Directive 8020 Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

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Kinda Funny Gamescast: Directive 8020 Review (May 11, 2026)

Episode Overview

This episode of Kinda Funny Gamescast features the team’s in-depth review of Directive 8020, the latest interactive horror game from Supermassive Games (creators of Until Dawn and the Dark Pictures Anthology). The panel—Greg Miller (host), Madeline Stanley (horror expert), Blessing Adeoye Jr., and Joey Noel—discuss their experiences with the game, focusing on gameplay changes, narrative execution, technical issues, and where the title stands in Supermassive’s oeuvre.

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Main Theme: A New Direction for Supermassive Games

The show explores whether Directive 8020’s increased focus on gameplay mechanics (stealth and puzzles) successfully evolves Supermassive's cinematic choice-driven formula or muddles the experience, especially for longtime fans. The team weighs technical performance, story engagement, and design decisions, all while keeping the episode's classic mix of witty banter and candid critique.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Technical Issues and Bugs

• Joey and Blessing both experienced a major progression bug in both Survivor and Explorer modes, disabling their ability to proceed past certain chapters ([6:30], [9:14]).
  • Quote (Blessing, 08:22): “We cannot start off from where we left off. And the tough thing about it is ... we had to start again from the very beginning.”
• Unpredictable bugs included missing character models, tanking frame rates, and stealth sections with severe FPS drops, especially in multiplayer ([12:09], [12:38]).
• Madeline and Greg had mostly “flawless” gameplay experiences on PS5/PC—pointing to a disparity potentially connected to multiplayer use ([11:46], [13:12]).

2. Shift to More Traditional Gameplay

• Stealth and Puzzles: Directive 8020 leans heavily into stealth and circuit puzzles, dividing panel reactions.
  • Joey: Disliked the stealth focus (“not a me game”), found the gameplay formula tedious ([10:20]).
  • Madeline: Appreciated the ambition but felt the emphasis on gameplay mechanics detracted from the narrative focus that defines the series ([13:24]).
  • Greg: Found both the story and gameplay “so-so,” with stealth/traversal in vents being unsatisfying ([16:52]).
• Turning Points Flowchart: Inspired by Detroit: Become Human, this system lets players revisit and remix choices, though some wish it provided less path info for more surprise ([15:10], [34:47]).

3. Narrative Critique

• The core story felt generic: “Alien and The Thing mixed together,” missing the genre-bending twist or fresh angle previous entries delivered ([20:04], [20:54]).
• Time jumps are a new structural experiment, with mixed reactions:
  • Blessing: Time jumps undercut tension (“I saw that person in the future, so there’s no danger right now”) ([31:12]).
  • Madeline: Enjoyed how it improved pacing, launching into the action faster ([30:17]).
• Panelists struggled to connect with the cast; performances were uneven and characters often “hard to care about” ([16:51], [27:55]).

4. Presentation and Production Value

• All agreed the game looked and sounded great (Greg: “most polished Supermassive I’ve had”), with strong accessibility and difficulty options—being a step forward from the troubled Devil in Me launch ([11:49], [35:11]).

5. Replayability and Multiplayer

• Most panelists are “one-and-done” with Supermassive games. Turning Points encourages replays, but the story this time didn’t earn a second look ([39:11], [41:13]).
• Couch co-op remains fun and chaotic, but online multiplayer isn’t available at launch, which could disappoint some ([43:20]).
• Blessing: “Watching friends do stealth was pulling my hair out—I just want to make choices with them, not watch stealth segments.” ([27:17])

6. Accessibility and Customization

• Flexible settings for QTEs and stealth difficulty, and per-player customization in multiplayer makes the experience accessible for all types of players ([35:49], [36:21]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Gameplay Shifts:

• Blessing [27:17]:

  “They do a bit more on the gameplay side and I hate that they're doing more on the gameplay side... I'm just staring at my friends do stealth choices and I'm about to pull my hair out. I just want to make choices.”

• Greg [16:52]:

  “I didn't care for anybody in this game. Like, they set you up with these characters and it's like they do time jumps... works against getting you invested.”

On Technical Issues:

• Joey [09:14]:

  “I played through it a second time and it's the same thing again. Then I started going back, turning point by turning point… finally, after hours, it just kicked me into chapter two. I didn't even do anything different this time.”

On Narrative and Series Identity:

• Madeline [13:24]:

  “I feel that them focusing more on gameplay mechanics really saw the story suffer, which is primarily where I come to [the] Dark Pictures Anthology for—those fun horror stories. That takes a backseat.”

• Panel, on B-horror identity [29:02]:

  “They never lean hard… on being B-horror schlock. [Directive 8020] isn’t trying to do a serious horror game, or a serious sci-fi story… but it can’t pick a lane.”

The Supermassive Ranking Segment (Best to Worst):

• Consensus Ranking [44:41-49:10]:
  1. Until Dawn
  2. House of Ashes
  3. The Quarry
  4. Directive 8020
  5. Devil in Me
  6. Little Hope
  7. Man of Medan

On Stealth Fatigue:

• Joey [39:45]:

  “It's the stealth stuff… I just, at that point, was kind of over it… my will to survive was, like, pretty low.”

On Connection to Other Dark Pictures Titles:

• Madeline [55:22]:

  “There is a connection to some other Dark Pictures games you can discover. For the freakos out there like me, it’s a nice little reference.”

Recommendations for What’s Next:

• Urban legends, young adults in peril, “lean hard into the camp!” and make the choices and horror schlock the centerpiece ([52:03]).

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Show Intro & Panel Setup: [00:34]–[04:01]
• Game Background & Supermassive’s History: [04:01]–[06:30]
• Bug/Technical Stories: [06:30]–[12:38]
• First Impressions & Review Scores: [10:10]–[13:24]
• Turning Points & Replayability: [15:10]–[16:36]; [34:47]; [39:11]
• Story Critique & Cast Analysis: [16:51]–[20:54]; [27:55]
• Episode Structure & Pacing: [30:17]–[31:12]
• Multiplayer/Co-op Discussion: [36:52]–[43:41]
• Length of the Game: [37:52]–[38:55]
• Series Ranking Segment: [44:31]–[49:10]
• Speculation on Supermassive’s Future: [52:03]–[54:23]
• Texting Mechanic & Immersion: [52:36]–[54:23]
• Final Recommendations & Socials: [63:11]–[63:39]

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Review Scores (Kindafunny's Scale)

| Reviewer | Score | Reasoning | |-------------|-----------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Joey | 6/10 | Not a bad game, but “not for me”; disliked stealth focus and puzzle emphasis. | | Greg | 6/10 | “So-so” story and gameplay; not challenging or memorable enough to recommend strongly. | | Blessing | 6/10 (tentative)| Echoes Joey; disliked extra gameplay focus, buggy experience, uneven performances. | | Madeline | 7.5/10 | Surprisingly polished, enjoyed new options, but admits narrative took a backseat. |

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Takeaways for Listeners

• Directive 8020 is technically improved over Supermassive’s last entry but suffers from bugs (especially in multiplayer), and a heavy emphasis on stealth/puzzle gameplay that may alienate some fans of the studio's more narrative-driven horror experiences.
• The narrative is competent but unambitious and lacks the “twist” or fresh identity that elevated earlier Supermassive works.
• Accessibility and multiplayer options are robust, but online co-op is missing at launch.
• If you’re a diehard Supermassive fan, you’ll find some fun, but if you’re hoping for their best, stick with Until Dawn, House of Ashes, or The Quarry.
• The new Turning Points system is a welcome addition, but not enough to offset flat characters and a rote plot.

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Closing Thoughts

“Even at their worst, I’m still kind of enjoying [Supermassive games]. But every year you kind of hope this is their main season.” —Madeline ([57:30])

Fans of B-horror and interactive narratives will find moments of entertainment, but Directive 8020 doesn’t rise above its peers—most of the panel agreed it’s another mid-tier entry for Supermassive, best enjoyed in a group… and maybe once the bugs are patched.

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Find Madeline Stanley at Twitch: MadExposure for live Directive 8020 gameplay (@ 6pm PT, May 12, 2026).

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Transcript

[A]

Rent or buy exit 8, the highest rated video game adaptation of all time. Wherever you watch movies, Experience hits technology with the new Pro X2 Super Strike, the fastest mouse Logitech G has ever built. Head over to Logitech g.com to grab yours and start clicking faster than the competition. If you want to get our shows ad free and our exclusive shows go to patreon.com kindafunny.

[B]

What's up everybody? Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Monday, May 11, 2026. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller, alongside our queen of screams, Madeline Stanley. Hello, Madeline.

[C]

Hi, Greg. How's it going?

[B]

Interestingly so, as you may have seen, I have a new puppy. We have a new puppy. Of course, in the house we have mint Chip Mil, AKA just Chip. And he is here with Cole and everything was fine with them over there. And we brought in a puppy Kennelly thing so they could chill out together. And then right as Bear said, is everybody ready to go live? We just heard Cole go crazy and then they opened the door and Cole ran in. So I don't know what's happening out there.

[D]

If I were to guess, I think that Mike came in and got.

[B]

You're right. You're right, you're right. Well, then I hope somebody's keeping their eye on Chip. Cole, I trust.

[D]

Maybe they just let Cole out.

[B]

That. That also. But then I. That's going to be a problem for Chip. But you know what? This is why we're doing it today. Next week he's going to. They're both going to be here all week. So we're fig it out. Of course. Over here, it's Christmas in May. Joey. Noel.

[C]

Hello.

[D]

I'm back from the dead.

[B]

That's the thing. I don't think. No, I don't know if people know. Yeah, this is a big deal. Not only just to have Joey who's been on so much game content lately. I love that. You know, one day we'll get Barrett on it. It's so rare to have Bear, but we get Joey here all the time. But Joey's sick all last week. We haven't seen you in forever. How you feeling?

[D]

I'm. I feel much better now.

[E]

Welcome back, Joey.

[D]

Thank you. Back from the day.

[E]

Do we have a T shirt? Where's the shirt?

[B]

Damn it. Damn it. Oh, my God.

[D]

How did we not think about that?

[B]

Well, the last two didn't sell well there, of course. Forbes 30 under 30 aka New York Game Awards nominated aka Bicep Poppy. It's Blessing Eddie Oye Jr. Good day, Greg. Good day. How are you?

[E]

I'm doing well. I like your shirt. Thank you.

[B]

I like your shirt.

[E]

Thank you.

[B]

Mine says trans rights or left hooks.

[E]

Yeah.

[B]

Chris Anka shared this on Instagram and it made me laugh so hard. I was like, I got it. I've chuckled so much. I need to buy this one. Of course, I support the message, too, but, you know. Of course. And then what did it tell me

[A]

about your shirt here?

[E]

That's just a shirt. Yeah. Is there a technical word for this kind of shirt? This isn't a Henley, is it?

[D]

It's.

[B]

It's a Henley with a pocket. Can you have a Henley with a pocket?

[E]

No.

[B]

It's also a different color and I

[D]

feel like Henley's are usually like a waffle.

[E]

And don't Henley's. Like, the sleeves are a little bit longer on Henley.

[B]

They're usually long.

[E]

So I wouldn't call this. This Henley. Like Henley. Like Henley adjacent. Yeah.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[E]

It's a good shirt.

[B]

It is a good shirt.

[E]

Yeah. I've had this shirt. It's not like a new shirt or anything. I've had this shirt for like a decade. I just never wear it.

[B]

I like that. I appreciate you brought something out of the closet then. You know what I mean?

[E]

Yeah.

[C]

But the contrast stitching, nice. You know, the red stitching on the dark, you don't see that very often.

[E]

Black and red, my favorite color combo.

[B]

Oh, very good shadow thing.

[E]

And, you know, I don't know because, like, I think I woke up one day and realized that shadow the hedge. Those are shadow the hedgehog colors.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

And I was like, oh, man. You know, I'm just not going to think too hard about it.

[B]

It probably is, but trying to think, yeah, you can lean. I mean, like what the old Batmobile was like that you could lean in Miles Morales, of course. But he's more recent than.

[E]

You know what? I like that I'm going to claim Miles Morales, even though it was definitely before Miles Morales.

[B]

I know, right? Well, I mean, maybe if you're going comic book appearance, you're so young. That might work. You know, when Ben disintroduced him, I

[D]

don't know why we're trying to get away with him back. There's just shadows.

[B]

You know why? You know why?

[E]

Also, we were in high school, Greg, when Miles got introduced.

[B]

Really?

[E]

Oh, yeah, really. I think that was like 20 somewhere in like the 2010 to 2013. Oh, I graduated in like 2011, I think. You know what? Because it was a Donald Glover thing. I think Donald Glover led to Miles Morales because he people were campaigning for him to be he was created in 2011.

[B]

Okay, my apologies I for some oh I'm thinking of Civil War. I remember reading Civil War now the other dog's calling for coal. What the hell. I'm going to be wearing the other dog in the sling by the end of it because this is the Kind of Funny Games Cast each and every weekday we run you through the biggest topics in gaming. Whether they be reviews, previews, or just topics we need to talk about. We address them all here. Of course you can be part of the show YouTube.com kindafunnygames with your live chats just like idabslabs did first time super chatter. I tried mixtape over the weekend due to your interview and the devs and your reviews. Not normally my kind of game, but wow. 10 out of 10 masterpiece indeed. Love all you guys do. Thank you idabslabs. We'll see if you love today's review. Of course we're doing Directive 8020. We're all very excited to talk about it for the first time and we couldn't do it without our Patreon producers over on patreon.com kinda funny. So thank you Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney the Psalm Twining for now, let's begin the show with what is and forever will be topic of the show. Directive 8020's review embargo is up. Of course. This is the latest from developer and publisher of this one. Supermassive Games, the Steam description reads. Earth is dying and humanity is running out of time. 12 light years from home, Tau Ceti F offers a small sliver of hope. When the colony ship Cassiopeia crash lands on the planet, its crew soon realize they are far from being alone in space. Death takes many forms. 49.99 it is out May 12th. That is tomorrow, of course. If you're like supermassive, what is this? You know them all too well. We're talking about until dawn in 2015 and I'm saying supermassive in this genre of game. Until dawn in 2015, then the Dark Pictures Anthology man of Medan 2019, Little Hope 2020, House of Ashes 2021, then the Quarry with 2K 2022, then back to the Dark Pictures anthology the devil in me 2022, then the casting of Frank Stone, which none of us are dead by daylight people, so we didn't touch it. Madeline said she put a few hours into it, but you get the gist of who we're talking about here. And that's where we'll begin. None of us know how the others feel. I know. Well, Joey and Blessing had issues because I got very similar text last night within about nine minutes of each other. Like, how the fuck do I advance the game? What's happening, Blessing, what was going on with you last night?

[E]

Yeah, so the context around it is that I played this game with friends. I wanted to use the multiplayer, sort of like always the big mode. Right. Because these are games that are designed to be played solo but also designed to be played multiplayer. Because until dawn was a game that people loved playing with an audience or with. With a group of friends on the.

[B]

We always go back to that psx. Right. I don't even know if Supermassive really knew what they were making until they were on stage. Psx. And it was call out what you want in the way the crowd erupted when it was go left or go right. And it was like, you saw that energy in that moment. Like, oh, man, people are gonna play this as a group.

[E]

Yes. And I. The place I'll start is that begrudgingly. I have not finished this game.

[B]

Okay. Despite your best efforts.

[E]

Despite my best efforts. Part of it has to do with organizing with the group and all. And people, their days being busy and us being like, listen, we got one day to beat this game. They gave us the game like a week ago. But for me and my friends, we're all free on Sunday. So we're like, all right, let's no life at Sunday. Let's play this game. Schedules keep getting pushed because it's Mother's Day. You know, we all. That's tough. We're all running late at the same time anyway. So we don't really start this game until like 3:45. And we start. This game is about eight chapters, eight episodes. We get to the end of episode one, and after every episode there is a end episode title screen with like a title music that plays and all this stuff. They're cool and they're really cool, I think really well presented. That fades out. And then the end of episode two, title screen fades in. We're like, oh, that's a weird thing to do. Why would they do it this way? And then that fades out. And then the end of episode three, title screen fades in. We look at each other, we're like, this can't be right. Like, this must be a bug, right? And so we cut off the game, restart the game and game breaking bug. Like, we cannot start off from where we Left off. And the tough thing about it is that we played. There's two modes that you can set the game on. There's a casual mode and there's like a more.

[B]

There's Explorer mode, which of course is a brand new addition here, which is taking advantage of turning points, which is you being able to change your decisions. It's really cool. And then, yeah, I think it's Survivor mode.

[E]

Survivor mode.

[B]

Traditional, more traditional choice in your life

[E]

and you cannot rewind. We were playing on Survivor mode, which meant that we couldn't even rewind back to a certain cut, certain checkpoint or cut scene, whatever. We had to start again from the very beginning. And so just forces working against us to where at 10pm I looked at them and I was like, guys, if we're going to keep, if we're going to beat this, we're going to be here until past midnight. Like 20.

[B]

How long is this game?

[E]

Yeah, and I'm in chapters.

[D]

Did you get through?

[E]

Got through five chapters.

[B]

Oh, really good. Yeah, we played most chapters overall, everybody watching for the first time. And of course, remember, we won't spoil the story for you.

[E]

So we could have, we could have pushed through it if we want, but I didn't want to come into work just dead and tired and I was already dozing off last night because I'm a tired boy. But Joey experienced the exact same book.

[D]

Yeah, I had the exact same thing happen except I had the same thing as you where it's like I couldn't start anywhere else even though I picked the one where you could rewind. Or maybe I picked it on my second try and then I played through it a second time and it's the same thing again. And then I played through it a third time and I was like, maybe I'm supposed to just get a completely different ending to the first chapter. So I was. Then I started going back, like turning point, by turning point being like, okay, this branch is. Because it'll show you the branches even though it won't show you the outcomes. I was like, maybe I need to try and get this one there. So I probably spent like a two and a half, three hours trying to do it. And that's when I finally broke and texted Greg being like, am I dumb? Like, what am I not doing? And then suddenly all of a sudden, like 10 minutes after I texted you, it like kicked me into chapter two and I was like, I. I don't know, I didn't even do anything different this time.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

So starting off on like not a Great foot for me personally.

[B]

Did you get further. You thought you.

[D]

I finished it.

[B]

Oh, you did finish it. Okay, great job. Okay, so then jumping in, then within, under your belt, where would you go on the kind of funny, patented review scale?

[D]

Here's the thing. I think initially I'm going to say it's a 6 out of 10. I think a lot of it is that it is. I don't think it's a bad game. It is definitely not a me game. It is a lot of stealth, which I hate. And it's primarily that in terms of like, gameplay wise, so that I was just like, not particularly enjoying. That's like one of my least favorite.

[B]

Sure.

[D]

And that's a lot of it. The, the puzzle element. Also not one of my favorites in terms of like, there's a lot of electricity circuits and I'm between having to do that and sneaking around. Not a me game.

[B]

Got it, Got it.

[D]

So I don't think it's necessarily bad. Not for me.

[B]

That's fine. Okay. Okay. Six out of ten. I like that. Madeline, of course you are kind of funny. Is Queen of Screams, our horror expert. Where do you come down on Directive 80 20?

[C]

Yeah. So it's really surprising to hear that y' all had so many technical issues because I, I was coming in here being like, I'm so proud of Supermassive. They launched Devil and Me in a pretty bad state. Like, it was unplayable. I would get stuck, my flashlight wouldn't turn on. And I had a flawless experience with the, the technological side of Directive 8020. Like, no bugs, no texture pop ins. Like, it ran the smoothest I could. I could have expected it to run. So I was extremely impressed with that.

[B]

So, Mads, you might be jumping in one second.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I had the exact same experience where I was so ready to sit down at the table, be like, hey, hats off. Regardless how I feel about the overall game, hats off to them for. For my experience. The most polished supermassive I've had.

[E]

Can I tell you the. The glitch that me and Joey described was just one out of multiple for me.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

I didn't have any other one. Interesting.

[E]

Dude. There was a point where they have like these camera segments where you're like looking through security cams and you have to like click next camera and like see what else is going on. And there's a character you're looking at. They just didn't have legs for me. Is Jesus just a floating torso. There's another point where I'm sneaking through A stealth section. The game's FPS tanked tremendously in a way where me and my friends are looking at each other like, is it gradually getting worse? And we're like, yeah. And we're like, I guess we'll just restart. And then we restarted and fixed it pre. Pre patch. Like, these are all things that could be.

[B]

This is your experience, though. Yeah. Who knows? In the game, you know.

[D]

What did Everybody play on PS5?

[B]

I played PC.

[E]

Oh, I played base PS5.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

Me too. I also played base PS5.

[B]

Okay. Yeah. I didn't know I did PC. I had it, I think. Yeah. I mean, I just started, I think for the first time on the deck, I played it. Or Rog Ally. I was on the razor blade 16 out there. Which of course, like, I'm still such a dork of not using PC stuff. So I was like, hours in, I'm like, oh, yeah, turn on DLSS and make it rage. I'm like, oh, it looks so. I don't even know what I'm doing. Sorry. Back to you, though, Madeline.

[C]

Yeah. So, like you, Greg, I had a flawless experience, I guess. Obviously, it seems like there's some big differences between the multiplayer or. Joey, did you play on the multiplayer?

[D]

I played single player, so it was kind of like a dice roll, I guess, on that scene.

[C]

What so interesting other than that, I was coming in here to say it ran flawlessly. I do think, for me, I like that they're trying a bunch of new things like the stealth and the puzzles. I think a lot of people who are excited about Dark Pictures anthology in general will still find a lot to love here. However, I feel that them focusing more on the gameplay mechanics really saw the story suffer, which is primarily where I come to Dark Pictures anthologies for is those fun horror stories where we're making the decisions, and that still exists here. It just takes a little bit of a backseat to the stealth encounters, the puzzles and some of that stuff. So where I landed on this was a seven and a half. I would say that if you like the Dark Pictures anthology in the past and you like supermassive games, I think there's still a lot here for you to love. I love the inclusion of the turning points. If you're familiar with Detroit Become Human and that sort of flowchart thing, it's very similar to that on maybe a smaller scale here. And I do really enjoy that and having a little bit more flexibility in the playstyle and your choices. However, I think newcomers will feel a little bit put off by how much Stealth. There is, but it's not fully baked stealth. There's a lot of different game mechanics here that I think are not fully fleshed out for me, I hope, because this is supposed to be the start of season two of Dark Pictures Anthology, which they're kind of moving away from the seasons, but I feel like we went from man of Medan to House of Ashes, which. House of Ashes is still the high watermark for me for Dark Pictures Anthology. I feel like if they can use this as a base and move forward with a stronger story, this will be a really, really great series.

[B]

So I'm not of two minds about it. It's just an interesting one. Again, to not at all discount your stuff. For me, it was like, man, what a. Looks good. It's running really well. Turn on all the bells and whistles on top of that. Really cool. We'll get into it. But I think Turning point is such Turning points are such a nice addition to this game. Again, very Detroit become human. But in a sense, right, if you're playing on Explorer mode, you can then see all the turning points and you can go back to certain points and make the other choice. Or see, oh, to get this. To have the ability to make this choice, I need to go back to here and make this choice and that choice a nice way if you really want to flesh it out and go a different way. And for me, personally, I guess I shouldn't say I had a flawless experience. There was a couple times where maybe my stick didn't work. There's specifically one choice where it was like left or right. And I'm like, left. They didn't move like, no, no, no. They went right. So I loaded the turning point immediately. Jump choice. That's all great for me. The problem with Directive 8020 is that it's just of so. So story mixed with so. So gameplay. I, for a long time was sitting around here. I'm like, am I a 5.5 mediocre or am I a flat 6? Okay? And I've landed on a flat 6, okay. Because I think, you know, definition of mediocre is always that I always go by right of like something of only moderate or low quality, being neither very good nor truly bad. It's like, okay, it's. It's better than that.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

I don't think it's that close to being good, though, sadly. And I think it's because I didn't care for anybody in this game. Like, they set you up with, like, hey, here are all these characters and it's like they do time jumps around them, which I think works against getting you actually invested with anybody.

[D]

Yep.

[B]

The story overall, eventually, I think it's the penultimate episode they. And maybe I'm wrong, maybe. But I think I am right. They introduce like this, like, oh, like, I'm like, oh, okay, that is cool. I guess, like, I would have maybe liked more of that because as soon as they introduce that, the actual threat of the purple people eaters doesn't matter. It's like, okay, I don't. What do we. And then on top of that, just to get into the gameplay of it, I don't know who told them crawling through vents would be fun. I don't know who told them this form of stealth was fun, because it really was like, you are. At least the way I played it in Crouch Walk the entire time using your detective vision to see where the monster is that you can get around or whatever. And once I was never challenged by that. I never ran into. How am I ever going to get over there? I'm like, oh, they want me to use that door, but it's not powered. Follow the thing. Go over there. Okay. You know, do. But a day by and even early on, when you're being chased by the. You know, if you're not familiar with the setup, we just read it. And you're seeing it here, of course. And they've talked about it of like, you have basically the thing in Body Snatchers, whatever. There are versions of your team showing up that aren't your team at one point. Like, you're playing the monster. I got to hide from them version of that. And then when they catch you, you can quick time it with one button press, like, whatever, you know, hit triangle and zap them. And then you can go about doing it. I was like, okay, well, that happened. I'm sure the next time they would grab me, it wouldn't. They grab me again. I do it again. I'm like, oh, well, now I'm not even worried about this encounter. Now I'll take my time exploring.

[E]

You have a meter that, like, once

[C]

you did it, yeah, there's a cooldown.

[E]

We suffered to the cooldown. It all gets that bite. Like, that's the one way that they add danger to it is if you get caught again before the cooldown finishes, then you'll die.

[B]

And so, yeah, for me personally, that's what I remember gameplay wise between these two things. And neither of them are bad. They're just never that interesting. And so it is that idea of like, I think there's the usual breadcrumbs of the story here. I think, you know, the title cards at the end hit. My problem is you could tell they were definitely like, we're leaving them on a great cliffhanger. And I don't think any of those cliffhangers were so good that I'm like, I gotta see what happens next. I was like, all right, I'll pick this up tomorrow. I'll do that. So it's like. Like, it's not a bad one. I'm with Madeline of like. Do you like the Dark Pictures Anthology? Do you like what Supermassive does? You'll enjoy this. You know, like, these are usually on top of the review ones. Whenever Poe comes to town, we toss it on and we go through and make the choices and see the deaths and see the stuff, and it's like a fun, playable movie. But it's also that idea of like, I. You know, on the list of games, I put all the Metacritics right. It's like, until dawn 79 man of Medan 69 Little Hope 71 House of Ashes 72 the Quarry 79, Devil Inside Me 69 Casting a Frankston 68. It's like that is where supermassive lives.

[D]

It's also crazy that until dawn is that low.

[B]

I know, right? I know back that's where supermassive lives. And I always talk about exploring the scale and I always talk about Double A and yada yada, but it's just like, I'd love to see them go a step beyond just being B horror schlock. And that's what this is. And that's what I saw so many other reviewers talking about. Like, the story is kinda what, you know, what it is from the jump. You know what I mean? Even if you don't, you do.

[D]

Well.

[C]

Yeah. And without going into spoilers for any of the other games, I think where this really falls flat for me is that it's literally just what they showed you in the trailer. I think with until dawn, if, you know, there's more to that story. For a lot of the other Dark Pictures anthology games, it's kind of. They're giving you an A story and then there's kind of like a thing that happens later that kind of turns it on its head a little bit. Specifically in House of Ashes, where I'm like, I feel like I'm getting a different story than I've ever seen before, where this is just alien and the thing mixed together and even the sort of rug pull is not Very surprising. As Greg said, it's kind of like yeah, I was expecting that. And I think one of the things that I like from them is that they usually kind of mash two things together or, or kind of have a slightly new take on a sort of, you know, b horror movie for me. And there's not really anything new here. It's very much all story things that we've well tread before.

[B]

I want to get in to everyone's thoughts, deep level stuff, really dig into it. But the dogs are freaking out so I'm going to go to Ed's early. Settled everybody. Of course we couldn't do cool reviews and have cool folks like Madeline on if you didn't support us with the kind of funny membership get pick one up patreon.com kinda funny YouTube.com kindafunnygames apple and Spotify of course get everything we do ad free. Get your daily dose of me, Greg Miller in a series we call Greg Way. And of course get good karma for supporting an 11 person 11 year old small business. But right now you're not using your benefits. So here's a word from our sponsors.

[A]

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[B]

What do you have to say? You want to keep crying? Okay, everybody, we're back. Hey, it's me. It's Chip the wiener dog. It's Cole over there marching around. We couldn't get everything set up, but it's day one. We're figuring it all out, the new setup. It's okay. What are you crying about now? Bless. As I walked off trying to stop all these dogs from going crazy.

[E]

Yeah.

[B]

You said I never actually gave my top level thoughts. I thought your. Your. Your problems. You were having top level thoughts. I apologize. You only got through the second chapter. Tell me, where are you at with it then?

[E]

I got through the fifth chapter, but I. So it's funny because I get to talk about this game for the most player sense, you know, talking about this genre. I like. We all do. I love dark pictures, love what supermassive does with their games. This one is an interesting one because you guys already talked about it a bit, but they do a bit more on the gameplay side and I hate that they're doing more on the gameplay side. Nice. Okay, a lot right now there's a conversation about mixtape and most of it is like bad conversation, right? But like people are litigating the gameplay of mixtape, whether walking sim, whether enough. Whether it's enough of a game or not. And I'm playing this and I'm like, man, you don't see too much of a game because I'm playing with four other people. I am watching them with the controllers in the hand, do the stealth sections and I'm like, I just wanted to make choices with these people, you know, Like, I'm staring at people, I'm staring at my friends, like mixed stealth choices and like about to pull out my hair kind of thing.

[D]

That's exactly how it is playing with me.

[E]

Yeah, it's like kind of a funny way to experience this evolution of a Supermassive game through this lens of, like, man, I wish they just. They just didn't do this. I think the stealth stuff overall, if I'm looking at it from, like, when I was doing the stealth stuff, it's fine. I could have done without a lot of it. How much of it is focused on both stealth and the puzzles that Joey's talking about in this stuff? I kind of want them to reel it back a bit and bring it back to more narrative stuff. Talking about the narrative, though, like, I think I agree with you guys overall in story. The thing I'll harp on a little bit is some of these characters are real bad.

[B]

Do you mean performances or do you mean choices, or do you mean all of it?

[E]

All of it. Yeah.

[B]

There's. There's literally times where I'm like, this is the take. Yeah, this is the take we're doing for your VO Both.

[E]

There's two characters that hang out with each other a lot called Cooper and Anders. And, like, their whole dynamic, I think, is really, really bad. So many line reads where I'm like, y' all needed to get another take of that one. Like, I can't believe this is the one we chose. There's times where there's urgency in the story, there's a person getting chased, there's a thing happening, and it very much is the most deadpan delivery of, oh, no, I gotta get out of here. It's like, brother, we gotta. We gotta do more with that. That said, I did, like, that's kind

[D]

of like, on par for a lot of these games. Right.

[E]

I feel like it was a bit more egregious here with some of these characters, because there is, like, a hierarchy, I think, in terms of performances, because I look at Lashana lynch, who's playing young, and I think she does a good job.

[C]

Agreed.

[E]

The bald guy. I forget his name, but, like, he does a great. He's like one of the Admiral or whatever. Yeah.

[D]

Oh, yeah.

[E]

I think he's great. And when I look at the quarry or I look at until dawn, where they get these stacked casts, the performances, for the most part, I think, are. Tend to be pretty great.

[D]

Here's usually, like, one stronghold.

[E]

Yeah. Oh, for sure, for sure. Great. You're going to say something, I think.

[B]

Oh, I mean, I'm just jumping to. I like this. You know, your top level thoughts that I screwed you out of. Sorry. Transitioning into an overall thing between all of us. Right. Where the. In the comments earlier when I said, oh, you know, I want to see the movie. On the B movie stuff. Like what? Isn't that what this always is? My problem is they never lean hard. Quarry, I think, leaned hard. We're a teen B horror movie. And Until Dawn, I know, kind of did, but I don't think they did either. They were trying to be like, I know what you did last summer. And not, like, trauma. Like, I feel like you got to pick a lane here where it's like, they're not. They're trying. This one, clearly, I think, isn't trying to do a serious horror game or whatever. Sci fi story.

[E]

One of the things I was thinking about last night as we were playing, and maybe House of Ashes is the exception to this, But until dawn and the Quarry star young adults, older teens. And so I think there's a level of campiness you're able to navigate with that, versus here you are playing adults who are scientists and doctors and owners of companies, like serious adult people. But they still act in ways where I'm like, I don't buy this.

[D]

Yeah, yeah.

[E]

And so didn't love that.

[D]

I think it's also hard with it being such a big cast, which is not necessarily rare for a super massive game, but that plus the time jumps. I'm like, okay, so who are. What. What narrative line are we following now?

[C]

And it just is, like, a little messy. I liked the time jumps because I feel like with a lot of these, the start is so slow, you're kind of, like, waiting to get into anything scary. Whereas, like, the time jumps here, you kind of get into the action a little bit sooner. I feel like it helps the pacing a little bit as far as, okay, I'm not just, like, having these conversations and getting a lot of jump scares for, like, a couple hours. And then finally I get into the choices and some of the more important aspects. Whereas, like, with the time jumps, it's like, okay, I'm getting into, like, a big decision early on, and then that will cascade down through the rest of the thing.

[B]

The time jumps I thought were interesting, and I'm interested if Poe does come and we do end up playing this together where I didn't realize they were kind. They come together at one point further on into the game. And when that happens, I was like, oh, that was kind of neat. But I found it jarring when I was just meeting you and I don't even know who you are. And then I'm in this thing and I'm like, all right, what's going on?

[E]

See, for me, it was the thing of the time jumps getting Away into the. Getting in the way of the gameplay idea of anybody can die. Right. Because I saw that person in a future time jump. So there's no, you can't.

[B]

This guy. Yeah.

[E]

Yeah, we had that multiple times last night where we were like, just make any choice. Like, it's okay.

[B]

They're gonna.

[E]

They're gonna live through this.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

I think it's also hard because even in books and stuff like that, if you have too many characters or you jump around in time too much, I'm out. I have a book called God in the Woods. It's been on my desk for six months because I'm like, I need to put it in a little free library because I don't like when I have to have like a post it in the front of my book. Being like, this is this character. This is this character in this time, you know, like, all of that kind of stuff.

[B]

For sure.

[D]

That's also a personal preference.

[E]

To wrap up my review, though, like, I think this is a step up from Devil and Me. Devil and Me. I also had a lot of the. The glitches. This, I think, was a bit better in that regard than Devil, Devil and Me. And I also just. I like that we're going to space. I like that we're exploring more settings. I think there's a lot of cool things they do with the space stuff. It's a very big year for space. And so there is some retreaded ideas T everywhere. We're back to it third time, but escape. T cannot escape Cal City. And like, have you guys even played marathon? Because that's a big T. No way.

[B]

Is it really?

[E]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, overall, I think it's a step up from Devil and Me. I'd like to see him step up even more in some of these things. I'm not going to give it a final score because I've not beaten it. But currently I would echo Joey with the 6 out of 10 is where I'm at.

[B]

We're seeing if he'll just chill out with Cole. Nope. Nope. That's what he seemed like he wanted. That's not what he wants. Now he's off on his way. Madeline, you're the most positive on us. What for you makes it stand out? Like, why. Why do you are. What are you hearing from us and going, I didn't agree with that, but I understand.

[C]

Yeah. I think, you know, just to be transparent, obviously I'm a big supermassive fan. I, you know, I have the shirt to prove it's my favorite game.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

And so I just love this gameplay style in general, which is why I'm saying, like, if you're. If you are really predisposed to this, I think you're gonna be a little softer on some of the pain points here. I do think, unfortunately, it's like. I read a couple interviews, and they were talking about kind of dropping the season two and the dark pictures to kind of expand this to a broader audience. However, I feel like it kind of dilutes the thing that other. That the fans of it. Like. Like Blessing is saying. It's like, I came to this franchise for this specific thing, and you're kind of diluting it with other things that I'm not really wanting from you. Like, if I want to play a stealth game, I'll do something else. Alien Isolation is a very similar game in a lot of things, but does the stealth and the tension a little bit better in that way than this game? And there's a lot of similarities with the vents and the crawling around in the space and everything. I think for me, it is always still fun. I have long wanted Supermassive to bring in the flowchart turning point thing. As a big Detroit Become Human fan, I found that flowchart system and the turning points that Supermassive implemented it as really interesting and cool. Being able to go to specific points and replace things and see how it changes. I think it's a fun look into the machine and the puzzleness of it. And I think they implemented it pretty well with a couple of exceptions, which is that when they show you what the other option is and they kind of tell you what it is, versus, like, if you play Detroit Become Human, it just leaves it blank. You don't really know where that path goes.

[B]

Yeah. Like, for example, for people who can't see it. Right. Like, I have my chart up, and one of the ones I have blanked out after a choice, it says, you know, get caught and blank. So, like, I've already made the other choice. And now if I wanted to see the other choice, I see what I have to go back and what I have to do.

[E]

Yeah.

[B]

Which is nice of an. Not being what you're talking about. I think Madeline with Detroit, which was cool. There's two other options here. I'm not 1000% sure without a guide how I get to them.

[C]

Yeah. Which I think I do. I do wanted to highlight. I did want to highlight how customizable the game is, though. I don't know how much you all spent in the menus and stuff, which is that there are three different difficulty modes. There's the Challenging, which is like the traditional. The traditional version that you would play, but there's also Forgiving, which is the easiest one, and then Lethal, which makes it a little bit more harder. But you can also customize it so you can change that. Just the quicktime events are easy or just the quick time events are hard and vice versa. Same thing for accessibility too.

[B]

Of like, you don't have to tap, you can hold. That was one of the things. You know, again, playing. I did play in the Rog, I guess because yeah, it's so fucking loud and annoying that when I was. When Jen was sleeping, I was like, I can't be tapping. Gotta hold. Gotta just be able to hold this button.

[C]

Yeah. And then there's the Explorer versus Survivor mode, I think. Like if you want the classic dark pictures experience, I would play it on Challenging or Lethal and then Survivor and you kind of get more of that traditional experience. But then if you do the Explorer, you kind of have use of that flowchart thing.

[E]

Fun. Fun fact there. For multiplayer, you can change the difficulty per person and so on. Each person with a character and then, yeah, like each person it can be all right, you're challenging, you're this, you're that. All my friends that challenging. One of my friends wanted to do forgiving and we all bullied her into doing like, no, no, no, you're not going to be doing that.

[B]

So to flip then bless. You know, you were talking about watching your friends and they're playing style. Like, did they feel that? Was it one of those that they're playing like, I don't like doing this and I. This is too gamey for me.

[E]

I think it's.

[D]

This is one of those gamer friends or they.

[E]

They're gamer friends. But there's definitely like a range as far as you don't play these types of games. Versus I do. Like you put me in a stealth game, I'm going to. I'm selfie. Yeah. Self poppy is what they call me in the streets. Whereas like one of the one. A couple of my friends, I think actually maybe one person specifically does not like horror games, but they'll play them with other people. And so like she's freaking out, right? She's like not having a good time. She. We're that Honestly, the reason why we did finish this game, why I had to tap out early is like. Like I. I knew for a fact she was gonna stretch this till 3am like one of those things we're removing a step at a time kind of thing. And I, I think the thing that is special about this style of game is that we're all having fun regardless, you know what I mean? Like, even her. It's like cool. You're not a stealth person, but even when it's chaotic, I can tell that we're all still having a good time. And so like, I think they would have preferred it not to be stealth, but it's not like stealth ruined the, the vibes of it, if that makes sense.

[B]

Not a super chat. I'm sorry, Just a regular chat over there. Hero of Time 73 says. Did anyone, the panel say how long the game is? It's eight chapters and every chapter took me about 45 minutes, maybe an hour if I was like getting distracted by something else or putting it down.

[D]

Yeah, I'm somewhere around there. It's hard to tell how long the beginning took me, but I finished like right after midnight.

[E]

And I think.

[B]

How many bugs you have?

[E]

Yeah, yeah.

[D]

And I think I ended up. I forget when you texted me, it was probably like four o' clock and that's.

[B]

Yeah, my steam clock's at 7.9 hours, so. Right, right on the money there with the eight. Ish.

[C]

Yeah, my, my PlayStation clock said nine hours. I would say it probably took me like seven and a half to eight.

[D]

Yeah, you texted me at six.

[B]

So. Joe, Joey, you, you know, you went through, you struggled, you made it. Congratulations.

[C]

Thank you.

[B]

We did. Bless. Are you gonna go back to this? Are you gonna.

[E]

I want to, yeah. My plan is, I think me and my friends are gonna hang out again this weekend, so if they're free, we'll do it. And if we can't make it happen, I'll probably still see it through because at this point, if I, if I solo it, I'm beating it in like an hour and a half, probably. Yeah, we play with friends, like three hours, but we're getting there.

[B]

And then, Madeline, my question for you, and I guess Joey too, actually all three of us, and I'll start with Madeline. Are you planning on replaying. Are you going to go back for those decisions or are you using turning points and doing it or are you just. Are you one and done with these games? I don't even actually know how you play a supermassive one generally.

[C]

Yeah, I always usually play it once and then like maybe six months to a year later play it again. See what I kind of do differently. So I'll definitely be. I'll probably stream this tomorrow just. And start from the beginning and see what different things I can do. I do.

[D]

Where can people find you if they want to watch you play this?

[C]

Yes, if you want to watch me play this, you can find me on Twitch at Mad Exposure. I'll be streaming it tomorrow night, like 6pm PT. And you can see it from the beginning with me.

[D]

Yay.

[B]

There it is. There she is.

[C]

Oh, that's me.

[B]

Joey, what about you? Do you have any interest in seeing it again?

[D]

I do, only because not very many people made it through. And by number of people, I mean literally no one.

[C]

Whoa.

[D]

Made it through. It's because it's the stealth stuff. And I just, like, at that point was, like, kind of over it. So I was like, I don't really need to, like, fight through this. I. My will to survive was, like, pretty low. So I maybe, honestly, what I'll do is just watch Madeline play it so I can see different outcomes of stuff because I am interested, but I don't think enough to, like, I'm just so not good at that stuff and I don't care.

[B]

So the endings are interesting. My. You know, again, no spoilers. My ending, not even the main piece of the ending, gave me one of these. Like, oh, I didn't even know that. And I would have really liked. I want to know how that happened. And then also, like, I don't think I got a bad ending, but I definitely get the good ending and I didn't get the worst ending. So I'm like, how far can you push what we're doing in this game to get to the very, very end of this to see where it is? I'd like to know that, but I don't. Again, I'll. I'll play with Poe when he comes through or whoever else that way, but I don't feel enough desire to run back and go through all the turning points to do it. But also, this is never how I've ever been. I usually finish a super massive game and I'm like, that's what happened with me. Even Cory, which I really, really loved. Like, I never even saw the White Wolf or whatever. Everybody on the review, Remember on the review, everybody's like, what? And I'm like, never did. I never went back to see it. I just got text on the screen at the end. I was like, oh, that was a thing I should have seen. Oops.

[E]

The Quarry. I played through twice. One. Once by myself and then once with friends. And I love going back to these games, revisiting them. This One I don't have as much of a desire. I think it's because of the story. If the story hooked me a bit more, maybe there could be a bit of that. I did have a few choices where like I lost a member of the crew and I'm like, I wonder, like, I want to know how I could have saved that because that felt more choice based than like I didn't perform, you know.

[D]

Yeah, I definitely made some bad choices.

[E]

I made a choice where I was like, how can I not make this choice? And then that character died. And I'm like, wait, so what happened? Like, what happens if I don't do that? Then, you know, like, does a different character die? That's the thing that excites me about these games. And there is a little bit of that so far.

[D]

Now we have to talk about this all.

[B]

And I'm with you, I think all of us and how we've been talking about the stealth for me, which is stealth, but still the fucking air vents. Just so many goddamn air vents.

[E]

Yeah.

[B]

Of like. I think that gets in the way of what these. Makes these games the most fun. Which are those decisions, like if you could have. I know it sounds goofy, but truncate the gameplay between all the turning points. So it was more just a spider chart of figuring out what was going on and where we were going.

[E]

Yeah, like one of. One of the deaths that I had was very much stealth portion. This is a friend playing, right. And I could see. See it happening in real time where they're trying to dodge the person chasing them. Person catches them, they use their little stun baton to incapacitate them and then they're running away. And like halfway through them running I see the bar filling up and I'm like, hey, there's a cooldown. And like he doesn't really hear me. And then he gets caught again. He's like, I'll press it again. And like it doesn't happen. I'm like, ah, I wish again. This is the weird thing about multiplayer because I. I had the sticks first. Like I had the sticks through the first two chapters. So I don't know if that's the thing that maybe was tutorialized for me and they didn't catch or like, what

[B]

is this the old.

[C]

Is it.

[B]

Is this a play? Like the other ones of you put as many players and it tells you pass to player two past.

[E]

Yes. Well, it's. There's two ways to do it so you can play up to five players. There's two modes where you can round robin it or you can assign players characters. And so we went and we assigned players characters. And so when Cooper shows up, it'll be like, pass the controller to this person. Or when another character pops up, it'll say, pass the controller to this other person.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

I did want to mention that usually the Dark Pictures do ship with online multiplayer, but this one is not coming till later. They're going to update it later. And so I know that that is important for some people who are not wanting to couch co op but want to play online with their friends. I don't know when that's planning on coming out, but it does not immediately have online multiplayer.

[B]

Interesting. Okay, so one more time, no rating from Blessing.

[E]

No rating. But, you know, six out of ten, tentatively.

[D]

Okay, Joey, six out of ten.

[B]

I am also a six out of ten. Mads.

[C]

7.5 for me.

[B]

I love that. I love that. Of course, we wouldn't be doing our due diligence if we didn't do a little series we like to call Supermassive in Review. What's up, everyone? Welcome to Podcast Within a Podcast where we rank and review all the Supermassive games that are in this style. This is actually a brand new segment we're starting, right? So we're going to go through and talk about how we're ranking Until dawn, man of Medan, Little Hope, House of Ashes, the Quarry and Devil in Me. We are not ranking, Casting a Frank Stone as we are not Dead by Daylight players and did not do it. And of course, sorry, we're obviously tossing in the directive.

[E]

I mean, are we all. Are we doing this individually or are we talking as a group?

[B]

You know, we didn't really plan it out, so we're kind of figuring. I think we're talking it out, right? I think that's the fun part is

[E]

uncle dawn is until dawn number one for all of us.

[B]

Absolutely not. House of Ashes is number one. You put out House of Ashes. It was again that what we're talking about leaning into being a B horror schlocky movie. It's Ashley Tinsdale in Iraq.

[E]

Yeah.

[D]

Fuck yeah.

[E]

Let's go.

[B]

Whatever. I think, like, there's also. I'm spoiling it, everybody. Sorry. All right. There's fucking vampires in it. And then that moment when you got into, like, the fucking heart of the pyramid cave, whatever it was, and there's the dude who's been alive for like 5,000 years in his eye moves. I was like, that's the most horrific thing they've ever done.

[E]

Like, see, I'm not mad at that, but, like, I. So my top three, if I'm going to order is until dawn, the Quarry, House of Ashes. Yeah, I could see those remixing in any sort of way. But I agree that, like, House of Ashes just has something different to it.

[C]

It has the juice.

[E]

It does have the juice.

[B]

And my other thing too, that I loved about House of Ashes is that. And stick with me, it was short. I want to say. You could roll credits on a playthrough in like four hours. And Jen and I did that. And it was like. That is another one of the things I'd like to see supermassive take advantage of. I think the episodes here are a great move, but for these kind of games, like, I've never even contemplated playing them with my friends because it's like, well, unless you're like, I'm living with you, Jen and Lucy. Yeah, we're gonna play. And then when are we together again for another eight, four hours.

[D]

Too long for like one place.

[B]

And that was my thing, you know, Especially in hindsight. I mean, I love Until Dawn. Until Dawn's great. Don't be wrong. But I just think until dawn is so long where it's like even another playthrough of unfilled dawn for like the remake. I was like, I don't want to do that. You know what I mean? And playing it in the moment, it was like, it's a very long horror movie. If we're trying to crib horror movies, I'd rather than be. We're doing at three to four. Right. Like, I think again, mixtape, which isn't horror, but is obviously a coming of age movie. You're playing three hours. Fuck yeah. I can do that in a sitting. I can get the vibes out of it.

[E]

When Madeline was here, how long did it take us to play through? Until Dawn.

[C]

Was that multiverse?

[E]

Was that like a marathon stream or was that two different days?

[C]

Yeah, we did two different sessions of like four hours each, I think.

[E]

I mean, I'm not mad at House of Ashes at number one.

[D]

I am.

[C]

I think I would say Until Dawn. I agree with you, Blessing. There is an undisputed top three. I don't think anyone would put anything else in there, but I do think for me, it's Until Dawn, House of Ashes, and then the Quarry.

[D]

That's. That's my.

[E]

Okay. I'm not mad at that. So Until Dawn, House of Ashes, the quarry.

[B]

Our top three here.

[E]

Our top three. I would put directive 8020 right under

[D]

those Oh, I would not.

[B]

This is where you gotta stretch and go, all right.

[E]

Because I. I think part of it is I don't remember that much. A Little Hope, man of Madonna, man of Medan. I hate it.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

All right, so we're agreeing on that. Amanda goes to the bottom. I like that. I like.

[E]

See, I put Devil in Me.

[C]

I tried to replay it, and I couldn't even finish it. I was like, I don't want to do this anymore.

[B]

I'm leaving, and I'm done. Thank you very much.

[D]

I liked Devil in Me more than most people did.

[B]

That was the thing where I did a games cat or whatever. Whatever. Where I apologized, where I let the reviews on that one go. I'm like, I'm not gonna touch it. And me and Poe played. It was like, oh. Maybe because my expectations were so bottom tier low, but I was like, I enjoyed this. Like, I don't. You know, I got nothing. I'm not. I don't know if I'd go super high. I got man of Medan where I want it dead last. So I'm happy with that. Little Hope.

[E]

Little Hope.

[A]

Little Hope.

[E]

The one with Will Pulter. Will Poulter.

[C]

Yeah, Will Poulter.

[E]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[C]

And it's like spoilers for Little Hope. I'm just putting it out there. Little Hope is a little divisive because at the end of the game, you find out that everything that happened that you did was just in this old man's brain, and he was just imagining it all a classic. So, like, anything you did really didn't matter because none of them were real people, and he was just imagining this whole thing in his brain. And that doesn't feel great when it's all choices matter thing.

[D]

I hate the. Yeah. It was all a dream or whatever.

[B]

So I would go then. Yeah. I would say then, blessing, you're on the money. I would put underneath the Quarry Directive 80:20. Then I would do Devil and Me.

[E]

I mean, I think I'm outvoted on Devil and Me.

[B]

Whatever you say. It was gonna go very bottom.

[E]

But I think that was. I think that was the review experience of just.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

Pre patch.

[B]

And that was the thing. Yeah, you got. I remember you played it beforehand. I didn't. I forget what I was on, so I didn't do it or whatever.

[E]

So are we saying then, until dawn. House of Ashes, the quarry, top three, directive 80 20, devil and me. Little Hope made of Madonna.

[C]

That's my exact ranking.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

That's not my ranking, but I have made Concessions.

[B]

What would you. I mean especially with these last ones.

[D]

I would. My bottom ones would be Devil and Me. Little Hope Directive. Man of a D. Oh man.

[C]

Yeah. I really just didn't like.

[D]

I just really don't like stealth.

[E]

This is really what it is.

[B]

I also, and I feel like it, I mean like this. I'm happy with the ranking. So again, number one, until dawn. Number two, house of ashes. Number three, the quarry. Number four, directive 80 20. Number five, devil and me. Number six, little hope. Number seven, man of Medan. Back to it. Especially spoilers. There's an upcoming kind of funny. Kind of. Well, I was going to. I fucked it up all the time. Kind of feudy. We have a kind of feudy upcoming where I ask the panel who is not supermassive people? And it was a bad question. What is the next movie monster supermassive should put in the game. Right. And I feel like that's the thing that like directive 8020 just almost feels too sci fi. It doesn't feel horror movie enough.

[E]

Oh.

[B]

You know what I mean? And I don't know 100% what that means, but the fact that the monster kind of feels like a side project by the end of it, I'm like, that's not great.

[C]

Well, I did. I did learn that this was originally two different space games that they pushed into one.

[B]

Oh.

[C]

So I don't know if that affects it. I'm. I don't know what the two different things were. But I kind of feel like initially maybe the shape shifting people was one thing and then the big blobby thing was a different thing. That makes sense. Then they pushed it into one thing together because it is very much like, yeah, Alien and the thing kind of mixed together. But it is. It is it? Yeah. It doesn't. I think it's too serious. I think we were talking about the be hero. I think that's the. The B movie thing, which is that it's way it takes itself extremely seriously. Like, and it should be more like aliens and it's trying to be like alien but it can't quite reach that vibe. That's a great take.

[E]

Yeah.

[D]

Good take.

[B]

100.

[E]

Agree. One thing I'll recommend if you're playing this with people, make a little bingo sheet for yourself because that's what we did. That's so fun. Yeah. I put in there a head gets turned 180. I'm really excited to see if that ever pans out. We did like human killing human. We did. These aren't spoilers. There's Blocks we put in there.

[B]

Educated guesses.

[E]

Educated horror movie.

[B]

This is.

[E]

Yeah. Like capitalism gone wrong. Was a very fun way to go about this, so.

[B]

Oh, yeah, they call.

[C]

I love that. That's so fun. Blessing.

[B]

Is it too late to get the games cast?

[E]

Gameplay, Scientific hubris. And. Oh, that's Meg, who I played with.

[D]

Yes.

[B]

Oh, nice.

[D]

Wait. Well, I guess it's a future kind of beauty, so I won't. I don't know what the answer is. I want, like, I feel like we're not getting enough, like, Bloody Mary, kind of like ghosty. Oh, I would love, like Urban Legend, the Hook man, like all of those.

[C]

That would be so good.

[D]

That's kind of what I want next.

[B]

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I guess that is a good question of where do we go from here? I should. No, I don't. Stay out. Redacted. Redacted, Redacted. Okay. Where should we go from here?

[E]

Feel like back to earth?

[B]

Well, yeah, I definitely think back to Earth. That's my thing is like, we gotta get.

[E]

I think it has to be young adults.

[D]

I think so too.

[E]

Unless, like, you really have the chops to tell a more serious sci fi or a more serious horror story or Sci fi. Whatever you want to do. I think we. We lean in on the campy teens getting killed at some woodsy cabin.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[E]

I feel like that's your bread and butter.

[C]

I did have, like two quick questions. Did y' all text a lot during the game?

[B]

Oh, oh, you mean in the game? I was like, no.

[E]

Yes, we did, actually.

[C]

There's like the texting mechanic and I had very mixed feelings about it and I was just curious how much of the texting you were doing with your crew.

[B]

I am a completionist. And so to see that, I was like, I'm going to do that. And I at many times are like, I'm wasting my time.

[E]

Basically.

[B]

You have a data pad on your arm, right. Audience, that you can call up in the. See all your other people and then you text them and then you have a little verbal or text conversation with whoever you're talking to in the game. And it was like, it's what we're kind of talking about of like the performance variety of like the craziest just happens. And I text you something and you're not responding in the same way.

[E]

The white man, the white European man. You got to get your head in the game, bro. Like, shit's going down. We got to get serious. Why are you talking to me about race? Random. That does not. That doesn't Matter.

[B]

So, yeah, it doesn't feel. It doesn't feel like it's actually fleshing anything out. Occasionally get stuff. But there's like one relationship in the game where I was like, what exactly are you guys? A couple? Just best friends. What's like where. I don't know.

[D]

Yeah. I would only do the texting stuff when I was reminded about it in game. Like when they reference it. Like, oh, pull out your phone and be like, oh, I have like a lot of conversations that I guess I could tap into right now.

[E]

Yeah.

[D]

So then I would do it in like batches.

[C]

Yeah. There was definitely like high pressure situations where something scary is happening. I'm like hiding or whatever, trying to do stealth. And it's like you have a text message and I open and it's like, hey, like, how's it going out there?

[B]

Not good.

[E]

Yeah.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

But you respond and you're like, I don't know, things look weird. I'll get back to you. It's so like nonchalant. I'm like, this is not a good time to be texting. You are in a life or death situation.

[D]

I also have decided that I want like a maybe like crawl slash jaws version of this where I want like a killer animal.

[E]

Oh, I like that.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[D]

Me, we're escaping some sort of killer animal. I would like that.

[E]

I like that a lot.

[D]

Man versus nature kind of vibe.

[E]

I don't know. Oh, this.

[B]

Ghosts are great.

[D]

Ghosts are so. There's so many directions we could go with ghosts.

[E]

I don't think this would.

[C]

Supernatural would be great.

[B]

This would.

[E]

This wouldn't fit the structure. But like, I just love a quiet place so much and I'm sure we've gotten a Quiet Place video game. But I. I'd be interested to see their take on it.

[D]

We kind of had that a little bit in until dawn with like the. With the heartbeat.

[B]

That was something I missed in this one.

[E]

Yeah.

[B]

No heartbeat stuff. And then no, like, keep your controller still. Like, this is what I understand.

[E]

It's like they haven't done that since Until Dawn.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I guess because multi platform, I must be stretching. You don't have to keep your mouse completely still. PC players.

[D]

Interesting.

[C]

Did you have another question, Madeline?

[D]

I feel like.

[B]

Yeah, she said two. Yeah.

[C]

Yeah. The other thing was just kind of. Did you see. We talked about how they're kind of pulling away from the Dark Pictures anthology sort of overlay, but there is a connection to another Dark Pictures game. Did you see that reference?

[B]

I didn't pop into that one.

[D]

No, I did not.

[C]

So just for the Dark pictures freakos out there like me, there is a connection to some other dark pictures games that you can discover.

[E]

That's cool.

[C]

Which I liked.

[E]

Well, hell yeah, that's cool. Because I think I've been leaning towards why are we even doing dark pictures right like here. I feel like the connecting tissue for dark Pictures for me has been the. Oh, what's his name? The Curator. The Curator between every chapter, like introducing you to what's happening next. And this game, of course, doesn't have that rip. The actor had passed away. And I feel like even without that there's. Those are now just replaced with title sequence cards or end of the episode cards. I'm missing out on the identity of what makes this Dark Pictures versus the quarry, you know, which isn't dark pictures either. You know, Like, I feel like these could just be standalone games. Even though now I'm in a place where if they announce a game that's not Dark Pictures, I'm like, oh, it's gonna be another Quarry.

[B]

Or if it's published by 2K.

[E]

Yeah, 2K or Bandai.

[B]

So one thing I'll float out there is I was paying attention to the credits. The credits do list the curator. I did not see him. I did not hear him. But somewhere in this motherfucker, the curator's living.

[E]

Interesting.

[B]

We'll wait and see.

[D]

I am interested in how that ties

[B]

in, I think, you know, to Madeline's point at the top of this of being a fan and wearing the shirt like I'm a fan as well. And maybe not Ride or die, but these are always. I'm going to play these games.

[E]

Yeah.

[B]

And so I'm excited. I'm always going to be excited for the next supermassive. These kind of games. Right. And it really is an interesting one.

[D]

I'm just like, ah.

[B]

Like I never expect a 10 out of 10. But I just feel like the gameplay segments here just didn't get me enough to make me go.

[E]

Every now and then you get a House of Ashes, though. And I think that's even.

[B]

That's like Dish. So many people don't like House of Ashes. When I was like, that's my favorite one. Really crazy. Yeah, yeah.

[E]

You gotta talk to those people.

[C]

They have bad taste.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. But you know, everybody wants something different for us.

[D]

Also, the curator is not Peter Stormare for the show.

[C]

Oh, yeah. I miss him too. Different. It does feel like kind of like following your favorite sports team, right? Where you're like, even when they're bad this season and they're just, like, really whiffing it, you still love them and you're like, this is my team. And that's how I feel about supermassive games. Even at their worst, I'm still kind of enjoying them. But every year you kind of hope that this is their main season.

[E]

Matty, you said earlier, and I'm with you, that I'm also a fan of Detroit Become Human. I don't say that often because I know how insane it sounds, but I think this game is a step toward maybe getting there. As far as there's something weird with Detroit Become Human, specifically, that game is very popular. And, like, I see it every now and then just on Tick tock or algorithms where people are still playing it, making content out of it. Like, there's something about that game that is sticky. And I think a big part of it is just the butterfly effect thing. But then also, you know that Quantum Dream has a weird level, Solved racism. It solved racism with the robots, but also they have a weird level of,

[D]

like, high production racism.

[E]

Oh, I don't know anything.

[A]

Oh, Joe.

[C]

Joey

[B]

ROBOT sings and then.

[E]

And then you're gonna be even more perplexed of, like, Blessing likes this game.

[C]

I like it for the gameplay playing Detroit Become Human.

[E]

The systems are really cool. The systems are really, really good. And my guy, Connor, like, you can't. You gotta love Connor.

[B]

Gotta love him.

[C]

He's the best.

[E]

But, yeah, I think this game, with what they're doing with the Turning Point stuff, is a step toward that. And I think you can, I think, lean in more into that. I think you could get there.

[B]

Agreed, Agreed.

[C]

I agree. I want this to be a good foundation moving forward to get something like pick up the story a little bit, tighten up some of the gameplay segments and really flesh out a stronger story. With that Turning Point system, I think we could get a really good mix of what Supermassive does and what Quantric Dream had done in the past and get this really awesome horror decision game that has that stickiness that Detroit Become Human has and until dawn has.

[B]

I'm prepping the clip for Joey.

[D]

Oh, I didn't know it was, like, a lie.

[E]

All right, spoilers.

[B]

I was gonna turn my computer. We could.

[E]

I feel like. I think It'd be fun. 1. It's been a decade. Like, it's been a decade. And, like, you know, here I'm Baron.

[B]

I'm sending you the time I was working at ign.

[E]

Is it a spoiler? If it's something that you might miss.

[B]

I'm not even talking about it being a spoiler as much as I. I always worry about getting claimed or some BS or yada yada.

[E]

What song are they singing it again?

[B]

I don't know. Does that even. I don't think I just mean, like, the creator that we're using.

[E]

Oh, I see.

[B]

VGS video game.

[E]

Oh, that's like full gameplay of a game, though.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was. So here we are. This is your final stand.

[D]

Oh, the guy from Grizz Anatomy.

[B]

Yeah.

[E]

This is the. This is like the ending.

[B]

Here you go.

[E]

This is one of the androids are being prescribed. Executed. These are the androids.

[D]

Okay.

[C]

Oh,

[B]

they've all been hunted. Here we go. Kiss North. Sing. Sing.

[E]

I love this game.

[C]

So goofy. I love it.

[E]

It's so doofy.

[B]

Is that Minka Kelly? Had a good time with this one.

[C]

It is Minka Kelly.

[B]

Yes. Michael, back to you in the studio. Wait a minute.

[E]

Something's happening. I mess with Tom Drew to make these games. Hold on just a little while longer. Hold on just a. He lowers the gun.

[B]

Is this robot singing right now?

[E]

And Kylie Jenner walks up, hands him a Coke.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

This walks will be imagined in Covid video. Could run.

[E]

Everything will be all right. Everything. When I say how much I love this game. I didn't get this ending.

[B]

No, I mean, like, I think I

[E]

kissed the girl or something.

[B]

My thing is, like, I had a great time with Detroit to come here.

[D]

Oh, they all start singing.

[B]

Yes. It's the usual Quantic Dream, chewing the scenery, yada, yada, yada.

[C]

All.

[B]

Every choice game has some weird ass wacky bullshit thing you're gonna do. Like, why the fuck would this work?

[E]

I mean, maybe that's what Dark Pictures is missing.

[D]

Not enough musical numbers.

[E]

I mean, there was a point in episode one for this Dark Pictures game where because we had to replay it twice, there was, like, one choice I made different in dialogue, and it was a ten times better dialogue scene of Sims explaining to the other character, like, some of her backstory. What she has, like, opinion is, so

[B]

tell him to stand down. The robots sing.

[D]

Yes.

[A]

The military is withdrawing.

[D]

I.

[B]

You all know how the military works. That's how it is.

[E]

All we have to do is just

[D]

sing at these protests.

[E]

Nobody's singing. That's what we need to do. Like when I call for, like, you know, we need more diversity in people that make video games and work. This is what I'm talking about because, like, what are we doing here?

[D]

Is that a good way or A bad way.

[E]

Oh, in a bad way. Like

[B]

this is again a bunch of Parisians going, how could we solve racism bigotry in the United States?

[E]

How you get.

[B]

What if they sang right there? Well, clearly the military would stand down.

[E]

Hillary Clinton ass looking president. Yeah, you know this, this game came out what, 2017? Yeah. Yeah, they thought, they thought it was gonna go different.

[D]

Oh yeah, it's like the hall of Presidents animatronic at Disneyland.

[E]

Exactly. Yeah, they really thought it was gonna be Hillary.

[D]

That's crazy.

[E]

And her last name's Warren. Oh, gosh damn.

[B]

Everybody, that's our review of Directive 8020. A trio of sixes and a 7.5 from the one, the only Madeline Stanley. Madeline, where can everybody keep up with you?

[C]

Yeah, you can find me on Twitch at Mattexposure and on Blue sky and Instagram as mat exposure as well. Pretty much everywhere is mad exposure. I'll be there talking about horror things and on twitch tomorrow at 6pm on twitch tomorrow at 6pm PT Madeline, we

[B]

got to get you back up here for something soon. I would love to everybody, of course. Remember, this is the kind of funny Games cast part of your daily livestream content from us, a network all about live talk shows. Every day begins with kind of funny games daily, then into games cast, then like Mondays into the one, the only kind of feudi, your favorite trivia show hosted and invented by me. After that of course we stream some video games and have a great time. That means the show is far from over. But if you're not watching live on Twitch, YouTube, et cetera, podcast services, head on over to YouTube.com kind of funny games and catch everything we did on demand. However, we'd really like you to pick up a kinda funny membership patreon.com kindafunny YouTube.com kindafunnygames Apple Spotify, you toss us a few bucks, we give you everything ad free. Your daily dose of me, Greg Miller in a series we call Greg way. And of course good karma for supporting 11 person, 11 year old small business. Right now. However, the gamescast is done. Until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.