Gary Whitta's Helldivers 2 Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

Kinda Funny Gamescast: Gary Whitta's Helldivers 2 Review - Detailed Summary

Release Date: December 16, 2024

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1. Introduction

In this episode of the Kinda Funny Gamescast, hosts Greg Miller, Snowbike Mike (Blessing Adeoye), Gary Whitta, and Joey Noel delve into a comprehensive review of Helldivers 2: Omens of Tyranny. Prior to the main discussion, the cast touches upon other gaming topics, including Path of Exile 2 and the evolving landscape of live service games.

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2. Path of Exile 2 Discussion

Timestamp: 01:00 - 05:30

Gary Whitta shares his recent experience with the Metaphor Refantazio demo, highlighting his determination to beat the game despite skepticism from the community.

• Gary: "I'll beat video games out of spite for each and every one of you." [01:23]

Greg Miller inquires about Gary's enjoyment, to which Gary responds positively, emphasizing his appreciation for the game's deep story and engaging turn-based battles.

• Gary: "I really, really, I dig the story. Lot going on there, really goes deep." [02:19]

The conversation shifts to comparing Path of Exile 2 with Diablo 4, discussing the complexity and depth of each game.

• Greg: "Is this more hardcore than Diablo, would you say?" [22:07]
• Gary: "I think it's a little more punishing. I think it's on the same level of Diablo, but a little more." [22:15]

The hosts debate whether there is room for both games in the market, considering their similarities and unique features.

• Joey Noel: "Diablo is like a wider net that's a little bit more shallow versus Path of Exile is a smaller net that's way more deep." [24:37]

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3. Helldivers 2: Omens of Tyranny Review

Timestamp: 41:43 - 84:18

Snowbike Mike takes the lead in reviewing Helldivers 2: Omens of Tyranny, drawing from his extensive experience with over 1,020 hours in the game.

• Mike: "I just bought the Super Citizen edition to support the developers. Everything is buyable with in-game currency, which is very nice." [62:24]
• Mike: "Helldivers 2 is the most fun I've had playing a game, maybe ever. The secret sauce is undeniable." [61:54]

Key highlights of the Omens of Tyranny expansion include:

• New Factions: Introduction of the Illuminate enemies adds a fresh and challenging dynamic to gameplay.

  • Mike: "The Illuminate are super engaging, like playing Dark Souls in a Diablo setting." [21:10]

• Vehicles: Implementation of vehicles such as mechs and the new tram-like vehicle enhances mobility and strategic options.

  • Mike: "The vehicle has manual transmission, adding complexity and fun. It's like reviving the chaos of PUBG's early days." [44:43]

• Urban Warfare: New urban environments require players to adapt to tighter spaces and coordinated team plays.

  • Mike: "Urban missions introduce dead-ends and shielded enemies, necessitating more teamwork and strategy." [65:19]

Gary Whitta praises the game's sound design, graphical fidelity, and the cooperative gameplay mechanics that Helldivers 2 excels in.

• Gary: "The sound design is phenomenal. Weapons feel meaty, and the combat is engaging." [53:30]

Despite some bugs introduced with the new expansion, Mike remains enthusiastic about the updates and the direction of the game.

• Mike: "Omens of Tyranny is a fantastic addition. It feels exactly what the game needed at this time." [84:18]

He acknowledges the challenges faced by the development team in maintaining momentum post-launch but remains hopeful for future updates and expansions.

• Mike: "A major content drop like the Illuminate is what keeps players engaged and brings back the fervor." [72:12]

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4. Player Experience and Community Dynamics

Timestamp: 06:32 - 33:00

The hosts discuss their personal gaming habits, focusing on Helldivers 2 and Path of Exile 2.

• Gary: "I've never gone more than a couple of days without playing Helldivers. It's my most played game of the year." [46:53]
• Greg: "I love Path of Exile 2, but sometimes the lack of trophies makes me question how much I want to continue." [31:10]

Snowbike Mike emphasizes the importance of cooperative gameplay and effective communication, especially when tackling challenging missions and boss fights.

• Mike: "Coordinating with teammates is crucial, especially with new enemies that require strategic approaches." [57:26]

The conversation also touches upon the decline of voice communications in online gaming, with players increasingly relying on text and pings.

• Mike: "Voice comms have fallen out of fashion, but they're still essential for coordinated team play." [49:53]
• Joey Noel: "It's rare to find players who use voice, especially when players realize biases based on gender." [50:03]

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5. Live Service Games and Player Retention

Timestamp: 33:00 - 54:00

The hosts analyze the challenges faced by live service games in retaining their player base over time. They discuss strategies to maintain engagement, such as frequent content updates and expansions.

• Gary: "Arrowhead's roadmap shows ambition, aiming to keep the game fresh with new content and expansions." [73:13]
• Mike: "Keeping the momentum is tough, but major drops like the Illuminate can reignite player interest." [72:14]

They also compare Helldivers 2 with other live service games, noting the importance of balancing updates with player expectations.

• Gary: "The game's success now requires them to manage the influx of players while ensuring new content maintains quality." [75:10]

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6. Voices and Communication in Gaming

Timestamp: 49:09 - 51:47

The discussion highlights the shift away from voice communications in online multiplayer games, where players now prefer text-based interactions. This trend affects team coordination and overall gaming experience.

• Mike: "When you’re using powerful stratagems, coordinating via voice is essential to prevent accidental friendly fire." [50:54]
• Joey: "As a woman in gaming, using voice often leads to negative experiences, making text a safer choice." [50:06]

The hosts agree that while voice comms can enhance teamwork, the rise of toxicity and personal biases discourages their widespread use.

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7. Conclusion

Timestamp: 84:18 - End

The episode wraps up with Gary Whitta giving a high commendation to Helldivers 2: Omens of Tyranny, assigning it a near-perfect score despite minor bugs. Mike reiterates his unwavering enthusiasm for the game, emphasizing its engaging gameplay and excellent design.

• Gary: "Helldivers 2 deserves a 10. It’s seamlessly blended strategy, teamwork, and thrilling action." [84:18]
• Mike: "The game is so engrossing that even without further progression, the fun never wanes." [68:34]

The hosts encourage listeners to continue supporting their favorite games and engaging with the community to keep the gaming experience vibrant and enjoyable.

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Notable Quotes

• Greg Miller: "Don't talk about big time Mike... Why is everybody big time? He's got to talk to me." [00:51]
• Gary Whitta: "I really, really, I dig the story. Lot going on there, really goes deep." [02:19]
• Gary Whitta: "Helldivers overall? I have to give it a 10. It's the most fun I've had playing a game maybe ever." [61:54]
• Snowbike Mike: "Helldivers nails all of that. The sound design is amazing. The weapons all feel great." [53:30]
• Gary Whitta: "Path of Exile 2 has completely won me over. I might be a POE guy now." [20:26]

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This in-depth summary captures the essence of the Kinda Funny Gamescast episode, providing insights into Helldivers 2, Path of Exile 2, and broader gaming dynamics related to live service models and community interactions. Whether you're a seasoned gamer or new to these titles, this episode offers valuable perspectives on engaging gameplay and the importance of robust game design.

Transcript

[Greg Miller]

This episode is brought to you by Dutch Bros. Big smiles, rocking tunes and epic drinks Dutch Bros. Is all about. You choose from a variety of customizable handcrafted beverages like our rebel energy drinks, coffees, teas and more. Download the Dutch Bros app for a free medium drink. Plus find your nearest shop, order ahead and start earning rewards offer valid for.

[Snowbike Mike]

New app users only.

[Greg Miller]

Free medium drink REWARD upon registration 14 day expiration terms apply. See dutchbros.com what's up, everybody? Welcome to the kind of funny games cast for Monday, December 16, 2024. I would have your host Greg Miller alongside Christmas in December. Joey Noel.

[Joey Noel]

Mike, do you think that Andy's trying to big time you by not having you in the gamescast intro?

[Gary Whitta]

Oh, yeah. He's been big timing me a lot. Okay. And we're going to talk about it here, but he's not the person I want to talk about right now.

[Greg Miller]

Don't talk about big time Mike. When I walked in today, you and blessing two lumps on a cucumber. Nobody, nobody says hi to Greg. Nobody says, I go talk to Barrett. I said, barrett, what's going on over here? Why is that? Why is everybody big time? He's got to talk to me. And Mike, you know I hate talking to people in the morning.

[Gary Whitta]

I like talking to people.

[Greg Miller]

I can't believe you're big time. And Greg got to listen to his goddamn punk rock music in there, all right. While he sets up everything. That's how it's got to be over there.

[Gary Whitta]

I want to talk about one big timer out in the chat right now. Of course, you know this is all out of love, but you know I got to call you outs. On Friday, December 13th during a kind of funny games daily, I told one blessing out of Yo Y Jr that I was going to try the metaphor refantazio demo because I had time on my hands and I was willing to give it a try. And one Corey Pichu jabroni in the chat said, snowbike, Mike, you're not going to beat that demo lmfao. And I said, get out of my face, Corey. I got all the time in the world. I'll go out there and I'll learn about the game and I'll play it. And then another jabroni J6,7. Kevin says, Mike, you have to look at med. You have to look at menus and metaphor. No way you're beating it. I beat it, okay? That's what you get. Five and a half hours. I'll beat video games out of spite for Each and every one of you. Okay.

[Greg Miller]

Did you enjoy it at all? Snowbike Mike, the master of hype.

[Gary Whitta]

Yeah, Greg, I am actually pleased to say that I did enjoy Metaphor. I thought metaphor was a really fun time. 2024, as many people know, been a year about stepping out of my comfort zone, trying new genres, franchises, games that I probably never would try or give the chance to. And I will say over the weekend, six hours of metaphor, I had a blast. I really, really, I dug the story. Lot going on there, really goes deep. Really gets into some territory where I'm like, oh man, you're set. They had a pot, they put it on the stove top, they started warming it up, they were putting in some seasoning and I was like, oh, you're about to create something here. I see it. I loved the really intense anime cutscenes where it's like, oh man, am I just watching an episode of my favorite anime? Maybe I should just put the controller down to then the fun turn based battles of fighting on the front line, back line, trying different archetypes, what mixes well with my playstyle. Maybe I got the healer this time. Maybe I'm gonna go with the mage. Oh, you gotta deepen the bond with that person to go a little bit deeper, get some more.

[Joey Noel]

Have you ever played Persona or no.

[Gary Whitta]

I know.

[Joey Noel]

Oh, okay, so this is like your first four.

[Greg Miller]

So what's the. But here's the thing. You did it out of spite. You beat the devil out of spite. Are you going to keep going or is that enough for you? You've played metaphor and you're like, I get it. The chanting's cool, the turn based stuff's fine. I'm out.

[Gary Whitta]

Here's the deal, Greg. If I had 50 hours to spare, I would do that. But unfortunately, my life does not have that many hours in the day to give that to it. So I don't think I will go back to this. But if I had all the time in the world, it would either be Yakuza, like a dragon, or I would play this game. Those would be my Roger's gonna stop. That would be my dream rpg if I could juggle one right now. So we'll see.

[Greg Miller]

Here comes Barry Corbyn.

[Gary Whitta]

I'm happy to say I played it.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, maybe if you took a little bit of a break from Microsoft Flight Simulator, which apparently reported from you is still kind of a mess.

[Gary Whitta]

Still a mess. But I'm playing it, Greg. I got a ppl and I'm flying.

[Joey Noel]

What does that mean, Barrett?

[Greg Miller]

How fast can you get through metaphor because I remember you. I thought you put in a lot of time, but then I was listening to the Ilana Pierce Game of the Year convers conversation that I won yesterday. But Cam Hawkins was on there, and he was like, oh, you know, metaphor is not. I forget who he was telling you to. Maybe a lot of herself. It's like 60 hours. He said you could get through and do it. Is that true? I mean, you could. I wouldn't recommend it because then you're going to be under leveled for, like, to get through that game in 60 to 65 hours. You're skipping a lot of side stuff, which means that you're not getting the full experience. You're. Well, not even getting the full experience. You're not level grinding. So then in the last, like, quarter of that game, you are super underleveled, which is going to make things way harder for you.

[Gary Whitta]

But I.

[Greg Miller]

There are also people who beat Persona 3 reload in like, 50 hours. And it took me like, 90 or something like that. So I don't. Maybe they have some secret code unlocked in their brain that they can get through that game called Skip all the dialogue.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Joey Noel]

The Joey special.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Play on easy. You automate the battles. Yeah.

[Joey Noel]

If you bumped it down to, like, easy and stuff like that, would that probably.

[Greg Miller]

If you. If you bumped it down to, like, storytelling.

[Gary Whitta]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Just, like, didn't do any of the side stuff. Yeah, probably. Okay.

[Gary Whitta]

Did you know there's a sword and he rides on the sword skateboard?

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, I do that all the time.

[Gary Whitta]

It's pretty lit.

[Greg Miller]

I know how to get around town. I know how to.

[Gary Whitta]

I'll give him that. Give him that. And also, there's a father, and he's got a daughter. And unlike one father in my life, he goes and checks in on his daughter. Okay. Until, you know, some happens. Some happens. Play the game. It's pretty good, y'all. It's pretty good. If you like that game.

[Barrett Courtney]

What father are you?

[Gary Whitta]

I'm talking about Big G. Big G is one of the early characters you meet. He daps up my boy.

[Snowbike Mike]

I know.

[Gary Whitta]

I know about Greece.

[Greg Miller]

You said, unlike a different father, I'll.

[Gary Whitta]

Barrett in Final Fantasy 7. He doesn't.

[Snowbike Mike]

I thought you were talking about me for something.

[Greg Miller]

This is one of those things. I just nodded. I was like, this is a deep cut of kind of funny lore, and I'm lost. I don't know. Something about me that I don't know. Of course, we'll soon be joined by the rogue one. Gary Whitta for his Helldivers review. But first I'll tell you that this is the Kind of Funny Games cast. Each and every weekday we get together, sometimes four, sometimes five best friends are on this table to talk about the video games we need to whether they be previews, reviews or just topics of the show. Right Joe?

[Joey Noel]

Yeah, I wasn't expecting that.

[Greg Miller]

I know. That's why let's keep you on your toes. Of course you can get it online, live, YouTube.com kinda funnygames, Twitch TV, kindafunnygames later on podcast services or YouTube.com kinda funny games. No matter where you get the gamescast, please know we are ever in your debt for the support you give us. If you want to go a little bit further, of course we would love you to be part of this show with your live super chat comments on YouTube.com kindofunnygames you can give us your opinions of Path of Exile 2 which we're about to talk about, or Helldivers 2 and Omens of Tyranny. Whatever you want to say, we want to hear. So do that on YouTube.com kindafunnygames if you're watching later or just watching now and you want to go that extra mile, we'd love you to pick up a Kinda Funny membership. You can get it on patreon.com kindafunny or YouTube.com kindofunnygames to all of our shows ad free. Get the ability to watch us record the afternoon podcast live as you're recording them. And of course get your daily dose of me Greg Miller in a series we call Greg Way. Some housekeeping for you. Remember we're an 11 person business all about live talk shows. You already got your switch to renders on Kinda Funny Games daily. And after this you're gonna get a stream for our hope Miss charity stream where we're playing the Mind which I've never played before.

[Joey Noel]

I don't think Mike's ever played me.

[Greg Miller]

And Bless have played. We like it a lot. We like it a lot. Jen likes it a lot too, but she's not here so don't. I don't think you're getting Jen today. Okay, she's not here. If you're a kind of funny member though, you can get a Greg away from me. About the Superman movie memories I have because important Thursday scheduling update, you will not be getting a games cast. Instead at 9am you are getting the live reaction to the Superman trailer. It will be myself, Tim, Nick, anybody else who wants to come through. We of course will abstain from watching it when it posts at 6am so we can live react here and talk about our hopes and dreams for James Gunn's new Superman movie. Then it'll be your normal day kind of 10am kind of funny Games daily with Tim and Andy and then Happy hour at 11am Meaning no stream that day, just happy hour, which of course is our Patreon exclusive show where you can call in and watch us talk to you and talk to other people and have a great time. Thank you to our Patreon producers Delaney Twining and Carl Jacobs. Today we're brought to you by Heart. Electric still wakes the deep aura frames in Marvel Snap. But we'll tell you about that later. For now, let's begin with one of our topics of the show. So as you both know, yeah, I love planning the game's coverage here for Kinda funny you do? I go through, I say what's big, what's happening? What are the big topics? What do we need to be tackling? Yatta da da da. And what I love about Kind of funny is we're very fluid so anything can change. So I put on here Greg Miller's path of exile 2 review, right? Because I had come back, I had missed the preview with Xanthus. I had not. I let him do the review. We show you. No, I listened to it, I loved it. But it was that idea of like I'm going to get there, I'm going to go. And of course Path of Exile drop Mikey. I paid for it, bought it, jumped in, adore it. So good, so much fun. Played a bunch of it. Then it was Game awards week and Jen went to LA and mom was in town and I was soloing Ben. But then it was also craven. But then. And then lo and behold, at game awards they drop Helldivers expansion and I'm like, listen, my heart belongs to Super Earth. So I got a pause Pat. So I didn't play enough path of exile 2. Just come in here and review it. But I haven't talked about on content and I haven't had a real update from you guys because I remember this is how I knew Xanth did well on his review slash preview. I wasn't there that day but as soon as the games cast ended and the Slack channel, you both asked for codes for Path of Exile. So Michael, how much path of exile 2 have you played?

[Gary Whitta]

Oh yikes. I'm on my second character now. I'm anywhere between 10 and 12 hours. Okay, I'm on act number two with my first character and I've re rolled a barbarian on my second character now just to kind of.

[Greg Miller]

Who's your first character?

[Gary Whitta]

A witch.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Gary Whitta]

So necromancer, but a witch right there. So I have a caster now and I kind of have that up close melee combat that I wanted to see as well. So yeah, I'm. I'm a lot of hours in and I'm loving every moment.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Joster, I want to know you and me, of course. Kindred Diablo spirits.

[Joey Noel]

Yes.

[Greg Miller]

We love Diablo so much. You and I have continued to play throughout the Diablo four year long journey we've been on.

[Joey Noel]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Path of Exile too.

[Joey Noel]

I played them all. 15 minutes of it. Okay, so here's the thing. I rolled a character this weekend. I rolled it on Saturday.

[Snowbike Mike]

I.

[Greg Miller]

Would you roll.

[Joey Noel]

That's a great question that I'm trying to remember. This is how much I don't remember of it. The archer. I forgot what it is. Started playing, then got to the first like mini boss or whatever like in the tutorial thing and I was like, oh, I have to pay way more attention in this than I am used to paying. And I was not in a state where that was what I wanted to do.

[Greg Miller]

Sure.

[Joey Noel]

This is also coming off then on Sunday listening to Alana, the game of the year award discussion that I won. Then I started playing. Well, I got. What I ended up going back to was Astrobot because we had been talking about it from that and game awards and I had never finished it. So I went back to that and then I started playing Balatro last.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, you did.

[Gary Whitta]

Joey went everywhere.

[Joey Noel]

So it might be a little while before I get to Path Exile. What I know I have to do is I pretty much have to spend like 15 minutes with every character and figure out what the best play style is. Because in my heart I want to be the Ranger. I love a bow and arrow. I love some range things. But like if I'm playing by myself and I'm not playing. Yeah, this was me last night at 113. I was really. This is my best run that I've had since I started playing less than 24 hours ago. But I was feeling really good about it. I need to spend 15 minutes with each character. If I'm playing by myself, I need something that's a little bit more. I can't. I don't have the benefit of playing ranged because I don't have somebody else helping me. So I think I need to be in it a little bit more. So I think I'm Essentially gonna have to like roll one of every character and figure out what I like and then go back to it. This is my Christmas break game.

[Snowbike Mike]

Okay.

[Greg Miller]

I like that a lot.

[Gary Whitta]

How about yourself, Greg?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, Hours. I couldn't tell you a good number. Like, I'm not like I just scratched the surface. I. We did a stream, I think. Have we done two or just the one? We did the one for sure, but it's at home and it's the one when I'm slinking downstairs exhausted, I'm popping it and going. And it's. I am so impressed with it and so much more into it than I even thought I would be. Where when it, when I looked at it and oh, it's, you know, it's an arpg, you know, it's, you know, it's a better Diablo or this, that and the other. I looked at it, I was like, that's fine. But I have so much time in Diablo. I love Diablo 4 so much and I have so much invested. I pro. My thought was when I started this I would jump in, say, yeah, it's a good Diablo. Like I'll jump out and go back to Diablo eventually, right? I'll just. This one, this doesn't, this isn't finding an itch that Diablo can't scratch. And so I was shocked on night one to be playing this and not, not even night one. That sounds like it took me a while. Like the first moments of gameplay of like, oh, this is so much more. This is a different pace, this is a slower pace. This feels. There is weight to it. And then to get to that tutorial boss and like, oh, I gotta pay attention, right? I gotta, I can't just spam and like exactly. And like really have it be like I told you and I've talked about on streams or whatever. But like I know I'm generalizing and I'm boiling it down too much but to have it be a. For Greg Miller's intensive purposes, a souls like arpg. And what I mean by that of course is not that when I die I gotta go get my spirits and all, but I mean like if I was to do an isometric dark souls bloodborne whatever, I feel like the boss battles would play this way where it is, oh, I got to know he's doing that, which is his tell, which means get over here to get around it. Dodge roll, dodge roll, get all in. Like when you don't do that, you're going to lose, you're going to have a problem. And so I love that, of course. Here he is, the rogue one. Gary Witter.

[Snowbike Mike]

Sorry.

[Greg Miller]

Don't be.

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh, I don't know. Like, why am I here again?

[Greg Miller]

You're going to review Helldivers.

[Snowbike Mike]

I know you, okay, So I know you said you want to do that, but you didn't. Did you give me a time or a date?

[Greg Miller]

Did you? I can read back the text. You want me back the text? Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Okay.

[Greg Miller]

So behind the scenes, Gary is just late. That's no big deal. It's no big deal.

[Snowbike Mike]

So to be fair, this is very like me. I'm usually very reliable.

[Joey Noel]

And that's why.

[Greg Miller]

And I've. You've. There was a time back for a Games Daily back in the day where I called you and you're like, do you think I forgot? I'm like, that's. I'm like, whoa, sorry, I'll never do it again. So, like, I wasn't worried. Yeah. Saturday, 10:29pm where you and I are talking.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, go on.

[Greg Miller]

We're talking about the Hell diving. We're talking about the hell Divers controller. And then I go, speaking of, what are you doing Monday at 11?

[Snowbike Mike]

Records.

[Greg Miller]

Speaking of, what are you doing Monday at 11? You want to jump on the games cast and talk Helldivers? You reply, sure. Then I said, would you be down to review the expansion or is it too early? Would love the headline. Gary, what is Hell Divers to review?

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, sure. Hold on.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, you remember all. But I just told you, you said Monday at 11.

[Snowbike Mike]

Hold on, hold on, hold on. Okay, wait.

[Greg Miller]

I do appreciate.

[Snowbike Mike]

Would you be down to review the expansion or too early? Oh, right above Monday. Okay, no, that's all right. That's on me.

[Greg Miller]

All right. I appreciate our friendship is so sincere, you know, that I would fuck with you and make up text.

[Barrett Courtney]

You're like, I got to read it.

[Greg Miller]

I got to read it and make sure it's really to be.

[Snowbike Mike]

My adh. ADHD is. Is. Has gotten worse over the years. So I have to. I have to now rely on external systems to remember everything. So basically like every. Every little thing.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

I have to put in my calendar with an alert to go off at a certain time, and if I forget to set off, if I forget to set the alert.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Or if for whatever reason it doesn't go off sometimes you put in the wrong date or whatever, then like, my brain's not going to do it by itself, of course. So in the absence. So what I did. What I didn't do in this case was I didn't immediately because I Have to do it immediately before it like exits my brain.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Is like go quick doing this at 11, set an alert, get it all set up, ready to go. So then I didn't do that like in the moment. Yeah. And that's why. And then I just completely in one ear and out the other.

[Greg Miller]

I appreciate you making. Dropping whatever you were doing, which is.

[Snowbike Mike]

Weird because I wanted. I was excited to do this. You know, any excuses, talk about helldivers. I like being, you know, hanging out with you guys. So I was all like motivated to do it. I just forgot.

[Greg Miller]

What is this? What is this drink you're drinking?

[Snowbike Mike]

This is leukocyte. This is. I grew up with this. This is before energy drinks and Red Bull and stuff became popular in the U.S. lucas aid the made with glucose was the original like energy drink. This has been around since I was a kid. It's still very popular today.

[Greg Miller]

Back in the days of stickball.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, back in the days of stick.

[Joey Noel]

Can you get it here in the.

[Snowbike Mike]

US you guys want to play stick ball? So yes, I'm. I'm here and like I literally like the second I put the phone down I said to Leah like I. I gotta go. I up and like I didn't change it just like how I was like.

[Greg Miller]

Before I left the house youe're fashion icon. Don't worry about it. Have you played path of exile 2 at all?

[Snowbike Mike]

No, but when I was very into Diablo 4 last year.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Because that was probably my second. Wait, what year was Diablo was last year? Okay. That was really my, my most played game of last year. I played a ton of it and I to the extent that I got into watching like YouTube, you know, YouTubers getting into it and stuff and what I, what I remember is a lot of people talking about how path of exile 2 because it's been in like an open beta for. People have been able to play it for a while. Right.

[Greg Miller]

Or it just came out to early access. But yeah, there's obviously places to touch and get in there.

[Snowbike Mike]

People are basically saying like Path of Exile it's better than Diablo. It does a lot of things. Like Diablo could learn a lot from Path. It sounds like Diablo 4 is in a good place right now. Great expansion. But this obviously looked very, very Diablo.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Snowbike Mike]

I mean this could be Diablo if you.

[Greg Miller]

Well that's what we were just picking up right. Of like being such a Diablo fan and jumping in here. I was shocked how obviously it is in terms of isometric look this dungeon crawling arpg. But then how it feels Completely different how it does. Like I have to be way more dialed in here. You have to be paying attention. Yeah. Even the portal that I use all the time to sell junk in Diablo. Right. Like I feel like, oh I can. I'll push it further. I'll push further, I'll push further.

[Snowbike Mike]

So I mean I guess to look at it right now I'd say well that's just Diablo. But you're saying that when you're actually playing it, that's not the case.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. I think there's a much more. There's a heavier feel to it. There's a slower pace, there's a more. I have to be paying attention to what this boss does in a way in Diablo I don't. And the same thing here of I have to be inventory management harder here. And I feel like you have to be ready to throw your portal and go back and fill your vials and then come back out in a way that reminds me so much of like the Witcher where you know, I had all these different vials.

[Snowbike Mike]

And who is this developer? Because like just to look at it like it's got like to say it looks like Diablo these days is a compliment. Right. Because Diablo 4 is like top tier aesthetics.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

And this looks I would say as good as that. Just from what I've seen.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Grinding Gear games, New Zealand developers. They've made Path of Exile and now Path of Exile too. Like they are.

[Snowbike Mike]

That's all they're known for.

[Greg Miller]

Exactly.

[Snowbike Mike]

So if you were stranded on the desert island with only Diablo 4.

[Greg Miller]

Sure.

[Snowbike Mike]

Or path of Exile, you had to basically pick your path.

[Greg Miller]

Sure.

[Snowbike Mike]

Like I'm a Diablo guy now and I'm going to play Diablo 5 and that's My Life. Or Path of Exile 2, 3 and beyond. Like which when. When the two for the roads diverge in the woods.

[Greg Miller]

Well here's what I.

[Snowbike Mike]

Where are you going?

[Greg Miller]

Here's what I don't. Obviously I have rose colored glasses for something new here in the Diablo world. Right. I would still pick Diablo and because I want to go Diablo four verse Path of Exile two where Path of Exile two being early access only being these first two acts. Right. Like there's I. It seems great and all this stuff Diablo I feel like can be more things and obviously is richer systems and hell tides. And there's this and there's the go in the pit and do like there's so much going on in Diablo that for right now. Which is a nice change of pace and a breath of fresh air. Path of Exile too, right? Mike is cool. I'm gonna go over there and I see the skull, so I'm gonna fight that boss and then the skull's grayed out. I mean, I killed that boss, so there's gonna be another boss over there. And I am not so much the boss Rush. I want to go do that. But again, it's working for me here because I think it feels so good. It plays so well. And it's that ARPG system I like. So I'm going through. And I do think the intro cutscene does such a great job of setting up. Y'all are monster hunters, right? Which gives me that Witcher vibe of like, I'm just hunting monsters and doing this thing, which I appreciate. But I do think that for me there's an end to that enjoyment somewhere. I'm not like so sucked into the stories and the characters. I'm talking to Mike.

[Gary Whitta]

Damn, that's interesting. Yeah. Path of Exile 2 has completely won me over. Gary. I might be a POE guy now.

[Snowbike Mike]

Really?

[Gary Whitta]

Diablo.

[Snowbike Mike]

I didn't realize you were that big a Diablo guy.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Gary Whitta]

I grew up with Diablo 2, so that was one of my first Blizzard games. And we always loved that. And this is the first time since Diablo 3 into 4 that I've had that Diablo 2 feel right here. Path of Exile somehow captures that. I think it's a lot to do with the setting and the worlds that they've created. I love the dungeons. I love all the different areas that you go and traverse through. They're all unique. They all have their own kind of like touchstones. I was in this one giant cornfield and you could see all the corn moving as we ran through. So you'd see enemies come through the corn, which was pretty dope. I really liked that. I love the boss fights. They're super engaging. Gary. It's like playing Dark Souls, but in a Diablo top down setting. And it's. It's like, oh, I got to be on my P's and Q's.

[Greg Miller]

So you agree with me on that? That's not I, I. It's one of the things is I. You've played more Souls games than I have. I've just really played Bloodborne.

[Gary Whitta]

I. I think it does lead to like, you have to be paying attention. You have to be working with your teammates. And you need to know that, like, you're probably gonna die a bunch of times and have to run it back. The first act boss is extremely difficult. I had to have Xanth, who was level 43, come in and we still died five different times. Then we were able to beat it. So like, yeah, this is going to take some time. And I really, really like the systems at play.

[Greg Miller]

For me that's the big twist, right. Of the Souls like thing where the boss I was getting destroyed on, right. It was that thing where the first time I got him down and we were both there and he got the final hit and I was ah. And then to come back and do it three or four times. It wasn't my normal thing where I'm like in the Souls games I get annoyed by that just because of the way they want me to parry and what's going on. Whereas in ARPG isometric view, like I know that so well that I felt way more versed and ready to go.

[Gary Whitta]

Here in that now I was gonna say.

[Snowbike Mike]

Do you think I'm curious a couple of questions. Do you. Is this more hardcore than Diablo, would you say?

[Greg Miller]

I would think so, yeah. Like I think, I think it's more.

[Gary Whitta]

It's a little more punishing. I think it's on the same level of Diablo of what you would get out of it, but it is a little more like, oh, I'm. I'm beating myself up here because one.

[Snowbike Mike]

Of the things I liked about Diablo 4, which honestly is the first Diablo that I ever seriously engaged with, I played a little bit shocking. I was never, even though I was like editor of PC Gamer, like during like the heyday of Diablo, like 1 and 2 for sure. For sure. I never really. I just wasn't my sort of thing. And then I played a little bit with of resurrected and kind of enjoyed it. But like you could tell that it was an old game. Yeah, of course. And then Diablo 4, like for it was the first one that really. I'll give it one more try, see if Diablo clicks. And it really did. And I ended up ended up being my most played game. I played a ton online. I got fairly high with my Sorcerer. We were doing like, you know, endgame dungeons, Adam and I and some other friends that were playing together. And I really. And like I said, when it clicks it's like, oh, you get that, you get that feel going and that cycle and that grind and you get excited about gear and like you really go.

[Gary Whitta]

Up like you always.

[Snowbike Mike]

And I felt like one of the things that it did was like with the tiered system, like it did scale up really nicely. It started to get like just hard enough. It was, you know, they were challenging bosses that just at the right level.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

And I don't really like boss fight. It's why I don't play the Dark Souls games. I don't really like big boss fight games, but I really enjoyed it. I guess my question is, is there room. Well, let me, let me ask you this. So is this almost a little bit cheeky, the extent to which it's clearly Diablo or do you think they've made it their own enough that it's like it's just another entry in the same. Because it's not like there's a whole genre of games like this. Yeah, a big wide genre.

[Greg Miller]

This is somebody from Blizzard or X Blizzard, last week, two weeks ago got in trouble for being like they should call these Diablo likes and people like, hold on a second.

[Snowbike Mike]

I mean there might be some legends. And then my other question is, is there room for both? I think there's probably room in the market for both. But the question is, would you as one gamer play both or do you think you would just pick one? They're similar enough that you would pick one or the other.

[Greg Miller]

Is it doing enough different? I think once you get hands on sticks, yes. I think again, it feels different and this is going to sound weird, but stick with me. I feel like already I can tell that there'd be a different mood for this. If I'm brain dead and I want to go downstairs and I just want to bash things open, I'm going to play Diablo. I'm going to play Diablo and not have to worry as much. Whereas this one it is, you know, I'm probably 10 hours, maybe 15 hours in. Right. Maybe that's too much. But somewhere in there of like I'll walk into a new area and it's like I can't just run into the middle of the area or I'll get my clock cleaned by all ads that aren't even.

[Snowbike Mike]

I think Diablo 4 is probably. If I played this as well, I probably would still want to stick with Diablo because I like that. Sure. Once you get to, you can like clear Dungeons in Diablo 4. Like once you get your little cycle down like and all your cooldowns and you know exactly what you're doing, you can almost play on autopilot. But that's fun too, right? To play like.

[Joey Noel]

Of course that's my preference for sure. Right now it's sounding like Diablo is like a wider net that's a little bit more shallow versus Path of Exile is a smaller net that's way more deep.

[Greg Miller]

Right in one of the calls here from Langley. No character creation question mark. Yeah, no Right. You start and all the characters. All the characters slash classes are there and those are the ones you pick.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yep. That's Diablo. That right? I mean, no, well, Diablo, you can't customize. You just have these presets. It's old school.

[Gary Whitta]

Diablo 2, as you played in Resurrected, Diablo 2 had that where it was like, no, they're all made. This is what you choose from. Diablo 4 now has evolved into a full on character creator. You zoom in the camera, you can see everything, every detail. So I think that's fine.

[Snowbike Mike]

But like we've gotten to a point now. I think this is a whole other topic. But I think I like this topic is if you look at like for example Veilguard and especially Baldur's Gate 3, which I think has the best character creator I've ever seen. Like I watched. I was watching someone I know stream recently play Baldur's Gate 3 last year and they spent two hours. Their whole entire stream was just in the character creator. You can spend that long in there, people want to get it dialed and the level of fidelity and like how unique you can make it. And like that's me now. Like, it's just character creation. It by itself has become like a science. Right. It's an art game design. There's a whole. You could do like whole GDC talks about like how what makes a good character creator. Yeah, that is interesting.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. And I think there's. And that was one of my things as somebody who loves doing the character creator and then having my own little narrative in my head for whatever's going on. When I started this and didn't have that, I was like, ugh. And so I went back and forth between the witch in between the Ranger and finally picked the Ranger. And I was like, I'm going to call her Ollie Queen. So that's why Green. And like I think the boner feels so good. And somebody. It went through already but was talking about this argument between oh, is it, you know, too hard or more hardcore or whatever this that the other like your build mattering more here. And I feel like I am earning the experience points I'm getting in Path of Exile. So when I get there, I am more akin to like, all right, cool. I'm a lightning archer right now and I want to keep going that way and finding those orbs that then you know this level three one. So it'll take my lightning skill to the third level that's so important right now for me. Getting in there and really feeling this character that way is this on consoles or just. It is on consoles.

[Snowbike Mike]

Okay.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Controller I am playing on. Come on, Joe.

[Joey Noel]

I'm just making sure.

[Greg Miller]

Fall off the turnip truck.

[Joey Noel]

Come on.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, of course I'm playing. I can see.

[Joey Noel]

I've only played on mouse and keyboard.

[Greg Miller]

So I just play.

[Joey Noel]

I have no idea.

[Snowbike Mike]

I play almost everything on a controller now, even on. Even on PC. It's what I've become, which is weird because I used to be a big mouse and keyboard elitist. And I think there is still an argument to be made that it's overall, like, if you want to play, like, there aren't. Chat's going to go nuts. Because I'm sure maybe I'm wrong about this, but, like, at the esports level, at the absolute cutting edge of like, League of Legends and Black Ops or whatever it is, like, they're all on mouse and keyboard, right?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, probably. I mean, League of Legends for sure, right?

[Gary Whitta]

A lot of Call of Duty kids are now on controller, right? Yeah. I mean, it's a mix right now for Call of Duty, but I think in a game like this where precision matters, there's. There's actually two sides of the coin. I think when it's coming to dodging the bosses, I wish I was on controller because right now I'm on mouse and keyboard and it is hard to circle around enemies and try to dodge at the same time with Spacebar and the Wasda keys. But then on the flip side, I do think that, like, having the pinpoint precision of clicking the enemies that I actually want to get on when I'm. Yeah, offensive side is way better on mouse and keyboard.

[Snowbike Mike]

So here's the chat correcting me rightly solid saying Call of Duty and Halo a controller at the pro level. I get that with Halo because, you know, was born on console, but, you know, Call of Duty has always been, you know, multi platform. And you think FPS, you think mouse and keyboard. So I'm just. As a tangent, what do you think the show is? But like, when I watch, like Shroud or like some elite streamer, like, he ain't playing on a fucking controller. He's on his mouse and keyboard.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, but he's also horribly depressed and alone. You know, I mean, that's usually the calling side of that.

[Gary Whitta]

He's always attacking Big Mike.

[Greg Miller]

You know, it's crazy. I'm excited to play more Path of Exile. Like, I. I'm stoked, but I'm also kind of in that thing of, like, there's no trophies popping, so it's like Do I. How much do I want to play? And it's not the full game. Like what am I going to get a 1.0? That kind of.

[Gary Whitta]

You got the first three acts right now.

[Greg Miller]

I said two earlier. Sorry.

[Gary Whitta]

You'll be able to rerun them through so you can get up towards higher levels and have end game stuff. Because as Zan told us in the preview. Should go. Listen to that. They are trying to target you getting the end game stuff. So you can work on that. They can work on that and you can have an input on that. So I would try that. Two new characters are coming as well. So there will be more classes for you to try here very soon. So it's got a lot going for it. Yeah, it's already got a lot. If you're looking for an alternative. That's what I've been using.

[Snowbike Mike]

Well, that's. That's what I think it comes down to. I don't know. I'm sure there is an argument to be made again. When I was watching like the, the. The big Diablo streamers, half of their streams were about how Path of Exile was. Was better than Diablo.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

But I think it comes for most players and for me it's just going to come down. Come down to like, well, what kind of, what kind of version of this game do you like? It's not necessarily what's the quote unquote better one. But like to your point, I prefer to play a little bit on autopilot and just like, you know, mash my macros and know what I'm doing. And if Diablo 4 is the game that allows me to do that and port and Path of Exiles, now you got to be really engaged that you're probably telling me that Diablo 4 is more. For me.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

But someone else that wants to be more engaged. So it's nice that there's something out there for both.

[Gary Whitta]

And the diehards will also tear through all the content of a Diablo form. Want more. So they'll jump on the Path of Exile too. So I think there's this perfect blend of like you have two great options here. You can jump back and forth. Right. We're experiencing that currently with Marvel Rivals and Overwatch.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Gary Whitta]

You might be a die hard Overwatch fan. Now you have Marvel Rivals. There's a big boost in player base over there. People are having fun with their, you know, new systems. But like you can jump back and forth and have.

[Greg Miller]

Well, I think. And that's me with Path of Exile where it's like I loved the Spirit born. You know, we reviewed it, we did the stuff, and I ran through it, and once I was done with it, I was like, I'm done with Diablo for a while. Like, I've seen so much of this, and I know there's seasons and there's updates, but it's like I'm putting it down. And I thought I'd come back from another update in the next season probably. But for path of exile 2 to drop, be like, oh, okay, jump in and be like, oh, this doesn't just feel like more of the same. This actually feels like.

[Snowbike Mike]

It's funny, isn't it, with games, because this is like this with. With me for Diablo 4. And it's like, it's been this for me with many games. Maybe one day I'll happen with Helldivers. It hasn't happened yet. But, like, if you think about, like, this time last year, I was like, well, 18 months ago, whenever it was, I was in my peak Diablo phase, it was one of those games where when I wasn't playing it, I was thinking about playing it.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

And I would literally get up early in the morning to have an hour to play before, like, you know, the kids got up and it started getting chaotic, and I'm up late playing at night with headphones so I don't disturb, you know, Leah when she's sleeping, like, wwe. And then one day you wake up and you're, like, done with Diablo.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

What's the name? You just.

[Greg Miller]

You just.

[Snowbike Mike]

You're just done.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

I think at some point, like, maybe the momentum breaks because, like, something gets in the way and, like, you don't come back to the game for a couple of days. And once you. Once that. Once you're not. Once that habit breaks a little bit.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

It falls apart very easily. And suddenly you just like. Yes.

[Greg Miller]

Diablo is for. In particular is. I think I don't play a lot of ongoing games, I guess. So it's. It might be my only real example of the platinum burning me out. And I burned out the platinum trying to get it done before the big drop for Vessel of Hatred, and I did. But then even coming back for Vessel of Hatred, it was like, I've eaten too much of this. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

No, that's. That's what it can feel like. You can feel, like, overstuffed.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Bloated. It was brilliant. But then you hit a point where you're like, enough is enough.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, that Path of Exile is a nice palate cleanser. But it is that thing of sometimes when I'm playing it and I die and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna run it again. And then. But why? Like, I want. I want the trophy. There's no trophy. There's no this, there's no that. The game isn't fully done. I should go play X, Y and Z to talk about that in the show. And then, of course, Thursday happened.

[Snowbike Mike]

Remember the movie adaptation? Oh, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

With Nicholas Cage.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah. Yeah. And the character I always think about in that is the. The Chris Cooper character. The guy that actually, like, raises the orchids.

[Greg Miller]

Okay. Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

And she's interviewing him. Meryl Streep's interviewing him and talking. And like before. Because it was a real guy. Right before, he was a hardcore orchid razor.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

He was hardcore into tropical fish. And he had aquarium.

[Greg Miller]

I will lie to you. I haven't thought about adaptations since I saw adaptations.

[Snowbike Mike]

The guy that was the orchids in Fish Race, the guy that was the. Who was the object? The orchid thief that the book was. That's originally what the book was. Adaptation was made out.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Charlie Kaufman made the movie all about himself. But, like, rather than actually adapting the book, which is kind of the genius thing of it, but, like, there's parts of it that are obviously from the book. And Meryl Streep is the play. Susan Orlean, who was on Animal Talking, by the way.

[Greg Miller]

Nice.

[Snowbike Mike]

Who is interviewing Chris Cooper, who's the orchid thief. And she's getting to know his background. I promise you, I'm going somewhere with this.

[Greg Miller]

I know.

[Snowbike Mike]

And she says. And she says, so let me. So you're like. For years, you were, like, the number one, like, saltwater tropical fish expert in the world. And you had, like, every variety and hundreds of aquariums. And you were like, the man. And then one day you just stopped that and started getting. And now you're. Now you're the orchid guy. Like, how can you be so into. Into tropical fish? And then one day and he thinks about. He just goes, done with fish. And that's how you kind of feel. Like with the other. Like the one that I woke up, I was, like, done with Diablo.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

But it is hard to go again once that momentum breaks. It's hard to go back. Even when the expansion came out, I did, but, like, it didn't. It didn't all fall back together for me. I don't know why. Maybe because I had to start a new character. I wanted to just keep playing my sorcerer that I already had, which I guess I could have done. But like, I don't know, once that momentum breaks, it's, it's, you know, expansions and things do like you see it right now actually with Helldivers, the player numbers have gone way up and they've done this big content drop. People do come back, right, with expansions, but not everyone comes back. And it's like, like it was like sometimes it can never be like it was like when you're in that golden age of playing a game.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

If you, if that momentum breaks, it can be hard to replicate that.

[Greg Miller]

Well, that's my thing is like, yeah, I want to talk about Helldivers to switch over to that. Because of course that is what stop path of exile 2. And for my break, I feel like it will continue to have stopped it because I'm still like, I'm back on my Helldivers 2 grind of like I got, I got, I got 10 minutes. Like I can't finish a mission, but I could jump in. I could.

[Snowbike Mike]

Help.

[Greg Miller]

Somebody help. A friend of the friends list. We'll talk about that one second though. First I'm gonna talk about the course, the fact. The what? I'm gonna talk of course about the fact that we're a small business of 11 people talking about video games. And we hope you enjoy it. If you enjoy the insane amount of content we put out, we would love it if you picked up a kinda funny membership. You can get one on patreon.com kindofunny or YouTube.com kinda funny games. Of course it would get you all the shows ad free, more than 20 a week. The ability to watch afternoon podcast live as you record them and of course get you a daily dose of me in like a 20 minute podcast I do called Greg Way.

[Joey Noel]

What's it about today, Greg?

[Greg Miller]

Today's about Superman movie memories.

[Joey Noel]

Hell yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Thursday, Gary.

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh, the trailer, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

You excited? But you're.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, I mean, I'm open minded about it. I like, I like Superman. I think James Gunn's very good at this stuff.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

And I'm excited to see his, his take on it.

[Greg Miller]

You're a big Hollywood guy. You. You writing any DC movies yet? Come on.

[Snowbike Mike]

Not currently, no.

[Greg Miller]

Currently, huh. All right.

[Snowbike Mike]

I mean you, I mean, aren't you buddies with James Gunn a little bit?

[Greg Miller]

I'll put your name in the head. It's.

[Snowbike Mike]

It's hard. It's a hard space to be in right now. It's not. I wouldn't honestly wouldn't be champing at the bit to do a Marvel or a DC movie right now because did you know that today is eight by my mic is today's the eighth anniversary of Rogue One coming out.

[Greg Miller]

I didn't know that eight years ago today.

[Snowbike Mike]

And you know, it's got me, got me thinking a lot about what working on that movie was like and what it ended up meaning for me like both career wise and like mentally, emotionally. Like there's a lot there that's, that's a whole other podcast for me to unpack all of that. But like it, those, those movies, those big franchise type movies, whether it be Star wars or Star Trek or Harry Potter or Marvel or dc, you name it, where there's so much scrutiny and like the success or failure of that movie can literally move the stock price of the parent company. Sure is a whole level of. I was. I did not take anti anxiety medication before I worked on Star Wars. I do now.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Snowbike Mike]

Because it's a lot. It's a lot. And so like you and so the next one of those that would come along, if it came along, I would really go into it with my eyes open about what it's. Because it's not just writing a movie. It's a whole other. It's a whole other enterprise. It's bigger than just the script that you write. It's a lot. I'll talk to you about it in more detail some other time.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, that's probably a better podcast than what we're doing, but we're doing this one. We'll talk about Hell Divers right after this word from our sponsors.

[Barrett Courtney]

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[Gary Whitta]

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[Snowbike Mike]

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[Greg Miller]

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[Joey Noel]

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[Snowbike Mike]

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[Greg Miller]

Gary Witta.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yo.

[Greg Miller]

For a long, long time you've had understandable beef with Geoff Keighley.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yes. And he knows why.

[Greg Miller]

But even you can applaud the man for making this. Helldivers two Omens of Tyranny dropped during the game awards. Yes.

[Snowbike Mike]

Good for him. He got. I mean, it was always highly relevant to my interest. I love that they got the actor from the cinematic to come back out and redo the thing. I never even knew if that was a real guy. I thought maybe that's all. Like, maybe he was a CG dude or something. Yeah, I guess. I don't even know who he is.

[Greg Miller]

Is he like a bear took a classroom?

[Snowbike Mike]

He's an okay, so he's great in it, right?

[Greg Miller]

He's really good.

[Snowbike Mike]

And it was exciting. Obviously. We knew it was coming, right. Because we had the inside track earlier that week.

[Greg Miller]

No big deal.

[Snowbike Mike]

But it was still exciting to see. And you know, it's a big we'll get into obviously. But like it's a. It's by far the biggest update that the game has had since launch. It's a huge, huge update.

[Greg Miller]

The Illuminate enemies are there, of course.

[Snowbike Mike]

The Illuminate, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

We get our first vehicle to drive around in. We get melee weapons. There's New stratagems.

[Snowbike Mike]

So I guess the three big takeaways were obviously the new faction, the vehicle, which is not fully implemented yet. Right. You can't eventually, I think when they bring. So right now what's happened is they had the Illumina in for about a week, and now you'll notice that they've pulled them.

[Joey Noel]

Yeah, the Illumina, they were defeated yesterday.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yes, we pushed them back, but I think what. What's happening in reality, and that's the law excuse, but what's happening is they deployed it in a. Like, there was only one planet. Right. Minimal missions you could do. They're like kind of like test to make sure this is their kind of like open beta, essentially. And now they've pulled it, I think to probably, like, take stock of everything that pull all their data, all their telemetry on the game, figure out, like, what do we need to change and balance before we redeploy it. So obviously the Illuminate is coming back, but I think they're just taking a moment to, like, pull it so they can work on it a little bit and then. And then redeploy it because it's buggy. There are some. There are some issues. For the most part, I think it's terrific. I think what they've done is amazing. But, yeah, it's. The Lumen right now is currently offline. I suspect we'll be back very soon. The vehicle is something you can only find in the environment and drive around in stratagem.

[Greg Miller]

But it will be.

[Snowbike Mike]

You'll be. You'll be able to. You'll be able to drop them into. Into the environment the same you can a mech or, you know, any. Any stratagem. And they're really fun. Like, I. We. We were describing a lot as like, pubg. Some of the most fun you could have. Back in the golden days of pubg, the best. Some of the most fun was. Was jumping into a shitty car and driving around in it. Right. Shooting out the windows. And because you would flip it over and crash and roll, it reminds me.

[Greg Miller]

So much of gta, where I used to always be. Have you flown a helicopter yet? No. Okay. You're flying the helicopter because it would just be insanity when you try to get it off and going.

[Joey Noel]

The vehicles hold four people.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yes. So there's a driver, a turret gunner, and two passengers. But passengers can shoot out the side with their own weapons. And it's again, if you remember, go back to, like, some of the most clippable moments from the PUBG days. It was rolling vehicles and crashing into stuff with a car and, like, people flying out. And they. They know that that chaos is part of the fun, so they've implemented it in the same way. And one of the things I love about Helldivers, they mean nothing. They make nothing easy. Right. Very little in hell. Divers is automated. Right. You've got to do everything the hard way.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

And that's by design. And so when they showed us the trick, the thing about the vehicle was, like, you'll love this. You know, typically when you've got a vehicle in a game like that, if you just, like, hold the brake down, it'll then go into reverse. Yeah. No, no, no. Manual transmission on this. On this bad boy. You have to use the bumpers to manually. Like when you crash into a wall and you're like, fuck, back up, back up. You've got to, like, manually shift into reverse, I think then. And also to go to top speed, I think there's a first and a second gear. So there's like, park, second gear, reverse, and you've got to, like, cycle through them. And that, of course, leads to, like. We literally had like, a moment of chaos like that where you drove us all into a wall. Like, Greg, back the fuck up. And you're like, I'm trying.

[Greg Miller]

I'm looking wheels. You're lucky they didn't put stick shifting in, because I feel like that would have been the same. Can you imagine?

[Snowbike Mike]

Like, you've got to go. It's actually almost like a. Like a stratagem. Like, you've got to shift into the right gear. That would be a bridge too far. But, no, it's fun. We were driving around in a vehicle just last night in a. In a game, and it was down to the rims. Like, sparks were. The tires were fucking shot. And like the. At that point, like, the maneuverability steering is. Is crap and it's. But it's just fun. Like rolling. You roll a vehicle and. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

You know, I jumped in and me and Mike did the night one there. Played a whole bunch. And then. Yeah. Over the weekend.

[Joey Noel]

Didn't even invite me first off.

[Greg Miller]

We did. We made it very clear that you were invited. I kept saying on the stream, Joey.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, you're good at Helldivers.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, exactly.

[Snowbike Mike]

I remember when I would come in and play. Joey was like, the secret weapon.

[Greg Miller]

Exactly. But. So that's where I want to go with this one conversation is an update, basically from you, because you've never reviewed Helldivers for us, Gary, but you played.

[Snowbike Mike]

A lot Of I'm happy to be your resident helldivers.

[Greg Miller]

How much Helldivers have you played?

[Snowbike Mike]

It's over a thousand hours at this point. Probably about 1020 because I just passed it recently. I hit the level cap a couple of weeks ago and hit a thousand hours shortly after.

[Greg Miller]

Is that 150 or 250 now?

[Snowbike Mike]

150 is the level cap right now. I think they are going to raise it because of course players like me are maxed out on progression for the most part. The new, the new War Bond added some new things to grind for, but I've pretty much maxed that out already as well. Like, players, like, players like me that play and play and play are going to grind through content very, very quickly.

[Greg Miller]

So that's my next question for you then is like, has it ever waned for you or like every night you're on there for at least an hour?

[Snowbike Mike]

No, it's like, I don't think I've ever gone since the game came out. I don't think I've ever gone like more than a couple of days without playing. And I play almost every day.

[Joey Noel]

Are you playing solo or do you have like a crew that's also in it this deep with you?

[Snowbike Mike]

It come and goes. When I, when we first started playing, there was, there was a hardcore group of us that would play all the time. It was me, Naomi Kyle, Adam Nickerson, Johnny V. Which I've discovered myself great.

[Joey Noel]

On the game awards this year, by the way.

[Snowbike Mike]

So I have Johnny in my phone as Johnny V. Yeah. And so when Siri reads out a text, she thinks he's called Johnny the Fifth. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna change him to JVIG or something. I don't know. I'll give him a cool new name. My brother, my brother in law, Aaron.

[Greg Miller]

Who lasted by my PlayStation for this.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, I bought. So I was, I was at his wedding.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

And he was, he was like, oh, tell me about this Helldivers last. Oh man, you got to get into it because I don't have a PlayStation. I have an Xbox. I went to Target and bought him a fucking PlayStation 5. I said to Lee, we didn't get him a Christmas gift yet. I literally drove him to Target and Bought him the PlayStation 5. Bought him hell Divers and a extra controller so we could play with his wife and the headset. I got him the whole, I gave.

[Greg Miller]

Him the whole setup. Kid it out, kid it out.

[Snowbike Mike]

And he, I played with him yesterday. He's still playing regularly. He's sending me texts. Like, he was actually the one that told me about. He played the illuminate, like, when it dropped before he goes, oh, he sends me, like, major order incoming message from Super Earth. Like, he's really into it now. So we were playing it. Who else? And a couple of others. Kyle would also play. Yeah, we had a regular group, and then they all kind of drifted off and I kept playing. And for the most part, I've mostly played with pickups, which is fine. Like, pickups are generally good. Very little toxicity in the game. Because it's PvE, you usually get a good group.

[Greg Miller]

Are you talking or are you just using pings?

[Snowbike Mike]

I read it. You know, it's interesting. I read a. An article the other day, not just about Helldivers, but in general, about how voice comms in games have kind of fallen off. It used to be everyone was on voice, right? And now, like, very few people are in games in general. Like, it's rare to find. Like, when I drop into Helldivers, like, you might hear one person say something every now and again, or if you say something like, other people, oh, are we talking? And then they jump in. But, like, I would say 80% of the games I've played, no one says a word.

[Gary Whitta]

Yeah, it's because. I feel like it's because of discord as well. I think everyone's in their own world in their own voice chat that now they're not in that. But yeah, if there's one person that kind of just says, hey, I'm here, then like, somebody's like, oh, oh, we're talking. Okay.

[Snowbike Mike]

Exactly. Exactly. And so sometimes I'll. I'll do that.

[Greg Miller]

My personal experience for jumping in, because what I did is I put out my friend code way back in the day. So I have a, you know, in game friends list filled with kind of funny best friends. And I would say nine times out of 10, when I jump in, I'll get a text message in there. Because I'm usually not comms either. I'm tired. I just want to say I'll get like, oh, my God, Greg, I'm a huge fan. I don't have a mic set up, but, hey, just like they said the thing and then we just play.

[Gary Whitta]

You got to talk to the controller. That's why it's.

[Greg Miller]

But that's the whole thing is, like, why I don't think voice comms are a big deal. That's the thing.

[Snowbike Mike]

It's so chilling out. I don't even need any other hardware. The controller is your headset and your mic.

[Joey Noel]

That's so interesting that this is a change because I've never played with voice comms on. Mostly because people are dicks once they find out that you're a girl. I was talking to a lot of interesting there was. Or that it's kind of popped back.

[Greg Miller]

She's got. She's got a double bad, though. She's a woman and Australian.

[Snowbike Mike]

Well, I was talking to a lot because I did the Helldivers thing on her Game of the Year stream yesterday and we were talking about it like, prior to that and she was asking me about my experience with the game and she said, asked me if I'm. If I'm on Voice. And I said, oh, I have to send you this out. I don't remember who published it, but like it was the Verge or one of these. Or Polygon, one of these type places. It was an article about how voice comms have just kind of fallen out fashion. It used to be everyone was on Voice and now much less so for whatever reason. And Alana said, I wouldn't know. Like, I'm never on Voice anyway. And I was like, yeah, of course. Of course not. Because you're going to get all kinds of shit just because you're a woman. And I. It's nice to have conversation and we people are chatty. It's fun. But I generally try to talk on comms just because it's part of being a good player. Like, if I'm calling in a cluster bomb or something, I'm gonna say cluster.

[Greg Miller]

Get the hell out of there.

[Snowbike Mike]

Because sometimes you can't always rely on people to see it coming in. Right. If it's something that has like a big spread of like a cluster bomb will fucking wipe out an entire area. If you're not. If you're. Even if you think you're far enough away from it, but you're not.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

And I will generally like napalm or anything that's gonna have like a wide area effect or say cluster bomb, get back and I'll do it like before I throw it. So give people time. Yeah, because people will. That's one of the few things people complain about. Dude, chill out with the fucking, you know, widespread, you know, burst weapons. Because you. You will kill. I get killed by other players almost as much as I get killed by the enemy because they just indiscriminately, like, they don't check their fire, you know, so I'm vocal on voice comms. Not necessarily because I want to be sociable Although that can be fun if you find a good group. But just because it's in that game, you have to fucking let people know what you're doing because you can kill them, right? If you, if you're not careful about what you're doing, they don't know what you're doing. So for the most part, yeah.

[Gary Whitta]

I have a question. So you're jumping in a lot, Gary, of course. Your max level, you have a lot of hours in this. You're jumping in with randoms and Phil, you're jumping in with your team. What is the normal jump in? Is there a certain mission that you love doing? Is there a planet that you like to jump to? Like, I know Greg and Joey have heard that I kind of get bored of, of just doing it repeatedly over and over again.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, it's a heartbreaker that Mike Michael play with us, but it's like begrudgingly. It's like when I used to get my parents to play SEGA Masters.

[Joey Noel]

That's every game that I like to play with.

[Gary Whitta]

I just don't love it. So, like, do you notice that you do a certain mission over the others? Are you just open to doing them all? What. What does the normal flow look like?

[Snowbike Mike]

So I generally. I mean, one of the, One of the valid criticisms of the. Certainly something that I would say is I do think the game needs more mission types than it has. They have introduced a couple of new ones with the Illuminati missions, but more variety and mission types would be nice, but the ones that they have, like, I'll like somebody said recently, oh, the game's so repetitive. I'm like, yeah, but like, if it's, if it's fun, it doesn't matter. Like I said, I probably shouldn't have. I said, Alana Stream masturbation is repetitive. Like, how has that evolved over the years? But you still do it because if it's fun, it's fun. Right?

[Greg Miller]

Great argument, though.

[Snowbike Mike]

It doesn't need to change.

[Joey Noel]

You did stun the panel. We don't really have like a rebuttal for that.

[Snowbike Mike]

It's like, that's the. That's the same meta as when I was 12 years old.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

That meta does not fucking change.

[Greg Miller]

Doesn't change.

[Snowbike Mike]

So, and this is the point I made, the fundamental, like, shooters to me, come down to the fundamentals of like, the gunplay, the combat. How does it feel, the movement? Do the weapons feel meaty? Right? Do they have a good, like, sound design to them? Do you. Pumping bullets into something? Do you really feel like you will feel. And hell, divers nails all of that. The sound design is amazing. The weapons all feel great. Like they're so like, you really feel like you're up.

[Greg Miller]

What do you run right now or do you switch it up?

[Snowbike Mike]

A lot depends on the mission. But like, if I, if I don't even know what I'm doing, I will bring either the exploding crossbow, which is sick, or the scorcher for my primary because the scorch is good against everything. Yeah, Napalm or cluster bomb, machine gun sentry, because they're really, really cheap. 77 second cooldown. You can drop them all day long and they'll cover your retreat if you get swarmed. And they'll get 20, 30 kills at a time or. And then for the last one, probably the spear. The spear used to be broken. It's basically their version of the Javelin. You know, it locks onto a target and then flies in, it comes back down and hits it from above. That used to be really broken. It wouldn't lock onto anything now. They fixed it. It's probably the best heavy weapon in the game. And then the new anti tanking placement, which I just unlocked this week is in the new War Bond is phenomenal. Okay, Harvesters, tanks, the factory striders. You'll take anything out, okay, you got to drop it and then it's this big slow thing that doesn't move. And you usually would want someone covering you because you can't defend yourself.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, of course you're back.

[Snowbike Mike]

But anytime there's going to be like, I would not do an illuminate mission without the anti tank gun at this point because the fucking walkers. Yeah, the war of the world. They're officially called harvesters, but everyone just calls them tripods or striders or walkers. Those things are terrifying. That's another thing I love about this Illumina campaign. It's the first one where it's legitimately like scary. Like when you're being chased down by a tripod. And like those things take so many automatons.

[Joey Noel]

Not scary.

[Snowbike Mike]

They are, but the Illumina is so much fucking worse than that. Because I think one of the things Arrowhead's trying to do is encourage like more cooperative moment to moment team players. So because like all the other enemies in the game have their weak spots and you just, you damage them down and that's it. The tripods are shielded, right? They essentially they are the war of the world Spielberg tripods. They make that, that scary fucking noise. And like, like when you hear one in the distance you're like, oh, there's a tripod out there somewhere. And like some of the, some of the cinematic moments. One of the things I love about the game and I think why popped off so much in the early days is it just creates so many clippable moments of like, you look, you look like you feel like you're in a action movie.

[Gary Whitta]

Like chaos all the time.

[Joey Noel]

Tiktoks are so good coming out of.

[Snowbike Mike]

It and nothing blows up as well as in this game. Right? When I, that's how I got into it. I watched TikToks of like I was. Is that in a game? And I was like, I gotta go try this and like it. That's what it is.

[Greg Miller]

And I think real quick I want you back to you. But like that's why the, oh, the missions are repetitive. It's like, well, yeah, but you never know what's going to happen. Like it's. Sure I'm, I'm, I'm raising the super Earth flag again or yeah, I'm, I'm saving these civilians or whatever. But it's like what is going to be the crazy thing that happens or we approach the wrong way or we got recognized or this is. I'm using a different build. You're using it.

[Snowbike Mike]

I don't know why I didn't do this from beginning, but I finally set up a macro last night in the Nvidia app so I can record like you press a button, you record like the last 60 seconds of gameplay because I wish I'd eclipse that. And now I'm going to finally start doing it because you create so many great moments.

[Greg Miller]

Great issue. Your PlayStation could just do that. Yeah, yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

But then I wouldn't have any draw distance. I play with people on PlayStation. I'm like, I'm going to go get that thing over there. Like I can't see that because you, because you're not. You're on a fucking PlayStation. I've got 4090. I can see that shit over there. Maxed out to ultra super sound playing. So shielded enemies, I think is intended to encourage more cooperative moment team play because you can't just damage things down. The Tripods have these shields, right? Just like the War of the World shields. And they. Shields and the actual armor under respond differently to different kinds of weapons, right. So you generally need two different types of weapons to take them down. And the shields regenerate really, really fast. Like often faster than you can reload. I can knock a shield out with a spear, but before. But the time I Can reload the spear and lock onto it. Shield might be back up. So, like, when I play with friends and you're on, this is where voice comes. Comes really handy. Like, you coordinate. So I'll play with Naomi and I'll say, like, okay, I'm gonna take the shield out and then be ready to hit it as soon as the shield is down. And so we'll, like, fire spears, like, five seconds apart. My one knocks out the shield. The second one comes in and takes out the tripod. And then you feel like you're doing, like, team play.

[Gary Whitta]

That's what the game is all about. That's what it felt like it was based on, was like, you're gonna get four people in here, and you're gonna work together, and you're gonna overcome all these obstacles and you're gonna laugh and there will be chaos. But. But, yeah, it's all about working together.

[Snowbike Mike]

Truly terrifying moments, like, those cinematic moments. I would say, like, probably five out of the top 20 cinematic moments I've ever in the game have come in the last week. Because these tripods are so epic. It's that thing where you drop, like, the 500k on it, and you're like. And all you see is this massive fire explosion. You go, surely that fucking killed me. But then it fucking comes out of the fire and it's still up.

[Gary Whitta]

How about. So now you get dropped into the world, and, yeah, you're playing and having fun with the different mission. How about the side activities? Do you notice that you and your team are taking in the whole 30 minutes and doing the side objectives? I always noticed that when it was me and the crew, it was like, we'd get the one mission done, and we kind of just run right to the extraction.

[Greg Miller]

It really.

[Gary Whitta]

Are you doing a lot of side stuff?

[Snowbike Mike]

It really depends on who you're playing with and then what the circumstances are. Like, some players want to clean up everything on the map, and they'll get angry if you call an extraction before they've got every little thing off of the map. But it also depends on, like, this literally happened last night. We're like, okay, we're done with the mission, right? We can extract now if we want. There's still a few bases to take out at that point. That's when you look at the clock and you look at how many reinforcements you've. Like, this might be tight, because what you don't want to do is get stuck on an extraction after the super destroyer has left, because then you've got no air Support. So you generally look at and go like, yeah, we've got time to do these last few things or somebody really wants to do it, we can try. Or you'll split up and do it. Yeah, you know, you, I think, generally encourage to stay together as a squad, but sometimes the fastest way to clear a map is like one person can go off and like clear our face. And clear face again harder now because it's the same with the these. They have these warp ships, these parked motherships that spew out enemies.

[Greg Miller]

Yes.

[Snowbike Mike]

And they're essentially the illuminate version of the automaton fabricators or the hives. Yeah. But again, they're shielded, so someone has to take out the shield and then someone else has to be ready to. To pop a grenade into the well. You can't destroy them. You can drop a 500k on them, but you can't just damage them down. You've got to pop the shield. And then while the shield is down and again, it's only going to be down for a few moments, someone's got to go up to that front door and like toss a grenade in. So again, more cooperative play. Harder to do things by yourself. And I think that's deliberate. I think they're like, no, you need to team up on some of these enemies now.

[Greg Miller]

So this brings me to an interesting question, Barrett. Can you throw up the kind of funny review scale? Gary, I want to know after a thousand hours, what you would have given Helldivers two and then after. It sounds like a hardcore weekend of playing Omens of Tyranny, what you would give this expansion.

[Snowbike Mike]

I mean, Helldivers overall? I mean, I have to give it a 10. It's played like it's. If not for World of Warcraft, it would be the most hours. I don't remember how many hours I had in World of Warcraft because back in the day I was in a hardcore PvP raiding guild and I played that for years. I was like really cat ass ing that game for a long time. Yeah. So I probably have more hours in World of Warcraft overall, but like, in any single year, this is the most I've ever played a game. Somebody's, dude, that's like 40 days out of the year. I said, yeah, no one in Hollywood's working, like, what do you want from me? There's no jobs out there right now. I might as well just play this fucking game. But no, I mean, I'm not going to tell anyone. It's the best game ever made. I'm just Going to again, I can only speak for myself. It's the most fun I've had playing a game maybe ever. I just, it just, it's just so like dialed in for me. So like when I was first playing it, I think I discovered why it appeals to me so much. Like Leah was she. At that time the TikToks were popping off and like she was sending me like they were helldivers widows because like his wives are like, oh my God, this guy, all he wants to do.

[Greg Miller]

Jen, whenever I get into it.

[Snowbike Mike]

And so Leah was like, so what is the deal with this game? Like, she's trying to take an interest. And like I described it, I was like, okay, so look, you're a super fucking elite space commander, right? And you're dropping into these like hot war zones on alien planets. You've got to fight giant insects and robots, but they can, you can drop nuclear bombs on them. And like, you realize like, I'm basically like describing the shit that I drew in my school, but when I was 12 years old.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, right.

[Snowbike Mike]

And you're talking like, it's like, oh yeah, but you can, you can kill the robots, but then the giant enemy bugs will spit acid on you, but you can burn them with flamethrowers. And it's like this, this is what video games are all about, right? It's a video game where you're killing and it's hugely. Like that drop animation I looked at for Atlanta's stream. I did some research. I've. I've drawn dropped 50, 1500 missions. I've dropped in that game now. And that moment when you like draw, when you pop and you're music, you're basically strapped to a bullet. Yeah. And that music is playing like you. Every time. It's like 1500 missions. And I'm still like that. Like that game has got something. It's got, it's got that secret sauce.

[Greg Miller]

So then Omens of Tyranny from what you've played, which sounds like all weekend since it's been going, you've been playing pretty much.

[Snowbike Mike]

I think it's a fantastic addition. You know, it's. I, you know, I said to him, is this gonna be like a $10 deal? It's all free.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Like we just. They just gonna continue to add stuff for free. I think they're. The impression I got is they would prefer to never charge for anything ever.

[Greg Miller]

100%.

[Snowbike Mike]

Right. And yeah, I remember I bought, I upgraded to the. I got a code originally and then I upgraded to the Super Citizen edition. Just because I wanted to support the developers, I got to give them something.

[Greg Miller]

Do you buy every War Bond too?

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, but I have so many super credits. I've never paid cash for anything. Right. And so. And I bought things off the superstore. But everything is buyable with in game currency. There's nothing that forces you to spend money. Which again is very nice of them. Obviously. It's hard to say. The Illuminate has only been up for a few days. It is very buggy. There's a whole new slew of bugs that have come with this update. There's some graphical things where like if you go up to like a vehicle in one of the open environments, that's not their best work. These are very basic. Some of these are very basic classics. I think those will get better. The game for the most part looks amazing. Like, especially considering it was built on this whack ass like autodesk type engine that no one uses anymore. You know, there were times in that game when I will stop and like, look at the God rays coming through like a foreign man. This game looks great. Like the lightning is so good on this game. It's an incredibly good looking game. When it's like on its moment so hard again, it's hard to judge it right now. I think the Illuminate is exactly what the game needed. Like right as people are going, give us something new, give us something new. Like we knew the Illuminate were coming. Right. Because they'd been teasing it for ages. There was always a third faction. It was in the first game. But now that it's happened and I was. And again, this is a community like any community that loves to complain. Like I don't go on the Reddit anymore. I don't go on the Discord. I joined their Discord the other day.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, you had the preview. Because I'm like, oh, we take the most of our advice for Earth.

[Snowbike Mike]

Where do you get your community? Because mostly from the Discord. So. Oh shit, I didn't even occur to me. The Discord. So I jumped in there and the very first person said, hope you're ready for lots of complaining. And like two days later I left. Because that's all it is. Yeah. I don't know how they put up with it because like you never, you never hear any positive feedback and Reddit is constantly complaining. But I've been just with the players that I've been talking to the last few days.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

People are asking like, what do you think of the Illumina? And everyone Says, oh, they're fucking great. This is awesome. Like, it is a really good new enemy. The one of the other things that I like, you'll notice, like, typically when you finish a mission, you'll get like 3, 400. Maybe on a good day, you'll get 2, 300, 400 kills.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

On the Illuminati missions, you're getting 6, 700 kills because there's so many more enemies. Like the majority of the enemy are just what they call the voteless. Right. They're kind of the mutated human. My brother, my brother in law sent me a message last night. He said, this is so up because they're really creepy, right? Zombies, space zombies are weird and creepy and they're coming up to you and like you shoot one of them in half and like the top half of it is door kind of going towards you. And my, and my brother in law texted me last night and it was really easy. Said, they're so creepy, dude. Like I. You can kind of sometimes. I haven't seen this yet, but this is what he was telling me. He said there are times when you can kind of see that they were once human. He said, like, it was a. There was a, like, they look kind of confused. They don't know where they are. And said, I shot one yesterday and the last thing it did before it dropped over was it saluted me. I'm like, that is fucked up.

[Greg Miller]

For freedom. For freedom.

[Gary Whitta]

How about the urban warfare? You know, I talked with Greg when we jumped in early, he was like, hey, this is a new thing. They want to kind of build this out. And I was looking for more like a giant city. It felt like more like, hey, here's little areas on the map that have a bunch of kind of urban buildings.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah. So they still, the planets are still these like these shit old planets, right? These kind of, these kind of like rocky environments. But now they've got cities on them because these are the colonies that are closer to Super Earth, right. Where they're more built up. Typically it's just like these little outposts and stuff. But now you have actual cities, but they're not like big skyscraper type cities.

[Gary Whitta]

Yeah, yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

I remember Johan saying like two, three story buildings. But like, it definitely, like, it definitely feels like street urban combat. It does. And you'll get chased into a dead end. Oh shit. The street doesn't go anywhere. And now you're like, you're stuck there with like voters coming towards you. Urban environments is one of the things I really wanted, like, because I feel like sooner or later we're going to be fighting on. Super right? And then maybe they will do like even more built up environments. I'm sure they've got like models for like big skyscraper type cities sitting somewhere ready to deploy that like down the road. And this is like the first step towards that. And of course the other nice thing about it is like it does actually factor into gameplay. Much like the forest canopy planets, much harder to call in stratagems because your airstrikes and stuff will get caught by the, by the topography. Like I was, I was playing in the Dagobah type planet biome last night and I caught in a napalm structure and like it just all got caught in the forest canopy and nothing actually hit the ground. And you've got to, before you drop something, you've got to look to see like fuck, like is this going to get caught or am I in the open enough to call in something? And that will happen with the like if something's between like two tall buildings, unless it's an orbital that's coming straight down and like airstrikes come in like this and it will just hit the side of the building and miss. So you've got to be constantly aware of your environment. I fucking love this game.

[Gary Whitta]

I have so many questions and it's interesting. I also want to know. I have a lot more questions for you. 1, 1 I'll ask about you personally. How do you feel Gary, like now that you're maxed out talking about that progression and that, that ding, that carrot at the end of the stick, how do you stay engaged with this is just purely the fun of it or like no, are you looking at me going, Mike, I need something here?

[Snowbike Mike]

I touched on it earlier. I was on the. Again, I don't go there anymore. But recently I was on the the Helldivers subreddit and someone was. This was before the illuminate dropped and they were complaining about how they're Mac and I'm maxed out, right. There's no point. I will still collect samples and stuff because they count for everybody. But like I don't need any more samples. I'm maxed out on samples. I don't need any more xp. I'm maxed out on. I hit max rank a while ago. I'm maxed out on super credits and everything else. Like I collectibles and things like that. There's not really any progression left for me. Yeah and there's a new War Bond but I'm almost, almost done with that. I Got the anti tank gun that they brought in then is fucking sick. Probably the best new weapon in the game that they dropped in. Like we talked about a monogamy when that thing dropped props. You can just murder things. Yeah, I just picked that up recently.

[Joey Noel]

Can we talk about. Also they're adding stratagems to the war bonds now.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yes.

[Joey Noel]

How do we feel about that?

[Snowbike Mike]

I mean that's. I think that's been in there for a little while.

[Greg Miller]

The Super Store is when people get really crazy.

[Joey Noel]

Okay.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

There's the ship modules that allow you to add, but there's nothing. There aren't any new strategies. I suspect the vehicle will be the. Will be the next one they add. But the point I want to make is about like why do I keep playing? Because I said earlier, right. The fundamentals, the moment to moment combat is so fucking good. Of course the dumbest comment or one of the dumbest comments I've ever seen online is somebody was complaining about this recently, just said, I'm just playing for fun now. And I'm like, yeah, remember when that used to be enough?

[Gary Whitta]

That's what we're playing for. Yeah, yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

The next shiny trinket or trophy or whatever, you're fucking doing it wrong. Like play because the game is fun.

[Gary Whitta]

That's right.

[Snowbike Mike]

And the game is fun. And I honestly, it would be nice to continue to like max out, to continue to progress and stuff. But like I'm enjoying. What's more important to me is am I still enjoying the game? And the fact I enjoy the game so much, the fact that there's not really any progression for me, doesn't matter.

[Gary Whitta]

How good it is.

[Snowbike Mike]

Right.

[Greg Miller]

This is the one thing, and this is so hilarious because what I've always complimented for arrowhead for with Helldivers 2, Gary is how unflinching they are in their vision of it and what it is, Right. And you talk about strategy and calling them in. It's got to be complex. We talk about now shifting the car and manually. It's got to be complex. It's got to be obtuse. Like that's what Helldivers always has been.

[Snowbike Mike]

Always.

[Greg Miller]

And one of the things that I find a personal hurdle is how slow you level in Helldivers. It's that thing where it's like, you know, I. It's my most. No, second most played game of the year, right behind Diablo. And it's when we turned it back on, I was what, 36?

[Gary Whitta]

I was like, you're like 36? And he's like, Mike, it's different and it said.

[Greg Miller]

And the idea, what usually gets me is that I'll. I want to play with my friend. Friends, right? And so it'll be like when we were streaming or it'll be jumping into a random game last like last night. And I'm jumping into their missions. And they're playing on medium. They're playing on three, right. And you know, goes all the way up to Hell, Divers and Suicide and all that jazz Extreme. They're playing so low that the, the, the game is fun for sure, but I'm not getting the carrot on the end of the stick of the next level, the next thing, unlocking the next name. And it's just such a minor gripe of myself. But what I struggle with, with Helldivers, as much as I love it, is I don't have a life right now. That can be appointment viewing. That can be, I'll see you tonight at 9:00. Because inevitably that'll be the night. Ben isn't gonna go to sleep and I'm not gonna tell Jen. Well, I gotta go play my video games. You know what I mean? So I'm always jumping on late and then it's. I'm trying to talk somebody on the east coast, like my friend Sean or whatever doing this thing, it's like a pain in the ass. And that's, that's why I do the random drop.

[Snowbike Mike]

Just remember, dude, I'm always on.

[Greg Miller]

Okay?

[Snowbike Mike]

So you can always play with me.

[Greg Miller]

See, but then I'm gonna feel like I'm holding you back. You're gonna have. Because there'll be a lot of chirping. You're gonna teach me.

[Snowbike Mike]

No, I don't play. I mean, honestly, if I'm trying to like, look at, look at the silver lining. One of the nice things about the LE hitting the level cap is I don't care what level of difficulty I play because it's not like, oh, I want to play higher levels because I want to rank up quicker. Yeah, I'll play anything. I don't care.

[Joey Noel]

And I guess you hit the max on everything. You're like, doesn't really matter.

[Snowbike Mike]

Steven Spawn was telling me that they've done some, some work on the accessibility. He wants to start playing. He said, will you come in like low levels and play with me and teach me how to play? Yeah, of course. Yeah, I'm happy to. Like, that's cool to do that. It's. I, I generally, I, I generally do play. I'll play bots on. So he bugs on 8, 9, 10. Bots who are harder on like 7, 8, 9, sometimes 10. And then illuminate, still figuring that out. But like, they start to get seriously hard after six, six, seven, eight. They get brutal. And nines and tens like Neomi and actually finished at level 10. Illuminate mission the other night. But man, it was like, your heart is pounding when that pelican takes off. You're like, Jesus.

[Gary Whitta]

I want to talk about retaining players and bringing them back, right? Because that's what I'm always interested in in the live service world that we live in. And we talked about Greg and yourself with Diablo, right, Coming back and finding that fire and finding that player base, right? All time peak here on the street on the Steam charts, right? Only PC was close to half a million players right there, right? And then right now their average player base is about 75,000. Peak at the past 24 is 130.

[Snowbike Mike]

This is just PC. That's just PC.

[Gary Whitta]

We're not counting X, we're not counting PlayStation, right? But like, how do you get that fervor, that audience back again? From what we remember in February where people were printing this logo on T shirts, we had girlfriends calling out on TikTok, I need help because my boyfriend's lost his marbles. You know, is there a chance that this could ever get there? Do we think after this weekend there will be a larger player base coming back? Or is that just the way of it?

[Snowbike Mike]

Well, I mean, it goes back to what we were saying earlier about Diablo, right? Sometimes when, when the momentum breaks, it's hard to get people back. The way, the best way to get people back is with like a major drop, like the Illumina, where this is a new experience. Like fighting these, fighting these enemies is like a new game. This is something very, very new. I haven't looked at the style. I'm guessing there has been an uptick since the Illuminate drop that players are coming back.

[Gary Whitta]

Big uptick. I mean, we're talking peak players, 56,000 in November and then here in December, because of that, on December 13, it's been up 148.

[Snowbike Mike]

So a lot of people have come back. And again, if they can keep that momentum going, whether there's another faction down the road or again fighting on Super Earth, like there's still so much they can add. Again, I don't want to say anything that Johan said to us in confidence, but like their roadmap and their ambition for is like there's, you know, there's.

[Greg Miller]

No horizon supported for a Long, long time.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, they want to, they want to keep it going for a really, really long time. And, you know, long may it continue. I fucking love this game. Like, it's just, it's just so fun to play. It is the game that I still think about. Like, before you called, I was gonna go play. Oh, I guess I'll come in and talk about it instead.

[Gary Whitta]

At what point do we bring it to a Xbox or Switch? Is there ever going to be that conversation of, hey, this game is great? I mean, we, we're talking beyond good. This is great.

[Snowbike Mike]

It is one of those games where you want to have it, eventually the.

[Gary Whitta]

Player base will start to slowly slow down on it. When do you give it that shot in the arm and go, hey, let's go out there and make a ton of money over on other platforms and ecosystems, right? Is there ever that conversation? Of course they've had to have had it, right? We're talking about big million dollar businesses. These people have talked about bringing it to other companies.

[Snowbike Mike]

If it was up to Arrowhead, I'm sure they would love to put it on Xbox. I'm sure they would love to put it on not this Switch, but the next one.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Snowbike Mike]

Sure will be viable to play on Mac. Why not, right? High end, you know, the new, the new high end Macs, you know, $500 Mac mini can play these games now. It's amazing.

[Gary Whitta]

Your iPhone could probably start playing some of these games.

[Snowbike Mike]

I mean, maybe there is a mobile version of it down the road. Yeah, like a simplified version or something. I don't know. But if it were up to Arrowhead, I'm sure they would love to put it on Xbox. The problem is, you know, PlayStation know, they've got a hit on their hands. It's branded as PlayStation Studios. Right. It's not just the third. What is the relationship, Gregor? Arrowhead is their own developer, but PlayStation don't own them. Right.

[Greg Miller]

We're old. So you would call, we would call this second party, okay, where Arrowhead is an independent studio.

[Snowbike Mike]

Insomniac. Huh? Like Naughty Dog?

[Greg Miller]

No, no. Well, like insomniac, before PlayStation bought them.

[Gary Whitta]

All.

[Snowbike Mike]

Right, but Naughty Dog, right, Because they.

[Greg Miller]

Know they're owned by PlayStation.

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh, they are, yeah. But Arrowhead are not.

[Greg Miller]

Correct. Okay. They are an independent standalone. PlayStation does not own Arrowhead. But.

[Snowbike Mike]

But did they like fund the development of it?

[Greg Miller]

Right? I think they own Helldivers, the iPad. So it's that idea of them.

[Snowbike Mike]

So they've got. So Sony obviously has some ownership of it and I think you know, Sony is not, you know, Xbox seemed to be very kumbaya with the whole, like, yeah, Indiana Jones on PlayStation, maybe even Forza one day. Like, who knows? Like, they seem to be more like open about that. I think PlayStation, like when they've got something that's theirs, like Last of Us or Spider man or Ratchet and Clank.

[Greg Miller]

Whatever, it's easier to count the ones they've done, right, the show.

[Snowbike Mike]

They don't want those on Xbox. Obviously MLB forced them into doing.

[Gary Whitta]

MLB was the one. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

But no, I think as long as Sony's calling this. Here's the sad thing. I think as long as Sony is calling the shots, which they are going to be for the foreseeable future, I don't think you're going to see it on Xbox. I really don't.

[Greg Miller]

I don't either. I think it would be like, you know, you brought the Steam charts, right? I haven't pulled up here and see that peak here. I think it's when you see those, the peaks for these big drops get smaller and smaller to where it's like, hey, we have the player. We have the player base. We have. Now let's talk about putting it somewhere else because then, yeah, if that came and it came to game pass or something stupid like that, like you'd have such an uptick, right? People jumping in and buying war bonds.

[Gary Whitta]

I mean, you see it in the first three months we're talking 274,000 average players, right? During the first three months now we've dropped down to 41, 23, 25, 30. Now even just this little uptick for the past 30 days is only 31,000 average players, right? Which is an amazing number, right?

[Snowbike Mike]

Don't be wrong again, double that. Because of course PlayStation.

[Gary Whitta]

But yeah, add in Switch and Xbox, right? When is that number so low?

[Snowbike Mike]

Maybe, I mean, maybe it gets to a point when it makes, you know, know again, Sony are constantly balancing, you know, how do we make the most money? If it gets to a point where the injection that this game needs now is to be released on other platforms and bring in that, I would love to see it on Xbox again. Not that matchmaking is ever a problem. I press Quick play and I'm in a game in like 10 seconds. But it's not like there's no one there. But it would just be nice to have those people in the mix as well. There was, there was a member at launch. There's a lot of people go, oh my God, like, bring this to Xbox. But like outside of mlb, where Sony didn't get to really make the decision. And not counting PC, which is kind of a neutral platform, has Sony ever. Has there ever been a game that Sony had at least some degree of ownership of this on Xbox? It would be completely unprecedented, wouldn't it?

[Greg Miller]

Yes. Right. Because you figure the Lego Horizon game is a Switch one, not a Switch.

[Snowbike Mike]

That's not. They wouldn't even let the fucking Lego game go to Xbox. So Sony is very possessive about the things that, you know, a part of their brand. So, you know, I. Sadly, I don't think you will see it.

[Gary Whitta]

It's impressive. It's a great win. It's a great game. It got a lot of love at the.

[Greg Miller]

I wish you'd come back.

[Gary Whitta]

I've always been.

[Greg Miller]

James points out Death Stranding just.

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh, Death Stranding is on Xbox now.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Okay.

[Gary Whitta]

Oh yeah, that was an interesting one with the publisher and stuff. But yeah, a great game. I'm so glad to see people still loving it, continuing to love it. Got some love at the game awards. Would like to.

[Snowbike Mike]

I was glad to see. Yeah. The Golden Joysticks 2 console game of the year.

[Greg Miller]

It'll be interesting too as it goes on next year. Is this best ongoing support.

[Snowbike Mike]

Given that it was such a stacked year. I'm glad, I'm glad to see that it got what it got. You know, it's. I, I think I. I think it should have won. I think it should have been in the mix more for sound design and music because honestly, the music stuff is phenomenal. I listen to the soundtrack in my fucking car when I need to get like psyched up for something.

[Joey Noel]

It's that and the Challenger soundtrack have dominated my ear.

[Gary Whitta]

But my always question is, did they miss not putting this out sooner? Right. I told Greg, for me it's like I need this kind of content updates sooner. It's been nine months since the game released in February to now where we're at. Should this have been a June, July during the E3 season drop and then we have another one.

[Snowbike Mike]

I'm sure they would have loved that.

[Greg Miller]

We.

[Snowbike Mike]

I mean we talked to Johan about it. Don't forget there are. There are smaller developer. Right. Arrowhead is not a massive team. I think they did get blindsided by, you know, because they. Johann said something to me that was like as a creator, very relatable. Remember when he said like when we put out a game we just like we're happy if it's just not a fucking catastrophic failure. Like any level of success. We're grateful For. And so the fact that it blew up the way that it did blinds. Then suddenly you're playing catch up. Oh, shit. This game's really successful now. We've really got to, like, engage in the eight ball and like, whatever roadmap you have, like, throw it away and make a new one. Because now it's super popular and there's a different level of expectation. It's a small team. This happened with Mediatonic and Fall guys. Remember when they were like, what now?

[Gary Whitta]

Oh, my God, how do we catch up?

[Snowbike Mike]

And it took them longer to do things and they. Than they might have liked. I think Arrowhead shipped this as quickly as they could given, you know, you never stop making a live service game. You've got players complaining about, you know, fix these bugs, fix these bugs. You've got all these, like, we have to do this today. Hot fixes take priority. Then. Then maybe we can get to this. Then maybe we can get to that. And then in the background, they've got a whole other team working on the next big. The Illuminate stuff, right? So it's a lot. And I don't know if they've been scaling up or hiring or whatever, but, you know, there's only so much you can do with a team of this size with that many hours in a day. So I'm sure it would have been better for them if they could. I mean, I'm sure they would have loved to have launched it with the Illumina, right, with all three factions from the first game. But you can only. You can only do so much. And I think what they're doing now is, if anything, the opposite, because they've learned their mistake. Let try not to do too much too soon. Don't be too ambitious. The way that they deployed the Illumina, I think makes a lot of sense. They put it out in a limited way, gave players a taste for it, and then pulled it back so they can rebalance, do any tweaks, and then, you know, they'll be back as soon as that's done.

[Greg Miller]

They'll be back before, you know, it might.

[Gary Whitta]

I'm looking forward to next year. I really can't wait to see the second year and beyond of, like, how long this goes.

[Greg Miller]

People can't wait to see you and Gary back together. Super chat from Scarcely Revenant Relevant says seeing Gary Wood and Snow Mike Mike, side by side again. Again. Just made my day.

[Gary Whitta]

Time with Gary. He's the best.

[Greg Miller]

Nightlife. The super chat says, Mike, where's the backflip of 2024 Friday.

[Gary Whitta]

Tune in, see what happens. Holiday party.

[Greg Miller]

Back to hell. Divers 2. CJ Sports.

[Snowbike Mike]

You guys are having a holiday party? Yeah. You.

[Greg Miller]

Welcome back.

[Snowbike Mike]

Welcome.

[Greg Miller]

Be on the stream Friday.

[Joey Noel]

It's not.

[Snowbike Mike]

I mean. I mean, it's like you're backed into a corner. It feels less special.

[Joey Noel]

Stream. It's not like.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, you could just say yes and then not say you didn't put it. No, we're not.

[Snowbike Mike]

Okay, so now how is raising canes? Because I want to check it out.

[Gary Whitta]

Delicious.

[Greg Miller]

It's bad Gary. Bad Gary. What's it comparable to a less good starboard.

[Gary Whitta]

Starbird's the best in city.

[Greg Miller]

Flavorless chicken tenders.

[Gary Whitta]

Get the bread and get the sauce.

[Greg Miller]

The bread's great. Sauce doesn't. Sauce sucks. CJ splits on says Thoughts on the Killzone War Bond leak. Did you see this, Gary?

[Snowbike Mike]

No.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, sometime last week.

[Snowbike Mike]

War Bond, you mean?

[Greg Miller]

They don't say when it is but a Killzone War Bond graphic and suspect.

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh, the crossover thing. I don't care about that, though.

[Greg Miller]

You're fucking psycho. I'm so stoked. I'm so stoked. Launch of Kill. When Helldivers was so big, I was like, if they're not making War bonds for every PlayStation first party gone.

[Snowbike Mike]

I know, but like, dead. This is a dead franchise, right?

[Greg Miller]

Oh, but you know how the kids love Killzone. Hey, listen, if you love or hate Kill Zone, you gotta admit the hell gas look cool. And to get that out there.

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh, this is a thing. Righteous revenants.

[Gary Whitta]

I mean, look how cool this would be as your.

[Snowbike Mike]

So does this mean that the hell, that it's all like the same universe now?

[Greg Miller]

It just means there's cool armor and shit. There will be an uncharted Naughty Dog War Bond at some point. It will be dope as shit. Get the fucking armor. But it'll be the Joel like plaid.

[Gary Whitta]

Oh, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

I can't wait. I mean, it's a fucking game where I'm killing bugs with my friends getting blown up. Give me as weird as crossovers you can. I mean.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yes. It's never been a game that's taken itself too seriously. Right. So why not?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. And then Lucid Dream says, greg, we got you the Diablo 4 Platinum. Let's get you the Helldivers 2 Platinum again. I would love that.

[Snowbike Mike]

1500 hours in or what? I'm sorry? Hundred more than thousand hours in. I still don't have every Steam achievement because there's a few that are like really hard to get and you can only get them if you play as like everyone has decided they're doing no cross progression.

[Greg Miller]

No, you're not.

[Snowbike Mike]

No. And I don't. I don't. I don't think we're going to see it anytime soon either.

[Gary Whitta]

Wild.

[Greg Miller]

I have.

[Snowbike Mike]

I would love to play on my PlayStation.

[Greg Miller]

It's 45% of the trophies for Helldivers.

[Snowbike Mike]

I think I like 35.

[Greg Miller]

You get to like kill it with fire. Kill 100 enemies using fire damage during the same mission. I'm just not rocking fire damage. If I wanted to tonight, I could turn on the flamethrower, go do. But it's like that thing of one. Playing Helldivers in such a way that I would love to platinum it, but I'm not. I need to be on one of them.

[Snowbike Mike]

One of them is you can only do as a squad is like you have to have like. Everyone on the squad has to have like an orbital bombardment going at the same time. So that's something you can only do if everyone agrees to like load up with it. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

The only way to be sure, have six Orbital Barrage Strata, lot of gyms in the same place at the same time.

[Snowbike Mike]

That's it. Yeah. And that's hard, right, because there's only four players. So. So two players have got a double up on them.

[Joey Noel]

And the cool down I'm sure is probably significant.

[Gary Whitta]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

But if you just all agree to do it at the same time. I mean I have dropped into games where people are like, guys, I'm trying to get this, this, this trophy. Can you like, can we do this? And I'm yeah, sure, whatever.

[Greg Miller]

See, that's the thing where it's just like there's an alternate reality where I never met Jen, so I'm just single. And it would be. I would have the crew. We would have the crew where I go home at night and I'm like, this is what we're doing for the next month till it's done.

[Gary Whitta]

Sounds like that's.

[Greg Miller]

That's Mike's life. The guy is like, I just don't got 50 hours to play metaphor.

[Gary Whitta]

That's quite literally my life.

[Snowbike Mike]

If you ever need someone to get your last future. I know, I know her trophies, how important they are to you.

[Greg Miller]

Thank you. I appreciate that, Gary. So, you know, again I'm saying like we should. We should figure something out and get serious about it. Like it's another. But it's that thing where the, this goddamn company.

[Snowbike Mike]

The fact one of us streaming today.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, we gotta do a charity stream now.

[Snowbike Mike]

One of the things that I love.

[Joey Noel]

You have to pick today to shit on the stream.

[Snowbike Mike]

One of the things I'm really glad.

[Joey Noel]

About Friday, every once in a while.

[Snowbike Mike]

New drop is that it's brought so many people back, as you say. But like it's also brought back like my old crew that fell off right. So like Naomi and Adam and Aaron and Johnny V that we used to play with a lot and you know, all kind of are now back. Like I actually played with a full squad of friends for the first time. Again, this and it's. Oh man, I forgot how much fun this is when you play with a, you know, your own crew. It's good.

[Greg Miller]

Well, Gary, thank you for your comprehensive review. Do you want to give Omens a review score or are you just saying 10 overall?

[Snowbike Mike]

I think it's early to say but like based on what I played right now, I would. I, you know, I would give it another. Now I'd give it a 9 because it does have some wacky bugs. But like it's. It's a terrific update. It's exactly what the game needed at this time. It really does feel very different as. As different as the bots feel from the bugs in terms of how you have to fight and engage with them. The Illumina is like a whole other vibe. It's not just a different like meta a different. We have to fight these guys in a different way. It's just a Illuminate are just fucking creepy and there's just something very like the sound design. Everything's designed to just like kind of like creep you out a little bit and weird you out. I've heard so many players saying these guys are fucking creepy and they are. Hell yeah. Again, we've only seen this glimpse of them, so I imagine we'll see more as they go.

[Greg Miller]

Okay, well, thank you for your filing your report and rushing in here. We appreciate it.

[Snowbike Mike]

Happy to do it everybody.

[Greg Miller]

Thank you for hanging out with us. Remember, this is the Kind of Funny Games. Each and every weekday, four, sometimes five best friends gather on this table, coming to talk about video games reviews, previews and the biggest topics in the games industry. If you like that, of course, subscribe to our YouTube channel, YouTube.com kindofunnygames. Follow us on Twitch TV kindafunnygames. Subscribe to your favorite podcast service. Look for the Kinda Funny banner. Of course, you can also get our membership on patreon.com kindafunny or YouTube.com kinda funny games to get all of our shows ad free. Free. Watch the afternoon podcast as we record them and get a daily dose of me in a series we call Greg Way. For now, we're not going to play Hell Divers, we're going to raise money for charity. Whatever. But until next time, it's been our pleasure.

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh, if anyone from Sony is listening, send me that fucking Helldivers controller. I am getting up.