That someone said, well, if more people
Sam Claiborne
would take my legit opinions as jokes than I would get away with a lot.
Pear Schneider
My favorite is, like, how mad people get when they're like, did you see the game? The troll born comes out.
Damon Hatfield
Huh.
Sam Claiborne
I just. I forget what it was. There was like a 60 comment thread on the Game Scoop Facebook group that was like, sam thinks this different thing about this thing this week, and everybody's like, please stop posting this. I can't remember what we talked about last week. It didn't seem that controversial at the time.
Pear Schneider
Probably Donkey Kong. Hate again.
Sam Claiborne
Oh, I said I liked Pickopia a lot, but I thought Slay the Spire was.
Pear Schneider
Oh, you did?
Sam Claiborne
No, no, no, no, no. I said I thought it. First of all, I said, I'm never gonna play this game and it looks boring. I didn't say anything about the quality of the game or about. Or about it being boring. I just said, said, you know, I'm not playing it.
Mark Medina
I. I have since sunk about 10 hours into slay the Spire and it has taken over my life.
Damon Hatfield
All right. I'm adding it to the run of show.
Sam Claiborne
But I played so good, so there's that.
Pear Schneider
You played what?
Sam Claiborne
I played Balatra.
Pear Schneider
Finally.
Sam Claiborne
First time. It's great. Yeah, it's awesome. Fantastic. It was in November.
Pear Schneider
Oh, I see. Okay.
Sam Claiborne
Well, that's hardly such a good game.
Pear Schneider
Hardly news.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah, it was big news at the time.
Pear Schneider
I was late on Balatro and then completely loved it. I was like, should have listened.
Sam Claiborne
It's so good.
Pear Schneider
Yep.
Sam Claiborne
But would Balatra fans like Slay the Spire too?
Damon Hatfield
I'm a Balatro fan and I love Slayer Spire too.
Pear Schneider
I like the first one. Balatro is better, Not Balacho is probably
Damon Hatfield
better, but not by much.
Sam Claiborne
Now who's speaking without playing the game?
Pear Schneider
I believe the game that I played is better than the game I have not played.
Sam Claiborne
I mean, like, I've seen that Take a lot from Crimson Desert fans.
Pear Schneider
Yes.
Mark Medina
Oh, my God.
Sam Claiborne
We still haven't played the game.
Mark Medina
Someone was like, this game's clearly a nine.
Sam Claiborne
I'm like, it's out.
Mark Medina
Played it.
Sam Claiborne
It's out in 40 minutes.
Mark Medina
40 minutes.
Damon Hatfield
What a weird time to release a game. What a terrible night to have occurs.
Sam Claiborne
It's a little bit weird. It's like kind of.
Mark Medina
I think it's a play game.
Sam Claiborne
Yeah. It's a worldwide launch, I think, based on Korea time. Mark's the second biggest mistake in his entire life mentioning that he thinks that Metroidvanias are not for him in a really long way.
Mark Medina
I'm too old. He said he's too old for the
Sam Claiborne
first biggest mistake he made in his entire life is being on this show today to say what he really thinks about Crimson Desert.
Mark Medina
Saying final Fantasies are not sequels. Got me in some pretty hot water as well.
Pear Schneider
Oh, God.
Mark Medina
I just say, bullshit, man.
Sam Claiborne
Sequentially numbered and have nothing to do with each other yet.
Mark Medina
They are not sequels. Seven is not a sequel to six. That doesn't make sense. Justin Davis.
Pear Schneider
Wait, what series?
Sam Claiborne
He's saying Final Fantasy.
Mark Medina
Final Fantasy.
Sam Claiborne
But then people swoop in with 10, 2 and that Sid's in everything.
Pear Schneider
Yeah, there's a couple of sequels.
Mark Medina
That's a sequel. Sequel.
Pear Schneider
Okay, No, I. I'm with Medina on this one. It's a rare moment.
Mark Medina
13, 2, and Lightning Returns are sequels. But 11 is not a sequel to 10.
Pear Schneider
You're right.
Mark Medina
12 is not a sequel to 11.
Sam Claiborne
The first final Fantasy ever is a sequel. Because clearly there's supposed to be a game called Fantasy out there.
Damon Hatfield
Oh, God.
Pear Schneider
This is.
Sam Claiborne
Okay, Swish.
Pear Schneider
Damon, you gotta start the show or I. I can't.
Damon Hatfield
This is the show until Jo says
Mark Medina
start the show or I'm gonna leave.
Sam Claiborne
I know. It happens. What happens is that Jobbert waits and waits for us to get all the jokes out of our system.
Mark Medina
Yeah, just.
Sam Claiborne
We can edit this into the end of the episode.
Damon Hatfield
Yep, I know.
Sam Claiborne
I see. I see. I see what's happening here. Dobrush is sitting back there.
Mark Medina
We just have to. We just have to stop being hilarious
Sam Claiborne
watching his flug talk.
Pear Schneider
New Year, New Me.
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Damon Hatfield
You know you're going to crush.
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In episode 849 of Game Scoop!, Daemon Hatfield and the IGN crew break down some of the week’s biggest gaming topics: Nvidia’s controversial DLSS5 tech and its effect on character rendering; in-depth impressions of recent and retro games like Resident Evil Requiem, Slay the Spire 2, and Crimson Desert; and a spirited discussion on modern Metroidvanias. Lively banter, memorable jokes, and the classic “Video Game 20 Questions” round out the show, giving listeners both expert perspectives and the fun, familiar Scoop! energy.
[02:42–12:15]
“If they are able to come up with new lighting techniques, whether AI-driven or not, that makes the track look more real, I’m all for it… but like, if this is a tool set developers can use and the artists have control over… then great.” — Pear Schneider [05:00]
“I think the backlash has been really interesting because the same, you know, like 4chan in cells that add mods to add big boobs to every character are out here being like, ‘You changed the face!’” [08:21]
[12:23–18:49]
[21:47–29:29]
“You’re constantly adding cards to your deck, but you need to build it so you only have, like… your best cards. You want to flush out your less powerful cards as you go along.” — Damon Hatfield [26:00]
“I did not know that that means that’s what they’re going to do next… That’s the whole thing here.” — Mark Medina [28:31]
[31:48–50:00]
“There is something around every corner... it makes it where you never progress.”
“If you play the game and you don’t like it, that’s completely valid and I get it… But if you like open world games where you can run around and do a million different things, I think you’re going to love this game.” — Mark Medina [44:46]
[51:29–56:32]
[57:37–61:22]
[62:28–71:33]
[71:33–91:19]
Game Scoop! 849 delivers a blend of industry analysis, detailed game impressions, listener interaction, and nostalgic fun. Whether you’re tuning in for the gaming deep-dives, the trivia, or the offbeat humor, it’s classic Game Scoop! — informed, opinionated, and always a blast.
Notable Episode Title Reference:
“Look how they massacred my girl” – A meme’d lament over Nvidia’s DLSS5 alterations to beloved video game faces, setting the tone for both serious critique and affectionate ribbing throughout the episode.