Grounded 2 Review (So Far) - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

Kinda Funny Gamescast: Grounded 2 Review (So Far) - Detailed Summary

Release Date: July 29, 2025

Hosts:

• Andy Cortez
• Greg “GameOverGreggy” Miller
• Blessing Adeoye
• Snow Bike Mike (Blessing Adeoye)

---

Introduction

In this episode of the Kinda Funny Gamescast, hosts Andy Cortez, Greg Miller, and Snow Bike Mike delve into their thoughts and experiences with Grounded 2, the sequel to the popular survival crafting game Grounded by Obsidian and EIDOS Montreal. Despite early access challenges, the hosts provide an in-depth analysis of the game's mechanics, story, and overall gameplay experience.

Initial Impressions and Gameplay Experience

Andy Cortez kicks off the discussion by highlighting the expanded world in Grounded 2, emphasizing its larger open-world environment compared to its predecessor. He shares the game's Steam description, noting the seamless blend of single-player and co-op modes, survival crafting, weapon crafting, base building, and the new traversal system featuring buggies.

Greg Miller provides his initial take, stating, "Grounded 2 for me is so much like Grounded 1, which is I want so badly to like this game and it just doesn't click and I want somebody to love this game" (09:04). He reflects on his limited hours—about 10 to 15 hours played—and expresses mixed feelings due to his preference for genres outside survival games.

Snow Bike Mike offers a more positive perspective, appreciating the continuity of characters from the first game and the enriched narrative. He mentions enjoying the return to the Backyard Park, describing it as "just a quaint special place to go back to when you talk about survival crafting games" (07:36).

Gameplay Mechanics and Challenges

Resource Management and Exploration: The hosts discuss the resource management aspects, with Greg pointing out frustrations in navigating the game's challenges:

"There's this blend there where it's like you kind of got to go both ways here. And then sometimes really park the bus." (07:36)

Combat System: A significant portion of the conversation revolves around the enhanced combat system in Grounded 2. Snow Bike Mike praises the addition of different combat classes such as stealth assassins, bow and arrow users, and mages, allowing for varied playstyles:

"You can now be a stealth assassin. You can be the bow and arrow person. You could be a mage." (17:46)

Difficulty and Solo vs. Co-op Play: The hosts debate the game's difficulty, especially in solo mode. Greg shares his struggle with balancing progression and combat:

"Grounded 2 really, I think makes you park the bus if you're not playing co-op. [...] there's always something that wants to come after you." (16:21)

Accessibility Settings: When questioned about accessibility, Greg notes the lack of comprehensive difficulty settings in early access:

"So right now, no there's difficulty you can go in and I think it's. It must be mild, medium, hard I would assume." (16:37)

Story and Narrative Development

Narrative Integration: The sequel attempts to weave a stronger narrative into the survival crafting environment. Snow Bike Mike appreciates the introduction of side objectives and the main story, which include quests like saving the cute robot Burgle:

"They have a perfect block now that is essentially like a Perry for you, where if you block it will be repelled back kind of stunned for a second and you can get in after." (34:10)

Character Continuity: The familiarity of characters from the first game enhances the storytelling experience. Greg mentions enjoying the consistent character interactions:

"You have these fun little dialogue moments with dialogue options here that you can choose." (42:55)

Community and Development Feedback

Early Access and Ongoing Development: Both Greg and Mike acknowledge that Grounded 2 is still in early access, with continuous updates anticipated to address current shortcomings. Greg emphasizes his intention not to score the game yet, as it continues to evolve:

"I'd like to not give a score on this and just talk about it because... there's too few carrots at the end of the stick to really motivate me to keep going." (09:14)

Community Support: The involvement of the community through Discord and wikis is highlighted as essential for navigating the game's complexities. Greg shares his experience seeking help to find specific items:

"I joined the reviewer discord where I'm like, what the fuck is this? Where do I find the goddamn thing?" (24:24)

Positive Aspects Highlighted

Visuals and World Design: The detailed and immersive world design is praised, with Mike commenting on the Unreal Engine's capabilities:

"Another beautiful, detailed world, Andy. I mean, the park. [...] You can get lost in it." (41:35)

Combat Enhancements: Improvements in the combat mechanics, such as the perfect block system and diverse weapon options, receive commendation:

"When you block it will be repelled back kind of stunned for a second and you can get in after." (34:10)

Exploration and Discoveries: The game encourages exploration with hidden areas and rewarding discoveries, which Mike finds enjoyable:

"There's a bunch of hidden molars out there, the milk molars, that will give you upgrades as well." (41:35)

Areas for Improvement

Balancing Difficulty: The primary critique centers around the game's difficulty balance, particularly in solo mode, which can be punishing and hinder progression:

"I'm just going to run, which means then I'm getting tired, which I'm cutting through grass trying to get them to clip on the glass grass." (16:21)

Player Agency and Customization: The lack of extensive character customization and player agency compared to other survival games is noted as a drawback:

"This isn't my create a character. You know, that's one thing I love so much about survival games." (43:07)

Guidance and Objectives: Greg points out that while the game offers numerous objectives, the guidance on completing them can be overwhelming without adequate direction:

"All the different stands on what to do and what to use. Because I was doing that and again I missed the research finder." (26:14)

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Greg Miller concludes with a balanced view, expressing respect for the game's potential but recognizing it may not align with his personal gaming preferences:

"I wouldn't. But I will be interested for... Will I come back seriously for it? I don't know." (47:06)

Snow Bike Mike remains optimistic about the game's future, anticipating continued improvements and deeper story integrations:

"I really do want to highlight some positives, Andy, on the combat side of things." (34:10)

Andy Cortez wraps up by encouraging listeners to support the podcast and teasing upcoming content, maintaining a positive and engaging atmosphere for the audience.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Greg Miller: "Grounded 2 for me is so much like Grounded 1, which is I want so badly to like this game and it just doesn't click and I want somebody to love this game." (09:04)

• Snow Bike Mike: "You can now be a stealth assassin. You can be the bow and arrow person. You could be a mage." (17:46)

• Greg Miller: "There's this blend there where it's like you kind of got to go both ways here. And then sometimes really park the bus." (07:36)

• Snow Bike Mike: "Another beautiful, detailed world, Andy. I mean, the park. [...] You can get lost in it." (41:35)

• Greg Miller: "I'd like to not give a score on this and just talk about it because... there's too few carrots at the end of the stick to really motivate me to keep going." (09:14)

• Snow Bike Mike: "They've built that with small loadouts that you can now click on with different passive abilities." (18:02)

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Timestamps

• 00:00 - Episode Introduction and Banter
• 07:09 - Overview of Grounded 2
• 09:04 - Initial Impressions by Greg Miller
• 16:21 - Discussion on Difficulty and Solo Play
• 17:46 - Combat System Enhancements
• 24:10 - Accessibility Settings and Difficulty Customization
• 34:10 - Combat Mechanics and Player Customization
• 41:35 - Visuals and World Design Praise
• 47:06 - Final Thoughts by Greg Miller

Note: Timestamps are indicative and correspond to the transcript sections provided.

Transcript

[Andy Cortez]

Foreign welcome to the kind of funny Games cast for July 29, 2025. I am Andy Cortez and I'm joined by the grass grabbing Greg Miller.

[Greg Miller]

I don't know what the that means because you chop the grass down.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

You're picking up plant fiber.

[Andy Cortez]

You're grabbing the grass.

[Greg Miller]

But not just grabbing grass. Dry chunks. Maybe you got to get the grass.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. They.

[Greg Miller]

That's a plank though. Again, I'm not just grabbing grass and I want. People can't come into this review and think you walk into Grounded 2 and.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You grab grass and he's still playing with us.

[Andy Cortez]

And the scorpion spear and snow bike Mike.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I do be spearing scorpion.

[Greg Miller]

That's true.

[Andy Cortez]

I wanted to get last night.

[Greg Miller]

Last night he wanted the bow and arrow though. You know, yesterday was bone arrow and I was the one out there using.

[Andy Cortez]

My spare tell you all about it.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I'm.

[Andy Cortez]

I can't. I can't wait to hear all about it. We are going to be listening to Mike and Greg Talk all about Grounded 2 today. It's the review. The embargo is up. This is the kind of funny games cast. Each and every weekday we get together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews and topics in video games live on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, support us with the kind of funny membership on patreon, YouTube, Spotify or apple podcasts to get all of our shows ad free, Watch us record them live and get a daily exclusive show. For a chance to be a part of the show, submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go. Subgray.

[Greg Miller]

I love you. You've known that for a long time. I love that you're hosting more and more around here. Yeah. But of course I want you. This is now. We're just having an employee meeting.

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Greg Miller]

Okay. I want to make sure youe're getting what you want out of hosting. Do you like reading it verbatim? Should I bullet point it? More like what do you want? Cuz I look, I think these shows are jazz. Yeah. So I don't need you to like. I don't ever want you to feel like you have to be on a script. If you like being on script, no big deal.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You don't got to be on one.

[Andy Cortez]

But you don't have a good little flute. You did there.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You thought I went sideways.

[Greg Miller]

I didn't know you did flute.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Like that.

[Greg Miller]

Round of applause in the chat for him.

[Andy Cortez]

I don't, I don't, I don't Mind a verbatim. I like. I like a verbatim. And then I'll kind of, you know, scoot off here and there and then I'll play flute like Mike was playing earlier.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You scoot. I like when you scoot a little bit.

[Andy Cortez]

Let's go a little bit. Scoot a little bit. We're 11 person business. All about live talk shows. I said that perfectly after this. It's kind of funny. Games daily. I don't know what the topic is yet because blessings. Building it.

[Snow Bike Mike]

He's cooking it.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, we're, we're doing. Why are we doing them out of order.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah. A lot of people are asking, is this pre recorded? Is this live? This is live. Good morning super chat Tuesday. We are doing this early because I am leaving for the Battlefield 6 multiplayer event this week. I'll be at the reveal. I'll be giving you all the big news you need to know.

[Andy Cortez]

That's exciting.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Didn't even give anything.

[Andy Cortez]

Just queefed over here.

[Greg Miller]

I was like, it was like, it was like. It was like when you're holding back the fart.

[Snow Bike Mike]

So you will see that throughout the week. I'll be keeping you updated and having some fun with the team. Probably calling in on certain things. But we are doing this event now because I have to head out to an airplane ride. It's going to be fun.

[Andy Cortez]

You got to skedaddle.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I'm going to skedaddle.

[Andy Cortez]

That's why you have multiple shoes.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah, that's. Oh, okay. Yeah. You didn't know. So here's the deal. I got multiple shoes. Okay.

[Greg Miller]

This makes so much more sense. When he was like, well, like you're going to see him on stream.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah, I don't know if I want.

[Andy Cortez]

To wear the Tims or I want to wear that like. And I was like, okay, well like people don't really see your shoes. He's like, oh, they always see your shoes.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You got two options right now. I have currently my running shoes on my comfortable easy tennies. Right.

[Andy Cortez]

Feels so great at the airport.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Feels so good. And then I have a brand new pair of Nike blazers. All fresh, white, clean, no creases. Or my Timberlands. Now here's the two catches here. Timberlands give you two inches. I look great in them.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Some call me the Adam Sandler of the games industry. I don't know if that's an insult or a positive. We won't worry about that right now. Flip side, they smell a little bit. Not like stanky smell but like one of those. Like you're like, oh, am I gonna put this in the bag with all my clean clothes? So now I have this conundrum of am I getting plastic bags for my tennis shoes to wrap those up? Put them in your bag or am I putting the clean shoes in the clean clothes bag?

[Andy Cortez]

Okay, here's the thing.

[Snow Bike Mike]

What do you do, Big dog?

[Andy Cortez]

I think you look great all the time.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I don't think you need good to me.

[Andy Cortez]

I don't think you need the Tim's. But also. But just for your like, just for health and me watching out for a friend.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

You don't want to be like, those shoes are going to make you feel very uncomfortable throughout this trip.

[Snow Bike Mike]

True.

[Andy Cortez]

And that's like comfort's got to be the number one priority.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You know that. Because if I want to clicking heads, if I want to be ripping them to shreds, I got to be comfortable.

[Andy Cortez]

You got to be comfortable.

[Greg Miller]

You got to put on your best performance.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I always do. I always. I mean, last time I was at the Kronos event, they were clapping for me.

[Andy Cortez]

Really?

[Snow Bike Mike]

They weren't clapping for Roger. Roger was out here eating Twinkies.

[Andy Cortez]

Was he really?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, that's accurate. But Roger finished the demo fast and Mike did it. So then they all watched Mike but then it was like I got to the final boss. This is a great gamescast from yesterday. Got to the final boss of the demo or whatever, but had no bullets. So he had to do the rope a dope move where you know, like he runs around the room and then punches him twice before the guy can swing. He runs away. So it was like 15 minutes of Mike just cheap shot of this guy running around. Just great.

[Andy Cortez]

Great strategy right there if you're kind of funny Member today's Greg way is 15 minutes of Greg being on trial. The charge being a console contrarian.

[Greg Miller]

They'll never get me. They'll never book me.

[Andy Cortez]

I mean it's not only the. It's only the console contrarian stuff.

[Greg Miller]

Here we go. Here we go.

[Andy Cortez]

Yesterday we Pre recorded Fantastic Four in review, the 2005 movie with Chris Evans looking beautiful. Super shredded.

[Snow Bike Mike]

So handsome.

[Andy Cortez]

Jessica Alba just doing her best out there.

[Greg Miller]

Michael Chikla's hot as hell.

[Andy Cortez]

Michael Chikla's hot as hell. But the place that this movie landed in the rankings, I just, I'm just prepping you all for whenever the episode drops tomorrow.

[Greg Miller]

It is an all timer episode in all and it goes on Thursday, I think an all timer episode of in review. That is awesome. Start to finish. There's a section in the middle where it's just me and Tim on set. We loved that quite a bit. And yeah, then it's got one of the best legitimately stunned reactions I've ever seen from a panel of people. To end the show, thank you to.

[Andy Cortez]

Our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney the Psalm Twining. Today we're brought to you by Mood Factor and the Kind of Funny Survey. But we'll tell you all about that later. For now, let's start with topic of the show. It's our Grounded 2 review. Let me read the quick little description from Steam Shrunk again, but the world is much larger in this open world. Single player or co op survival adventure craft, weapons and armor. Build your base and traverse through and traverse the playground on your buggy. But something else is out there and it hasn't forgotten you. This is the sequel to 2022 is grounded with and Grounded had an open Critic score of 82 and a Metacritic of 83. 2022. Crazy thing about it was that long ago.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, right?

[Snow Bike Mike]

That long.

[Andy Cortez]

Feels like seven months ago.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah, exactly.

[Andy Cortez]

But it was three years ago. It's a very, very un. Let's talk about Grounded 2, everybody. I want to know a quick little overview of your all thoughts.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, great.

[Andy Cortez]

And I can get into a review a bit later that you wanted me to read somebody's review.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, I put in there from. That's my note. That's my note.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay, got you. Gotcha.

[Greg Miller]

I just wanted to somewhere, let's get.

[Andy Cortez]

Some quick sort of just top view thoughts from Snow Bike Mike.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I'm happy to be back. Like that's. That's the snow Mike. Mike, review slash.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, not even just here in the show.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You mean back. I am happy to be backing Grounded.

[Andy Cortez]

Nice.

[Snow Bike Mike]

The Backyard now park is just a quaint special place to go back to when you talk about survival crafting games. And the team over at Obsidian have clearly built off of what they built in Grounded 1 to now move into Grounded 2.

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I wasn't sure the idea of going to a Grounded two. I actually was surprised when I hosted their PAX east panel back in Boston. They said, oh, we're actually kind of ending support for Grounded 1. We might be moving on. And I was like, oh, that's so weird. I thought this would last forever. You'd keep going. But when you jump into Grounded 2 for the first time, you quickly understand, oh, that was the right move. They have taken everything that they've learned from Grounded 1 and they've moved it into Grounded 2, it's the same cast of characters. So you still have hoops in the squad. I love playing this hoops. I know you love Willow. Max is there, but these characters have grown with you. They've been here before. They know the situation and it's fun to get their dialogue and find the new story. And I know I don't want to suck up most of the time, but you. This has been a blast to jump into. I'm so happy that Grounded is back and I'm looking forward to talking more with Greg here.

[Andy Cortez]

And just as a reminder, before we get to Greg's thoughts, this is co developed by Obsidian and EIDOS Montreal, published by Xbox Game Studios. Greg Miller, what are your top level thoughts on Grounded 2 or also before I get to you, Mike, how much time did you put into it?

[Snow Bike Mike]

I put about seven hours, five on PC where I was really striving and thriving and then I put in another two with Greg over on Xbox to join him for the kind of shared world experience.

[Andy Cortez]

Greg, before you give us your thoughts, I see this little raw Rog Ally right there.

[Greg Miller]

You mean the Ally X? My best friend the X? Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

How. How many hours in total? Where did you split your time with?

[Greg Miller]

Unless Mike knows a secret way. I don't know. The game isn't tracking me anywhere on hours. No, you go into your save, it's talking about how much time you've spent in the world in game wise. So it's like 16 days, which I mean and then like, because I think it's early access in the build we're using, like your Xbox overlay doesn't tell you E. So I would guesstimate based on the fact that I played it multiple afternoons at my desk for quite some time, I would say between 10 and 15. Okay, I would do that. The 15 is, I think on the high end. But one of the reviews I tossed in because I think it sums up so much of what I. How I feel about the game. Put their time at 15 and they're at very similar places that I'm at. So somewhere into that level about it. Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

How many on the Ally Think and how did it run?

[Greg Miller]

It runs. I mean you. I dialed it down. I mean, but you can take a look there because you got the eyes better than me. I mean, is it. Is it like it's running on my series X where the game is of course gorgeous and looks really great? No, but it was totally usable and fine. I did when in Poe and Jack went on a boat tour, I sat at A coffee shop down and played for like three hours. Just had this Brazilian coffee, this little Brazilian sandwich. Sandwich they did down there right by Gear Daily Square. I don't remember the name, but I sat there and just played forever on it. Again, totally fine. Served what I needed and did what I want. And I love my Ally X, obviously, as you all know. But what do I think of Grounded to Grounded 2 for me is so much like Grounded 1, which is I want so badly to like this game and it just doesn't click and I want somebody to love this game. I like it fine. I would if you guys were like, let's play Grounded tonight. I'd be like, okay, Core, we're doing a stream. You want to play? Of course. Yeah. I think there's a lot in here as, you know, as I mature. Andy, you see me, of course, through all my immaturity. Exactly. I. Even when this one dropped, it's like, okay, cool. Grounded 1. Grounded 1 launched in early Access as well. Mike and I were there day one, night one. I remember playing with you and the second night and maybe even a third night, and I was very much like, oh, this is early. There's not enough story. There's really not enough to do. I'm going to bounce out. And I never came back.

[Andy Cortez]

Was it also one of those Xbox preview games where you have to use the preview app or whatever?

[Greg Miller]

I don't think when we jump to the.

[Snow Bike Mike]

No, they Game preview, when it was fully out, it was called Game Preview. But yeah, no, no, not the special app that you would use.

[Greg Miller]

And so you jump ahead to never coming back to it because I'm not a survival guy. Back to the, you know, you see me mature thing and whatever. I'm trying to expand my palette. I want to. I want to make sure I'm still checking in on genres that traditionally aren't mine. Because as you know, you and I have talked off camera, right? Like, I just started a no Man's sky playthrough again. Because I usually start up a no Man's sky every few years. Put between 10 to 20 hours in and then walk away and. And then when I want to play it again for whatever new update, I just start again. I'm not the traditional survival guy. My problem with Grounded 1 was that it had this cool world, but I didn't feel like it had a cool story. When I went to the Xbox event down in LA for sgf, you know, they book you all these behind closed doors demos and they don't tell you what it is because the games aren't announced. So when everything got announced and they finally gave me my final schedule and it said grounded to, there was a. Okay. I went in there with Obsidian. I got the, you know, whole run a show of what this game is and why it's different, all these different things. Sat down and played the demo and enjoyed my time enough that I was like, you know what? When review code comes, when we get the chance, I want to jump in this and give this the college try. And so being on the other side of the college try, the 10 to 15, I'm not going to be playing this beyond this. And again, I think it's very interesting. I prefer. I don't know how Mike's going to feel about it. It's early access. I'd like to not give a score on this and just talk about it because, number one, I feel like I'm outside of my genre bubble. So this isn't something that I'm well versed in. Like, I don't think I'm the survival guy. And number two, I think it's more of an interesting discussion for me than saying if it's good, bad or the other just to talk about how it makes me feel. And I think that's the big thing about it because again, I want to like this game, but I found myself doing what's here. There is a story this time around at launch, right? I.

[Snow Bike Mike]

The voice actors, there's a very little story.

[Greg Miller]

When they launched last time, we were.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Able to knock it out in a day like where we needed to progress, and then it stopped. So that's why he got off pretty quick.

[Greg Miller]

And so, yeah, they put that in here and it's good. But again, I feel like there's too few carrots at the end of the stick to really motivate me to keep going. And more importantly, I felt like every time I went off to get the carrot at the end of the stick. I was talking to Mike yesterday. I was like, it's like you're climbing a hill and halfway down the game steps up and just kicks you in the fucking face and you tumble back down. And this many hours in, I'm. I would have hoped that I would be through the curve of, okay, I've had the moment where I'm getting my ass handed to me by everything. But now, 10 to 15 hours in, I've got the better weapon. I've got the best thing I can hold my own, but it still is the runoff and get slaughtered for me and feel like what Was this all for what? Was this all worth it?

[Andy Cortez]

So you think you're getting to a spot progression wise, where, Okay, I think I might have good enough gear to kind of feel like I. I'm worth a damn in this game. And then what? The enemy's just too tough or.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, mosquitoes are still gonna swoop in and get me and kill me. There's gonna be a spider over there. That's whatever. Just too powerful. Spiders are chasing me.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah, the. The park is very dangerous there.

[Andy Cortez]

Be careful, everybody.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You'll have your little home set up, and you'll be kind of safe in your bubble. But when you adventure out of that bubble, Grounded two was very diff. I wouldn't. I don't want to call it very difficult, but, like, it is punishing out there. And you will be hunted, you will be stalked, and at every other moment, you will hear the battle music come on and you'll go, threat Detective. I'm not ready for that. Or like, I'm just trying to harvest this clay right now. Let's chill, everybody. I'm like, there's always a threat out there. There's always something that wants to come after you. And it's going to be. I mean, you know that dance, Andy, so well coming off of Dune right now, right? It's like there is a dance of progressing the story and trying to see what's next. And also, hey, I really have to sit and I need to build and I need to craft, and I need to take a lot of extra time that might be kind of slow or boring and find that joy and going, hey, I gotta go get clay now. I gotta go get thistle needle. I gotta go get the weed. I gotta get dry grass. Like, there's this blend there where it's like you kind of got to go both ways here. And then sometimes really park the bus. And Grounded two really, I think makes you park the bus if you're not playing co op. I was so surprised that Greg came out so positive on Grounded 2 from the preview, which I. I expected, but he was interested and exciting to play. And I was like, man, that's not really your cup of tea, Greg. This is wild. But I knew, like, I think this is more for a co op experience when you're out there solo. It felt like a lot of cheesing, Andy, of like, I'm getting attacked by two scorpions, you two spiders. If I didn't climb up on a piece of grass that they couldn't attack and bow and arrow them to death, I Would have no shot as a solo player without really putting in the extra hours to build out a loadout that might have gotten me close enough to fight by myself on the ground.

[Andy Cortez]

Are there any accessibility settings or anything to make the experience a little less of a headache for somebody who super isn't into survival games or somebody who doesn't want. Who want to experience the game without the systems constantly bearing down on them.

[Greg Miller]

So right now, no there's difficulty you can go in and I think it's. It must be mild, medium, hard I would assume. Or maybe it's just medium and mild, I forget. And there is a custom game settings but right now when you go over it, it's like not available yet. So I think again, this is early access. This game is going to be updated and go for it. And I really do. Again, I know I'm sounding negative. I want to make sure you understand that I'm not the survival guy. This was me stretching and trying something different. Right. So this is just gonna be my imp as a non survival game player. But I would imagine when those come in, I'd be interested to go back and kick the tires slide that.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah, yeah. I mean you'll have the, the thirst and the hunger bar rattling at you and you'll always.

[Greg Miller]

Which I didn't mind. Like I, I want to make. I want to. I'm going to stop you a few times because I want to make sure to the audience that I know is already I see people getting pissed off at me. Like I'm not mad at the survival tendencies. I don't mind eating and drinking. I turn that on in Starfield in other games too. Not good games. Not just.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I just want to make sure the audience knows like yeah, there are the options. Right. You can be like, hey, I want this easy mode. No thirst and hunger here. Hey, let's make it more difficult so the, the enemies are more. Are tougher. But there's been a larger focus in combat in Grounded 2. Andy. As opposed to Grounded 1.

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Like we built off of Grounded 1 with this great survival crafting game. This really fun narrative weaved in there and it had combat at some of its core. But it wasn't like, hey, this is the core. It was the whole survival crafting world. Now this time around they've really focused on that.

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You can now be a stealth assassin. You can be the bow and arrow person. You could be a mage. And they've built that with like small loadouts that you can now click on with different passive abilities. You can make charms which will be like, hey, your bow, when you charge up, does 10% more damage. Right. So you can kind of spec yourself out to be like, hey, I want to do this and that. And I think that's what leads to more of like, you should play this with friends. Because when you do fight the scorpion, there's going to be three of you running around. Hey, you take aggro, okay? I'm going to back up and heal. When it's just you, that scorpion is on top of you all the time.

[Greg Miller]

And I think again, that was an interesting thing of when they sent out codes, PR was very much like, we're sending you four codes or we enabled four of you. Like it works best together. Like they drive that home and stress it. But obviously a single player perspective is still interesting and needed, right? Yeah. And so that was back to where I was with this game of like, even though it would be like, you have to go here and do this thing, I would go there and it like there's this A big part of grounded that they're gonna sell you on, as they should, is buggies, which of course is bugs. You can ride this firm?

[Andy Cortez]

Yes.

[Greg Miller]

For early access, you can ride a red soldier ant and you can ride in an orb weaver spider.

[Andy Cortez]

They'll add not only mobility but also combat.

[Greg Miller]

Exactly. Yeah. They can, they can fight, they can move. They can chomp things down too to collect so that they have a nice collection ring. When you do it stuff, riding the ant, who is the first one you get is awesome. And I should say I didn't get the spider, so I can only speak to the ant. Is awesome. You see you're picking up the grass planks there. Like, this is an amazing addition, I think, especially for a map this big that you want to traverse. This is the way to go. But the problem is like, first off, without it, you're constantly being threatened, chase, hunted, even when you're after one little thing or whatever to a point that I just don't think is fun because it ends with me going, oh, fuck, I gotta run. So I'm just. And it's not that I'm. I can't beat this enemy in combat. So I'm just going to run, which means then I'm getting tired, which I'm cutting through grass trying to get them to clip on the glass grass. I get away. I digress. To get the ant. Right, is this mission where you have to go into an ant hill and you have to get a red soldier egg five missions before in the very opening, you went to a different anthill where eggs are just everywhere. You got an egg. Great. I came back, like, seven eggs. And so when this happens, like, I'm already ready to go. And then I was like, oh, this isn't the red ant soldier egg. This is a specific. So then you have to go to this ant hill. And, Andy, this was fucking Mount Everest. Like, you know what I mean? Like, even though you're going down, you go down, and the ants were just fucking on you immediately. And I was like, okay, you're in their territory. Maybe this is. Well, no, it's like, eventually they aren't. It's just the soldier ants, the little ants don't care, whatever. But you have to go so fucking deep into this goddamn anthill to get the fucking egg. And then I finally. After so many deaths, I finally get the egg and I start going. And then it turns out, of course, if they hit me, I drop it. It's like, oh, my God. I'm like, fucking throwing it like a football, just trying to advance for. And it's like, this is so annoying. And I was like, this is, you know, me playing and being like, well, I suck. Clearly, I'm. This is my usual circle with the game of, like, I suck, or I'm just doing this too early, but I've already made the smoothie thing and I've already made my house, and I've. You want to talk about a good boost to your ego? Yesterday, when Mike jumped in my world, he's like, all right, Greg, I'm impressed. Because I think Mike jumped in expecting me not to have done any of the stuff. I had a house, I had the things. I had the fences. I'm playing the fucking game.

[Snow Bike Mike]

It was good.

[Greg Miller]

Anyways, I'm like, okay, it must just be me. So then when Mike was like, yo, this anthill sucks.

[Andy Cortez]

Right?

[Snow Bike Mike]

Oh, thank God. Yeah, they do a really fun job of, like, when you think of grounded, you think of a really awesome little narrative weaved inside of this survival crafting game. But this time around, they've added a lot more to that, Andy, to kind of keep you going. That carrot on the stick mentality of, oh, I got a little nibble. There's more. So now, not only is there a narrative that you'll follow the main branching story, but there's also, like, small side objectives that will give you raw science, which is kind of your equivalent to upgrades, where you can go buy things with raw science to give you more cooking power, more home decor, stuff like that. And Then also upgrade your omni tool, but you are flooded the moment you walk out into the open world of just objective, objective, objective. And there's so many that they don't even know which one to put on the screen anymore. So we'll go from your main objective to now a side one where it's like, hey, Greg, make five smoothies for me. And they're great objectives to help you learn how to make the. How to play the game and keep you kind of going. Similar to Dune, how when me and Andy and Nick got on, it was like, hey, do all X, Y and Z. We'll give you some points for that. Now you're learning the game. They've done a really good job with that. Of like, hey, why don't you go make me a little spinning wheel? And you're like, oh, okay. Like, I want the raw science, so of course I'll do it. And then you go make it. Now you learn what you can do with that. But they blend so much that it wants you to slow down. But at the same time, what Greg brought up with the red anthill. One, I love that they introduced them out so early. Two, they introduced that very early where it's like mission four, maybe. You are going off and fighting in this red ant hill. And if you don't have a torch with you, if you're not good at navigating, if you're not good at combat, you're gonna be punished for about 20 to an hour, right? It was like a lot to go down, go and find these red, red ant soldiers that will fight you. And if the little ants see that you're fighting the big ant, they'll get involved. So now you have four on top of you. You finally find the egg. You have to go back up. Of course, things have respawned by then. You're going out of different entrance, there's even more. And as Greg says, you're holding it like a little football, so you can't do anything else. So it's, oh, here he is. I drop it. I got a bow and arrow it. Then I grab it again to come out. And it's like, that was a task to do that. And so when you finally get the mount, it feels really earned and awesome. But at the same time, playing solo, it was like, this is frustratingly hard.

[Greg Miller]

But then I was like, all right, I got the mount. Now clearly I'll be able to fucking hold my own against the scorpion. No, scorpions are still fucking killing me left and right. These fucking spiders are still a threat.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I'm like, God damn it.

[Andy Cortez]

Is there any indication as to what levels you should be fighting these things at? Do you ever see like or does that, does that just come with experience? Where you go, oh, you're, you, you're five hours in.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Don't.

[Andy Cortez]

Do not bother with the, with the Black Scorpions but the yellow ones are fine or what?

[Greg Miller]

I think it comes. I mean, Mike, you're the grounded guys, but like from a non grounded perspective and somebody who has played plenty of survival games and games in general.

[Andy Cortez]

How much grounded one did you play?

[Greg Miller]

I think literally just that those first three nights.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, okay.

[Greg Miller]

Where I was like, okay, I feel we beat the story and now we're just around.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I'm like super interested.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I was there because I wanted the honey, I shrunk the kids story. Not that I'm building a house or whatever, which I know I'm not trying to force on the game, obviously. So for me, I think in this one there's not that. And I think that comes with time and I think that would come with playing with your friends. And I think it's going to come especially with guides and shit. Because there was a moment that broke me where I was like, where the fuck is item X? Where I was like hitting people up and I was. I joined the reviewer discord where I'm like, what the fuck is this? Where do I find the goddamn thing?

[Andy Cortez]

That's when desperation sets in, when you, when you hit up the reviewer discord.

[Greg Miller]

And so it was like. But I think again, like when there's millions of guides and things to go through and do, like I. Again, for me, as an objective gamer, I mean, as somebody who chases objectives in the games, when the main objective is go to the thing and do the thing, I'm like, let's go do it. And when I was then eating shit, doing it, I was like, all right, cool, let's pump the brakes. Then it would be like, I just want to explore the map. I love opening up a map, right? But I'd run around the map and find something cool and collect a bunch of cool shit. But then a mosquito would fucking see me and I'm fucking dead. And so then it's like, all right, let's go back and get that backpack. Even though it was across the map and I don't have the ants and I'd go. But on the way there I'd get a wolf spider who would chase me and I kill me and I. All right, well, now I have fif. There's seven backpacks out there. I don't even remember what had the cool thing in it anymore or whatever, blah, blah, blah. So, like, I think there's gonna be, as with all these kind of games, a community and narrative surrounds or community and wikis and all that jazz. That'll really help you do it. But for me, when I. Okay, so like the point I was trying to make. Sorry, put the side objective. I'll go do something else. All right, cool. I don't want to fucking go get killed again from my backpack. I will, I will just build my house now. I will build my house and build my water tank and do all this stuff. And then I built it and I was like, now what? And again, this is me is not that person. Because the answer is, well, now decorate it. Make chairs and make these things. It's like, I don't, I don't.

[Andy Cortez]

I mean, three beds for me and Mike and Nick and awakening.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. But I was like, I don't want to do that. So then it was like, I feel like there's these big objectives for the big cool story stuff. But then there's not side objectives that I think a few side missions and smaller things like that would help me out rather than just build to build because I don't want to. I mean this, you know, obviously this Acorn House is made. Is built here. It looks awesome, but it's like that's not what I'd be. I was looking for out of this experience. I wanted to keep being pulled on the story the Omni 2. I mean, there's so much to talk about that is awesome in this game. I don't want to get hung up on this.

[Andy Cortez]

I can't wait to dive deeper into the rest of the game's systems. But we'll have to wait until a word from our sponsors.

[Delaney]

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[Greg Miller]

Shipping we need you. It's been a few years since we've done a big ol audience survey to determine who watches our stuff, where you watch it, what sorts of products you're open to seeing. In terms of sponsors, we've boiled this down to a handful of simple questions that shouldn't take you more than five minutes to complete. Oh, and all of your answers will be completely anonymous and we want you to be as honest as possible. Head over to kind of funny.com survey to participate. Thanks.

[Andy Cortez]

Before we hop into some super chats, I want to thank real Zombro and JMag for using their Twitch Prime. Remember, if you have Amazon prime, you have Twitch Prime. Nobody's gonna join me on the harmony.

[Greg Miller]

You have Twitch Prime.

[Andy Cortez]

You have Twitch Prime. Let's get into the super chats. We have a birthday tax Super Chat From John Van Pelt 6806 says it's about time for me to say it's my birthday. Here's a birthday.

[Greg Miller]

Happy birthday.

[Andy Cortez]

Happy birthday.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Go play. Grounded.

[Andy Cortez]

We have a. We have a non grounded related super chat from Snake Eater who just says I want to shout out two and these I've been obsessed with. The King is watching a primal planet. Check them out everyone. They're great. The King is watching as a game that I wanted to check out on Steam Next Fest. Like maybe last year didn't get to it, but I'm happy to know that it's awesome and it's living up to people's expectations. But let's get the rest of y' all super chats in. Give us everything you got. Questions wise about Grounded 2 so our panel can answer any questions you all would like to get into. I want to get more into a bit more of the specifics. You all already talked about some of the trials and tribulations playing solo. And I think usually whenever we bring up or talk about any sort of survival game that is multiplayer based, it's always, can I play this solo? And you. Sounds like maybe not the best call right now. Yeah, until difficulty stuff is maybe, you know, added in with the accessibility stuff with.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I think you just need to know what you're getting into. Of course, that it will be a little more on the difficult side for you solo playing. I would encourage you to really slow down and be mindful. But there's some roadblocks. You're definitely going to get hit with some moments where it's difficult and I think that might deter people. Unless there's some difficulty settings you can dive into and maybe slide it and adjust it on the fly is where I would prefer to be because I just think of that first night when you get the call, right? And it's like, hey, I'm sending an army of ants at you. Be prepared. And next thing you know, it's pitch black outside. You're trying to fight off about 4 hordes and it becomes, I'm going to cheese this and I'm going to hide behind something.

[Greg Miller]

And again. Yeah. So what Mike's talking about is there's this tower defense mechanic in the game, right? You have an antagonist this time who is sending out bugs to come attack you, right? Attack your base, wherever you set it up and there'll be a countdown, there'll be calls, you'll know it's coming. The first time they introduced this, I already built my house and then it was like, it taught me to build the build. Like, basically, you know, little logs of spikes on them to stop stuff real quick.

[Andy Cortez]

Is this a. Is this something, you know, happens every third day or is this just like a randomized.

[Greg Miller]

Random. You get a call, right?

[Snow Bike Mike]

That is. This is a narrative thread that you'll get a call. And it seems like it's going to happen more often than just once.

[Greg Miller]

Okay, it's happened to me a couple times. Yeah. And so like, the idea then is like, you know, you go to your base and you hole up and you have all these different defenses. One of the trailers we were watching there, you know, there's like turrets this time around and all these things you can put down.

[Andy Cortez]

Automated type stuff. Yeah, I love that.

[Greg Miller]

But like, back to it of like. I think that's the, you know, my issue with it is like the cheesing of it of the game. Any success I had here, I felt was hollow because I cheesed it. I didn't. I didn't earn it. Even getting the red ant egg, right. Like, when I finally got that out, it wasn't, oh, my God, I did it. It was like, oh, my God, I did it. Let's get this fucking thing back over here so I can do it. And so even this thing was like, lay the tire tracks down the, you know, spiky tires or whatever. That's not what I'm talking about. The log with the sticks on, the spikes on them. And then I didn't know I was building for this. Once I did that, that is when I was like, we're coming to attack you. I was like, oh, shit. Okay, so like, these giant bugs show up. That should kill me. And I'm like, fuck that. And I went in my house and I closed the door. And then they all just kept bumping into the thing I put out front. And then the ones that would get over the spikes to my. My window, they couldn't come in my house. So I just walked up to the wall and stabbed them through the wall and killed them. And I was like, well, this doesn't feel good. This doesn't. Again, I survived this encount. I have an easy way every time it's happened. I'm just like, oh, go in my room, shut the door, stab him through the wall.

[Andy Cortez]

I was like, this wasn't like Icarus Mike where the bear would break into our front door.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah, they didn't break in, but it was like Icarus of like, we have the spike fence and they just run into the spike fence and then they die right away. So it's like, yeah, Greg learned the tool that they asked him to use, which was the spike wall. But at the same time, yeah, he's just poking an ant through the wall right there. But like, yeah, I do want to highlight some positives, Andy, on the combat side of things. They have a perfect block now that is essentially like a Perry for you, where if you block it will be repelled back kind of stunned for a second and you can get in after. It has a bunch of cool different weapons, which they've already had before. But like I said, you can really kind of dial in your play style with the armor matching the weapon of how you want to be. You can get red ant, little teeth.

[Andy Cortez]

Claws, whatever they're called, the pincers or whatever.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yes. And then you turn those into like little dual blades, which I think you would like. And so there's some fun stuff to be had on the combat side I just think will be elevated with friends.

[Andy Cortez]

When we talk about how me and Greg are really looking forward to outer worlds too.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Because, you know, it's not necessarily that avowed. Really did a whole lot for me, story wise, but gameplay wise, so much fun. And you figure Obsidian has a lot of systems and tools to maybe share with the whole development team. So you felt like combat was great and there was a lot of variety with weapons. Or like, when you mentioned the different classes I wrote down, you mentioned, like mage type classes. What the hell does that mean?

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah, kind of. You're gonna have a wand and you'll be able to throw things at a character and it's kind of like casting spells. Of course, you'll have the bow and arrow and then you'll have the single sword with the shield. You have a big hammer. You have the dual blade. So they just give you kind of more ways to play and have all of us, if we were four, playing unique, different styles. So it's like everybody can be somewhere differently on the battlefield and still be contributing instead of just surrounding and hacking and slashing.

[Andy Cortez]

What was your class, Greg?

[Greg Miller]

I just stuck with the most basic stuff, Mike, when you turned it on yesterday, you were shocked that I didn't do the hammer, right. I was using. I was using the larva lance. So I had, you know, this giant staff within the. The pincer of a red ant on the tip so I could run. I was just spear class. So I just wanted to get up close, do a charge attack, hit you that way, dodge out of the way. Is that I had a weevil shield. So I'd be doing that. So basically, spear and shield.

[Andy Cortez]

Is that something that you're customizing when you're saying, I'm making this weapon, but I can put the ant.

[Greg Miller]

No to. You have a whole set. When you go into your crafting, you have a whole set of, like, what it can. Actually, I guess I have to go to the table probably for weapons, but you have to. There's a whole set.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay. So modification doesn't go as deep as maybe avowed did. Greg, I know about, had a lot of custom things where you could say, you know, I want this to have. Whenever I parry, I can choose from these two abilities.

[Greg Miller]

None of that.

[Andy Cortez]

None of that.

[Greg Miller]

Okay. You go in here, and it's just like, do you want the pebble spear, the crimson spear, the larva lance, the. What kind of shield do you want?

[Andy Cortez]

Are some of these legendary items that you're finding that are really rare?

[Snow Bike Mike]

You're not.

[Greg Miller]

Well, I. I mean, yeah, no. Legendary, you're finding. So you craft. But as you see, like, you get to see, right, your damage, your stunning, your critical, Right. So you can see through and go see what would be giving you the best off of any of that stuff.

[Andy Cortez]

Mike, One thing I love about Dune Awakening is how it didn't really feel like you had to move heaven and earth to get a lot of materials. One really nice thing about you break one little pile of rock, and it feels like you had a lot of stone. You weren't constantly doing the dance that we've had. We've done the dance with a million times with a lot of survival games where it's like, oh, I'm just trying to find this one stupid thing, but it won't drop. I've broken 12 of these things. I have no drop so far. It was very bountiful. With the amount of materials they were giving you, how do you feel that compares? And Grounded two? Do you feel like they were really fair? Do you feel like whenever you did have enough, that maybe you had a mission that asked for those same materials and you're like, oh, I guess I can't use the materials for my house now, or whatever?

[Snow Bike Mike]

Well, the backyard or the park now is very bountiful of things around you. So you never feel like it's like, oh, I'm dying for this. But I would say that's not like Dune, where you walk away going, man, I just got 30 of that, right? It's more like 5, 10, 2, 7. It's very small numbers because a lot of the items that you build are on a smaller scale than dune. So there's never a moment where you're like, I'm desperately in need of this because the park is so bountiful and you can find it. But there are moments where you're like, oh, man, now I got to go back for clay again. And, like, now I need that clay resource to respawn. Or that means I got to go farther into the park, which means more threats justify that. Those are the small hiccups that I found. Most of the time. I could find anything I wanted. They do a really good job of having an encyclopedia of all the items that you can have. I wish they took it one step farther and said, hey, here's where you can find it.

[Andy Cortez]

Right?

[Snow Bike Mike]

There's like.

[Greg Miller]

And they do. This is one of the things I want to compliment so much. When you're on the map here, you can hit Y and put it into resource finder, and then you can go through and look, and it will like, okay, cool. I need to go find blueberry chunk. You go there, you hit it. Bam. It'll light up the map and show you where it is.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah. So when you're in the encyclopedia and it's just writing down all the things. I wish there was like, a. Here's what it is. You're reading about it. Here's a photo of where you can find. Here's like, a What it looks like to find it. Right? Because you're looking for little thistle needles to be able to make bow and arrows. And we'll show you this. You'll read about it, and you're like, okay, well, just put a picture underneath this because a giant text bubble, right, Andy? And it's only one sentence of text, so there's just this giant dead zone. It's like, just put the photo of what it is next to it so I know where I can go find this item right there. But they do a good job of running it down through that, which I like as well.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. So this is to get into why I do, like grounded, too. You know what I mean? If I was scoring, I wouldn't be, like, tanking it by any stretch of the imagination. I just don't think my opinion carries as much weight as somebody who loves survival games. But. But, like, this was the stuff that I did really dig, Andy, where it was like, my first hours of Grounded 2 were completely ignoring the story, and it was, all right, let's get resources. This is not okay. You know, I've built my little lean to where I'll sleep. I'm staying right outside the initial, you know, scientific research center or whatever. So I have my access to all the stuff that I can, you know, go in there to assign, you know, analyze the part to get the raw science, to upgrade the thing, to upgrade the character, to unlock more stuff. Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome. And then it was all right, let's start making chests. You know, where can I store things? Okay, great, let's make the workbench. Let's make. And that's why I have this like double row of all the different stands on what to do and what to use. Because I was doing that and again I missed the research finder. I'm not resource finder early on. And when I finally found it, I was like, oh my God, what a godsend of here's what I need to do. Where is clay? Where is this? Where do I go get that? Where can I find these creatures or whatever. So I had so much fun doing that. Again, where the criticism comes in is that I loved wandering the map. Like, this is, you know my, like this is the fog of war, right? You can see that I've pulled it all back. Like I've actually gone through. There's some there, right. But I've like, I went everywhere I could go for the most part. Right. This is a red line that you can't cross. Like I've bumped into the edges of the map because I want to be that guy.

[Andy Cortez]

Big ass world.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Especially on foot. It's when the ain't gets there, it gets much smaller, which is great. You can. Because this was a fucking journey. And again, this was the demoralizing I get all the way over here.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Wow.

[Greg Miller]

There's something I've never. I'm fucking dead fuck. Okay. But expanding all that out and finding all that was great. But then it would be the thing of I get sniped by whatever creature that was over there. When I was like, I just wanted to see what's over this hill and do that. I understand that's the push and pull of these games, but the actual crafting, surviving again, what draws me to no man's sky again of I'm gonna go in there and find that carbon deposit to go this to go build this to go whatever, right? Like that's here. And I like that. It was just for me, the I, I difficulty keeps coming up. But for me it would just be the annoyance of the things coming out to get me when I'm like, why just off for right now? I don't need to fight you right now, you stupid little things that look like ticks. My mites. You Bites.

[Delaney]

I don't even.

[Greg Miller]

Get out of here. You're annoying me.

[Andy Cortez]

Any ticks in the game?

[Greg Miller]

No, not yet. Not for me.

[Snow Bike Mike]

The little mites might look like ticks.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay, gotcha.

[Greg Miller]

Ticks.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Nobody sleep on ticks.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Another beautiful, detailed world, Andy. I mean, the park.

[Andy Cortez]

Unreal Engine.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Just like the backyard. You are going to get lost in it. The fun part about this is there's a bunch of hidden molars out there, the milk molars, that will give you upgrades as well. So you're always encouraged to kind of look around that corner, see what you could find inside of a. A plastic cup that's been left on the ground, jump into some sort of glass bottle that has raw science in it. It is so much fun to go over the next hill, see that vista point, and see a bunch of pink raw signs all over the map and go, I'm gonna get up to that one day, or I'm gonna find how to climb up there. And then, sure enough, you'll. You'll play the 20 minutes of navigating to it, climbing up the side, and it's just that constant, oh, I'm gonna keep exploring. I'm gonna keep going. They have that all the time in this game, which I really, really enjoy. And a really fun narrative. You know, spoilers for grouded one. The kids are back, right? And they're small again. They. They got out of the. They got out of the backyard. Now they're back, right? And you wake up, you're small again. You go, oh, my gosh, I'm back. But the kids now kind of know what's going on. They've been through this before. And you have this fun little narrative going on. Of, of course, the bad guys, the people who created the research development. You're like, I don't want to team up with you. But now they're calling and you're talking, and you have these fun little dialogue moments with dialogue options here that you can choose. Nothing crazy that will, like, bend the.

[Greg Miller]

Game, but it's not RPG like Obsidian like I would have hoped.

[Snow Bike Mike]

But there's fun moments where I can be like, well, Hoops, you know what? Tell her you don't want to talk to her no more. And Hoops will be like, we're good here. Or, hey, let's learn some more. And you can keep clicking through the little dialogue buttons.

[Andy Cortez]

Is Hoops a playable character?

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yes. That's one of the four so if.

[Andy Cortez]

Greg selects hoops and jumps into your world, does that mess with the narrative at all?

[Snow Bike Mike]

No, you always get blocked out. Yeah. You'll be one of the four.

[Greg Miller]

Okay, so it's that thing of if you jumped into my world, you don't bring in your character. You're so.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Well, I also started on Xbox. I have no idea. Right?

[Greg Miller]

Oh, fuck, I forgot.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I restarted to play with great stuff.

[Greg Miller]

I'll see who I can jump in. Maybe I can get a random game right now for you.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I guess one thing that kind of just throws me off is like the not having the player agency of like, this is not. This isn't my create a character. You know, that's one thing I love so much about survival games. Really like immersing yourself and this is my dude in this world. Does that change for you at all where you're like, you have to pick a character who is already predetermined in who they are and well, these kids are great.

[Snow Bike Mike]

So I have no problem. They're. They're a lot of fun. They all have their different quirks about them that make you smile when they give the one liners. And it's not like they're not talking a bunch, but they'll give you the fun little voiceover where you go, oh, that's cute. Like shout out to you.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay.

[Snow Bike Mike]

But then the player agency is, well, what am I using? What am I building? What am I wearing? Right. How does my house look? How do I create that? Yeah, what is the outfits that I want? So that's where I find like my player agency in this.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, that's what I was going to go to next. What is character customization look like? How deep does it go? Is it mainly just, you know, costumes or. Not just costumes, but armor pieces or are you editing your character's hair at all or anything like that?

[Snow Bike Mike]

It's just armor and weapons.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah, yeah. Your character is a static based character. You're just going to always be hoops with the pink T shirt or whatever color it is and you'll put stuff on top of it.

[Andy Cortez]

Gotcha. Do you all think you're gonna continue this video game?

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah. I have a small problem. All of my friends love Dune and it is a big problem because we're. My friends are deep into Dune right now and this game has come out where my friends are fully into Dune. And as much fun as I had on this, Dune is also really, really great. And I want to play more Dune. I want to go explore Arrakis in The deep desert. And now we have another great survival crafting game that my friends could do the exact same thing on for hours on end. Right. Like everything we've just done in Dune, we could replicate that and get another 40 to 60 hours in Grounded. Right? And it's just at this one moment right now where my friends are all playing Dune. I don't think I can tell them, hey, let's drop what we're doing and go play another survival crafting game. It's tough when you're on the cycle, but if my friends weren't on this, I think we'd have a much easier. I would have a much easier sell of like, hey, everybody grounded, Twos out. It's got a good little narrative. They got enough for us to give about 20 to 40 hours in. Let's go get lost in it. And I think they all would say yes because we've played ground and 1.

[Greg Miller]

Are you scoring this one?

[Snow Bike Mike]

No, I won't. Not until we play deeper. Similar to Dune. This is one of those games you won't get enough out of 10, 15 hours. You got to get deep into it to start putting a score on it. And with the early access, this is going to evolve all the time. Of course, the next thing I know, I'll hit and I'll say, not enough story. They'll be like, guess what, Mike? Three weeks from now, here's more stories.

[Greg Miller]

We got so much stories.

[Andy Cortez]

Do you know how much story you've experienced, like. Like, missions wise? Or does it feel like you're in the middle of, like, the second act where maybe the bad guy's doing.

[Snow Bike Mike]

No, I'm. I still feel. I still feel like I'm early. I think I've gone over the hump of the beginning, and I. Me and Greg are right where. With each other, where I think we have gone past the beginning. We're cresting the first part of, like, the intro. Chapter one is what I would call that. I think we're going to start moving into chapter two, and I don't know how much farther past that they have, but that's where I would put us now. We've been introduced to a new character, right? So you wake up, you're like, oh, man, I'm small again. I'm in the park. The evil corporations, like, hey, we got to work together so we can get you out of there. Maybe you can help us. And we're like, no, we want to find Burgle, the cute robot.

[Greg Miller]

We love Burgle.

[Snow Bike Mike]

We love Burgle.

[Andy Cortez]

Like Burgle.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Burgle is the cute robot from Grounded one you'll remember. He had the little cute multicolored mustache.

[Andy Cortez]

Makes a return. Spoilers, Spoilers.

[Snow Bike Mike]

And so Burgle's out there lost. Okay?

[Greg Miller]

You got to save Burgle.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Somebody might have Burgle. And so your goal is to go find Burgle and also maybe work with the evil corporation. But maybe not. You'll never know. And so, yeah, that's where we're at.

[Andy Cortez]

So you don't know how evil they are.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Like, well, it's like, well, they've turned to people small, so we can't get behind.

[Greg Miller]

We got a new. Do you remember the. The bad guy's name here? The. The woman who's leading.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Oh, she's so much fun, though.

[Greg Miller]

She's awesome. Whoever She's. She's a really great performance. Really fun to have every conversation with her. I'm a big fan. Want to answer your question, which I didn't like for me personally? Like, no, I don't think I. Well, I. If y' all wanted to play Grounded tonight, I'd be like, well, I gotta play redacted. And, well, I'd like to go play more Pokemon. So I wouldn't. But I will be interested for. Hey, we've updated and added this and done this. And also then when it is like, oh, here's a better build and here's what's going on. That would it. Will I come back seriously for it? I don't know. But again, that's just not. I'm not a survival guy.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay. I like that. I want to thank. Let's go. TiVo for subscribing for 14 months using their prime. Appreciate you using your prime on us. Remember, get your super chats in, everybody. I think that's gonna wrap up the grounded conversation. But speed. But, you know, as we're on the topic of, you know, early access and things like that, last night, one of my. One of my big, exciting early access video games got a massive update game called Witch Fire.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, no shit.

[Andy Cortez]

Talked about it before. Huge update last night. This seems to be maybe one of the final ones until the game comes out. Probably not. Maybe it's a Haiti situation where they keep on doing more and more updates. But for anybody who's. Oh, thank you for the video, Kevin. For anybody who has heard me talk about Witchfire or has any sort of, you know, interest in it at all, it's a first person shooter, Roguelite. The game keeps getting better and better and deeper with systems, and they Added a whole new sort of tutorial system because they. Oh God, those enemies are the worst. Where they felt like they weren't teaching players how to play it well enough. I think the weapons are fantastic. I think the abilities are great and progression is just so much fun. And I, I understand, you know, the. Oh, man, I don't want to play a roguelite type deal. Or whenever I mention in this game, it's kind of like an extraction shooter, but not in the way you think of it. Not in the way you think of extraction shooters where it's a multiplayer type game and you got to try to get the loot and shoot the other team. It's more of an think of extraction as your. Your way to just leave the world without trying to go after the boss. Each world will have its big boss that you could try to explore through. And if you are in a level progressing and you're doing well, but maybe you realize you're super low on health and maybe the world is getting really, really dangerous because it's kind of like gta. The more damage you do, the witch level goes up and then once the witch level level hits like 5 out of 5, then she sends like just a lot of bad towards you. If you do happen to survive that or if you are trying to escape, you can extract with what you got and say that I'm peaceing out. I'm not even gonna try for the boss. I made a lot of progress. I gathered a lot of materials, I have a lot of money or whatever to then level up to buy later things in the video game. Then you can extract at one of the portals on the map and it kind of becomes a very scary like action movie type of deal where it's like, oh my God, get to the goddamn portal. Witchfire just continues to get better and better. And I'm already calling this as like being like a 2026 contender.

[Greg Miller]

God damn.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Because they, they announced that It'll likely be 2026 whenever they do it. 1.0. Yeah, this game's been in. And for the people who are worried about early access titles, this game, I think I first played it in 2023 on the Epic Game Store early access. Maybe it was even 2022, I forget. But then 2024, it finally came to steam early access and it's been there for a while, kicking ass. And they've been kicking ass with development. So Witch Fire rocks. It feels great. It looks great. It's awesome. Another little, little early access gem for you right there. I've been getting a lot of early access gems.

[Greg Miller]

A lot of early access games out there.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Early access games.

[Andy Cortez]

Like, like almost kind of too many. I. I did also download a game called. Let me just prep for the laugh. He is coming.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Oh wow.

[Andy Cortez]

We're all mature suddenly.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, a lot of we all know he's coming.

[Andy Cortez]

A lot of been coming. Oh, Jesus Christ.

[Greg Miller]

He's risen. He'll be back.

[Andy Cortez]

A lot of mature people on the podcast.

[Greg Miller]

A lot of people are going to be up in arms when he comes back.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Gonna be a lot of good guys, a lot of bad guys. South park yet?

[Greg Miller]

Oh yeah, great stuff.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Jesus is trying to sit on my lunch table.

[Andy Cortez]

I thought that this game was going to be very similar to Deathloop. It's an auto battler. I love Death loop. Or not death loop. Sorry, Loop Hero. Ah yeah, I love Loop Hero. Loop Hero is a mobile game. It also plays on PC and Switch and kind of anywhere you want to play a video game. But auto battlers are just really cool. Turn your mind off and level up your character and hope that they can, you know, just survive the night or whatever. He is coming. Looks like it's doing something similar. I tried it out. It wasn't doing exactly what I want and I don't know if that's just the danger and maybe I was just a little too early into it, but the. I hope it keeps on progressing because I just love the art style. Very, very basic, kind of almost one bit style art. There's no shading on characters. Just here's a color, here's a color block and we're going to show you a knight and a dragon, but essentially your character. It's not necessarily auto battler in the way that Loop Hero was where Loop Hero, you would create your track and your character would just kind of go on the track by itself night after night. This one you are controlling where you're going and deciding, oh, the night's about to hit, I should hit this little campfire. Or I could go after this little dragon boss or whatever. Really, really kind of basic looking game. It's super cute though. And of course I don't even think it's early access. But Mike, I love last night just hopping off my witchfire stream and walking upstairs, firing up my ornithopter.

[Snow Bike Mike]

She's doing it.

[Andy Cortez]

Just flying out to go do some missions, you know, maybe dropping my own adopt because I don't really know how to fly it at times.

[Greg Miller]

Sure, sure.

[Andy Cortez]

But man, like we got to get you a thought.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Are you gonna get real and put this on your game of the year? Like are you gonna be real and put give the respect that Dune Awakening deserves?

[Andy Cortez]

At this point, there's too many problems with it for me to.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Because this game has shown that it's a contender in 2025 like it is.

[Andy Cortez]

I mean, obviously it's taken over a hundred hours of my time, but I still look at the core systems and I'm like, we need more enemy variety. We need like there's still so much that they can improve on to make this game truly awesome. But, you know, I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. Mike. Maybe I pull you and I. And I put deadlock at number one. Like. Like you did that one.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You got to give respect to Dune. It's very good. There's a couple of games in the whole of the games cast. Which games are going to get the shade this year?

[Greg Miller]

Monster Hunter.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Monster definitely gonna get the shape.

[Andy Cortez]

Monster Hunter's the hell divers too.

[Greg Miller]

The shaft is what I mean, well.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Shaded is the young kids call it.

[Andy Cortez]

You're throwing shade. You're throwing.

[Greg Miller]

Exactly.

[Snow Bike Mike]

And like your boy Mike, just so you know, Greg.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snow Bike Mike]

On my top 10, written in my journal. Monster Hunter double starred.

[Greg Miller]

Keep it in.

[Andy Cortez]

There we go. The. The Lisa G is here.

[Greg Miller]

You got it.

[Snow Bike Mike]

We got to put it. We got to put dude on the top 10, brother. He's telling me it's not going to be on his top 10.

[Greg Miller]

It's on the top 10 for sure.

[Snow Bike Mike]

For real? For real. Last night I jumped for real. For real. Last night I jump in and I'm just, I'm just. Man, I'm out there, man. Greg. I'm getting jasmine crystals so we can make duraluminum. And I come back and I land my ornithopter.

[Andy Cortez]

Get out of it.

[Greg Miller]

And I'm about to transfer all the stuff.

[Snow Bike Mike]

The ornithopter. I get in, I hear it take off.

[Andy Cortez]

I freak out.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I'm like, oh my God, somebody stole.

[Greg Miller]

One of my two or Dr. Jacking.

[Snow Bike Mike]

And I was like, I gotta call Andy. And then I thought, wait a minute, maybe it is Andy.

[Greg Miller]

And it sure was.

[Snow Bike Mike]

And it goes, dude, I was using it. I was like, I just got out of that thing. Could you not tell the seats were warm?

[Greg Miller]

And he said, oh, yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

I thought the, the. I. I made that one. The color like the, the. The darker coast because I thought it was like mine. I thought yours is the one.

[Greg Miller]

Well, I made it to match because.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I was like, oh, match.

[Greg Miller]

I thought the one.

[Snow Bike Mike]

It doesn't matter.

[Andy Cortez]

They're all the same.

[Snow Bike Mike]

But you can have that one. Yeah, I was just using that one. Yeah, but when I got my smell in it.

[Andy Cortez]

But the problem is, whenever I get into my ornithopter, I always have to like, move the seat. Because you like your seat a little bit. It's got the little button.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You press one and then it goes back to you. And then press 2 and it goes back to me.

[Andy Cortez]

It doesn't work the way, you know, change my color. Service. Gotta take it to service.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Remember this vibe With a game of the year, it's nowhere to be seen.

[Greg Miller]

Remember this on me. Hundreds of hours, hours from all of you.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Remember this.

[Andy Cortez]

No, don't do this. Don't.

[Greg Miller]

He's coming back.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Tell him we're almost at Sand Crawler.

[Andy Cortez]

We're. We're almost in.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I went out to the world map, which is wild, but we went out to the deep desert the other day.

[Andy Cortez]

And Mike, it's deep. It's deep. It's so deep. Also another thing to throw out there. I've been really, really playing a lot of the altars. And it is still so amazing at what it's doing, storytelling wise.

[Greg Miller]

Dude, it's ready to go, dude.

[Andy Cortez]

I mean, maybe not your jazz because of the going.

[Greg Miller]

The management.

[Andy Cortez]

The management stuff, because Fallout Shelter didn't.

[Greg Miller]

Do it for me, but everything you've talked about, stories wise sounds cool and it's the same thing. Remember Citizen Sleeper wasn't my kind of game either. But like, I played it for you and I was like, damn, this was cool, dude.

[Andy Cortez]

Like the stuff, it's do holy. But just hit like a massive moment story wise, that blew me the fuck away. And all the character stuff, like, it's. It's fantastic. I.

[Greg Miller]

It.

[Andy Cortez]

That's definitely a contender for me.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

Really, really, really, really damn good game. Let's check. Do one last glance at Super Chat, see if we got super chats. Looks like we're chill.

[Snow Bike Mike]

No love for Wild Gate.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, Wild Gate. Yeah, that was a fun one time. That's. That's a fun one. And it already feels like it's over.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Oh, wait, it's over.

[Andy Cortez]

Is it over?

[Greg Miller]

Damn, that's.

[Snow Bike Mike]

No, I mean, I'm still playing it. I played last night, but like, I don't know, man. It's either you're in on that and you're loving it or like you'll never play that again.

[Andy Cortez]

Well, okay, here's why I am, I guess, so much of the love for Wildgate. If you all don't know what Wild Gate is. It's a four player five, five team competitive game where you're in your ship, one person's a pilot, you can have it's it. People keep on saying it's Sea of Thieves in space, but this is. It's not CD is necessarily in the way that you are just constantly existing and persisting you.

[Snow Bike Mike]

It's a multiplayer every time.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. You, you. When the round is done you can say hey do you want to start up another round?

[Greg Miller]

Or whatever.

[Andy Cortez]

And it's you and your squad and one person's piloting and you'll fly up to a space station but there's other. There's four other squads out there in the deep space doing their own thing. And you'll fly up to a space station and Mike will say oh Andy, go grab us that gas. And then we'll go into the space station, we'll kill the enemies here which are little NPC bosses or whatever and grab whatever materials we could take back to our ship to make it powerful and stronger to then fly to the next thing so that hopefully we don't get our asses handed to us by another team on their ship or whatever. It's. It's cool in that sense for those wow moments whenever that one team Mike crashes into our ship to prevent us from entering the Wild Gate like that. That's some amazing stuff right there. But it's the one reason why I'm still looking more forward to jump ship is because it's. The jump ship is the same sort of concept but it's not round base. It's just you and your homies in a ship flying around, flying off your ship, doing, you know, entering dungeons and first person shooting, gathering stuff to go back to your ship to keep on flying. Jump ship is more of a persistent experience which I think I lean more towards as opposed to maybe a competitive game like this where you get your ass handed to you two times and the matches take so long you go I don't want to play another one. I'm good. You know these matches take a long ass time. That was one of my. Unless you get your ass whooped really quickly then, then the matches won't take super long. But yeah, a jump ship is a one to four player co op game that is all about you all on your ship and you are jumping off to little. You know, I. I want to call them roguelite style dungeons but not really. You're. You're getting out of your ship and you are first person Shooting with your homies, gathering stuff to then make your ship better. It seems like a really cool loop and seems a bit more up my alley.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Here's one for up your alley before we go Clutch Time Basketball Deck Builder Andy this one is a blast.

[Greg Miller]

What the.

[Snow Bike Mike]

If you haven't seen this one, of course we're all in the deck building games. We love Bellachro, of course here at Kind of funny. We love Magic the Gathering. Clutch Time Basketball Deck Builder is a really fun Steam game that a best friend recommended me currently 15 on Steam you are playing against another. You know, you're not actually playing someone, but you're playing another team. You can see their cards laid out and you can put on defensive cards to put out there like a block, a steal, a foul. You will have opportunities on the offensive side to of course shoot threes. You'll be able to pass for assists, which will make all of your shots not cost any sort of stamina. So it's not like it's clearly made by probably a small team of one person. It's not super artsy, but when you're playing it into the four quarters, riding the momentum of having good possessions, Basketball Andy is a game of what, inches? Runs. It's a game of runs. And sometimes you're going to go on a good run, sometimes the other team's gonna go on a better run and you just gotta catch up. And yeah, this one is really, really good. I would legit say you should check this one out. This is a blasting good music.

[Andy Cortez]

Thanks for the reco. I love that. That's gonna do it for us here on this Gamescast episode of us reviewing Grounded 2. Mike, Greg, thank you so much for the time you put into this game. I'm glad you all did your job and you know, hey, you're gonna have a good review. I'll say that much. Like whenever I review AS.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Oh, you're gonna review us?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, you mean annual review. Okay, great.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Okay. I will expect to see the line that says Mike and Greg, great job on Grounded.

[Andy Cortez]

Great job of gratitude.

[Greg Miller]

That'll definitely, definitely be there.

[Andy Cortez]

Everybody. Thank you so much for watching this episode of the Games cast. Remember, each and every weekday we get together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews and topics in video games live on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, please support us with the kind of Funny membership on Patreon or YouTube to get all of our shows ad free, watch us record them live and get a daily exclusive show catch. Today's kind of funny. Games daily on YouTube or podcast services. It's actually going to be live right after this. Until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you. Take care of yourself. Take care of each other. Goodbye, gamers.