Game Scoop! 859: James Bond Is a Hit, Man

Summary

Game Scoop! 859: James Bond Is a Hit, Man

Release Date: May 29, 2026
Host: Damon Hatfield
Guests: Sam Claiborne, Justin Davis, Nick Limone

---

Episode Overview

This episode of Game Scoop! dives into the big debut of 007: First Light, explores the retro-inspired Mina the Hollower, reacts to fresh news about The Witcher 3’s surprise expansion, discusses licensed game excellence, and takes listener questions about introducing kids to gaming. The crew also squares off in an especially tough round of Video Game 20 Questions.

---

Key Discussion Points

[03:53] 007: First Light – First Impressions & Deep Dive

• Main Impressions:

  • All hosts have played 007: First Light to various extents; reactions are highly positive.
  • Damon highlights its Hitman studio DNA: “It feels a lot like Hitman… missions are sort of like self-contained, kind of Hitman puzzle-ish levels.”
    • [04:29]
  • Sam praises the “rubbery” but high-quality animation and the feeling of being young, cool Bond.
  • Nick notes, “One of the coolest tutorials I’ve seen in a game… It's like a playable montage, like a film montage.”
    • [05:29]
  • Justin compares the tutorial to the “section of Cyberpunk that everyone’s like, I wish I could actually play this—but you can actually play it.”
    • [05:00]
  • The tutorial is lauded for being concise and narratively integrated: “You learn how to drive for ten seconds. You’re fine.” — Sam [05:46]

• Mechanics & DNA:

  • Levels feature multiple solutions — stealth, social engineering, action — echoing Hitman’s sandbox, but with more narrative direction and Bond flavor.
  • Social encounters feel less binary than Hitman: “You have choices to make when you’re doing your social engineering where you can make the wrong choice that will come to bite you in the ass later.” — Nick [10:13]
  • Combat and stealth are more fluid than Hitman’s Agent 47; Bond is “a suave MF’er… is he cool when he’s young? Yes, he is very cool when he’s young.” — Nick [06:06]

• License to Kill Mechanic:

  • Unique “license to kill” sequences, where lethal force is only permitted if the player is threatened. “You can’t actually kill anyone unless they threaten your life first. I think that is such a cool thing to include in a video game that has a lot of fun shooting.” — Nick [11:30]

• Aesthetic & Production Values:

  • Highest praise for IO Interactive’s production: “It’s the best-looking and sounding IO game.” — Damon [08:28]
  • Environmental detail, party settings, and a banger DnB track in the nightclub level are highlights.

• Licensed Game Renaissance:

  • Sam waxes on the revitalization of licensed games: “To do a licensed game this well is special...with examples like Indiana Jones and Bond, wow, that’s working well, almost as well as games working on TV suddenly, like it’s gotten figured out.”
    • [15:23]

[18:34] Mina the Hollower – Retro Greatness Reborn

• General Praise:

  • Received a “10 out of 10” from Sam, who jokes, “Because it’s one point higher [than Bond]!”
    • [19:00]
  • Nick immediately agreed: “Within two hours of playing the game, I said, I think I’m playing a 10 out of 10 video game right now.” [19:41]

• Core Mechanics:

  • The central “burrowing” move is multifaceted: dash, dodge, and long jump, but with a learning curve.
    • “That kind of multipurpose move…feels so good by the time you get used to it.” — Justin [20:38]
    • “Link never had that move.” — Sam [20:38]

• Structure & Exploration:

  • Touted as a true open-world take on 2D Zelda, but with less rigid item gating.
  • Grinding and exploration are openly encouraged. Players can tackle challenges by “leveling up” or mastering skills.
    • “Do you want to grind? Do you want to get good by learning boss patterns? It’s fine.” — Sam [24:19]

• Pixel Art & NPCs:

  • Justin: “The most amazing, gorgeous pixel art you’ve ever seen. It’s on screen for two seconds and then it’s not repeated again.”
  • World is filled with bizarre, memorable NPCs, reminiscent of Link’s Awakening and FromSoftware’s games.
    • “All have very distinct personalities...kind of like Castlevania meets Bloodborne…but still has that Yacht Club Games goofiness.” — Nick [28:23]

• Combat, Builds, and Bosses:

  • Minish Cap and A Link to the Past are favorable comparisons, but Nick and Sam both think Mina is more flexible and modern.
    • “This is the Breath of the Wild moment for 2D Zelda.” — Sam [32:42]
  • Difficulty discourse: Players can grind to offset challenge, or go skill-first like Silksong.

• Longevity:

  • Sam: “I must 100% it and I’m unable to. There’s things I have not figured out in it …there’s a secret ending…I'm obsessed with that.” [33:58]

[36:34] The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – New Expansion Announced

• Surprise Expansion:

  • CD Projekt Red is working on a new expansion, Song of the Past, to launch in 2027—12 years after initial release.
  • The expansion is likely meant to bridge into Witcher 4 and seems substantial, “an expansion in the way Phantom Liberty was an expansion for Cyberpunk 2077” — Nick [39:09]
  • Speculation includes possible passing of the torch from Geralt to Ciri.

• Panel Thoughts:

  • Justin expresses cautious optimism: “Geralt’s story ended so perfectly…cracking that back open has vibes…like the new Star Wars trilogy of, like, you wrapped this up perfectly...But CDPR are great writers.” [37:42]
  • Damon wonders if this is the opportunity to finally finish the Witcher 3: “What if this is a 10 out of 10…would you dust it off?” [40:18]

• Meta-Talk:

  • Reflections on ongoing support for classic games and hope for similar treatment for other beloved franchises (e.g., Metal Gear Solid V, Fallout 4, Skyrim).

[42:30] Listener Question: Introducing Kids to Games

• Topic: When and how to introduce young children to video games.

  • “Kingo was three when I started introducing him to video games…Definitely Nintendo, definitely Mario games.” — Damon [43:32]
  • Justin notes it was “not the thing I was personally hoping it would be” due to kids’ reading level and frustration, but positive experience once kids got a little older.
  • Suggestions: Astrobot, LEGO games, and Minecraft as games for early exposure.

• Parenting Wisdom:

  • “They're their own people. This kind of, like, you must be into what I was into, can become a little bit much.” — Justin [47:07]

[51:12] The Mandalorian & Grogu – Star Wars Movie Roundup

• Quick Takes:

  • Panel finds the movie fun and satisfying for Star Wars fans, with impressive effects and practical puppetry.
  • “If you approach this movie sincerely… you want a good Star Wars movie in theaters every couple years—I don’t see how you walk away disappointed.” — Damon [51:44]
  • “The Yoda connection is played up in the movie… just what Grogu is is explored, and I thought that was really cool.” — Sam [53:59]

• Community Response:

  • Acknowledgment that some feel it’s “slight” or “could have been an episode,” but both fun and criticism are valid.

---

Notable Quotes

• “This is the best looking and sounding IO game.” — Damon Hatfield, on 007 First Light (08:28)
• “You have choices to make in your social engineering… it makes it more interesting than Hitman in that regard.” — Nick Limone (10:13)
• “Because it’s one point higher.” — Sam Claiborne, on why Mina the Hollower is rated higher than Bond (19:00)
• “This is the Breath of the Wild moment for 2D Zelda.” — Sam Claiborne (32:42)
• “Geralt’s story ended so perfectly…if they didn’t do it well, it could feel more like the new Star Wars trilogy…” — Justin Davis (37:42)
• “They're their own people. This kind of like, you must be into what I was into, can become a little bit much.” — Justin Davis (47:07)
• “If you didn’t have fun watching this movie, I don’t think you’re interested in having fun in the first place.” — Damon Hatfield, on The Mandalorian & Grogu (55:04)

---

[57:13] Video Game 20 Questions (HARD MODE)

• Game: Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard
• Memorable Moments:
  • Hints included: “This is a very underrated game,” and that the panel was playing on “hard mode.”
  • Reactions upon reveal: “No, we never would have gotten this.” — Nick
  • “The premise is wild and the way they marketed it is wild… it’s the kind of thing you just can’t possibly imagine being made today.” — Damon

---

Timestamps – Key Segments

• 03:53 – 007: First Light deep dive
• 18:34 – Mina the Hollower discussion
• 36:34 – Witcher 3 expansion announcement
• 42:30 – Listener question: Gaming with kids
• 51:12 – Star Wars: Mandalorian & Grogu movie
• 57:13 – Video Game 20 Questions
• 77:33 – Wrap-up, IGN Live announcement

---

Tone & Delivery

• The episode is lively, filled with banter (e.g., jokes about the “math” behind review scores), in-jokes about licensed game history, and camaraderie among hosts.
• Panelists balance in-depth critique with infectious enthusiasm for both new releases and nostalgic favorites.

---

For Listeners New and Old

Game Scoop! 859 is a must-listen for fans of stealth-action, retro-inspired adventure, big RPGs—and especially for those passionate about the evolving art of licensed games. With sharp insights, hands-on impressions, and playful trivia, it offers an entertaining, informative slice of the modern gaming discussion.

Transcript

[Damon Hatfield]

Lately, I've been using Quince more and more to find clothing that feels easy, comfortable and still put together. It just makes getting dressed simpler. The fabrics feel elevated, the fits are clean, and everything just works without needing to overthink it. Quince has all the wardrobe staples for spring lightweight, breathable and comfortable. Clean 100% cotton tees with a softness that has to be felt. Their pants also hit that same balance. Relaxed and comfortable, but still polished enough to wear pretty much anywhere. Everything is priced 50 to 80% less than what you'd find at similar brands. Quite Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen so you're getting premium materials without the markup. Quince is more than just clothing too. I recently picked up a weatherproof utility tote bag and it has replaced my previous backpack that I was using every day. The bag looks great and protects my stuff in any weather and it went easy on my wallet. Refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Head to quint.comgamescoop for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's quincee.com gamescoop for free shipping and 365 day returns.

[Ad Read Voice 1]

Quince.com Gamescoop Insurance isn't one size fits all, and shopping for it shouldn't feel like squeezing into something that just doesn't fit. That's why drivers have enjoyed Progressive's Name your price tool for years. With the Name your price tool, you tell them what you want to pay and they show you options that fit your budget enough. Hunting for discounts, trying to calculate rates, and tinkering with coverages. Maybe you're picking out your very first policy, or maybe you're just looking for something that works better for you and your family. Either way, they make it simple to see your options. No guesswork, no surprises. Ready to see how easy and fun shopping for car insurance can be? Visit progressive.com and give the name your price tool a try. Take the stress out of shopping.com and find coverage that fits your life on your terms. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and Coverage Match limited By state law.

[Damon Hatfield]

What's up everybody? Welcome to IG and Game Scoop. I'm your host Damon Hatfield, and joining me this week are Sam Claiborne.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, it's good to be here.

[Damon Hatfield]

Justin Davis, Scoop and in studio while I'm not even there, I'm at home is Nick Limone.

[Nick Limone]

I'm back baby.

[Damon Hatfield]

Sorry to leave you hanging in the studio all by yourself, Nick it's all good. We've got a great show for this week. Lots of great stuff to talk about. 007 first light is out. That's got a nine Mina. The hollower is, I think, is that out now, Sam?

[Sam Claiborne]

By the time you hear this episode, it will have been out.

[Damon Hatfield]

And Sam reviewed that. He gave that a 10. We also got some really cool news about the Witcher 3. So lots going on. But first, IGN Live is here is upon us. It's next weekend. It's June 6th and 7th here in downtown LA. Now, I know everyone that is listening and watching this show already has a ticket. But if you're. If you want to bring a friend or bring a stranger, you can go to live.ign.com and use a promo code scoop for a free ticket. We've got lots of fun stuff planned that whole weekend, but gamescoop Live will be Sunday afternoon. It's the big finale of the show and it's going to be the 20th anniversary episode. So it's going to be super fun. If for whatever reason you can't make it, you can watch it live or we'll publish the episode as normal afterward. It'll be an episode you'll want to watch. I think it's going to be a feast for the eyes. So in case anybody hadn't heard, you can now watch our videos on Spotify. And if you're subscribed to Spotify Premium, you don't get any ads. It's an ads free experience on the gamescube video. So please do enjoy that. Anyway, that's coming up next weekend, so there won't be a regular episode on Friday. We're recording next week's episode live on Sunday, June 7th at IGN Live, and we'll publish it either Sunday evening or Monday morning.

[Sam Claiborne]

Now, Damon, you mentioned that you could bring a stranger. And I just, I want to warn people, if you are going to bring a stranger, you should ask them one question. You should ask them what their favorite video game is before getting in a car with them or doing anything like that. Because if they say Sonic the Hedgehog, you run the other direction.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, that's exactly right. Okay, let's start with 007 first light, which I think we, most of us have had it for about a week now. Very conveniently, my code came in right as I was walking out the door to go camping for three days. So I missed. I missed three days of playing it. But I like it a lot. It's so good. Who is everyone playing it here? Sam?

[Sam Claiborne]

I Am. I love it.

[Justin Davis]

And I just started.

[Sam Claiborne]

If I had to go camping during the weekend that this game came out, I would have upped so fast to glamping doing that weird thing with the tent and a flat screen.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, yeah, we were. That. We were doing that.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay. Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Anyway, yeah. So I.O. interactive hitman, folks. Where to begin with this? It feels a lot like Hitman. Like, because the missions are sort of like self contained kind of Hitman puzzle. Ish levels, Right?

[Sam Claiborne]

Yes. It's got a little bit of that rubbery feel to the characters that you get used to and then everybody looks really good.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it does really cool stuff with its sort of tutorial.

[Nick Limone]

Yes.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Nick Limone]

One of the coolest tutorials I've seen in the game since Brett, imo.

[Justin Davis]

Dude, it's awesome. It's like that section of Cyberpunk that everyone's like, I wish I could actually play this. But, like, you can actually play it.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

So, I mean, we want. We don't need to spoil it, I guess, or anything, but basically there's like you're young James Bond in it, so you have to learn how to be young James Bond. And they tell you how James Bond is trained and everything after kind of a prologue mission. And that whole training sequence is like him in school. And it's like a little Harry Potter for James Bond episode. It's great.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's also like a montage.

[Nick Limone]

It's like a playable montage, like a film montage.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's February, June, Mark. Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's like how you drive a car. This is some. Some target practice. Now let's practice hacking with your watch. It's like. And it's all happening just like you, you know, a training montage in a movie.

[Sam Claiborne]

And none of it's like hurting goats in Zelda where you're like, this is going on for a long time. Why am I doing this? Hurting. I do I really have to get this perfect? Well, this goat is really hard to hurt. No, it'll just cut. It'll just be like, you learn how to drive for 10 seconds, you're fine.

[Nick Limone]

But the beautiful thing about the worst

[Justin Davis]

part of our game, should we have it go by quickly? No, it should last literally five hours.

[Nick Limone]

The beautiful thing about the montage is, you know, most tutorials always do the thing where. All right, show us that you really know how to block. You got to do it three times in a row. Whereas this, it's. You do it once and then it stops there. You move on to something else. And because it is a training regime. You come back to it eventually. But it's like, oh, now they give you a little more. The leash has loosened a little bit. And now you apply all the other tutorials to this tutorial. And it's just so clever, so smart, and it's just cool. Like, the game is cool. Like, I think that was a big concern of mine. Going into this is like, James Bond is a suave mfer. You know, he's a cool dude. Is he cool when he's young? And the answer is, yes, he's very cool when he's young.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. And like, there's lots of, you know, question marks about how do you handle the character? I like this version of James Bond so far. I think.

[Justin Davis]

Me too.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's better than Anakin.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Nick Limone]

I mean, like, but like, even the hit madness of the game even extends to the tutorial. Like, you were talking about the prologue mission. Once the game lets you, like, okay, we trust you, figure out, here's your objective. Do it. There's so many ways you can go about doing that objective in just the prologue alone, which I was like, all right, they're kind of cooking. And I actually kind of disagree a little bit. I don't think it feels as rubbery as Hitman. I think there's a lot more fluidity to James Bond compared to Agent 47 in a way that I was very concerned about going into this game because I would say I love the Hitman games, but I like being the wrench in those games. I don't necessarily love getting into combat. I don't love navigating as Agent 47, but in this feels pretty good. Especially his, like, melee stuff. It's pretty solid.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. First of all, you feel like Batman as soon as melee happens. And it feels great and you can win. And then it's a pocket sized. This is the smartest thing ever in a stealth game. It's if you can contain it, it's his situation contained.

[Nick Limone]

Yep.

[Sam Claiborne]

Nobody heard it. You weren't loud enough. Nobody called for backup, which happens. And you can contain. I think it's the best thing ever because I don't just want to give up entirely on stealth usually. But I was actually saying I think they have a style of faces which looks like they're engine and you get used to it. But coming out of Indiana Jones or something, it's a different looking set of faces and facial animations and stuff, which I think looks a little bit. A little bit like plastic, but it's not bad. It's Just what it looks like.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. It's a choice in terms of production values. I think it's the best looking and sounding IO game. Like, I really, really like Hitman 3. I think this is kind of like they've kind of increased. They've leveled up, if you want.

[Sam Claiborne]

And back to your Hitman comparison about, like, what the game is. Like, the Hitman DNA is that you are usually thrown in a party or a building or a war zone or something where you don't know what the best route is. And you have to discover what that is. And that route might be stealth, it might be climbing, it might be platformy, it might be fighting, it might be literally finding a secret and then using that, like a vent that you can open or using one of your abilities that you should save to actually do a little shortcut. Like, that's the type of thing. It's like an open world playground. And in Hitman, it's a lot more 10 out of 10 open world playground. This is more like an 8 out of 10 open world playground because it has appropriately scripted moments for the characters. And it has times in which you're talking. Like, it has those things where you're. Like in Red Dead Redemption where you're driving to the scene and you get to drive, but it's not like. It's like invisible wall driving. And you can bang up your Aston Martin all you want, but you're still having that conversation. And like, Hitman's never going to have stuff like that.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, IO Interactive really likes putting levels in nightclubs. And there is an early mission. Yeah, there is an early mission in a nightclub that has a really great drum and bass track that I gotta figure out.

[Sam Claiborne]

I gotta figure out. Yeah, the drum bass trap is good there. They're showing this other level too, which is just a banging party in a museum. Which house. How hitmany is that? Right? It's just like the mayor will be there type thing in Batman.

[Nick Limone]

But I also love the social engineering aspect because to your point, like, in Hitman, it's very much, I found the conversation, therefore, this is the way in. But I also like that you have choices to make when you're doing your social engineering where you can make a wrong choice that will come to bite you in the ass later on in the mission. And I really like that there is like, some level of I need to be paying attention to the conversation as opposed to I've already found the conversation, therefore I have an in. Like, I really, really like that aspect of this. And I think that's where this. I, I think it's a little bit more interesting to me than Hitman in that regard. It is a smaller playground compared to Hitman, but I think that the alternate modes of getting to where you need to go are a lot more interesting and more cinematic, as you said.

[Sam Claiborne]

And they're more Bond. You can bluff.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, yeah, it's a good, that's a good observation. Like, Hitman is more kind of like lock and key, right? Of like, you know, if you have the chef outfit, you can go into the kitchen. Whereas like Bond is a little bit more. He's a dynamic and interest. Yeah, yeah, he is.

[Damon Hatfield]

I mean, yeah, he's, he's a charmer and clumsy, right?

[Sam Claiborne]

He's like Indiana Jones. He can get beat up a whole lot and it's still going to be fine. And so you should be okay with that, right?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

And he's not going to go around and like stab a bunch of people in the neck. Like, it's like a brawler when that, that stuff happens, you know.

[Nick Limone]

One interesting aspect of the game, I'm curious. You know, I barely got to the first mission because the tutorial is pretty long. It's like, I would say two to three hours. But I'm at the first mission now. And one aspect that I'm really excited to learn more about is the license to kill moment. Because the game during training instructs you that you can't just go shooting willy nilly. You are a government agent, even though they will disavow you if you're caught. But you can't actually kill anyone unless they threaten your life first. Unless you have a gun pointed at you, you cannot kill anyone or it will be a mission failure. And I think that is such a cool thing thing to include in a video game that has a lot of fun shooting.

[Sam Claiborne]

I'm in mission seven. And so how that manifests is that like midway through a mission there'll be like a sequence where like it's turned on. So it's like you actually can dash through sequences like that or platform a little bit. But generally that's where you have to take out your gun. I mean, you immediately run out of ammo and you have a little bit of a focus meter and you have your watch. You have some like ancillary things, but mainly those become like, pick up a gun and empty it. Pick up a gun and empty it. And you have to kind of chain your way around you never. It feels like you have like that Resident Evil amount of ammo. Or just, like, never quite enough. So you have to, like, really think about your cover and what you're doing. And, like, surprisingly. And I know Hitman has guns in it, but, like, the gunplay in this is, like, I think great. Yeah, it is. Like, it just feels good. The guns feel good. And then, like, you actually want some guns over the others. Like, I'm always a little bit annoyed when I get a shotgun because I'm like, I never want to get that close to people. And there's always red barrels. So you're always looking for. What's that fire extinguisher. What's the thing you can shoot? And it takes out a large clump of enemies. And some of the battle sequences are more puzzles because you have to find the angle by which you shoot those. You might get really far and then die. And then you realize, oh, this is going to be a lot easier next time because I know to run to position A, B, and C just to shoot barrel A, B, and C. It's pretty smart.

[Damon Hatfield]

I'm trying to look up when this game was actually announced. I feel like it was announced a long last summer, I thought. Right.

[Nick Limone]

No, it was like, tease with the trailer of, you know, the barrel of the gun. It's like, IOI is presenting, is making a Bond game, but it's like, untitled James Bond project.

[Damon Hatfield]

November 19, 2020. Hitman developer announced this new Bond game, Project 007.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, I didn't even know it was announced that long ago. I thought it wasn't until we. I thought it was kind of surprise. Here's a. Here's a gameplay segment at one of those events.

[Nick Limone]

Well, that was the only time after the announcement that actually saw it. So it was like, oh, my gosh, this game is alive and it's real and it looks good.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. Wow. So, yeah, six years, man, it seems like it turned out great. This is what I'm playing right now. This is what I'm. I'm most dug into. I also have been at the Hollower, which we'll talk about in just a second. But 007, this wedding.

[Sam Claiborne]

So I loved Indiana Jones. It's like one of my favorite games of all time now. Like, I love it. And what it did is it took a franchise that I like more than Bond, frankly, and then did it justice in a surprisingly good way. And I think Bond. I'm just saying I like Indiana Jones because it's like Raiders is probably my favorite movie ever. I'm not saying I don't like Bond. I Love James Bond. Dr. No is one of the coolest movies ever. It's insane. So I really like Bond a lot. And so to do a licensed game this well is special. And I gotta say, we do 20 questions a lot. And I have that question like, is it a licensed game? And I always make the joke that means it's bad, right? If it's from the past 40 years. But like with an example like Indiana Jones and this recently, like wow, RIP ip, the worst term ever for, you know, like a film movie franchise or a license thing being put to game, like boy, that's working well, almost as well as games working on tv suddenly, like it's gotten figured out well.

[Damon Hatfield]

So yeah, we've got 007 and Indiana Jones and I guess for Star wars, like the Jedi Survivor.

[Nick Limone]

Well, Lego Batman as well.

[Sam Claiborne]

Lego Batman's a really good example. I mean, honestly, Arkham is the example, right? I mean, we already had great Batman and then it went away. Now it's back. Both Lego and Batman are licenses, right? And they work well together.

[Damon Hatfield]

So you want to learn a new language, but you're struggling to get beyond the basics. Stuck on free apps aimed at cheap dopamine highs. Well then it's time to try Babbel, the language app that makes grammar fun and is really worth your time. Learning a language with Babbel is all about small steps, big wins and progress. You can actually track and feel. Their bite sized lessons fit easily into your daily routine and are also easy to remember. Just 10 minutes a day is enough to start seeing real results. Their courses are designed by over 200 language experts, real human beings to teach you relevant words and phrases you'll actually use so you can start speaking with confidence in as little as three weeks. Babbel lets you practice real life conversation step by step, without the stress. You'll build the confidence to speak up when it matters, from ordering a coffee to chatting with new friends abroad. And Babel is more than just lessons. They even offer a large collection of podcasts where Babbel experts reveal language secrets and offer an inside look at local cultures. I've used Babel to brush up on my Spanish before traveling to Mexico and to learn a little Dutch on a visit to Amsterdam last year. Here's a special limited time deal for our listeners right now. Get up to 60% off your Babbel subscription at babbel.com Gamescoop get up to 60% off at babbel.com GamesCoop spelled B A B-B-E-L.com Gamescoop rules and restrictions apply. Look, we've all been there. You've got the angle, you've got the timing, but you still lose the trade. In competitive gaming, milliseconds aren't just a stat. They're the difference between a trophy and a gg. Next. That's why the team at Logitech G just changed the game again. With the new Pro X2 Super Strike. This isn't just an upgrade. It's a total reimagining of the mouse click. It features the revolutionary HITS technology. That's the haptic inductive trigger system. They've ditched traditional switches for magnetic sensors that give you an up to 30 millisecond advantage. Think about that. You are literally clicking faster than the speed of human reaction. And the customization is insane. You can tune your actuation points across 10 levels and even adjust the haptic intensity. Whether you want a crisp, sharp snap or a hair trigger rapid fire. The Super Strike adapts to you. Under the hood, you're looking at the Hero2 sensor. Pushing a massive 44,000 DPI and a blazing 8K polling rate. At just 61 grams. With 90 hours of battery life, it's built to outlast your longest grind. If you're serious about climbing the ranks in Valorant CS2 or Apex, this is the weapon of choice for the world's best pros for a reason. Stop playing fair and start playing faster. Go to LogitechG.com and enter code Gamescoop25 at checkout to save. Save 25% off Logitech G products. Just a quick note, some exclusions apply and the promo is non stackable with other offers. Grab the Super Strike today. The winning click is finally here. That's 007 first light. I look forward to playing. Well, I'll play more this evening, but let's go to mina the hollower. Sam. 10 out of 10 review from you, Nick. Have you finished it yet?

[Nick Limone]

I'm about halfway through the game right now. I'm doing a lot of optional content, lots of side content right now. And there's a lot of side content in that game.

[Justin Davis]

Yep. Big game.

[Sam Claiborne]

So we just gave bond a nine, which is an incredible score, and I gave Mina 10. But I can definitively say why it's better than Bond. Would you like to hear?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Nick Limone]

Yes, please.

[Sam Claiborne]

Because it's one point higher.

[Nick Limone]

That's math, baby.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, that checks out.

[Sam Claiborne]

That's why.

[Damon Hatfield]

Copy.

[Sam Claiborne]

That's it. I did do a review conversation with Tom in which I talked about how, like, you know, why Why I think this game is a 10. And I. And I said, it's really effing fun. And I used the full F word and we moved on from there. And then they cut my other joke. So I'll use that here.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay.

[Sam Claiborne]

And I can see why they cut it, but I still thought it was a good joke. And I was like, but seriously, though, just nobody was looking. And so I just gave it a 10. It made it to the site.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, look. And now what are we gonna do? Take it down.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, what are you gonna do?

[Nick Limone]

Take it down.

[Damon Hatfield]

Exactly.

[Nick Limone]

I mean, I saw the 10. I was like, yeah, I agree. Within two hours of playing the game, I said. I looked at myself in the mirror and I said, I think I'm just. I think I'm playing a 10 out of 10 video game right now. I look forward to seeing the IGN review because I think they will agree with me. I didn't even know Sam was reviewing it.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, I didn't either. That was the other surprise.

[Justin Davis]

One of my favorite observations from your review. I'm pretty early on in Mina, but, like, you make an obs. That is your burrow called the Hollow. Is that your hollow?

[Sam Claiborne]

It's called the underlab.

[Justin Davis]

No, not that. Like the move that you do.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Burrowing.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, burrowing. So, like, that burrow serving, like, kind of three purposes of, like, you know, it's. It lets you move faster. It's a dash, but it's also a dodge. But it's also.

[Sam Claiborne]

Long jump.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, like a long jump. Like, that's so clever. And it does. It does have a learning curve. Like, it doesn't naturally feel, at least for me. It wasn't one of those things where it clicked, like, moment one. Like, it took some doing.

[Sam Claiborne]

Like, link never had that move.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. Like, I'm missing jumps and stuff like that. But that kind of multipurpose move, it's got that perfect feeling of, like, it just feels so good by the time you get used to it and kind of understand what it's capable of and how long it lasts. And then you can get the thing that helps you sort of burrow farther. Like, it's perfect. It's a great move.

[Damon Hatfield]

Shovel Knight was kind of similar, Right. It had its own little sort of pogo like, DuckTales style move that you had to sort of master, right?

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Justin Davis]

Iconic move.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

So I have a little bit of game help for the people that are just starting out. So the game goes through the demo, right? So it goes to the demo and There's a couple of early game bosses and then it takes you to this village. And those bosses are hard, first of all, but you can grind. You can just, just go to your under lab and then pop out and kill a bunch of enemies and level your attack up, your attack up and everything will be. That boss will be really easy already. Like you can just do that. It's going to take you 15 extra minutes max. This is one of them right here. This is a. This becomes a world enemy crazily enough, but that's just how these games work, right? All these souls games will be like, you know, here's a giant enemy and then all of a sudden there's like 10 of them walking around later in the game and you can roll them, right? But so then you get to the open world and you get like these like newspaper. You can read this newspaper and it's like trouble in the crypto. So it's kind of telling you which way to go. But you can go anywhere. Just like Breath of the Wild or the first Zelda game. You can kind of go in order, but recommends you go east. So I do recommend people go east. And then you're going to get to this graveyard and then it leads to a bridge and then a crypt. And it's just like Zelda. You're working your way. It's just like Ocarina of Time or something. Like you're in Kakariko village and then you're on the trail to Death Mountain and then you're in the Goron village and then you're in the volcano finally for the, you know, the Dodongo fight or whatever. So like that's how this game is structured now, right? When you get to that graveyard and here's what the game help comes in. There's these like knights, world enemies walking around and like Mitchell, the best game player I know, period, was like, man, those guys suck, huh? And I was like, yeah, they're really, really tough. And so what did I do? I went in the closest, you know, underlabbed a little save point before them and there's these stupid little red goblins that hop out of crypts around there. And I went in, I would kill two and run back and save and you can level up really like, you know, slowly doing that. And then also you can kill five of them. And then like you just have to do that. You have to do what you did in Elden Ring Daemon, where you warp to another area and do that and you have to get to that level where if you're not like also just wanting to just be like the best burrow or in the world and like be really good at the game and do. You can probably do that. You need the right trinkets so you don't start out with them, like to parry and stuff like that. You don't even have that ability. So you have to just dodge at the beginning. So then you. You can level up just a few levels your attack and then that part will become your grinding part. Because then those guys that were hard, you can kind of kill in a few hits. That feels really good. And then the first boss isn't so bad. At that point you have about four bosses and areas and game where it'll feel exactly like Zelda difficulty. It just. That's where that stops for a while. And then you find some optional bosses. Some like this guy is actually pretty hard. If you encounter him early, which is a weird little Easter egg. There's things like that that will happen. That feels more like, oh wow, I ventured in the wrong place, come back later. That's how these games should be. But it does get to the point where you're like, oh, this just feels like an awesome balance. Sell the game.

[Damon Hatfield]

Just.

[Sam Claiborne]

Just so everybody knows that's the weird bottlenecked. And I wouldn't change that because it gives you the option. Do you want to grind? Do you want to get good by learning boss patterns or enemy world? Enemy patterns. Like it's fine.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. I wanted to ask. This was also a long time coming. The. The first non Shovel knight game from Yacht Club Games. And when it was first revealed, I think everyone. Their takeaways was that it looks. It has kind of a Game Boy color art style and it looks like a link's awakening. Like, would you still describe it that way?

[Sam Claiborne]

Not at all. And you know, we're putting out a map that we worked with the development team on Miranda and the Map Genie team. So they were doing this. And when you put together the map, it is not a rectangular map with everything connected. It fakes that. It fakes it in the meanest way where you go to like east to the dungeon and it just keeps on going further and further and further. Then you're like, well, how do I find a shortcut here? And there are shortcuts and they're interesting. They're like little portals and shortcuts and all this stuff. But it doesn't fit together like Koholint island in a way where you can work your way around it and you don't work your Way around it. You absolutely go off path all the time. There's no right order until the later dungeons in which there's some requirements to get to them that are gated behind gameplay. But yeah, so that's one big difference. And then the other is that there's no items. You don't get items in this game. You don't get a chain hook to get over gaps that you can see early in the game to get over those gaps. You can do that from the start if you know what to do. And that's like the Witness, right, where it's like you actually don't get skills, you get knowledge. You do get these things that help you get over the gaps in other ways. But a lot of the things are solved by like sidearms. Like, you know, getting the ax in Castlevania becomes a way like in this game, like some of the equipment, like the little bike that has a lance on it called the Iron Steed is like actually a way to like get to difficult parts of the game. It's so smart.

[Justin Davis]

There's a bunch of stuff I love about this game that caught me off guard or that surprised me. I didn't really read a lot of the previews, right. I went in mostly blind. I didn't realize how kind of like, you know, story heavy. Not story heavy, but there's just a lot more story in it and characters in it than I expected. Like, I knew there was a town, but I did not expect the town to be full of NPCs that had side quests and many things and you can talk to them and their dialogue changes over the game. Like it's huge. It's like, it's. It's a big full on like RPG feeling town with a bunch of different, you know, little shops to explore. So that was really cool and a really delightful surprise. And also just the amount of kind of like, you know, bespoke or like just like the reason that this game took years and years and years, I guess I don't know why it took years, but it seems like the reason it took so many years is like the most amazing, gorgeous pixel art you've ever seen. And it's on screen for like two seconds and then it's not repeated again. And like, as someone that plays a lot of video games that's close to the video game industry, you get used to sort of seeing, you know, tile patterns repeat. Like you're going to see the same rooftop tile over and over. You're going to see the same building and like that's how they build the town or that's how they build the dungeon as they build it from a tile set. But like in Nina, almost nothing seems repeated. Like the amount of bespoke places and bespoke enemies and bespoke assets just feels almost unfathomable. How little is repeated in the game. Sort of artistry.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's just fantastic what you just said. That's another way it's like Link's Awakening is that. It's that Link's Awakening put together an island of Twin Peaks inspired weirdos. That's. The developers are on the record saying that's why they did that. This is exactly the same. Right? The whole thing is like inhabited by just total goofballs and weirdos and. And kind of like creepy characters too. Like sometimes they'll like show a character's face after you're chatting to like a cute pig. And like it's like a total like eyeless zombie pig. It's so weird.

[Nick Limone]

It's like every single character is kind of a FromSoft NPC where it's like they all have very distinct personalities. They're all very fun and clever in a way. Like, it is very horror themed, like very Castlevania meets Bloodborne in that regard. But it still has that yacht club game sensibility about how like goofy a lot of the characters are. And I really appreciate that. But there is a lot of dark moments where there's some side quests. I was like, am I really doing this right now? It's kind of gnarly, some of the stuff you do in the game and to the Bloodborne of it all. I had forgotten about this from the demo because I played the demo back when that came out. But I just how the game rewards aggression because if you take some hits, you have the ability to. You know, normally in Zelda you kind of retreat a little bit. You retreat to a corner and then attack safely from a distance. But in this, you're incentivized to get up close and personal to hit for the opportunity to get your health back. And I just, I love that aspect of the game so much. I think it's one of those that really forces you to confront how fragile your life is in both in game and. And in real life. But I just think it's.

[Sam Claiborne]

I made a. I made a build based on that, which I loved, which was. I used the two daggers, which are like, this is the main weap, which is a high DPS weapon. And then you can augment those with a trinket that makes it so each subsequent hit that you don't miss adds up like an on screen multiplier to your damage, which is crazy. That's great. Right? And then I use two of these trinkets that make your, it makes your damage drain slowly but like, and then you can also use another one that auto heals you, but they don't work like you, like you get infinite life. It just gives you more time to get in at a boss and stab so quickly that you can get them down to zero life and not even learn a boss pattern for some of them. And it's just a fun thing to try. So like it has the ability to like set up cheese in that way, but you have to like work for it and think about it and make that build for that. And then it might not work with some boss because you know that boss might have multiple eyes. So you can't just stand next to them because you're going to be missing all the time or something.

[Nick Limone]

You know, I'm watching this footage and I'm like, dude, I went into this saying like I do legitimately think this is the best 2D Zelda game. But apart from that, I think it's also some of the best 2D inspired games because like there's a sequence that's basically Metroid Fusion. And I'm like, oh yeah, this game just wipes the floor with Metroid Fusions, like chase sequences. And it's just so cool, so clever. And the game is constant, constantly doing new things and man, I, I, I'm, I'm trying to go slow in this game because I'm dreading rolling credits on it because I don't want it to end.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, hold that thought. I have some questions for you but someone's using some power tools outside. I'm gonna close this window real quick.

[Sam Claiborne]

That's a weapon I was just talking about.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay. Now I'm, I'm, I, I believe they're very quite different games. But Nick, you like, you'll say, do you think this is better than a Link to the past?

[Nick Limone]

Yes. 100 I think this is way more flexible with how you're. Don't get me wrong, I love Link to the Past, but I also think Minish Cap is better than Link to the Past, but that's just me.

[Sam Claiborne]

Wow.

[Damon Hatfield]

But I like both games, but wow.

[Nick Limone]

I think that this is just way more flexible in terms of how it really complements how you want to play the game. I think it gives you a lot more verbs compared to Your standard Zelda game. I love that you have all of the tools at your disposal to solve any problem that comes your way. Whereas I always find Zelda is a little bit like, you know, the old classic Zeldas. I appreciate you find the item, you use the item in the dungeon and then you kind of call it quits. I like that the items that you find in this game have really meaningful changes to how you can play this game. Instead of just, hey, I can hold a little bit more money or hey, I can have another heart of health. Like that stuff is fine. It just seems so rigid. And I just appreciate how much, how much more flexible this game is. And I really like it. Feels like very clearly they love Zelda as much as I do and they said, how do we do that but make it different.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, it's like the breath of the wild moment for 3D Zelda is breath of the wild. This is the breath of the wild moment for 2D Zelda.

[Nick Limone]

Correct.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's doing the same thing. It's like upgrading it to an open world game. But to be fair, Zelda did it first with the first Zelda. Like that's.

[Nick Limone]

Yeah. And it has to be said, very similar to like link between worlds and the it's dungeon approach, which I also kind of appreciate there.

[Justin Davis]

There definitely is going to be discourse about how hard this game is. And so you know, Sam, Sam's right. Like, you can, you can grind. Like if you take nothing else away from this discussion, like you can find a safe spot and you can grind out some levels and you can ameliorate the game's difficulty that way. Right.

[Sam Claiborne]

But it's, it's honestly, contrast that with Silksong where like, it really doesn't give you the option to go away and get a bunch of E tanks and come back and have an easier time. Yeah, like, you just can't do that in that game. You have to learn the boss patterns. Like you don't in this game. You can go away, kill a bunch of little enemies and come back and just absolutely work a boss. Like that is totally fine in this game.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, I had to, I had to start grinding. There's like an early what, sub boss or mini boss or something that was giving me a really tough time and I was like, what the heck? So, yeah, I had to go. I didn't realize it was that type of game where you could grind. And I appreciate that because I like grinding.

[Sam Claiborne]

Me too.

[Damon Hatfield]

So Sam, is this your front runner for your game of the year?

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, I absolutely Adore Res, Evil and Bookopia, like, I love, and they're so different. That's like, you know, this is my game. I want to play on Steam Deck every day of the year. The issue with, like, where I am with this right now too, is that, like, I must 100% it and I'm unable to. Like, there's things that I have not figured out in it. And they talked in a stream about how there's a secret ending. And, like, when you play this game, there's an insane situation that gets set up and the ending is so Castlevania and cool. I don't know anything about that still. So I'm obsessed with that. And then there's the New Game plus, which I'm in. Your item counts literally carry over. And by that I mean the treasure chests are open that you opened, and the ones you aren't. That you didn't solve the puzzle for are not. So you can just start your new game plus and, like, continue your 100% run.

[Nick Limone]

That's sick.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. And then, you know, your levels are a little bit higher. Now. The issue in New Game plus is that that's where it becomes Silksong. The run backs are gone. They're huge. Like, they take out a ton of the save markers. And then there's a different permutation for each new Game plus, for the second new Game plus and third or third one of the other, there's another permutation where it takes more of those out, which I'm like, how do they even do that? Because they're like, well, the one I'm playing right now, there's basically a save before, you know, halfway to a boss, and then at the boss, like, they're going to take away the boss one or something like that. Sounds crazy to me, but that's where it's at.

[Damon Hatfield]

Nick, I know you're only halfway through meaning the hollower, but about two months ago, you were thinking Marathon was maybe your front runner for Game of the Year.

[Justin Davis]

That's.

[Damon Hatfield]

That's still true, brother.

[Nick Limone]

This conversation is living in my head day and night. I've been thinking about this for a long time. It's too soon to speak. You know, Marathon is on the cusp of its season two, which looks fantastic, by the way.

[Sam Claiborne]

Nice.

[Nick Limone]

I'm still playing it. Like, I'm at the point now where I find some time to play some video games, and then my Marathon crew is like, marathon. And I'm like, I don't know when I'm gonna be able to play with them again. So. Yes, but I'm like, but I want to play Mina. But I want to play 007. But right now, as it stands, a long and hard conversation with myself about marathon or Mina. So that's so far, the front runners.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, in an. In an alternate universe, we're all playing GTA 6 right now.

[Justin Davis]

Wow. Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

That was supposed to be out this week.

[Sam Claiborne]

I mean, in this universe, we're gonna play in a few months, but instead,

[Damon Hatfield]

you know, we've got both 007, first light and Mina the Hollow are both just excellent.

[Nick Limone]

We're spoiled, man. This year, we're spoiled.

[Damon Hatfield]

I know.

[Sam Claiborne]

And I gotta play Batman. I mean, I'm really excited.

[Damon Hatfield]

I mean, that's true. Yeah. I was gonna say not in Batman.

[Nick Limone]

And I love Resident Evil.

[Damon Hatfield]

Forza Horizon.

[Sam Claiborne]

Forza.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. Yeah. It's another good year for games. Yes, we're very lucky. Okay, let's talk about an older game. A game that's, I guess, 6, 11 years old now. The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt is getting an expansion. Not now, not this year. Next year when it's 12 years old. And I love this. Like, that's so cool. Like, let's just. Let's give. Let's do more expansions for older games. That game is 2015, so. Yeah, let's do an expansion for Metal gear solid 5. Yes. Let's do an expansion for Fallout 4.

[Nick Limone]

Diablo 2. Got it right. Diablo 2 got a new class 2020.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, there's so many performance improvements and so many different, like, just quality of life improvements in these games too. Like, what. That's what makes it so exciting, is that you can go in and play new stuff, experience new stuff, but, like, all the old stuff's gonna feel better

[Nick Limone]

than when you played it.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. What about Skyrim? That's the one I want. Oh, my gosh. New Skyrim expansion. Yeah. I mean, you know, the only kind of. I don't know if it's bittersweet or what the quiet word is, but, like, you know, Geralt's story ended so perfectly. Right. That it's a. Like, cracking that back open has vibes or, like, if they don't do it well, which. CDPR is great writers, so I'm sure they'll do it well. But, like, if they didn't do it well, it could feel more like, like the new Star wars trilogy of, like. No, you wrapped up the storyline for, like, these three so good. And then when you crack it back open, then it's like, no, it turns out everything's Very sad and terrible for them. So, like, you know, I don't. Like, he had this. We can spoil it, right? Like, he had just a very happy retirement. Like, that's how his story ends. And so that gives me a little bit of pause, but it's still incredible and I'm still happy to jump back in.

[Sam Claiborne]

Look at his old man run. I forgot about that.

[Nick Limone]

I think it's going to be set up for very clearly for Witcher 4. It's like a passing of the torch. A lot of the Witcher subreddit was pointing out that the COVID art for the dlc. What is it? Song of the Past. Is that the name of it?

[Damon Hatfield]

Song of the Past? Yes.

[Nick Limone]

It has him holding. He has three swords. Two of the swords are his normal ones, but the third sword is the one that people have eyed Ciri using in the Witcher 4 trailer. So it's like, I assume this will be him sending her off on the path, as it were.

[Justin Davis]

It does seem like it's gonna be kind of a bridge from three to four is a pretty good guess.

[Nick Limone]

And I think it was Paul Sasko, one of the, I believe, PR people at cdpr. I forget his actual title, so please forgive me, but he talked about, like, hey, we were very specific about our use of the word expansion versus dlc. This is an expansion in the way Phantom Liberty was an expansion for Cyberpunk 2077, which means there's gonna be a

[Sam Claiborne]

lot or like geographically too, because they built that region inside of the city to go to.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, yeah, I. I'm excited. The only again, like, I. This is just a strictly a me problem, but I just reinstalled Witch. Like, maybe I'm going to go back to Witcher 3 this summer. Like, you know, after I got done with Mina and some other games. And now it's like, well, I don't know. I don't want to play it now. Like, I feel like I have to

[Nick Limone]

wait till the start a new game, work your way up to all the DLC content, get to retirement, and then take them out of retirement when the time comes.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, yeah, I guess I've played a

[Damon Hatfield]

lot of Witcher 3 over the years and I've started it multiple times, but I've never finished it. I don't. I probably won't. Like, I'm not going to put it, like, whatever, 50 hours into it, but

[Nick Limone]

what if this is a 10 out of 10? Damon, would you dust off the Witcher 3 and work your way up?

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, let's just do it. Is it still fun.

[Justin Davis]

There we go. I mean, do it for content. They don't have to do it.

[Nick Limone]

That'd be a. That'd be a good episode, actually.

[Damon Hatfield]

I mean, this is a good reason. It's a good, perfect excuse to do it.

[Sam Claiborne]

Great one. Great one.

[Damon Hatfield]

They say more details on Songs of the Past will be released in late summer 2026. That sounds like Gamescom to me.

[Nick Limone]

Gamescom, baby. Let's go.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yes. Also, I just want to say like, we, we, you know, get from CD Projekt like stuff like this while we're waiting for Witcher 4. Right. And good on them because like, what are we getting from Elder. Elder Scrolls.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, I know, I know.

[Nick Limone]

Please, just a morsel. Todd Howard, anything.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, instead they just put out some new stuff for Starfield. Right. Okay.

[Justin Davis]

All right, people. That was well received though. The, the, the new, the new updates, updated systems. Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay. What is interesting about this Witcher 3 expansion coming next year is that there is a complete edition of the Witcher 3.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, not anymore.

[Sam Claiborne]

Asterisk after it. We didn't see it the first time, but there was an asterisk the whole time.

[Justin Davis]

I mean, I don't know the last time you went back and started it over, Damon, but they did a really clever thing. I mean, I can't even get my timeline straight. Like the next gen update, whatever the big update was a couple years ago where they refactored the map and reduced a lot of the map clutter by default because like the game was notorious. You know, a lot of open worlds games are like this, but Witcher 3 in particular was notorious for just the map being just question marks everywhere. Right. And so they, they changed some of that around with, with the update that came out a couple years ago. That makes it, you know, it makes. It's a little detail that makes a big difference.

[Damon Hatfield]

I often end up playing it during Halloween season because, you know, you're hunting monsters and there's lots of spooky vibes and just wins. How so?

[Nick Limone]

Just seeing all the footage, I'm like, damn, I'm gonna replay the Witcher 3, aren't I?

[Justin Davis]

I know, but that's what I want to. But now I gotta wait.

[Damon Hatfield]

Something to look forward to for next year.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

All right, let's check in with the listeners.

[Justin Davis]

Hey, listeners.

[Damon Hatfield]

Hi listeners. Remember, you can always reach us at the email address gamescoop.com just like Micklovin did.

[Nick Limone]

What?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yep. Nick Lovin, big fan of the show. Mick Lovin says so. I have a three year old son and I'm starting to share some of my hobbies with him. We went to see the new Mario movie, had a blast. I haven't shown him any video games, but I'm tempted. Not sure if I should wait until he's five or go ahead and let him watch me play Nintendo games. I'd like to know your experiences with this subject when you were, when were your kids introduced to video games? Do you have any recommendations or things not to do, etc? Yeah, we talk about this from time to time. 3. I think Kingo was three when I started introducing him to video games. And yeah, just definitely Nintendo, definitely Mario games. And then Astrobot is another good one. And the Lego games, all of those are good because they, they feature big open environments where with very little friction that they can just kind of run around and get the feel of moving a character around a 3D space and getting a feel like what? What? Holding a controller and using an analog stick feels like.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, I think I've shared this anecdote. My kids are not little kids anymore. Now they're big kids. But when they were little kids, you know, I love my kids and I love video games, but I did not like, I did not love playing video games with my kids when they were little. It was not you, you know, before I became a dad, you sort of build up in your head like, oh, I love this hobby so much and I can't wait to share it with them. But then the reality is like, it's kind of stressful for dad. It's a little bit like, you know, herding them around, you know, like an amusement park or something. Like it becomes kind of like homework for the parent of like they can't do something and it's hard. And then they're getting frustrated and, you know, or they can't, you know, like if they're playing something on their own. I've also shared this before that like a lot of Nintendo games for how family friendly they are and how clever they are about, about being family friendly and kid friendly. It's like because the characters aren't voice acted like there's a lot of reading. Even in like Mario Sunshine, there's a lot of reading. And so that was a challenge. Like that really delayed like that was like two years that we had to wait for my kids to really get turned loose in these games because they couldn't read them and understand what was going on. And so, you know, we have now that they're a little bit older, you know, we love playing video games together, but it was not the thing when they were little that I was personally kind of hoping it would be.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

But we did. I mean, I have a lot of fond memories of, like, them sitting in my lap and playing early switch games. For sure.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Did you. You know, the new Yoshi game is kind of angled at kids. Tom gave it a seven, I believe, and it looks like the perfect game to introduce kids to Yoshin. But he tried that with his kid, and in the video review of it, he has a little audio clip of him asking his daughter if she wants to play more, and she says no.

[Nick Limone]

She says, I want to play Korby.

[Sam Claiborne]

I want to play Kirby.

[Damon Hatfield]

Which Kirby? I wonder.

[Sam Claiborne]

I think that Yoshi game looks really, like, interesting and cool. Like, I totally want to try.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, I'll get it at some point to play with.

[Justin Davis]

We did a. I would also say, I mean, three is obviously pretty young, but, like, probably one of my favorite, not just family video game moments, but just video game moments of the last several years is me and my daughters had a family Minecraft world together. And, like, we all, you know, work together and, like, cooperated and built stuff and, you know, would split apart and go on adventures and then come back together. So like, can't recommend that highly enough as a way to kind of, like, spend time together. Yeah, it's great.

[Damon Hatfield]

Every kid's different. It's up to the parents to figure out when is the right time and what can they handle. Kingo watch me play through all of Elden Ring with the blood turned off and all of the horrors that that game includes doesn't bother him at all. But to this day, he'll be seven in a couple months. When we watch the first Mario Brothers movie, he makes me fast forward through the part in the beginning when they get their first job and there's that dog tries to, like, bite them. To this day, he won't watch that.

[Justin Davis]

I mean, we don't have to talk about this if you don't want. Is he afraid of dogs outside of the Mario movie?

[Sam Claiborne]

Nope.

[Justin Davis]

Oh, just in the game.

[Nick Limone]

To be fair, it is a scary dog. It's a mean dog.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, it's a mean dog.

[Sam Claiborne]

Did that dog come back in the second movie? There's a reference to it or something.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yoshi eats a dog that looks like that dog in the beginning. Don't know if it's the same.

[Nick Limone]

Maybe that's the moment. Maybe that's how he conquers the fear of that. That dog.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, he's seen all the Star wars movies except the latest one. Except he didn't want to go see Mandalorian and Grogu because in the trailer, there's some scary aliens in it.

[Justin Davis]

So, yeah, one of the. One of the great joys of being a parent is getting to, like, share here's this thing that I love, and now I get to share it with you. But I would also just caution, like, they're their own people.

[Sam Claiborne]

Right.

[Justin Davis]

And this kind of, like, you know, you must be into what I must. I was into can become, like, a little bit much amongst, like, I feel like it manifests most in, like, nerd parent circles. Right. Like, I love Star wars, therefore you must love Star Wars. And it's kind of the equivalent of, like, when we were kids, if our parents made us love, like, Buck Rogers or something.

[Sam Claiborne]

Right.

[Justin Davis]

Like, Star wars was for us, it was for kids when we were growing up. And so they have their own stuff that, like, they're going to be into that you're going to see. Right.

[Nick Limone]

All right, Cloud, it's time for our annual replay of Final Fantasy 7.

[Sam Claiborne]

I think it's funny to see my parents now have to be grandparents to a generation of kids and then be annoyed that the kids are too into video games. Once again, I'm like, excellent. It's all happening again.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Can I show you my Minecraft stuff, Grandma?

[Damon Hatfield]

Like, Nick's Cloud joke just reminded me. I just came from Kingo's kindergarten spring concert earlier, and some of the kids have, like, a solo where they come up and just say a line. And one of the kids that came up was named Kylo. And so if he's six years old now, I have to assume probably that's the Star wars name, right?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. And how happy were they that, like, he has his redemption? In the last couple minutes of they're

[Nick Limone]

like, wait a second, he's a child murderer. What the heck?

[Damon Hatfield]

I don't know about you, but I like keeping my money. Unfortunately, traditional big wireless carriers also seem to like keeping our money. After years of overpaying for wireless, ign, Seth Macy finally got fed up with crazy high wireless bills, bogus fees, and free perks that actually cost more in the long run and switched to mint mobile. Isn't that right, Seth? That is right, Damon.

[Sam Claiborne]

The longest part of the process, I'm

[Justin Davis]

thinking, is going to be staying on

[Damon Hatfield]

hold with my current provider, trying to break up with them. 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 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 [e-mail] Gamescoop that's mintmobile.com Gamescoop upfront payment of $45 for 3 months 5GB plan required equivalent to $15 a month new customer offer for first 3 months only, then full price plan taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details.

[Ad Read Voice 1]

Starting or growing your own business can be intimidating and lonely at times. Your to do list may feel endless with new tasks and lists can easily begin to overrun your life. So finding the right tool that not only helps you out but simplifies everything as a built in business partner can be a game changer for millions of businesses. That tool is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of global of all e commerce in the US from household names like Gymshark, Rare Beauty and Heinz to brands just getting started. Shopify has hundreds of ready to use templates that can help you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style and you can tackle all the important tasks in one place from inventory to payments to analytics and more. No need to save multiple websites or try to figure out what platform is hosting the tool that you need. And if people haven't heard about your brand, you can get the word out. Like you have a marketing team behind you with easy to run email and social media campaigns to reach customers wherever they're scrolling or strolling. Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify and start hearing. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com realm. Go to shopify.com realm that's shopify.com realm.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, speaking of Star wars extracurricular activities. Yeah, like I said, last week I went to see the Mandalorian Grogu and I really liked it. What's going on with this movie? This is a totally fun movie. Wait Justin, you said you're gonna see it. Did you end up seeing it?

[Justin Davis]

No, I didn't.

[Nick Limone]

Okay, the IGN chats are popping off.

[Damon Hatfield]

Freaking time you saw it. You've Seen it twice now. Sam, Nick, have you seen it?

[Nick Limone]

I have not. I have not. But honestly, seeing you guys pop off on the chat on like the day it came out, I was like, well, this is interesting. I'm curious.

[Damon Hatfield]

I don't know, man. I think if you approach this movie sincerely, meaning you like Star wars, you want Star wars to be a thing. You want a good Star wars movie in theaters every couple years, I don't see how you walk away disappointed from this movie.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, I just think, I think both perspectives are valid and true. Where someone's like, this movie could have been an email, this movie could have been special episode of the TV show. Yes, like, that can be true, but it can also be true that like, it's just a fun adventure and don't think about it that deeply. Like both, both things can kind of like the criticism and the praise make sense to me as someone that's on the semi outside and like, I just don't care that much.

[Sam Claiborne]

So, like, watching it a second time, I didn't have that, like that knot in my stomach of like, oh boy, where's this going to go downhill? And I had, you know, a nice Alamo Drafthouse meal and, and some beers and it was really fun. And I knew the people I was with would love the movie, right? Like they were gonna like it no matter what. And so that felt good. And then I focused on the effects, which would have never been in a Disney TV show. Like, there's some amazing expensive things. And then I focused on how cool the monsters were and just like how they did the puppetry and the practical effects. And it's like there's way more of that like Star wars classic, like, you know, or like Peter Jackson classic special effects stuff in this than they're just than is anything recently. Like, it's like a, it's like it's like watching a documentary on Lucas's tricks. It's so cool.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

So let me ask, let me ask you this. We watched season one of Mandalorian as a family, but my kids haven't seen the rest. Like, are they. Is this self contained enough that like they can just.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's the status quo of Mandalorian and Grogu just go on bounty hunter missions. That's, that's the status quo of the movie.

[Nick Limone]

Does the family know his name is Grogu? Because that's pretty important. Otherwise that'll be confusing. They're like, wait, that's Baby Yoda.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, yeah, I don't think they reveal that.

[Damon Hatfield]

Bring Me, the child, until they bring in us. Because Ahsoka is the one that can

[Justin Davis]

like, yeah, his name is Grogu.

[Nick Limone]

She's like, oh, yeah.

[Justin Davis]

Everyone watching the show was like, what the.

[Nick Limone]

Let's go back to Baby Yoda. Come on.

[Justin Davis]

And like, just collectively, it's like society. We're like, no, it's not.

[Nick Limone]

And he got a little bit uglier after that moment.

[Sam Claiborne]

You know, there's all this, like, kind of like this didn't have an effect on the story or the universe or anything like that. I can see that being true. However, there's like the Yoda connection is played up in the movie. Not in like a spoilery plot way, but just like what Grogu is, is like explored. And I thought that was really cool.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, I mean, this. So here's, here's everything. It has a really cool opening action sequence. It expands the lore of the huts in interesting ways.

[Sam Claiborne]

That part's cool too.

[Damon Hatfield]

Gross. It's gross. Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

They seem really smelly.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's got cool aliens, cool droids. Grogu's cute. It's got really charming practical effects and then just unbelievable stop motion effects in the ending series. Like, I hope they do a light and magic episode on Disney plus around how they did that.

[Sam Claiborne]

I was like, what?

[Damon Hatfield]

This is crazy.

[Sam Claiborne]

Even the big CG monster that they showed, that big, big snake, like, that is awesome. And the ending sequence of that, like, what happens later in the movie with that snake is so good.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes, I agree. I agree with all that. I was like, I don't know, I just.

[Nick Limone]

You guys are gonna make me watch a Star Wars.

[Damon Hatfield]

I don't think you were. If you didn't have fun watching this movie, I don't think you're very interested in having fun in the first place. Anyway.

[Justin Davis]

I think Star wars movies have always been like, events, right? They've been like big deals. Like it's a cultural milestone. And it was kind of this slightly more like guarded and kind of like precious thing. Even though, even though several of them are like bad, but like they were trying to like. Yeah, they were trying to be like, you know, these epics. And like this movie is just not even trying to be that. It's just, you know, it's attempting to go, you know, in a different direction. And so, you know, I, again, I haven't seen it, but I understand the perspective of someone that's just like, you know, that felt like this was a little too slight fight for them.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

You know what you're gonna think when you see this movie, you're gonna think, now this is pod racing.

[Justin Davis]

It's working. Try spinning. That's a cool trick.

[Damon Hatfield]

I just want to chime in and

[Justin Davis]

say I think the movie was just

[Nick Limone]

a little too long.

[Damon Hatfield]

I mean, okay, sure, that's fine.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

That doesn't work with the. You don't get your money's worth part, though, Joe Burt, because everybody's like, well, this could have been a twelve dollar subscription.

[Nick Limone]

That's fair.

[Justin Davis]

I just think his fetch quest in the first, first 20 minutes could have been 10 minutes.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, that's fine, Whatever. Sure.

[Sam Claiborne]

You know, rewatching the first part where he's just kind of like doing kind of one of those Darth Vader things where it's like, look at this fighting sequence and how badass he is. I didn't really care the first time I watched it. The second time I was like, if this was in the middle of the movie, it would have paid a lot more attention. And it was really good.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, it is good. It's a little bit. It's got like John Wick moves going on there.

[Nick Limone]

It's good.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, yeah. It's just. It's a little bit different. But they have done that thing where like, oh, Vader's here. He's going to cause trouble.

[Damon Hatfield]

I mean.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, and I'm not saying that that happened in the movie. That's not. I'm not. Vader's dead in this movie. Right. So it's like, yeah, what.

[Nick Limone]

What the heck?

[Damon Hatfield]

All right, that brings us to video game 20 questions. Our suggestion this week comes from Jude in Poughkeepsie. Although I don't know where Poughkeepsie is.

[Sam Claiborne]

What's.

[Damon Hatfield]

What state is Poughkeepsian? I don't know. It's not. It's. It's unclear. Anyway, you have two hints about this game. Jude says this is a very underrated game, in my opinion. Again, okay, your hint from me, and this is important. Listen carefully. This is. This should inform every. Every question you ask. Okay. You are playing on hard mode. And with that, let the questioning begin.

[Justin Davis]

Like, like, this is going to be a hard one for us to get. Like, like 20 questions is on hard mode.

[Nick Limone]

Got it. Okay.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Nick Limone]

Well, I was gonna say people get mad when I ask, is it. Or they get mad when it's 70s, 80s, or 90s, but it's a hard mode, so we gotta do it. Is this game.

[Sam Claiborne]

People get mad about that because they're like, that.

[Nick Limone]

That eliminates too many things. I'm like, yeah, that's the whole point of the game, man.

[Sam Claiborne]

You can just say, is it from this century? Last century? It has the same effect. Why would you care?

[Nick Limone]

Is it. Is it from this century, Damon?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Sam Claiborne]

That eliminates too many centuries.

[Justin Davis]

It eliminated all of them except all trees.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, we know it's not an Etruscan puzzle box. Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

Okay. Can you play this game on the switch?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Nick Limone]

Can you play this game on PlayStation hardware?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Sam Claiborne]

Did it come out only on PlayStation hardware at the beginning?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Nick Limone]

Multi plat.

[Justin Davis]

Was this game made in Japan?

[Damon Hatfield]

No. That's five.

[Sam Claiborne]

What was the first clue?

[Justin Davis]

I remember the hardware.

[Nick Limone]

This entry.

[Sam Claiborne]

No, no, no. What was the first clue from the guy?

[Justin Davis]

Underrated game.

[Sam Claiborne]

Underrated.

[Damon Hatfield]

Very underrated game.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay, Very underrated hard mode. So we don't need to ask if it's good.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. Well, yeah, presumably it's good if. If who. What were their. What was their name?

[Damon Hatfield]

Dude.

[Nick Limone]

What if Jude's got bad taste, though? Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Poughkeepsie, North England.

[Nick Limone]

Alfred Chicken. Let's see.

[Sam Claiborne]

Generation was an Alfred Chicken this century.

[Justin Davis]

Was this. Was this game developed in the United States?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Nick Limone]

U.S. multi plat.

[Justin Davis]

We don't know console generation yet, though.

[Nick Limone]

Correct. But it is on PlayStation hardware.

[Sam Claiborne]

Let's see, hard mode usually means it's a puzzle game. Could it. I mean. I mean, a sports game or something like that? Like something, you know. Do you think that it could be underrated? Could be a licensed game, probably like

[Nick Limone]

an X Men Origins Wolverine type situation.

[Sam Claiborne]

Exactly.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Nick Limone]

Is this game from the. The PlayStation 2 generation of consoles?

[Sam Claiborne]

No, it's not where I would have gone with it. Is this game based on a license?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Justin Davis]

Damn. PS4 generation of consoles?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Nick Limone]

Oh, no.

[Justin Davis]

PS3 generation of consoles.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes. That's 10.

[Justin Davis]

Okay.

[Damon Hatfield]

All right, halfway there.

[Justin Davis]

We got there.

[Nick Limone]

PS3 generations.

[Sam Claiborne]

PS3 multi plat game.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

So PS3 generation. I'll give you another hint, okay. Because this is hard. I cannot tell you. I can. To my knowledge, we may have never, ever once mentioned this game on this show.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay, let's figure out yet it was chosen.

[Nick Limone]

Figure out the type of game, maybe.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, I wish it was a licensed game.

[Justin Davis]

Was this game. I don't know how to phrase this. I want to get at. Was it like a downloadable game? But then it gets weird because, like, oh, maybe technically it came out on, like, a disc because I think it's probably like Tokyo jungle or some PS3 downloadable game. Fat Princess.

[Nick Limone]

Yeah, I got you like a 3D heroes situation.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is. Was this game mostly exclusive? Well, but. Well, okay, maybe you're right. Those. All the ones I just named are exclusive.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yes.

[Justin Davis]

Never mind. I withdraw my question. Damon, is this game weird? Is this a weird game?

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, yeah. Yep.

[Sam Claiborne]

Weird. American games are uncommon.

[Justin Davis]

What about Vib Ribbon? We're in Nick Limone land right now. And probably Justin land too.

[Nick Limone]

PS3. Yeah, this is. Is this a shooter, puzzler or platformer?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Justin Davis]

Okay, but we know it's weird. I can't believe the answer was yes.

[Sam Claiborne]

Wow.

[Nick Limone]

Shooter, puzzler, platformer. So we at least know three categories.

[Justin Davis]

Remember, Remember Crush on the psp? How good was that? Okay, well, okay. Was it a puzzler?

[Damon Hatfield]

No,

[Nick Limone]

It's either a platformer or a shooter.

[Justin Davis]

Well, I mean, you gotta do it, Nick.

[Nick Limone]

Is it a platformer?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Nick Limone]

Okay.

[Justin Davis]

Weird shooter.

[Damon Hatfield]

Mm,

[Justin Davis]

weird multi platform shooter from America in that. From the PS3 era. What? So it's PS3 and Xbox One then? If it's multi platform, are there games

[Sam Claiborne]

like Unfinished Swan which were like. That's a shoot as a. That's true, but like as a. As a device, not as a violent game. Yeah, we can't ask about killing stuff for mature or whatever.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. Are you. Is there a shooter where you're like, you know, it's like paint. Like Splatoon.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yes, exactly.

[Nick Limone]

Are we asking for real if it's a non violent shooter?

[Justin Davis]

No, I'm just trying to think about what a. What a weird what? Weird shooter. Underrated Weird. Oh, what if it's like an Edge? What about like Point Blank? What about like a light gun? Like a Namco? You're shutting cans up.

[Nick Limone]

But there's no like light gun games in that era though, right? No, I guess there was with like the PlayStation I or the.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yes. And those had games that were cross platform with the Wii.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. And it could be a PSI game or like a Kinect. Kinect in like PlayStation I. Something weird.

[Sam Claiborne]

Interesting.

[Nick Limone]

But I don't think any of those games were particularly underrated, I would argue.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, PlayStation I is like a top 10 gaming disappointment.

[Sam Claiborne]

Should we just ask Violet?

[Justin Davis]

I mean, I don't know what I would do with that. Sure. I don't know.

[Sam Claiborne]

What about like Manhunt wasn't a shooter, right? No, no.

[Justin Davis]

It was a plastic bag over the header.

[Sam Claiborne]

Was. Was Rockstar's Table Tennis a shooter because there's a tiny projectile?

[Justin Davis]

No, but that game is underrated. That game's sick.

[Sam Claiborne]

I just watched Marty Supreme.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, me too. Watched it on. I watched it.

[Damon Hatfield]

Good movie.

[Justin Davis]

Stressed. Very stressful.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's very stressful. Just like their other movies. Just constant screaming and Running.

[Justin Davis]

That bathtub dog's barking and dogs crying. Hate that dog, man. Which I know you're supposed to, that's the point. But it's like so stressful.

[Sam Claiborne]

What about that bathtub scene?

[Damon Hatfield]

I know that's.

[Nick Limone]

Yeah, that bath scene is crazy.

[Damon Hatfield]

Kind of a stealth. Kind of a stealth Japan movie. I was, I was pleasantly surprised.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Let's see.

[Nick Limone]

American PlayStation 3 era.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is this shooter. Would you call this game directed at mature audiences or adults?

[Damon Hatfield]

I mean, it's tricky.

[Justin Davis]

Is this game rated M?

[Damon Hatfield]

No. Okay, that's 15.

[Justin Davis]

So it's something. It's something weird and esoteric. That's. So it's for adults, it's not for kids. But it's not an M rated.

[Nick Limone]

Weird Shit.

[Damon Hatfield]

Here's your final hint. We have multiple copies of this game in the IGN library. And I have one on my desk right here.

[Justin Davis]

Why don't you just pick it up?

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh sure.

[Nick Limone]

I'm gonna lose my mind if this guy says it's wet. Yeah, I think that game is rated. I think that game is rated M though.

[Justin Davis]

What was that? What was the one? Bethesda made with the mantling was like it's been big thing. Traversal.

[Nick Limone]

Mantling. Bethesda game.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. Blink or whatever it's called. Is that what it's called?

[Sam Claiborne]

Do you remember that game where you went vertically up platforms and, and, and conduct behind them and then you go. It was almost like a Rocketeer type game. And then there was also an 8 bit game.

[Nick Limone]

Dart Void. Dark Void.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Nick Limone]

There's also. This is the era of Dark. That's a third person action game. But there's like Dark Sector, which is a pretty mid game that I could see someone making the argument for being underrated. Even though that's crazy.

[Sam Claiborne]

We need to know if this is a first person shooter.

[Nick Limone]

Probably.

[Sam Claiborne]

I mean what if it's a top down shooter that we're all missing?

[Justin Davis]

We also don't know that it's like a shooter by genre because now I'm stuck. I guess that's Sega. But there's Alpha Protocol, like some stuff for you.

[Sam Claiborne]

Shoot.

[Justin Davis]

But it's not a shooter.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, I mean shooter doesn't mean anything if it's not an FPS versus A.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, you guys might be on to something with any of those games. And we've probably never mentioned Wet on game scoop in 600800 plus episodes.

[Sam Claiborne]

Or like the Savage Human.

[Justin Davis]

No, Brink. Brink was the game I was thinking of, by the way.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh yeah. Damon, do you play as a human in this game?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes. You Play as a human.

[Justin Davis]

Okay,

[Nick Limone]

Was this. I want to get back to Justin's thing about, like, downloadable, because I do think there's something valid there. Is this, like, maybe how do we frame this? Like, is this a game that was released as a downloadable? Only thing for a minute. Like, did it start life as a downloadable game?

[Damon Hatfield]

That. That's.

[Sam Claiborne]

He just said. Wait. Just said he has the disc on his desk. Yeah, we go that direction.

[Nick Limone]

Okay.

[Justin Davis]

No, hold on. We withdraw our question.

[Nick Limone]

We withdraw.

[Justin Davis]

Is it helpful to know if this is controlled in a weird way? If it's like not controlled with a controller, does that help us?

[Sam Claiborne]

Yes.

[Justin Davis]

Is this game controlled with a controller?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Justin Davis]

How many? We only have a couple questions left.

[Damon Hatfield]

Two questions and a guess.

[Justin Davis]

And it. And it. And it. But it's not rated M. And we kind of glossed over that a little bit. Maybe it is like a Point Break type situation. Not Point Break. Point Blank. What is it? Point Point Blank is the Namco. I only know them as light gun games, but it's the Namco light gun series where it's like. It's like war, you aware? But light guns or like. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I most know it from the DS version, but there's been. It's not literally Point Break.

[Nick Limone]

Gotcha.

[Justin Davis]

Point Blank. I'm just saying something like that. Like shooting, but it's fun. Like it like a target shooting something.

[Nick Limone]

Probably not. Like Haze.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. What about pain? Does that count as a shooter?

[Nick Limone]

We've talked about pain. Slingshot Pain was on an episode of 20 Questions Before.

[Justin Davis]

Okay.

[Nick Limone]

Haze is a game we never would have talked about. That's the one that had corn on.

[Sam Claiborne]

Can we ask if this is multiplayer focused? We don't know that.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, but Haze is also not underrated.

[Nick Limone]

I don't know, man. People have be having weird takes in 2026.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. Is it multiplayer? I mean, there was Shadow Gate, but we had that on 20 questions before shadow. Whatever. It was the one where you could play as a tree.

[Nick Limone]

I kind of think Justin was onto something with first person versus, like, I think, like, is this a first person? Am I crazy for wanting that?

[Justin Davis]

That was.

[Nick Limone]

Am I crazy? I feel like that's a. That helps because then we start thinking in a proper direction, you know? Is this a first person shooter?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Nick Limone]

Okay,

[Damon Hatfield]

one question. One.

[Nick Limone]

Bro.

[Sam Claiborne]

Bro.

[Justin Davis]

I know it. I know what it is.

[Nick Limone]

What is it?

[Justin Davis]

Sure, it's come up. It's Vanquish.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, but Vanquish was made by Capcom though, right?

[Nick Limone]

Oh, yeah, you're right. That's a Japanese developed Game, but damn.

[Sam Claiborne]

Vanquish rules. What about like third? Like those alien colonial games? I know it's not licensed, but like a game where you're looking down at

[Justin Davis]

the enemies and spraying guns around like a twin stick. Like a. Yeah, we call those. Oh, like Robotron likes. Man, by the way, this is a tangent. Sorry, but like speaking of playing games with your kids, my daughter and I have been playing Geometry wars together lately. Damon, that's a good time.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay.

[Justin Davis]

We downloaded Geometry Wars 2 and we play a couple rounds like every day now.

[Sam Claiborne]

Cool. There were like games that were. But this is on a disc though. I was thinking there's like N type games at that time which would like be more shooter.

[Justin Davis]

So helpful. What about Bulletstorm?

[Nick Limone]

That's a first person though.

[Justin Davis]

Oh, wait, no, it's actually famously first person. My bad. I was just thinking about the kicking for some reason.

[Nick Limone]

Good game.

[Justin Davis]

Okay, okay, okay. There was. There was a few. Now I don't remember what's first person or not. What was the time? The one where you could manipulate time.

[Sam Claiborne]

Time splitters.

[Justin Davis]

Well, yeah, there is one like Singularity is the one I was thinking of. Of. But I think that's first person.

[Sam Claiborne]

I think Singularity, you know, it's developed in the US so it's not like one of the rare that wouldn't come to PlayStation at that time.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, Bulletstorm also wasn't made in the US so it's doubly not that it wasn't.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh yeah, I could have sworn. I thought it was like an epic games game or something.

[Justin Davis]

People Can Fly made that.

[Sam Claiborne]

What was Epic working on back then?

[Nick Limone]

Wait, Singularity was the game that has the 8 bit. It's singularity. And then the 8 bit version is called Singularity. Dark Void, isn't it?

[Sam Claiborne]

You were right. You were right about Dark Void, whatever the case is. Yeah, you nailed that one. I don't know where to go with this. I would go with multiplayer and then we don't have it.

[Justin Davis]

What about a twin stick shooter?

[Sam Claiborne]

Maybe? Question.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, that's what we were just talking about.

[Sam Claiborne]

I love it if it was that because we will definitely not get it. It's so weird if it was on a disc.

[Justin Davis]

Did they release Vanquish? Because that was Platinum Dead Nation.

[Sam Claiborne]

What about if it just has 3D graphics? We don't even know that that's true.

[Justin Davis]

Who made. Who made who made Binary Domain?

[Nick Limone]

That's Capcom, I believe.

[Justin Davis]

Okay, these are all Japanese games.

[Sam Claiborne]

What if it's like a arcade collection? A.

[Nick Limone]

A shmupulation.

[Sam Claiborne]

Midway Arcade Classics Volume 1 that has Sinistar in it. So it's a shooter.

[Nick Limone]

Is. I mean, do we want to just. I like Sam's. Take 3D. 3D.

[Sam Claiborne]

We can do that. Yeah, we can do that.

[Nick Limone]

Is this a 3D game?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Nick Limone]

Oh, man.

[Damon Hatfield]

It is a 3D game. All right. Is there a guess? Should I reveal?

[Nick Limone]

Hold on.

[Justin Davis]

Do we have. This is it?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yep.

[Justin Davis]

We definitely should have asked. We tossed a lot of names out there. So we. We botched this at the end. Damon, we get 21 questions on this one.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay.

[Justin Davis]

And I just want to know. And I know the answer is going to be no, but, like, have we mentioned the name of the game?

[Sam Claiborne]

Game?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Justin Davis]

Okay, then I don't feel bad about. Not if we were.

[Sam Claiborne]

That's your final guess, though. You're allowed to do that. That was it.

[Justin Davis]

Oh, yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay. Okay. So this is a game I don't think we've ever talked about. The developer is someone you've probably never heard of and they're no longer in business, but it was going well so far.

[Nick Limone]

Okay.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's the Japanese publisher, which I think they're still in business, but they don't really publish anything anymore. They did puzzle quests and that was kind of their big claim to fame.

[Justin Davis]

D3 did a bunch of good, like, DS era stuff.

[Damon Hatfield]

This is a third person shooter with really generic, boring gameplay. But the game's premise is wild.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay.

[Damon Hatfield]

And the way that they marketed it is wild. And it's the kind of thing you just can't possibly imagine being made today. It is eat led.

[Nick Limone]

The death of Matt Hazard.

[Damon Hatfield]

No. The return of Matt.

[Nick Limone]

The return of Matt Hazard.

[Damon Hatfield]

The return of Mat Hazard.

[Nick Limone]

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. No, we never would have gotten this.

[Sam Claiborne]

Nick, did you play this?

[Nick Limone]

No, I just remember the name. This is like during when I worked at Best Buy and I always saw the COVID of this game.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, look at the COVID It's like the perfect grayscale, you know, 360 era slop.

[Nick Limone]

It's very duplicated.

[Damon Hatfield]

The idea behind this is that Matt Hazard is supposedly a classic video game character who was popular in like the 80s. And now they're making. They've made a new modern day version of his game.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's third person.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, it's a third person shooter.

[Justin Davis]

That's insane. Yes.

[Sam Claiborne]

Damon, were we right about Dark Void? I think you reviewed the little 8 bit 1.

[Damon Hatfield]

I don't think I did. But Dark Void is the Capcom game and they had an eight bit demake of it.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yes, it should have been that one.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay.

[Sam Claiborne]

That should have been the answer.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay.

[Justin Davis]

I think that underrated was doing a lot of heavy racing on like brains.

[Damon Hatfield]

Tell me more underrated.

[Nick Limone]

I've heard this game is solid.

[Damon Hatfield]

Is it all in Russian Starring the voices of Will Arnett and Neil Patrick Harris. What? So they had some budget to work with.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. And it got back then. Those are cheap gets back then.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's got a sequel. An XBLA and PlayStation Network sequel.

[Sam Claiborne]

Wow, there's your network sequel. Justin. You were onto something. Would Damon have said? Well, the sequel was network only.

[Justin Davis]

So the concept is like this was a gritty modern day version of like an eight bit like a Contra.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, yeah.

[Justin Davis]

But. But that never. But that game wasn't real.

[Sam Claiborne]

That didn't exist because that was the style at the time. Right. We had already had Bionic Commando and Bomberman do this.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, but that's. That's way too high concept.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's crazy. Right?

[Sam Claiborne]

Like now I'm going to spoil the end of Bionic Commando. They're named back then, but the arm was his wife.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, yeah. Yep, yep, yep.

[Nick Limone]

Don't you find that out like right.

[Sam Claiborne]

Send your emails about that spoiler to [e-mail] an inbox that I do not see.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yep. Eat Lead. The return of Mad Hazard. Binary Domain, by the way, was a SEGA game.

[Nick Limone]

Sega.

[Sam Claiborne]

There you go.

[Damon Hatfield]

It was developed.

[Sam Claiborne]

Did we ever figure out where?

[Justin Davis]

Pokemon Yakuza Studio.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Whoa.

[Justin Davis]

I don't know. I didn't know that.

[Sam Claiborne]

I didn't either.

[Nick Limone]

That's one game I'm going to play. One of Binary Domain I've heard nothing but good things about.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, it's an underrated game. Just like Matt Hazard.

[Nick Limone]

Eat Lead. The return of Mad Hazard. Thank that's. I remember like the Christian name.

[Damon Hatfield]

I remember covering this game at the time.

[Sam Claiborne]

Really?

[Damon Hatfield]

And then.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, because the glitch effect is kind of cool happening right now.

[Damon Hatfield]

They probably brought it into like our. The idea office and had to explain this concept to us. We're like, okay, yeah, yeah.

[Justin Davis]

You know an actual. This reminds me of an actual underrated game which was. Which was. Army of Two was pretty good.

[Sam Claiborne]

Army of Two was probably brought into the office and they brought in a keg of beer and everybody had seven or eight beers and then they explained the concept and Damon burped loudly and said okay, let's do this.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, this is 2009, so. Well, nicely attempt. Thank you for the suggestion, Jude and Poughkeepsie viewers, listeners, if you have your own suggestions for video game 20 questions, email them to me at the address. Email address gamescoopign.com and that is all the scoops we have for you this week.

[Justin Davis]

Thank you, Sam.

[Damon Hatfield]

Thank you, Justin. Thank you, Nick. Look forward to seeing everybody at IGN Live next weekend. Just a reminder, that's June 6th and 7th, and Gamescoop will be happening on the afternoon of Sunday, June 7th. It's going to be a really good time. My name is Damon. This is IGN gamescope. And we're out.

[Sam Claiborne]

And if someone talks to you about Sonic the Hedgehog, just say no.

[Musical Interlude / Outro]

You never know just where to go Seems like something we used to know? Where to turn and how to climb the people and places we used to know. You're far away just flying, flying blind Feels like falling out of time Birds above and in your ear Keep on moving through the fear Just wait for it they're coming for you around the time Dark side screaming for you Just wait for it they're coming for you around the dark side screaming for you. I will be here watching you Violating all the rules an eye on you and one on me Back to zero

[Damon Hatfield]

history

[Musical Interlude / Outro]

Just wait for it they're coming for you around the dark side screaming for you Just wait for us. They're coming for you around the dark side screaming for you Just wait for it, Just wait for it Just wait for it Just wait for it Just wait for it Just wait for it Just wait for it.

[Justin Davis]

That was really hard. That was too hard.

[Damon Hatfield]

I usually don't pick the two hard games, but I thought this one would be amusing.

[Sam Claiborne]

What was harder, Mina? The Hollowers first boss or that this

[Justin Davis]

the first boss I beat?