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Game Scoop! 865: Bethesda Shares Roadmap It Should Have Shared 10 Years Ago
01:21:22
Fallout 4 and 5, The Elder Scrolls 6, God of War, The Furious, The Odyssey, Dungeon Crawler Carl, and more.
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- [00:00]
A
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- [01:16]
B
Hey everybody.
- [01:17]
A
Justin Davis, Scoop and Mark Medina.
- [01:20]
C
I'm here. Damon. Morning Scoop.
- [01:22]
A
Morning Scoop. Recording this bright and early on Friday morning. It's been a bit of a slow news week. As someone who produces a daily video game news show, I can tell you has been a pretty slow news week. But all of a sudden here on Friday there's stuff until Friday. So yeah we will got a great show for you this week. We've got Bethesda's Roadmap finally revealing. The roadmap I would say should have been revealed 10 years ago but better late than never.
- [01:50]
C
I guess it would have been the same 10 years ago.
- [01:52]
B
They're viewing it as bad news because they put it out on a Friday. But I'm not. I think it's good news.
- [01:57]
A
We'll get into that. I've also been I. I've been playing a Bethesda game. I've been revisiting Fallout 4 and I have I have a tale to tell for that. And there's really bizarre recasting news for the God of War show. Very surprising.
- [02:11]
D
It's crazy. Yeah.
- [02:13]
A
But first, housekeeping. I want to give everyone a heads up. There will be no episode next week because next week is Comic Con and huge part of the company, the entire video team, will be going down to San Diego to do our big live show from Comic Con. So please be excited for that. Please tune into all that coverage. But, yeah, we'll be back in two weeks for one more episode in July. After next week, it's just. Justin, you're the only one going to Comic Con. No Sam. No.
- [02:37]
C
Mark.
- [02:38]
D
Yeah, I'll be there. Damon, we can. We can hang out.
- [02:40]
A
Okay, we'll hang out.
- [02:41]
B
You could just. I mean, you could do a rogue episode from the Hard Rock Cafe, or Mark and I could do a rogue episode from Cindy.
- [02:48]
C
There you go.
- [02:49]
D
San Diego Comic Con is a great time. If you see us, if you find us, say hello. I think I was given a hard time. Kim gave me a hard time. I said, if I could live any in any city, I would choose San Diego. And she's like, really? And I'm like, no, I love, like, and I do. I've been reflecting on that thought, and I think, like, half of that's just fish tacos. I just love them so much.
- [03:08]
C
But that is the correct choice. San Diego's great.
- [03:12]
D
Yeah. But then it was like, what about Paris? What about. I'm like, okay, like, enough of this.
- [03:17]
A
What about is. Yeah, okay, let's get into it. Bethesda, they've revealed their. Their big roadmap. I think the. One of the broad strokes here, they say the big thing they're working on is Elder Scrolls 6.
- [03:28]
C
What?
- [03:29]
B
Yeah, I think they.
- [03:30]
C
They're finally getting to work on it.
- [03:32]
B
To our shows about. Just make Fallout games, because there's a lot of Fallout games coming.
- [03:37]
A
Yeah, there are a lot of Fallout games.
- [03:38]
B
There's two new ones and two remakes, right?
- [03:41]
A
Yep. So Fallout 5. Yeah, they say that, like, that's like their ultimate destination. I think they would say.
- [03:46]
B
Yeah, it's in pre production.
- [03:47]
A
And then Obsidian is making something. Fallout.
- [03:50]
B
Yes.
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A
And then there are remasters of Fallout 3 and New Vegas.
- [03:54]
D
Perfect. I mean, the remasters. So the remaster rumors have been around forever to the point that, like, some people thought the game would Shadow Drop or just be out anytime. And then the being what the Elder
- [04:05]
B
Scrolls Shadow Drop was kind of like, right, with the.
- [04:08]
D
Yeah, exactly. And then the Obsidian rumors are more recent. Right. Of just like, you know, Asha Sharma, the new CEO of Xbox, saying, hey, like, look, no shade against avowed. The game was well liked. But you know what, like, why do you have this talent working on, you know, B tier franchises instead of just working on our bigger franchises and having them come out more often? Which is a valid, you know, an Obsidian made New Vegas, which obviously everybody loved and is really beloved. And so that's been. It wasn't. I got the impression that today's memo was just kind of affirming and shining a light on stuff that we all kind of assumed was true, was really heavily rumored, but hadn't been like officially, officially fully confirmed.
- [04:48]
B
Which is surprising because it's like really positive, great news to tell fans of these games that have not been getting them for a while. I think there's a really interesting sci fi take on this where you could send John Connor back in time with this memo and fix a lot of problems that have happened over the past decade or two decades. Because this feels like the thing that like, should have been the unsaid thing that's just happening behind the scenes, but instead they waited this long and just said it and now we have to wait even more.
- [05:21]
A
That's the thing. Yeah, that's the thing. It's like, yeah, I want to play these new Fallout games and I want to play Elder Scrolls 6. But like, come on, like, we should have already played all these games. They should have already been out years ago. Like, okay, it's nice happening now, but we're still have to wait years for all this stuff.
- [05:38]
C
I think Damon cracked the code. Everyone thinks that Asha Sharma just watches Twitter all day. I think she watches Gamescape. She's like, oh.
- [05:44]
A
I mean, I mean, it's kind of an open secret that Asha Sharma is big Tony style.
- [05:50]
B
There's also some bad news buried in this and that they're going to keep on developing for Starfield.
- [05:56]
C
Oh, no. Yeah, yeah, they buried the lead on that one.
- [05:59]
D
They didn't.
- [06:00]
B
They started with it, which I think is the weirdest move ever. That was the lead they should have buried. It's like this giant announcement about Fallout and Elder Scrolls and they're like, but first. But first, Starfield is perfectly safe in our hands. We have a lot more coming for it. And Fallout 76, please be excited, everybody. And then the Fallout 76 thing was kind of a bummer because it sounds cool. Like, it's like a Fallout 3 prequel in Fallout 76, like, that's awesome.
- [06:29]
D
I mean, a lot of people don't remember that like Obsidian, they started as. Their very first game was Knights of the Old Republic 2. Right. So BioWare, Midnights, the Old Republic. People like Justin, I can't remember. Yeah, people like to. It was. Yeah, it shipped every. It's actually a very similar Obsidian story. Yeah. Less so in their modern history. But like for the first 10 years of the studio, their reputation is all their games are immaculate and incredible and very well written, but just kind of a little rushed and didn't quite have the time to like solve all the bugs and solve all the issues. But like, so their. But their identity, their DNA as a studio is like, you know, fast follow with sequels to things that everybody really loved and liked. They did it with KOTOR 2. They did Neverwinter Nights 2. They did. And then they did, you know, obviously. Yeah. New Vegas. And so like why like it's just such an obvious and just such a natural. Especially when Xbox owns them both. It's like, okay, so we want our Fallout games and Elder Scrolls games to feel really special and premium and that takes a long time. I'm glad that they're able to take the time that they need to, but like we don't want to wait a decade between releases. It's like trade off. This kind of trade off go every other one. You know, Activision does this really effectively with Call of Duty. Right. That's how they have a Call of Duty game come out every year is because they rotate studios like the. Each Call of Duty, even though one comes out every year, they take three years to make because. Because you're off cycle, you're working on your game the other two years and the other one's coming out. So it makes a ton of sense to me. I am very excited to get Elder Scrolls games, at least get Fallout games more often. And I hope they apply the same thing to Elder Scrolls.
- [08:08]
B
I think so. These are two very. Elder Scrolls and Fallout are very famous series for iterations and evolving. And now just the fact that we've missed a decade and a half of that, like the actual. What does Fallout look like every three years or five years even. What does Elder Scrolls look like is a problem because the modernization of them has missed steps. And I've been thinking about this a lot this week. There's these games that have been around since the 80s, like Zelda that has had ups and downs. It really has. It's had. Some people don't agree, but it's had these years with Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess. It might be considered its down years when it really bounced back. But it had to have those years to have something out for us to play and then also for have something to bounce the new ideas off of and iterate on. And I'm really worried about these gaps with these series. I. Obviously, it's better, I think, for everybody to have games delivered all the time. And I'm saying that knowing full well that people get mad that, you know, Call of Duty is out every year, but, like, it does allow them to be like, well, this worked and this did.
- [09:15]
C
Yeah, I think that's kind of the issue, though, right? Because with Halo, you know, the big Asharma reset is like, more Halo, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and then. And then Forza will continue. And a lot of the sentiment I'm seeing around Halo is like, does Halo even matter in the big two six? And it's like, the reason it wouldn't matter is because there's so far and few between. And so Xbox's new job is to try to make these things matter again.
- [09:44]
A
Elder Scrolls has. Has missed two entire console generations.
- [09:47]
B
Yeah. And, you know, Nintendo knows this part of it. Like, they, like, from the horrible business lingo side ip, which is their intellectual property, which is Mario and Zelda and the things like that, they need to keep those relevant. Right. And, like, they know that they need to put out little games and big games and keep Mario in front of people and just keep doing it. And that. That is the stewardship of these series. Like, that's why we get excited for games like Fallout Shelter, which apparently has an unscripted show coming. I guess that means television show.
- [10:19]
C
It's a reality show. Yeah. I think they announced it last year.
- [10:22]
B
Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, it's like that type of stuff keeps generations of people interested, which is helpful for them. But then again, for us, it's like, I like this one, but not this one. And like, oh, I'm really excited for the next one. Like, there's just a natural progression. Also, there's another example set here, which is really funny that's happening right now. It's like Marvel movies, right? Like, people aren't exactly excited for new Marvel movies anymore. And I don't know if it's because they lost quality, if there's too many of them, you know, like, what is the exhaustion based on? And this is the exact opposite problem. So, like, who's doing it just right? Who's getting the. Who's not exhausting their audience, and who's like, you know, delivering at the right time? Like, it's a balance but they did not.
- [11:03]
D
Although. Yeah, like, part of the thing with Marvel movies is sometimes we go too long between seeing characters. So. So some of that analogy does track of, like, you know, what's going on with Shang Chi. We haven't seen him in like, eight years. Like, you know, so it's like, that's. And there is. What was it. What was the headline? Was it Nintendo with Pokemon a few years back? Of, like, it's taking so long to make mainline Pokemon games that it's like, you know, Pokemon needs to hook kids when they're like six. But it's just missing, you know, it's missing some generations of kids these days.
- [11:32]
B
That means they think about it, right? They think about what that means for generational success, you know.
- [11:38]
D
Yeah, there's definitely a balance between. You want the games to come out infrequently enough that they feel like events and they feel really special and it feels really premium. But you're not waiting so long that it's just like, well, I've gone without this for a decade, so now I just don't even care anymore. Like, Star wars movies also need to strike.
- [11:54]
A
Yeah. I think two to three years seems like the sweet spot to me.
- [11:58]
C
Like, that's.
- [11:59]
A
That's a, you know, a good chunk of someone's life. Two to three years. Like, that's if you love this. This game series. That seems to be about the most amount of time we should have to wait in between playing these new games. But for giving lending further evidence to this idea that Asha is a member of Scoop Nation, it seems like they're doing something that we've also recommended on this show many times is to copy Capcom, because now they're just going to do everything on Creation Engine 3 so that everyone at Bethesda Game Studios can bounce from project to project, which is exactly what Capcom does with the RE engine.
- [12:33]
B
Yeah.
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D
I presume that she closed her memo with. As cop me goes, that also.
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B
Yeah, that's what we call tell.
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A
We've got some stuff to fix here at Xbox, so we're going to go mop a sec.
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C
I think my only worries there is the RE engine is not equivalent to Creation 3 in the sense that, like, Creation 3 is. Is. I don't know. I. I almost feel like I. I'm a. I'm very much against Unreal Engine 5. I feel like they should just go on Unreal Engine 5 and just go there. Because Creation is just so slapped together.
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A
This one, right? Or.
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C
Yeah. Well, yeah. The new. I think the newest game is like on 5.8 and then. And then Rocket League will be on 6. But it's like creation is still just this, like, taped together version of the game Brio engine from when we were kids. And it's like they keep reiterating on it, but. Yeah. And I'm kind of like, you know, I don't know. I don't know if I want Fallout 5 that still looks like Starfield's, like, characters, I think. I feel like we've moved beyond that.
- [13:38]
B
Like, the improvement iteration issue is that they're going to get stuck in these. Like. Well, the last time we put out a Fallout game, it had the faces that look like a Fallout game. And they're just not going to move beyond that now because they haven't had a bunch of criticism for 15 years.
- [13:50]
D
It's definitely stuff. I mean, look, with game engines, like, you know, anything is possible with any game engine, right? So, like, there's these things. There's a feeling of a Bethesda game that, like, if it was really important to them that in dialogue the camera doesn't get sucked into the NPC space. Like that's, that's solvable. Right. But there's just certain stuff that, like, you know, there is a feel to a Bethesda game for sure that, like, you know, they'll need to. They'll need to put some time into if they want it to feel modern.
- [14:16]
B
Yeah. The fields have weird little haircuts.
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C
It's mostly the. Did you see that, like, court hearing? I don't know, it was like a senate meeting. And the lady stands up and the camera, like, zooms in on her
- [14:29]
B
camera or something. Right.
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C
Oblivion here. But the, the, the thing that they need to solve is the loading screens though, right? Like when you have a game like Cyberpunk, where every once you're in the game, it never has to load again type of deal. Unless you're fast traveling. Like, we can't keep living in a world where going to a vendor is four loading screens away. They gotta open the doors. They gotta make it where I could just go in and leave.
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B
Yeah.
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C
And that's my biggest fear.
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B
Are you feeling that, Damon, in Fallout 4? Like, I remember they go up to the barn doors outside a stadium and you're like, oh, my God, gotta wait a little bit.
- [15:03]
A
That's not the part that bugged me. Yeah, we can jump into Fallout four. Yeah. So I'm in between games right now. Justin, I don't know if I mentioned this when you were on, but Black Flag Resync did not click. Oh, for me.
- [15:15]
D
Oh, no.
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A
It made me realize I'd much rather play the more recent games.
- [15:18]
D
Oh, okay.
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A
So anyway, I'm in between games. So I was like. All this talk about Xbox and Bethesda and Fallout.
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D
I'll.
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A
I'll replay Fallout 4, which I haven't played in, you know, 11 years. So here's how that went. I have it on disk. Speaking of all this physical disc talk, cool. I put the disc in my PS5. The first thing it does is saves the game. It's not installing it. It saves the game to my console. That took a few moments. Whatever. That's fine. But then when I launched the game, that's when it starts installing. And there's a big splash screen that says installing. And it took 15 minutes.
- [15:48]
D
Do you think it's just downloading the game? Is installing like a euphemism for, like, we're just.
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A
Why did. It shouldn't even take that long, like, 15 minutes to install a PS4 game on my PS5. I mean, okay, yeah, I did this whole I like the character creation scene where you choose the husband or the wife in front of the mirror. That's a clever way to handle all that. So, anyway, after it goes through installing it, then on its, like, splash screen, I see there's an option for a free PS5 upgrade. But it's like, okay, why didn't it do that in the first place? So, okay, I'll install a PS5 version. It goes through that whole process, and now they're just two copies of the game on a separate game.
- [16:23]
B
Oh, no.
- [16:24]
A
The PS4 and the PS5 version are installed.
- [16:26]
D
Oh, no.
- [16:28]
A
Great.
- [16:29]
C
That's kind of the argument we had a few weeks ago, which is like having a disc game. You know, there's the PS5. It's not as seamless as you would think.
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A
Anyway, it's just all kind of messy and inelegant. But whatever. Get into the game and I'm enjoying myself. I played two evenings of Fallout 4, having fun. I made it to that first big town where Valentine the, like, robot detective is there, and there's a reporter that you can have.
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B
That's a stadium, right? That's like a baseball.
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C
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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A
And I'm just going around the town, and there are armed guards around the town, but I'm just, you know, talking to people, getting information, going on quests. I go into a bar and talk some people, and then when I exit the bar, for whatever reason, every guard is hostile towards me and attacking me.
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C
Yeah. That's Bethesda for you.
- [17:10]
A
Yep.
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D
Did you. Maybe you accidentally stole something?
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A
I. I really don't think I did. Plus, I would have been inside.
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B
And yeah, the outside is the weird thing.
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A
Anyway, that.
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C
That's why I stopped playing Oblivion Remaster. I was like this. I'd never played Oblivion. Not really, at least. And I was like, dude, this is so much fun or whatever. And then all of a sudden I was like. It was like I was in a cave with those, like, cult members and I thought I answered a question correctly and I was just stuck. Everybody wanted me dead. And I was like, I forgot that I hate this. I've never played it again.
- [17:39]
B
Like, somebody watching me playing a Fallout game and they're like, dude, you're saving so much. I'm like, that's because it's gonna bug out. And then you gotta. You gotta have a save for the bugs.
- [17:48]
C
That's the way everyone's gonna hate you.
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B
Yeah.
- [17:50]
A
So, yeah, I know that I could load an old save, but this is an in between game and I wanted it to be a little easy breezy. So that's it. I bounced. And that actually got me to go back to something I've been meaning to, which is Final Fantasy Tactics. The Evilist Chronicles came out last year. Now I feel like that's my game that I'm going to be dug into until whatever the next big game is.
- [18:10]
C
And then someone dies permanently in his party. And he's like, I'll bounce it again. He'll go to the next game.
- [18:15]
A
Nobody dies permanently. I'm playing Mark.
- [18:17]
B
I remember having the kind of save Exhaustion and Fallout and being like, oh, man, this town all turned on me. But I just don't care. I'm just going to leave. And then it really haunts you for the rest of the game. Something else takes you back there and you're just like, Now I'm like 20 hours past that save bug.
- [18:34]
A
Yeah.
- [18:35]
B
Where like, I should have reset.
- [18:37]
C
It's like a faction member moved, but their code is still telling them that they hate you. So you're.
- [18:44]
B
You just like, enter a house, Starfield.
- [18:46]
A
After all, I do love the VAT system. That's.
- [18:49]
C
It's kind of like.
- [18:50]
A
Kind of like the Nemesis system. Like, I just wish more games would use something like this.
- [18:54]
B
Yeah. And it's like riding a bike, right? Like, you just get back into it. You're like, I know this so well.
- [18:59]
D
Yeah. Fallout three and four in New Vegas don't get enough credit for, like, you know, Fallout one and two. They inherited that franchise, right. They didn't start life as a Bethesda franchise and like their ability to kind of modernize it and make it more shooter. Shootery. But you can also pause and target body parts with vats. It's like, it's really good. It's a really clever.
- [19:16]
C
That's why BATS exists because they knew that follow3 shooting was not good. And they were like, we gotta do something about this. And now it's. Now it'd be weird to not have it.
- [19:25]
D
Yeah, well. And you know, stuff like that is carried over from the old isometric, you know, the old PC Fallout 1 and 2 as well.
- [19:32]
B
It's RPG, right? Like, that's what makes it the RPG. Almost like real time turn based. It's just cool.
- [19:38]
A
It's also like Fallout 3 coming to consoles was, you know, that was like the 360 in the PS3 area era. That was like the first time that these traditionally PC games could come to console.
- [19:49]
B
And they were technological marvels. Despite being buggy. It was like, wow, this entire PC RPG is on console. Like, it felt really cool.
- [19:56]
A
They figured out how to map controls for a controller, you know.
- [20:00]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [20:02]
D
I forgot about Codsworth. Watching this is great. Watching this footage. Is it Codsworth? Isn't the voice. What's his name? Matt Berry.
- [20:09]
C
Is it really in the show? Yeah. Not in the. Not in the game.
- [20:13]
A
Not in the game.
- [20:14]
D
I'm gonna look it up.
- [20:19]
A
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- [22:30]
B
No, not new stuff I've been playing. But I did continue playing Assassin's Creed until I got to the ship combat and it's awesome.
- [22:39]
A
So good.
- [22:39]
B
And just like cruising around and upgrading your ship and everything is just, I love it so much.
- [22:44]
A
Cool. And Justin has played in the two the last two weeks, has played two full work weeks of Factorio.
- [22:51]
D
It is. I do have something else I can talk about though. But just I. Dude, like just for Scoop Nation. It's bad. I'm back into Factorio. It's bad. I've played 75 hours of Factorio the last two weeks and I thought like before scoop I'm like, I'll look this up and that'll be a fun little like nugget of like, oh, how much factorio. And then I saw the stat and I was like, oh my.
- [23:11]
C
The opposite effect.
- [23:12]
D
Yeah, I might need to like, I might need to like examine like it's not good. But like, another game I actually want to talk about is I bought and have been playing with my family Rhythm Heaven Groove on the Switch. And we just, we absolutely love it. What a great family game. And like there's no new insight yet. Like, everybody knows that Rhythm Heaven. Super rad, right? But it's just nice to have a reminder. It's just so weird and quirky and we just don't get as much of that. Kind of like, I was gonna say, we don't get that as much from Nintendo but like tomodachi life is also that. So maybe that's not true. But like, I just love when Nintendo sort of allows themselves to just like just this weird humor, weird kind of off kilter. And I don't, I don't know enough. Like, I don't know if it's like Japanese humor or what it is, but like, it's just, I just, I love it. I love it. It's that kind of warioware esque. But like warioware games haven't been good for like a decade. And it reminds me of like, you know, back in the day, what that kind of vibe used to be of just weird and random and funny and fun and we just, we love it. And it makes my whole family laugh.
- [24:12]
A
You're making me want to get this too.
- [24:14]
D
It is, I will say. And like the game onboards you, it calibrates like, you know, because it's the rhythm time. Like it's really serious about the timing of the button presses. And because of modern HDTVs, they do have, you know, however many milliseconds of lag that like when you start the game, you time, it's like press the button when you think you should be like on the beat. And like, and then, and then like I got in my head about that of like, well, what if I'm just not doing a good job of pressing the button? And then I felt like I wanted to go through it again and recalibrate and like it's so like that took a little bit but like, it's, it's great. I can't recommend it enough, I think.
- [24:51]
B
I think your kids would like replaying Parappa.
- [24:53]
A
I was just gonna say that Parappa desperately needs that calibration.
- [24:57]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [24:58]
A
Oh man, my dad's gonna bite me. Mark anything.
- [25:05]
C
I did dive back into Palworld 1.0. I started over. It's great. I haven't seen anything new. Only because just the rate I'm playing it at, I'm. I'm playing like an hour Maybe two hours a day, if even so, it's like, I'm still kind of early, so people are really excited for the new stuff. I haven't seen anything. I. I feel like I'm just playing all the other stuff. But something else I've been playing is there's been this Destiny craze because it's funny when it. When they say the game's over that suddenly everybody, you know, feels this urge to go and play it. It's like, yep, should have done that a year ago. Yeah, game wouldn't be over, probably. But I'm playing through the renegade dlc and it is so fun. It is hilarious. Because I thought it would be kind of Star Warsy. No, it's Star Wars. It's. It's so funny because it's like they had to have gotten some sort of, like, license, right? So, like.
- [25:58]
D
They did. They did. It was like, okay,
- [26:01]
A
well, it actually is Star Wars.
- [26:03]
C
No, so that's the thing. It's not Star wars in the sense of, like, none of the characters are like, There's Kylo Ren. His name is not Kylo Ren. There's just, like, the Stormtroopers are not called Stormtroopers, but it's. It's. It's straight up is Kylo Ren. Right. But what's.
- [26:19]
A
I'm very cool about it.
- [26:21]
D
No, they called it. It's licensed. I mean, I. I'm paraphrasing the press release, but they're like, you know, in partnership with Star wars, we're doing special, you know, a special story pack for Destiny. Like, it's not. It's not, you know, it's like, melding the two together in a way. And it was official. It was all, like, above board.
- [26:37]
C
I. I'm. I'm not saying it's not licensed in the sense of, like. Yeah, because they would get sued for. For being. But like, that character. That's not Kylo Ren. His name is not Kylo Ren.
- [26:46]
D
Okay.
- [26:47]
C
It's not. You don't go to Tatooine and stuff. You go to Venus. But, like, when you go to Venus, it's Dagobah. That's what it is. When you go to certain parts in Mars, it's Tatooine. Right. So every level is kind of a recreation of a Star Wars.
- [27:05]
B
It's really creative. I like that.
- [27:06]
C
And that's what's really, really cool about it, is you're like, wait, I'm on Dagobah. Or I'm on Hoth, or I'm, you know, on the, like, that was the sarlacc pit. Right. They don't call it the sarlacc pit, but that's where you are. You're doing the ending scene from Return of the Jedi type of deal. And it's, it's super, like, it's super cool to kind of guess where in the Star wars saga you're at and then see them kind of recreate it in the Destiny story.
- [27:34]
A
When did this come out? I don't know. How did this completely escape me?
- [27:38]
C
Maybe a year ago.
- [27:39]
D
Yeah, a year ago.
- [27:40]
A
Crazy.
- [27:40]
C
I, this was their final dlc. Yeah. No, but it is, it is so much fun. I, I, I'm loving it a lot. Just be. Just because it's just like, again, you just, you go into a level and you're like, oh, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm in Return of the Jedi. Or I'm in. I'm in Hoth. I'm in. You know, it's so, it's like, it's just, it's super fun to see the levels kind of recreated, but in this, like, Destiny setting. So I'm, I'm having a lot of fun with this. Cool.
- [28:07]
A
And that actually sounds really cool.
- [28:10]
B
Yeah.
- [28:10]
C
Yeah. In my opinion, because of the way Destiny's set up now, you can just install the game, make a character, and then just jump right into this if you want. It won't make a ton of sense because it's not making a ton of sense to me if you didn't play, like, Edge of Fate because it's like kind of a sequel to edge of 8. But if you're there just for some fun shooting and, and you want to see kind of Star Warsy type of stuff, then I, it's a no brainer to jump in and play it. It's. I think it's super fun.
- [28:37]
B
I have another game just to mention that I didn't play, but Mitchell played. But we just put up the preview of the Castlevania Belmont's Curse, and it's so cool. They show the map, which is like obsession for me, because I want to be able to, you know, uncover the map. And it's just great. Everything's just right in it.
- [28:54]
A
My most anticipated game of this.
- [28:56]
D
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [28:58]
C
The whip is a traversal thing. You, you don't use it to fight. You use different weapons. It looks like dead cells, but kind of slower.
- [29:04]
A
There's a pretty good reason for.
- [29:06]
C
Right, right.
- [29:08]
A
Last thing to say about Bethesda is that Todd Howard, in his memo today, dropped that Skyrim has sold 65 million copies, which is just a weird way to share that information. Like, it's not in a press release or in, like a financial earnings. It's just Todd Howard just saying it.
- [29:21]
E
Okay.
- [29:22]
B
Yeah, interesting.
- [29:23]
A
Like, okay, I guess we'll take your word for it.
- [29:26]
D
Well, I get the impression, and look, this is just me speculating, so I don't, you know, but like, I get the impression that Todd Howard and Bethesda were told, hey, Obsidian's going to be making a Fallout game, right? So it's like, you know, like, we would love to have you announce this and sort of say it on your own terms, but, like, this is happening. That's. That's kind of the vibe that I got. But, you know, there's been these.
- [29:51]
C
There's been these weird things, just Internet stuff where people have been saying that, like, this is what's going to push Todd to retire. Because Todd is so precious about these franchises, and now his parent company is going to be like, well, other people are now going to be able to make the things that usually you're leading. And so he says in the press release, he's like, I. I'm very happy that Obsidian is making a Fallout game. There's no bad blood at all and stuff like that.
- [30:16]
A
So, yeah.
- [30:17]
B
How weird is the arc of the. The story here where all these studios got snatched up and the scare there is like, oh, they're going to be forced to make a bunch of games they don't want to make and then
- [30:27]
A
like, we're never going to see these games.
- [30:30]
B
Exactly the opposite.
- [30:31]
C
Opposite?
- [30:32]
D
Yeah, exact opposite.
- [30:32]
B
You guys can do whatever you want. We're gonna put it out for basically free. Nobody's gonna make any money because subscribers. And that was the plan.
- [30:41]
A
We're gonna spend seven years making Avowed, and then when it's a middling success, we're gonna start a vowed two right away.
- [30:48]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [30:48]
D
Yep.
- [30:49]
C
Nice guy. Phil thought it was just one of those things where it's like, people are gonna make whatever they want and it's all gonna supplement Game Pass. And it just. Just didn't work out.
- [30:58]
B
Quantity play, right? We talked about with Netflix.
- [31:04]
A
Okay, let's move on. So this broke last night. The God of War show is currently filming. This is going to be an Amazon show. It's been filming for four months. And now this. The actor, his name escapes me.
- [31:17]
C
He played Ryan Hurst.
- [31:18]
A
Yeah, he played Opien, Sons of Anarchy, and actually he played Thor in the God of War Games. He's Kratos. They've been filming for four months, I believe four episodes are done. But he had an injury. He tore his bicep. And they're gonna recast him.
- [31:29]
D
It's crazy.
- [31:30]
A
So crazy. Right.
- [31:32]
D
Well, and that that show has been a little bit cursed. It was just in pre production. It felt like one of those shows that was never actually gonna happen because the showrunner changed over and all that other stuff and then. But then they got, you know, Ronald D. Moore, who made Battlestar Galactica and made For All Mankind. Yeah, For All Mankind. Like one of the. And if you don't know those shows are that name, like, one of the most in demand, best amazing talents in the world of, like, you know, linear TV storytelling.
- [32:00]
B
From Star Trek originally.
- [32:01]
D
Yeah, yeah. Star trek. D space9 is how he got his amazing. Yeah. So, like, you know, it looked like everything was looking up. And I mean. And I'm not saying it's not looking up now, but, like, the fact that they're just recasting.
- [32:13]
A
Yeah.
- [32:14]
D
Like, how serious? Like, for the bicep injury and he had to have surgery and all that stuff, but, like, it's got to be crazy serious, right? That, like.
- [32:21]
A
Or. Or maybe they were unhappy and now this is kind of a good excuse. And that's just. I'm just asking questions.
- [32:29]
E
But.
- [32:29]
D
But the.
- [32:30]
B
The. The term torn bicep is one of the grossest things I've ever heard.
- [32:33]
D
Yeah.
- [32:34]
B
And, like, what tore it is usually the bone, which is really gross. And it just freaks me out.
- [32:39]
D
Yeah. Yeah. So it's either. You're right, David. It's either one of two things. Either a, the injury is so serious and the recovery is going to be so long, you know, weeks and months. I think they said, like, it was going to be, like, well over a month, that they're like, look, we gotta, you know, we gotta recast the role or, you know, in just asking questions mode. Like, maybe it was like, maybe they were like kind of 50, 50, like, Finn sitting on, like. And now this is their opportunity to have another crack at, like, you know, casting the role. I don't know.
- [33:07]
A
I mean, he's the main character. They're gonna have to reshoot most of it, Right.
- [33:12]
D
Like four episodes.
- [33:13]
B
I think the kid's gonna be God of war 2 Age by that point.
- [33:16]
D
Right?
- [33:16]
A
Yeah.
- [33:18]
B
It's funny to think of, like, the mood board board for, like, what people care about for Kratos and, like, biceps is the biggest word on it.
- [33:25]
D
Yeah, it's true. It is. They are important.
- [33:28]
C
I. I assume it's also probably some sort of like, you know, the whole, like, a broken skateboard can never be fixed type of deal. It's like, even after he recovers.
- [33:36]
A
Is that a saying? I've never heard that saying. Is that. Well, it's like some mark saying.
- [33:41]
C
It was when I was growing up, it was like, you know, people would try to fix their skateboards, you know, if they broke down the middle, but it's like, you can never fix it. It will always just be weakened.
- [33:51]
B
I love the deal. And so it's like people tried to do to fix skateboards. That's just a really, really funny.
- [33:56]
C
I grew up in a really poor part of California.
- [33:58]
A
Okay.
- [33:59]
B
Like, adding like. Like, metal rulers to both sides of it.
- [34:02]
C
Yeah. It might just be a mark Central Valley of California saying, but scoop lore now.
- [34:08]
B
You can't fix skateboard.
- [34:10]
C
You can't fix a broken skateboard. I mean, it makes sense, though, right? You can't fix a broken skateboard. And so it's like, I'm wondering if they're like, thank God this happened now and not several seasons in, because, like, we need this guy in peak physical form for the next 10 years. And he hurt himself four seasons, like, four episodes in. And, like, even when he recovers, that injury is still just going to exist forever. And this is going to be a very demanding role.
- [34:36]
A
I think it did. I think after you recover from a torn bicep, it remains. You know, it doesn't. It doesn't get back to 100%.
- [34:43]
D
Right, right. It did escalate quickly. I mean, this. This news did come in two drops.
- [34:48]
A
First it was the injury.
- [34:49]
D
Hey, you know, there's an injury, and the show is going to have to stop down, and he's going to have to have surgery. And then, like, 24 hours later, they're like, where are we?
- [34:56]
B
You know, there's another option here where the actor said, exactly. This production sucks. I can't believe I got injured. I quit.
- [35:05]
D
That's exactly what I was just going to say is maybe he's furious and he's like, hey, I'm going to. I might sue or I'm upset or, you know, like. Right. Like, this is. You only get one body. You're only on this earth one time, you know, so it's like, you know, like, that's a very serious. Like, he's been injured at work. Like, that's a. That's a. That's a serious thing, you know, so there is that component of this as well. I mean, I. I will say there's an intangible. Like, if You're. We're watching the show. We have the, the one screenshot that they revealed of Atreus and, And Kratos. And like, there were a lot of criticism at the time, including for me of like, it just looks a little weird. It just looks a little off and it's kind of intangible. Like, I can't even really articulate why. But, like, this is similar. All we've seen of the Zelda movie is like two or three screenshots as well.
- [35:51]
B
Stills.
- [35:52]
D
Excuse me, not screenshots. And like, it just like, what's the difference between like the real thing and something that looks like really authentic cosplay? And it's like, it's such a fine line. And like, I always thought that God of War looked slightly weird. I can't tell you why. Whereas I thought that the stills that we thought from Zelda looked a little bit more sort of true to what I was expecting. So I don't know, maybe that's an unfair comparison or no one else feels that. I think I did.
- [36:17]
C
I think Kratos has a body type that very few people have. Right. You have your. Even Dave Bautista doesn't even have that body type anymore. But it's like Dwayne Johnson and then, you know, and so it's like, if they want star power, it's really only Dwayne Johnson. You know, you'd have to kind of go into the. The more unknowns.
- [36:39]
E
Yeah.
- [36:39]
C
Yeah, we're finding that fading star power. Yeah.
- [36:43]
A
I was gonna say we're finding Dwayne Johnson is not the box office draw that he used to.
- [36:46]
D
But it's hard to like, you know, you have like, you know, Kratos is a God. Right. And like, can be made to look and act and move however they want him to in the, in the games. But then when you have to turn that into like a real actual human being needs to play the role, that's, you know, that's really tough.
- [37:02]
C
Yeah.
- [37:03]
A
Crazy news for this show, which I, I didn't have a lot of confidence in. Although, you know, like you were saying, Ronald Nemour is, is. Is a great showrunner. But like, it's a very, very, like, special effects heavy. CGI heavy.
- [37:17]
D
Yeah.
- [37:17]
A
Just huge over the top action set pieces and then, you know, constantly fighting monsters and this ax that he can throw and come back to him. Like, I don't. It's a really hard thing to, to pull off. But they threw all that money at Rings of Power, so I guess, I guess they're happy to throw money at shows. Yeah, there are things in life that you don't want to be transparent, like your swimsuit or your search history. But when it comes to your wireless build, transparency is everything. That's why Mint Mobile's wireless plans have no gimmicks and no gotchas. Just high speed data and reliable coverage on the T Mobile 5G network. And right now, all plans are $15 per month, even unlimited. Mint Mobile took what's wrong with wireless and made it right with Premium Wireless for 15 bucks a month. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Choose from 3, 6 or 12 month flight plans and say goodbye to a monthly bill. Ditched overpriced wireless With Mint Mobile, it's so easy. Sign up online and get three months of premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month. To get your new wireless Plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com gamescoop that's mintmobile.com Gamescoop cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com Gamescoop that's it. There's no catch. Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or 180 for 12 months. Plan required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees extra initial plan term Only greater than 50 gigs may slow when network is busy. Includes up to 20 gigs Hotspot capable device required availability, speed and coverage varies.
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E
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- [39:42]
A
let's check in with the listeners.
- [39:44]
D
Hey listeners, listeners.
- [39:45]
A
Remember, you can always reach us at the email address gamescoop.com Just like Glenn Kirby in Barnsley, Merry old England did. This is. Hi Damon and the Scoops. As you may or may not be aware, I've sent a lot of emails these past 12 months, which is no doubt, no doubt due to me listening to old Scoop every day upon completing the backlog for a second time.
- [40:05]
C
Oh my God.
- [40:06]
A
I must say to Justin that I have no regrets other than not counting how many times he has told us Super Metroid is his favorite game.
- [40:13]
C
He's never gonna live it down.
- [40:14]
D
No.
- [40:14]
C
Thank you.
- [40:15]
A
Thank you guys for all that you do. And though it may be many years away, I have no doubt that I will re listen again. As with only one video game podcast available, what is a guy to do?
- [40:24]
C
Man, what an idiot. Right Justin? You can't find nothing better to do at this time?
- [40:31]
B
I'm not getting involved.
- [40:36]
A
We listen to it all twice.
- [40:38]
D
Good. Please do it. Please do it three more times.
- [40:41]
C
Oh my gosh.
- [40:42]
B
We've got to hear what his his favorite season and storyline is.
- [40:46]
A
Yeah, we've got some great stats from video game 20 questions. Ah, guys, I've been octed.
- [40:54]
D
Oh no.
- [40:55]
C
Always happens when you least suspect it.
- [40:57]
A
Let's just throw this password back in here. Greg Kelly says hello. Damon. I would, I thought I would send in some 6 month video game 20 question stats so we can check in how the guys are doing so far this year.
- [41:09]
D
So I feel like poorly, but I'm curious to have that validated or not by the stats.
- [41:13]
A
So overall stats so far this year you've played 24 games of 20 questions with 14 wins with a win rate of 58.
- [41:21]
D
That seems quite low.
- [41:22]
A
Your average questions for A win is 17.4 questions. Your quickest win this year was in February. It was Mega Man 2 and you got it in nine questions.
- [41:32]
D
Okay, good.
- [41:33]
B
That was a good one.
- [41:33]
A
Your longest winning strength streak has been 5 games. Very good individual stats. Sam has played 22 games, win rate 64. Justin has played only 15 games. Justin's missing a lot of scoops this year, but yet you still have a win rate of six.
- [41:48]
B
That's good. Yeah, that's the key mark.
- [41:50]
A
You've played 12 games, win rate of 58. Nick has also played 12 games, win rate of58.
- [41:58]
C
Wow.
- [41:58]
A
Our rotating fourth chair is neck and neck.
- [42:01]
B
Yeah, yeah. At least it's consistent.
- [42:03]
A
He says Yes. A bit of a bumpy road so far compared to previous years. Here are the. Here are the overall win rates for the first six months of the past few years. 2025, your win rate at this point was 66. 2024. You're at 82%.
- [42:15]
D
Wow.
- [42:15]
A
2023, you're at 77%. He says, that's okay. This is a show where everything is made up and the points don't matter. That's right. The points are just like an Xbox exclusive
- [42:28]
D
Xbox patch and strays. Yeah, that's.
- [42:31]
B
This is great.
- [42:33]
A
Made that joke. He says, if you'll indulge me just a little more, I've been waiting. I've been wanting to deep dive into the stats of the actual video game metadata from this segment. And I just did this. So here are the five oldest video games that have ever been selected for video game 20 questions. So in March of 2016, we did Oregon Trail.
- [42:52]
B
Yeah. Which we called pre 80s.
- [42:54]
A
In December 2015, we did Pong. In March 2023, we did Breakout. In May of 2022, we did Asteroids. And in January 2020 we did Missile Command. Those are all wins.
- [43:06]
B
Both 1980.
- [43:07]
D
I was wondering about Pong. I didn't know if we had it. I couldn't. I didn't remember if we'd done Pong.
- [43:11]
A
Mark, did you ever play Oregon Trail?
- [43:13]
C
No.
- [43:14]
A
Have you ever played Pong?
- [43:16]
C
Yeah.
- [43:16]
A
Have you played Breakout?
- [43:19]
C
I. I mean, what is Breakout like?
- [43:21]
A
It's like Arkanoid.
- [43:22]
B
It's. With Arkanoid, it's the game with bricks at the top and a paddle at the bottom. The ball.
- [43:28]
C
Oh, then yes, sure, of course we
- [43:31]
D
had, we had Oregon Trail on our school computers. But all I would ever do is hunt the buffalo and just get thousands of pounds of buffalo meat that then you can't like. It's too much to take with you and it all spoils. But like, I, like, I forget, I
- [43:41]
C
forget what they were called. But I even played the, the Moriarty breakout games and I thought that they were fun.
- [43:50]
D
I don't remember. No, he made it. He published a breakout like video game on.
- [43:53]
A
There was a breakout like game called Shatter that was like a PSN game.
- [43:58]
B
Oh yeah.
- [43:59]
A
And I think he was. So did he make a game like that anyway?
- [44:01]
C
Yeah, yeah. And then he. They just did it like a Castlevania type game.
- [44:06]
A
Cool. All right, back to Greg Kelly. These are the five newest games you've used to date. And these are also all wins. We've. In January 2024, we did Prince of Persia, the Lost Crown. In June of 2025, we did Nintendo. This is last June we did Nintendo Switch 2. Welcome Tour. I've completely forgotten.
- [44:24]
C
That's really funny.
- [44:24]
A
We did that like right when the Switch 2 was launched.
- [44:26]
B
Yeah, it's great.
- [44:27]
A
In August 2023, we did Baldur's Gate 3. I think that also been right when that was released. November 2022 we did God of War, Ragnarok. And then in November 2019 we did Afterparty, which I don't even remember what that game is. Is. I don't remember a game called Afterparty.
- [44:43]
D
I don't know. I can't remember either.
- [44:45]
C
Is that the Oxen Free?
- [44:46]
A
Those are all wins. So you guys said. Greg Kelly says you guys are very good at guessing very old and very new games.
- [44:53]
D
Yeah. I will say we've. We've been doing video game 20 Questions for so long now. What, over a decade. I think probably that like there's 10 more years of video games now than there was back then. So the game only gets harder every single week.
- [45:07]
A
That's true.
- [45:08]
D
That is one way to think about it. We have the same number of questions to narrow in on thousands and thousands of more video games than before.
- [45:15]
A
You guys are going to like this one. He broke down your win rates by game release decade. So for games from the 70s, you have 100% win rate. You always guess games.
- [45:26]
B
Asteroids and Pong and Breakout.
- [45:29]
A
For games from the 80s, you have a 72% win rate. 90s 75%. 2000s is your lowest. You have a 69 win rate from games in the 2000s.
- [45:38]
D
Nobody remembers what was the one.
- [45:39]
A
Well, it's also because there's overlap. The 64. Yeah. In the console goes into the 2000. 2010, 73 in the 2020s, and 81% win rate.
- [45:49]
D
Oh, wow.
- [45:49]
B
Okay.
- [45:50]
D
I think for every decade we do this show, we should get another question and the game should be 21 questions.
- [45:55]
B
Now that seems some of these losses
- [45:57]
A
we've had recently, some people do write in. It's very common for people to write in saying they have a suggestion for 21 questions. So I think it's actually a regional thing. I think in some parts of the world they call it 21 questions. Like you get 20 questions and then you get your guess.
- [46:10]
B
Rude us out of a question this entire time.
- [46:12]
A
No, I. I go by the official
- [46:15]
C
USA rules, the American Rules League League rules.
- [46:18]
A
This is also good. He also has stats by game publishers. So for Capcom games, you guys have a 96 win rate. Sick. Yeah.
- [46:25]
B
What? Yeah, that's so.
- [46:27]
C
I mean, you guys at IGN Live got Resident Evil Requiem off of a gray blob.
- [46:32]
D
Yeah, we did.
- [46:34]
A
They got a million points for that.
- [46:35]
C
Points. Yeah. Yeah.
- [46:37]
A
Lucasarts92, 2K games, 88. I'm not gonna go through everyone. But this is interesting. Nintendo. For Nintendo games, you have an 84 win rate. And apparently we've done 117 Nintendo games.
- [46:51]
B
I breathe a sigh of relief whenever I have mark on and it's a Nintendo game because I know it's. It's going to be easier.
- [46:57]
A
You guys are not good at guessing Atlas games. You have. You have never correctly guessed an Atlas game. Of which we've.
- [47:02]
C
Oh, no.
- [47:03]
A
Of which we've done four.
- [47:05]
D
Was it just disga, like, oh, I don't know.
- [47:08]
B
Persona.
- [47:11]
A
Pretty game. Persona or Catherine.
- [47:13]
D
Oh, yeah. Mega Chicken.
- [47:17]
A
Finally, stats for the most common video game platforms. You have an 88 win rate for SEGA Genesis games. Games.
- [47:23]
B
Cool.
- [47:23]
C
Oh, cool.
- [47:24]
B
We don't get a lot of those.
- [47:25]
A
You've done 25 of them. You've done more Sega Genesis games than Switch games.
- [47:31]
B
I can't even name 25 Genesis games.
- [47:33]
A
You have an 87 and a half percent win rate for Switch. Your lowest is for Mac games. I don't understand this. It says 39 win rate for Mac games and it says we've done 33 Mac games. Greg Kelly, you're not. Explain what you mean by that.
- [47:46]
C
What?
- [47:47]
D
I don't know. Marathon.
- [47:48]
C
Yeah, yeah, marathon. And nothing else.
- [47:51]
D
Yeah, that's a little interesting. Shuffle Puck Cafe.
- [47:54]
A
Awesome black and white version.
- [47:56]
D
You know, I'm a little bit alarmed at how much scoop. Well, I'll tell you, like, I'm gone for work. I travel for work a lot now and usually Thursday is like my travel travel day. And that's why I'm missing. Missing the show quite often. Unfortunately,
- [48:16]
A
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- [49:01]
E
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 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
- [50:24]
A
all right, before we get into the 20 questions, let's do an extracurricular activities. I finally got to see the Furious. Is anyone familiar with the Furious? This is kind of this year's big action movie. People call it.
- [50:38]
D
It's, it's, it's like the Raid Taken
- [50:39]
A
meets the rage now. Oh man, it's not quite the Raid, but it's very good, very fun. And it's, it's interesting. It's an English, English language Hong Kong film from a Japanese director.
- [50:51]
D
Whoa.
- [50:52]
C
Yeah. Interesting.
- [50:53]
A
Two, we've got two main protagonists. One guy is looking for his kidnapped daughter. The other is looking for his missing wife who is an investigative journalist. And together they beat up everyone they encounter on their quest to.
- [51:05]
C
Sure.
- [51:06]
A
Rescue their loved ones. That's it. That's the whole plot of the movie.
- [51:08]
C
Awesome.
- [51:08]
A
And it's great. No, the action scenes are so good. They're doing using like kind of a different fighting style that we haven't seen before. One of the main bad guys is this like big burly guy and he, he like runs around on all fours like an animal and just barrels into people. It's a totally fun watch. I, I watched it on Prime Video. Totally recommend if you're an action movie fan.
- [51:29]
B
Why are people taking, taking kids? It's much more fun to make them, from what I understand.
- [51:33]
C
Yeah.
- [51:33]
A
From my understanding. Yeah. Look at this. This, this is, this is a 100% movie. It's so good.
- [51:40]
D
Oh, gross.
- [51:41]
C
It's great.
- [51:43]
A
So I recommend that. And then, Sam, you earned your double
- [51:46]
B
O. I did two O's. So I saw Obsession, which I loved. It was really fun. It feels like a great college movie. Like, it's right on the edge of being, you know, it's not artsy. It feels like.
- [51:59]
A
I mean, it is artsy.
- [52:00]
B
It is a little bit. It's made by students. Like, there's a couple characters which are casted, which seem like the friend of the director.
- [52:07]
A
Yeah.
- [52:07]
D
And.
- [52:08]
B
Yeah.
- [52:08]
C
Yeah, totally fine.
- [52:10]
B
The friend.
- [52:11]
C
Also the guy on the magic show.
- [52:13]
A
The character of Ian is the director's, like, creative partner. They do this YouTube channel together.
- [52:18]
C
I'm a huge. Yeah, that guy in the hat I'm a huge fan of. That's a bad idea.
- [52:22]
A
So, like, so have you seen this movie, Mark?
- [52:25]
C
I've not seen the movie. You got to see it because I. I love their skits, man. They are so funny.
- [52:30]
A
I mean, this movie is really good.
- [52:32]
B
Woman is so good. And she has these, like, kind of, like, dynamics ranges where she'll, like, be really quiet, then really loud. And it's, like, really scary at times. And also just, like, really funny. Like, it's a movie you, like, laugh through a lot. And, like, people make bad decisions over and over again, which, you know the outcome to. It's like one of those movies and you can kind of put together what's gonna happen with the twists and turns, but you want to watch it because, like, she's so. She's just so fun to watch.
- [52:57]
C
Yeah.
- [52:58]
A
And it's interesting to think, like. Like, what's she gonna do next? Like, how do you follow this up? It's gonna.
- [53:03]
B
Yeah.
- [53:03]
A
Crazy.
- [53:04]
D
Yeah.
- [53:05]
B
Yeah. And then there's the actual gross. First of all, cat warning. Like, there's, like, bad stuff happens to a cat in this, and it's not great. Like, it's. I don't want to see that on film ever. And then it just. They just triple down on it, which is just like, wow. All right. This is how you're getting your gross out. So that. That's a warning for people, because that is troublesome. But, yeah, it is really funny. This party, they call that.
- [53:28]
A
They call that a litter warning.
- [53:30]
B
Yeah, litter warning.
- [53:30]
D
Exactly.
- [53:32]
B
Party scene is amazing. And then just like, the kind of soccer psycho aspect to it is good. Yeah. So the other O movie I saw was the Odyssey, which is like, a total blast to go see as, like, a giant IMAX eye watering in your face experience. You know? Like, it's got that going for it. It's a great monster movie. Like the monsters are like, are not what I pictured right. And like really fun and gross is very reminiscent of how good the big gross monsters are in. What's the Xbox exclusive series about Nordic people? Hellblade. Oh right, yeah, there's some. Cause they go to like an Iceland like setting in this and stuff like that. Like it's really. It has a little bit of like gross out stuff like that. It's just the Troy retelling of the horse is like really cool. It's really different and thought out in a crazy way. And then the other nice thing I have to say about it is that all the boats are so cool. It's like after playing Assassin's Creed and seeing this, like those are practical boats. They like threw boats on the ocean. Used a IMAX camera which only films for three minutes at a time. Reset for these scenes. Like it's incredible. The special effects and everything are like. A lot of them are practical like Lord of the Rings and. But it doesn't always look good and it definitely doesn't always sound good. The script is just awful. Like people just say bad lines over and over again and they're embarrassing, you know. Like watching Matt Damon deliver bad lines over and over is just stupid. But like it's, you know, it's like they're trying to channel like you know, this is an epic poem. Like literally a poem with a. You know, kind of beats in pentameter and stuff. Like it's just like. It's like doesn't make sense when you're watching it. And the casting is all a little bit goofy because it's everybody, you know from Hollywood. But you know, it looks really cool on the screen. I don't where this is going to go. Like do you all think it's going to be a big movie this summer? Like I can't.
- [55:29]
A
Yeah. I mean.
- [55:29]
C
Yeah.
- [55:30]
A
On sale a year ago and sold out.
- [55:32]
B
So.
- [55:32]
D
Yeah.
- [55:32]
C
Yeah.
- [55:33]
B
And IMAX is only doing it the. The 70 millimeter way in like 41 cities in the world or something. That's cool.
- [55:39]
A
I'm seeing it tomorrow at 8:30pm so.
- [55:41]
B
Oh great.
- [55:42]
A
Kind of late for me.
- [55:43]
C
Yeah, I have tickets on Sunday but I don't have a. I do have. I have like a digital imax the theater near me.
- [55:49]
D
But it'll look great.
- [55:50]
C
It's too far away for me for. You don't want to drive. So I'm just watching it regular.
- [55:54]
A
My theater isn't imax. They call it giant screen.
- [55:57]
B
Giant screen. That's Cool.
- [55:59]
A
Have a giant screen.
- [55:59]
B
This movie.
- [56:00]
D
Are you seeing it in imax? No, no, no, I'm seeing giant. Giant.
- [56:03]
B
It feels long. Like, you know, like everybody reads the Odyssey in school or has read the more recent translations. And, like, the storyline, there's like a frame to it. And, like, they have to tell that story too, which is like, what happens when Odysseus, like, comes home. And like, the most interesting stuff in the Odyssey is, like, stopping on an island. It's like a video game, right? It's like the prototype for so many modern things. And then, like, what's on the island? And it's always something, like, absolutely crazy. It's like a Monster of the Week thing over.
- [56:32]
D
Nothing good's on it.
- [56:33]
B
Yeah, nothing good. And then he gets home and so, you know, and then they have to tell that story. That story feels really long. By the end of it, you're like, oh, my God, I can't.
- [56:41]
A
I mean, Oppenheimer is the same way, right? The climax. They test the bomb. You're like, oh, my God, that was incredible. And then there's an hour and a half left. Just people talking in rooms.
- [56:48]
C
Yeah, just court scenes.
- [56:50]
B
And then there's another funny thing, which I want people to pick up on. When you watch this, there's a little bit of, like, repeated. This happened with the last movie I was complaining about. I forget what it was right now, but where they. Oh, it's in Star Wars. The Star wars movie this summer. They kind of repeat the plot points a lot. Like, you're not paying attention the first time. But one of the funniest things is that they're like, Odysseus is the guy from Jon Berenthal that plays the Punisher. There's a character in it and he's like, odysseus is the smartest man I've ever known. And the movie is literally a series of Odysseus making the stupidest mistakes and his. And his. And his crew trying to, you know, mutiny against him. Like, that's the plot. Like, yes, he did a Trojan War thing. That was clever. And then he makes a bunch of really. It's just. They don't play that up, though. They, like, say it, like, really seriously. Then, like, they show him making a bunch of stupid calls over and over again. I thought that was fun. Look out for that. It's funny, man.
- [57:43]
D
I'm gonna have to. I wanna watch it when I'm at Comic Con. I'm gonna try to find a 70 millimeter screening and see if I can
- [57:49]
B
sneak out and I don't think the previews look good at all. And the movie, you know, is a lot more fun than the previews let on. So that's good.
- [57:56]
A
And then Justin, I'm on book four of Dungeon Crawla Carl.
- [58:00]
D
Wow.
- [58:01]
B
Fucking.
- [58:01]
D
Yeah.
- [58:02]
E
Cool.
- [58:02]
A
Like we talk. You said like three is kind of considered the low point, but I still really enjoyed three.
- [58:07]
D
Yeah.
- [58:07]
A
Has really great moments, especially with Katya and Mordecai and that guy Frank. The thing that bugs me about three and maybe this is a common thing, the iron tangle is just way too complicated. That's what you follow. Lines and stations and the abyss. And it's like, oh my God, none
- [58:25]
D
of it makes any sense. And then I'm sure the copy that you read, like there's a little forward. The author added like a forward to the book after that's like, look, I know this is really complicated and don't make any sense. Doesn't make any sense. Just don't worry about it that much. Just like keep. Keep reading. And like. And then it's true. Like. Cause when I'm reading a book, especially sort of a video gamey style book like Dungeon Crawl Carl, I want to be able to map out. I need to know in my head, like they're here and they're going here and it needs to kind of fit together.
- [58:51]
B
It's one of the. Part of the pleasures of reading it.
- [58:53]
D
Yeah. And like. But this is like the one exception of like, don't try to read that book that way. Just read it and let it wash over you.
- [59:00]
B
I have trouble with. So like I. There's another part was hardcore for me to picture which was the pig sphere boss fight.
- [59:08]
A
Oh yeah.
- [59:08]
B
And I was just like they build a device and then the ball gets. Rolls up and over. I have no idea what's happening in that. I've just like, I've. Then they all fall apart into like an orgy of pigs. Like I like that part. That's funny. But like I have no idea what's happening. They're describing the building of like the. The thing that stops it. Very confusing.
- [59:28]
D
Yeah, I like that one. I like that boss fight. It's fun.
- [59:30]
B
But I just. Just to your point of like not being able to picture it, I was like, I don't know what's happening.
- [59:34]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [59:35]
B
That happens in Lord of the Rings. Like he'll go way out to describe what Helm's Deep looks like in the book. And you're like, I have no idea what he's talking about. And then the Movie, you're like, oh, I see it.
- [59:43]
D
Yeah. And then you see a model or a set and you're like, oh, totally. Yeah. Yeah. They talk about the inner ring and the outer ring, and you're like, none of this makes sense.
- [59:50]
B
With a Mott and Bailey design that's meant to do.
- [59:52]
D
Blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, no, book four. I mean, so book, like, well, whatever. What I'll say is I think that they get, like. If I were to rank them next, it would be like, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Like, they just get better.
- [60:03]
A
Get better and better. That's cool. Well, I had hoped going into book four that after the complicity. No. How complicated book three was that it'd be a little more straightforward in book four. But no, it's also complicated. This, like, bubble wrap spheres.
- [60:17]
D
It's a bowl.
- [60:18]
A
And, like, there's different biomes in each one. I was like, okay, this.
- [60:21]
C
I don't know.
- [60:22]
D
Yeah, it doesn't matter as much, though.
- [60:25]
B
Like, so I'm not as far as you and I love it, but I don't want this to be a TV show or movie series.
- [60:30]
D
I mean, that's an insane TV show.
- [60:33]
A
Again, like, we were talking about how it's hard to translate God of War. Like, this is even crazier.
- [60:39]
B
I mean, I just don't want to see a talking cat ever.
- [60:41]
A
So there's that. There's a whole talking cat. And Sam, when everyone picks a class on the second or third floor, there's like, basically no humans left at all. Everyone's a different weird alien creature thing. Everyone.
- [60:51]
B
Yeah, so it's like, yeah, yeah, it
- [60:54]
D
is going to be insane. And even. And even. And even Princess Donut. It's like, you know, starts off largely comic relief, but then as more and more depth as she goes in. Like, real depth. Depth and real pathos. And it's like, this cat's gonna talk and it's like, boy, like, that's gonna be. And like, it's not. Like, every once in a while there's
- [61:11]
B
like, a cat's cat. And it'll just be.
- [61:13]
D
I don't know. And like, it's not. It's not like Tony, Tony, chopper about that.
- [61:16]
B
They're like, don't change your. Your race when you change.
- [61:19]
D
Yeah, she stays a cat, but it's like, she's just very prominent. Probably has more dialogue than Carl does. So it's like, I don't know how, like. But I do. I mean, like, Seth MacFarlane is deeply involved. So it's like, I guess if there's someone that sort of gets this off Kill too.
- [61:32]
B
I mean, it should be animated then.
- [61:34]
D
Yeah, I think so too.
- [61:35]
A
And I mean that just. Sure. If it was an animated show, I'd be like, yeah, let's do this.
- [61:39]
D
Get the studio that does invincible to do it.
- [61:41]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [61:42]
A
And then so I'm doing the audiobook, and there's. At the end of every book, there's some bonus material. It's like, at one point, you know how Sam. You know how they go. Will do interviews. They leave the dungeon to do interviews. One of those parts right now, for one time, they. They. They leave to, like, narrate a documentary about humans on earth. Like, they're supposed to narrate it. And I forget what segment Carl's supposed to narrate, but it's just. It's. It's total. And he, like, refuses to do it. So the producer's like, okay, we have these other segments you can pick from. And he picks, like, to do a segment on arcades. And then.
- [62:14]
B
So.
- [62:14]
A
But they know you never hear it in the book, but the.
- [62:16]
B
How he's got a frogger or something.
- [62:18]
A
The bonus material at the end, they like. I don't know, it's like. It's like you go back to the producer talking about how difficult Carl was to work with, and the other person's like, okay, well, let's hear what he recorded. And they cut into it and he's talking about Qbert.
- [62:31]
D
Whoa.
- [62:31]
A
And then he's like, this is also bullshit. Give me something else to read about. And then it's so meta. He's like, supposedly reading a segment about an author, and the author is bitching about how he spends so much time writing the book, and then the narrator of the book just has to walk up and read the book and he gets all the glory. So it's good.
- [62:49]
D
It's written like Jeff Hayes, the voice actor. It's like he's reading dialogue that's making fun of him. That's great.
- [62:57]
C
It's so.
- [62:57]
E
Yeah.
- [62:58]
B
I mean, when the book's clever, it's clever, you know? And so that's the type of stuff that I think people really latch onto. And it's just plot driven.
- [63:04]
E
Right.
- [63:04]
A
And I keep seeing thing after thing. They keep seeing more and more posts. Scoop nation. Everyone is discovering Dungeon Crawler Carl. It's cool that we're all, like, doing this at the same time, too. Although Justin did it.
- [63:12]
D
Yeah, well. And. Well, not years, but like last year. And they're still. I mean, they're almost done. What do we? I think there's one book left, but it's being split into two. So you know, like which.
- [63:23]
B
Well, there's multiple levels in each book so it's not based on levels.
- [63:27]
D
Yes. And like, and it does feel like, I mean, you know, knock on wood. Cause it's not completely done yet, but like they've been coming out at a really good clip and like it just feels like it's just gonna wrap up and conclude and like that's also kind of rare these days, right, that like something finishes on time and just kind of drama free. So that's rad.
- [63:43]
A
But Sam, no spoilers. I'm on book four and I think it's on level five. I think there are 18 levels in the dungeon but no one's ever made it to 18, so.
- [63:52]
B
No, it's been past 11 or 12 or 13. I think there's more, a lot more than that.
- [63:55]
D
I think the story gets insane. I mean I'm not going to spoil anything but like it get it, it really goes places.
- [64:00]
A
I mean, yeah, the fact that there's, there's the dungeon, but there's this whole other level about what's going on. It could, yeah, it could go anywhere. It could literally go anywhere.
- [64:08]
D
So.
- [64:08]
B
And the planets.
- [64:09]
A
Anyway, Mark, you should check it out. Yeah, that's really good.
- [64:12]
C
That's what I hear.
- [64:22]
E
Foreign.
- [64:28]
A
That brings us to video game 20 questions. Our suggestion this week comes from Brandon in Fresna, California who says what's up goose camp? I've been a long time listener, finally thought I'd send in a suggestion for 20 questions. I'm 32 and I've been playing redacted with my 11 year old son. It's been some of the best gaming experiences I've ever had and it's thanks to this game. I also want to thank you guys for being the best part of my week and making my workday a lot better than here.
- [64:51]
B
I mean, I think it's paperboy. We should just go ahead and guess it.
- [64:54]
C
Oh, sorry, did you say Fresno?
- [64:56]
B
Yeah.
- [64:56]
A
Oh, okay.
- [64:59]
B
His name is Brandon. So you know him.
- [65:01]
D
I was gonna guess, I was gonna guess that it's manhunt or Manhunt.
- [65:03]
C
I gotta put him in the mark mindset.
- [65:06]
A
Yeah.
- [65:06]
C
Okay. He lives 30 minutes from me. So let's see.
- [65:09]
A
All right, let the question Think of
- [65:11]
B
all the Brandons you know, and it's just gonna be one of them.
- [65:13]
D
Yep.
- [65:13]
C
Yeah. Brian. Well, Brandon Hunt is the only Brandon
- [65:16]
B
I know and I don't think in Fresno, so.
- [65:18]
A
Yeah,
- [65:20]
D
okay. Did this game come out in the 70s, 80s or 90s?
- [65:23]
C
No. Okay, let's see here.
- [65:31]
D
Can you play this game on the Nintendo Switch?
- [65:36]
A
Hold please.
- [65:38]
D
I think it's Fortnite.
- [65:42]
A
Okay. Can you play this game on the Nintendo Switch? I don't think so, but just to clarify. Oh God. Wikipedia. No, no. Not donating anything right this second. Thank you.
- [65:54]
D
Just do it. Come on.
- [65:56]
C
From donations from. You support the website alive. Okay.
- [66:01]
D
Don't do it. A tear is going to roll down Jimmy Wells's face.
- [66:04]
A
No, you cannot play this on Switch Tube or Switch.
- [66:06]
B
Okay.
- [66:07]
C
Okay.
- [66:07]
D
All right.
- [66:09]
B
Is this part of a series?
- [66:11]
A
No.
- [66:13]
B
Is it an indie game?
- [66:18]
A
That's kind of interesting. Yeah, I guess. Here we go.
- [66:20]
B
Rails.
- [66:21]
A
Yes.
- [66:22]
D
Yeah.
- [66:22]
A
Yes.
- [66:23]
D
Yep.
- [66:23]
A
Yes.
- [66:23]
C
Was this game made in America?
- [66:26]
A
No, that's five.
- [66:27]
B
Was it made in Europe?
- [66:29]
A
No.
- [66:32]
D
Probably Japan. Should we spend a question on Japan? Was it made in Japan?
- [66:36]
A
Yes.
- [66:38]
D
So what was it made by? Was it made by Capcom, Sega or Namco?
- [66:43]
A
No.
- [66:45]
C
Well, so if we're. We're looking at indies, right? So need to figure out what generation. So let's say is this. Did this come out during the PS4 Xbox One generation?
- [66:58]
A
No.
- [67:00]
D
What are some other Japanese. Was this game made by Konami Fromsoft or. Yeah, but. Yeah, but those, those don't count as indie.
- [67:09]
B
I don't think so. I think this has to be like Cave Story or something like that.
- [67:14]
D
All right, well, okay. I don't, I don't agree, but that's fine.
- [67:19]
B
Konami's not. Is an. Is an indie. It's like one of the biggest game publishers on earth.
- [67:24]
D
But this is why. Like, like what does that mean? Yeah, is. Is India vibe or is Indy like.
- [67:31]
C
Oh yeah, I know. Because then it becomes this thing where it's like technically CDPR is indie. Yes, it's like they are.
- [67:39]
D
Okay. Is this a PS5 generation game?
- [67:42]
A
Yes. And that is 10
- [67:46]
D
not a franchise. 32 year olds playing it with his 11 year old PS5 era game. Made by. Made in Japan. By.
- [67:55]
C
Is this game 2D?
- [67:57]
A
No.
- [67:58]
B
Is this primarily played as a co op game?
- [68:04]
A
I can't answer that question.
- [68:06]
C
Okay. Can you play it as a co op game?
- [68:10]
A
I'm looking. I don't know. I don't know.
- [68:16]
D
No, no. Maybe Nobody knows. No one ever tried.
- [68:19]
B
Is multiplayer the primary mode of this game?
- [68:22]
A
I don't think so.
- [68:23]
B
Oh, okay. All right.
- [68:25]
D
Maybe it's. Is it. Maybe it's a strand type game. Maybe it's death stranding Kojima. Would Kojima Productions be considered an indie?
- [68:34]
B
Yeah, for sure.
- [68:35]
C
Is it PlayStation produced them?
- [68:38]
D
Yeah, like. Okay, whatever. I'll move off this topic, but why would Kojima Productions be indie but not Konami? Okay.
- [68:47]
C
If they self produced it, it would be indie like CDPR, but PlayStation produced them.
- [68:52]
D
Okay. Not 2D. I'd like to know more about what type of video game it is. Is this a Death Stranded?
- [69:01]
C
Clearly a co op game.
- [69:05]
D
Yeah. The other player plays sidekick mode. It's a little robot on your shoulder and you get to choose where you kind of blink and flash your thing. What are some other genre? Is this a souls like or rpg?
- [69:19]
A
No.
- [69:25]
C
Trying to think of Japanese indie devs.
- [69:28]
D
I don't know that many is this but it's not 2D. I was going to ask if it's like a Metroidvania, but I feel like they're all 2D and like platformers.
- [69:37]
B
Yeah, that's good point.
- [69:41]
D
I want. I want to know more.
- [69:42]
C
What are.
- [69:42]
D
What are. What are some video game genres that exist?
- [69:46]
C
Shooters. So we, we said no RPG or
- [69:50]
B
Souls like action, rpg, puzzle. Did we do any of those?
- [69:53]
D
Yeah. Is this a. Is this a puzzle, action, a puzzle or an action game?
- [70:00]
A
It would fall into the very, very wide umbrella of action.
- [70:07]
D
That was nice that you gave me that for free. Even though puzzle was in there. So I, I appreciate that.
- [70:15]
B
Is. Is combat a main focus of this game?
- [70:18]
A
Yes. And that's 15. Okay.
- [70:21]
C
Yikes.
- [70:24]
D
I mean I don't like. What about a fighting game? Although that would be clearly multiplayer. Right. So never mind. PS5 era. I don't know man.
- [70:37]
B
Sci fi game.
- [70:38]
E
Yeah.
- [70:39]
D
Yeah, that's helpful.
- [70:42]
A
No,
- [70:46]
D
I feel like we really botched this one. I'm not. I'm not quite sure what we could have or should have done differently, but I'm not feeling great.
- [70:53]
C
We burned through a lot of questions.
- [70:54]
B
Did you say that it says retro style graphics, graphics.
- [70:56]
A
No.
- [70:57]
B
Even if it's not 2D,
- [71:01]
C
it's the action thing is like kind of throwing me off because.
- [71:05]
B
So probably trying to 3D sword or fist or gun combaty game. Yeah.
- [71:13]
D
I don't know. Like Sega indie. No, SEGA was one of the developers I asked about. Right. Oh boy. PS5. It came out when we all worked here. I'm sure we know what this game is.
- [71:33]
C
That's why I'm like. I'm sure I'm thinking of my PS5 library.
- [71:38]
D
Did this game get positive reviews?
- [71:41]
A
Yeah,
- [71:44]
D
from IGN. Not burning another question on that. I'm just wanting to know.
- [71:50]
A
Yes,
- [71:55]
D
One of us might have reviewed it.
- [71:58]
B
Could it be a platinum game?
- [72:00]
A
You have one question and one guess, by the way,
- [72:04]
C
if it were Platinum,
- [72:06]
D
they do mostly franchises though. Also. What were they up to last gen? Are they. Are they. Are they gone? Is Platinum dead? Are they still doing.
- [72:15]
C
No, they're. They're working on turtles game or something.
- [72:20]
D
Okay. Are they. Are they doing Avatar? Is that one of their new ones they're doing? Am I correct?
- [72:27]
A
Running?
- [72:28]
D
Oh, that's right. That's right. That's right. Under the broad umbrella, you would broadly consider it an action game. It's got fighting and combat in it.
- [72:43]
B
It could be a soul. Like. Oh, no, you asked directly about souls.
- [72:49]
C
Like, okay, do we, like, do we burn a question asking. Because if it is platinum, then we could just think about what platinum games there would be.
- [72:59]
D
But it's like nobody knows if it has co op in it or not
- [73:04]
C
because there's stuff like in Ninja Gaiden, but like, Ninja Gaiden's not indie and that's not broad action. That's.
- [73:16]
D
We're in trouble.
- [73:18]
A
Yeah.
- [73:19]
B
Yeah, I think we are in trouble. I don't know. Is there like a Hail Mary that might completely narrow it down? If we get that and then the
- [73:26]
C
next thing not part of a series,
- [73:33]
D
he's playing it with his kid. So it can't be anything too crazy.
- [73:41]
C
Where was Palworld made? Maybe it's Palworld.
- [73:46]
D
That's not a horrible guess. That's not a. That's not a. That's not a bad guess.
- [73:52]
C
I feel like it's obviously like co
- [73:55]
B
op though, isn't that.
- [73:56]
D
I don't think that's obvious.
- [73:57]
B
It's not on the switch, that's for sure. You wouldn't have to look it up though.
- [74:02]
D
I don't, I don't. I don't mind that mode of thinking. I've been thinking a lot about console games, but kind of like, you know, Japan is doing more and more. More kind of like PC centric stuff. I'm not saying it's Power World, but like something in that, like, vibe.
- [74:17]
C
Yeah, like a Gacha game, maybe. Yeah, like, I mean, I know Impact.
- [74:22]
D
Yeah, that's South. That's South Korean, but.
- [74:23]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [74:24]
D
Maybe like a Gacha ish game or something like that. Or like a Japanese mmo.
- [74:30]
B
Why don't we just Hail Mary. Is this a Gacha game? And then try to guess it because I don't know what else we're going to rocket.
- [74:35]
D
Okay. Is this a Gotcha game?
- [74:37]
A
No.
- [74:38]
D
Okay. Do we want to guess Pal World?
- [74:39]
C
Yeah, sure. I really don't think.
- [74:41]
D
Is this Power World.
- [74:42]
A
Yes, it's Pal World. And I was worried because Mark mentioned it earlier. Earlier in the episode. I was like, oh, might be too easy now.
- [74:53]
B
But yeah, it's great.
- [74:54]
C
Well done.
- [74:55]
A
So I never played it.
- [74:56]
B
Well done, us.
- [74:56]
A
And the Wikipedia page says nothing about co op, so.
- [74:59]
C
Yeah, it's 100% co op. It's. It's a survival game before anything else.
- [75:04]
D
Yeah, but I played it solo, so, I mean.
- [75:06]
C
Yeah, yeah, well, sure, you can play it solo.
- [75:08]
B
Mark. Mark and I are dealing with this right now because it's really hard to set up a server to play with your friends. And so we're trying to figure out how to help people with that.
- [75:17]
C
Yeah. Dedicated server. Like you could. You could play just, you know, like, it's. It's one of those. It's one of those games where it's like, if somebody's online, you can join their world, but what people want is dedicated servers. So that way it just always exists. But yeah, great game.
- [75:33]
D
I didn't know this. Yeah, this game got done a little bit dirty. I mean, so first of all, they completely ripped off Pokemon, so whatever. Like, they didn't get done dirty. But like, when. Remember when this game was new and everyone's like, it's Pokemon with guns. And I'm like, that's not really, like, that's just so inaccurate to like, what they've built and what they're trying to do that, like, you know, because it's more craft survival. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [75:55]
C
It's a. It's a base building game where, I
- [75:58]
D
mean, it's rust, it's Valheim, like.
- [76:00]
C
Yeah. Where your zerglings are land scams instead. You know, that's. That's just kind of how it is. Yeah, there's.
- [76:08]
B
But it does have the. It's true that when you say Pokemon guns, like, the vibe of it is like, violent. Do nasty things to these Pokemon instead of just care for them and keep them.
- [76:19]
D
Yeah. I mean, there is. There is an element of dark humor of like, you're. You're exploiting the Pokemon. Right. But it's done with kind of like a wink. Like, you know, it's. It's. I don't know. Anyway, I played Palworld in Early Access and I really, really liked it. But it was like very early Access, like right when it was brand new.
- [76:36]
C
And I was like, just when the base building was basically all you could do.
- [76:40]
D
And so now that 1.0 is out, maybe this is the game that can like, suck me away from.
- [76:44]
B
Yeah, it's funny because like, what really made me think this was Palworld in 20 questions was that it suddenly occurred to me that the meta was like, we barely ever pick games that are, like, hot right now, and this is one of them. But it's complicated because it came out a few years ago and early access bubble.
- [76:58]
D
Yeah.
- [76:58]
B
There's so many people playing this game. The numbers for this game are unreal. If you had no interest in this game and don't know anything about it, like, just know that, like, it has, like, the big esteem numbers. It's crazy popular.
- [77:10]
D
Yeah. Thank you. Without you.
- [77:13]
B
Yeah, it was great.
- [77:13]
C
They changed a few PAL designs, but, like, that's actually not what they were even being sued over. I'm sure that was, like, kind of in there. I thought the game was glitched because when you throw out your. Your sphere, the Pokemon just. Or the pals just appear next to you now. And I was like, I think it's like doing some weird server stuff. No, it's something they had to change. They had to, like, basically pretend that your PAL doesn't live in the sphere, even though you catch them in a sphere. It's. It's funny. It's funny how much they've avoided copyright lawsuits by changing.
- [77:48]
D
You throw this fear at them to make them your friend, but they don't live in the sphere.
- [77:52]
C
Yeah, yeah. Well. And I will say it's funny that, like, in 2026, that this is like. But like. Like one of the traits that they can get is work slave.
- [78:02]
D
Like, yeah, it. It's not great. But that's what I mean about. It's a little bit. It's meant to be.
- [78:08]
B
I don't know.
- [78:09]
A
But funny carrying around this fox and it's.
- [78:11]
B
Yeah, it's a fox launcher.
- [78:12]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Becomes a flamethrower. Yeah. That's where most of the guns come from. Like, you can eventually get a gun, but, like, the first gun you'll get is there's like a little grass type pal and you, you know, you build him a gun and so then he sits on your shoulder and shoots a gun for you. It's great. What a great game.
- [78:30]
A
And I know they've been in a lot of hot water with Nintendo, but I wasn't 100 sure if it was on Switcher or not, so that's why
- [78:36]
C
I had to check that it is not.
- [78:37]
A
I know.
- [78:37]
C
It's on PS5, Xbox, PC. Yeah.
- [78:40]
A
Well, nicely job.
- [78:42]
B
Yes.
- [78:43]
C
Hey, we got.
- [78:43]
A
Oh, and Pocket Pair is the independent Japanese developer and publisher of this. Yeah, nicely job. Thank you. For the suggestion Brandon in Fresno, California. Viewers, listeners, if you have your own suggestions for video game 20 questions, email them to me at the email address, game scoop.com. and that's all the scoops we have for you this week. Remember, we're going to be off next week down in San Diego, but then we'll be back with fresh scoop the week after that. So thank you, Sam. Thank you, Justin. Thank you, Mark. Thank you to Jobert. Working behind the scenes to make this episode possible. My name is Damon. This is IG and gamescoop, and we're at.
- [79:21]
B
So last week, the question came up of, is this game licensed? And Damon said, yes. No, don't ask me that question. And that's all we could think about for the rest of the episode.
- [79:34]
C
Sometimes that happens, man. One question just gets you.
- [79:37]
B
And we did not get it.
- [79:39]
D
What was the guess?
- [79:41]
B
Well, if I tell you, then you might have this stuck in your head for this whole episode.
- [79:45]
A
But, Sam, I don't feel bad because you guys knew it was on Switch.
- [79:49]
B
Look, I didn't make this.
- [79:50]
A
You should have known that Battlefield has never been on Switch.
- [79:52]
D
I know.
- [79:53]
B
Well, I also knew that we had another. At the end of the episode, I said another thing that could have been Battlefield 4. We had said the name of the game, too. So that's always a. Oh, no, that's the.
- [80:04]
C
Wait, why. Why the. Why the confusion with the license?
- [80:09]
A
I fully agree that. I fully agree. This was a mist mistake on my part. The game was Apex Legends. So when they asked, was it licensed, I was like. Because it was, like, based on Titanfall.
- [80:20]
C
But is it licensed?
- [80:21]
A
In truth, no, it's not licensed. Respawn did not license this property from anyone.
- [80:25]
B
So there was a very funny moment. Does this game. Because we thought it was Titan Ball, and it was like, did this have mechs in it? And it's like, no. And that's. That's true for Apex, right?
- [80:33]
A
Yeah.
- [80:33]
D
It might have a singular mech. I don't know what the fighters are doing in that game, but not. Not a mechi game.
- [80:38]
B
It's like a prequel or something like that.
- [80:40]
D
It's in the same universe. I don't know about the lore of, like, when it takes place.
- [80:44]
B
Why aren't there big robot suits?
- [80:46]
D
That's a good question. I'm constantly asking myself that.
- [80:49]
B
Yeah, the Matrix didn't seem so bad. Honestly, I don't know why people wanted to break out of it.
- [80:55]
D
People.
- [80:55]
A
People are retconning Cipher, the one that betrays.
- [80:58]
C
I was gonna say Sam's A cipher defender.
- [81:01]
A
Yeah.
- [81:02]
B
Wait, what?
- [81:02]
A
Ignorance is bliss. He's the one that betrays them to get put back into the Matrix.
- [81:06]
D
His mind knows that the stake isn't real, but. And yet it still doesn' Juicy and delicious.
- [81:12]
A
What movie is this?
- [81:14]
C
The Matrix. The first one.
- [81:15]
B
It's in the first one.
- [81:16]
A
Yeah.
- [81:17]
D
Yeah.
- [81:19]
B
I. I can't. I can't get more than halfway through that movie anymore.
- [81:22]
A
What are you talking about? It's still great. It's still a perfect.
- [81:25]
B
It is great.
- [81:26]
D
It is a perfect movie.
- [81:27]
A
It's perfect.
- [81:27]
B
No, it's not. It is. It is.
- [81:29]
C
No. Yep.
- [81:30]
A
You're wrong in this one, Sam.
- [81:31]
B
I disagree.
- [81:35]
C
I agree. I agree with Sam. Part two is way better.
- [81:38]
D
Yeah. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Yeah. I don't know.
- [81:43]
B
I mean, I think the Matrix does seem pretty good because it's locked in 1998, which was, you know, 99, even kind of. Kind of fun year.
- [81:50]
D
It had bullet time. No, there's a. There's that line in the Matrix of like. There's a line in the Matrix about how. I'm paraphrasing now, but, like, what. It's the. It's the late 90s, which was the peak of civilization, and that's why the robot bots made the Matrix locked to this time frame. And then when the movie came out, everyone was like, now here we are 30 years later, and it's like, yep, that was it.
- [82:14]
A
That was the apex.
- [82:15]
D
Yeah, it was not so bad.
- [82:17]
B
Nobody could have predicted that. That year, the last Elder Scrolls game came out.
- [82:24]
A
The biggest thing we had to worry about is our computers not being able to tick over to the year 2000.
- [82:29]
D
Yeah.
- [82:30]
A
How is it?
- [82:30]
B
Side.
- [82:38]
A
How hot is it there?
- [82:40]
C
It was. It was 109 the other day. Gonna be a little cooler. And by cooler, I maybe 101.
- [82:47]
D
It's too hot.
- [82:49]
C
Last night was the first time we went to bed where what I had my AC set to was what the temperature in the house was. Usually for the past week or so,
- [82:56]
B
it's been about five struggles to get down to the temperature.
- [83:03]
A
It's like 80 here. And I'm like, this is too hot.
- [83:06]
B
Yeah, well, it's cold and windy in San Francisco. Nothing.
- [83:10]
C
Oh, I know. San Francisco sounds like July SF weather on Friday. And I had, like, hours to kill. I went to the Nintendo Store, which was fun, but I was just in Union Square and it was, like, freezing and I did not bring a jacket or anything.
- [83:24]
D
Yeah.
- [83:24]
B
Last week it got down to 55 during the day.
- [83:27]
C
Yeah, yeah, it was. It was Awesome. I was just. I was just soaking it up because I knew hours later I'd be back in the hundred plus degrees.
- [83:34]
B
Yeah, the tourists and their shorts are just like, what the fuck is happening all around the wharf?
- [83:40]
A
Sam, are you off to your music fest?
- [83:41]
B
Yeah, yeah, I'm doing that all weekend. And Pavements playing tonight, which is pretty exciting.
- [83:46]
A
That's really cool.
- [83:47]
B
Iggy Pop Tomorrow and Bikini Kill are the headliners. But then the coolest thing is on Sunday, one of our headliners is Sleeter Kenny. It's the people from. It's Fred Armisen and Carrie from Portlandia. Portlandia doing a full Ramones cover set.
- [84:02]
C
Oh, wow.
- [84:03]
A
That's so cool.
- [84:03]
B
And it's called the Return of Jackie and Judy. So there's that and then a bunch of the, you know, the smaller indie bands that Helene and I work with. But we're doing the driving for most of those big acts, so that's what I'm gonna be doing this weekend. Maybe Adrock will be there because Kathleen Hannah is Adrock's wife in Bikini Kill. So that's really exciting. But yeah. Yeah, just part of that. That whole crew getting started tonight.
- [84:24]
A
Cool.
- [84:25]
B
El's doing driving right now for a band called Wednesday, which is kind of Weezer, like, with a girl singer.
- [84:29]
C
I don't know them.
- [84:33]
B
All right, guys, have a Good congrats on 20 questions. That was insane.
- [84:37]
D
Yeah, that was great.
- [84:38]
B
Bye. Well, we can't talk about it at all in this episode, but.