
Loading summary
State Farm Announcer
This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast. Smart move. Being financially savvy. Smart move. Another smart move. Having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.
Redfin Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking, maybe even scrolling home listings on Redfin, saving homes without expecting to get them. But Redfin isn't just built for endless browsing. It's built to help you find and own a home with agents who close twice as many deals. When you find the one, you've got a real shot at getting it. Get started@redfin.com own the dream cotton candy 5 hour energy.
Greg Miller
The perfectly sweet and possibly nostalgic treat you're craving. It's all flavor, no fluff. Order now at 5hourenergy.com or Amazon. What's up everybody?
Andy Cortez
Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games
Greg Miller
cast for Thursday, March 19, 2026.
Andy Cortez
I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller,
Greg Miller
alongside the big from V G C News, it's Jordan Midler.
Jordan Midler
Hello. Procopia Review Part two. So now that you've. No, no, no.
Andy Cortez
The Internet has moved on.
Greg Miller
We've moved on from how many hours
Andy Cortez
into Pocopia are you right now, Jordan?
Jordan Midler
So we've now paused. We're on xd Gale of Darkness and Nintendo gamecube Classic. But I think the last time I checked it was 210, so.
Andy Cortez
210. God dang.
Jordan Midler
Yeah.
Andy Cortez
Now, how are you?
Jordan Midler
I've got a ways to go before I get to my Legends za, which was 4:15 at last. Check.
Greg Miller
Jesus Christ.
Jordan Midler
We got there.
Greg Miller
Jesus. How's Gale of Darkness going? I saw you, of course, over on bs.
Andy Cortez
That's Blue Sky Tim.
Greg Miller
Talking about this is the whole reason
Andy Cortez
you bought the goddamn GameCube controller for the Switch 2?
Jordan Midler
Well, I mean, the GameCube Pokemon games are super weird. For a long time the Pokemon company didn't really acknowledge them because they didn't make them. It was a company called Genius Sonority. But they're, they're great fun. They have aged interestingly. But if you have. If you have the absolute rip off expansion pack and you want those GameCube games, go ahead and get it right now.
Greg Miller
I do have it.
Andy Cortez
I haven't had the time to start, obviously. There's been a million things going on, so I'm excited to dive in eventually because yes, I have a GameCube controller as well that I don't use for anything, so the idea of jumping in here and trying this out sounds pretty exciting to me.
Greg Miller
But Jordan, I only have you for
Andy Cortez
30 minutes before you have to run. You of course were nice enough to jump on this with me. Don't worry, I won't end the gamescast in 30 minutes everybody.
Greg Miller
I will hang out because we're gonna be talking about the most divisive video
Andy Cortez
game reviews of all time.
Greg Miller
Because this is the kind of funny gamescast. Each and every weekday we run you
Andy Cortez
through the biggest topics in video games,
Greg Miller
whether they be reviews, previews or just things we need to talk about. If you wanna talk to me and Jordan about maybe, hey, what do you think the most divisive video game reviews
Andy Cortez
of all time are? Go to YouTube.com kindafunnygames where you can
Greg Miller
super chat to be part of the show. Of course, thank you to our Patreon producers, Karl Jacobs, Omega Buster Delaney, the Som Twining. They'll be getting the show ad free. Get their daily dose of me, Greg Miller and support an 11 person small business. And hey, I got a phone number
Andy Cortez
on my screen if you aren't looking at it.
Greg Miller
It's 415-343-5034. Tomorrow we're doing a voicemail episode of
Andy Cortez
the Kinda Funny Games Cast because it's now Life After Crimson Desert. Go to this one and listen to me tell you what I need from you. But remember, as I say in the
Greg Miller
thing, you'll hear 30 to 60 seconds. If it's over 60 seconds, I delete it without listening. For now, let's begin the show with what is and forever will be topic of the show. Jordan Yo. The Internet is aflame of course. Crimson Desert Review embargo lifted at 3 o' clock yesterday. Of course you can go catch the
Andy Cortez
kind of funny gamescast about it where
Greg Miller
myself, Paris and Andy chop it up with some input from a sick Blessing. Adio Ye Junior. Of course today 3 o' clock we can start streaming it. We're doing a gamescast plays then we're starting a marathon stream with Andy who will play for as long as you make him play for it. But of course Crimson Desert has been hurtling towards this release date for a while. The game that does it all the game people thought was too good to be true and depending on who you talk to Maybe it is the Metacritic of course, a 78 right now. Friend of the show Paul Tassi at
Andy Cortez
Forbes giving it a 9.5.
Greg Miller
Greg Miller, who you're listening to talk about it in his 20 hours of
Andy Cortez
playing it and not enjoying it, giving it a 5.5, calling it mediocre.
Greg Miller
There are any color of the rainbow
Andy Cortez
reviews out there for you to go and be like, I agree with this and I'm gonna murder whoever wrote this or said that.
Greg Miller
However, it hasn't stopped the world from turning. Even though as VGC News reports, Crimson Desert Studio Pearl Abuse sees share price
Andy Cortez
plummet by nearly 30% after the first reviews arrive.
Greg Miller
I think it's going to be okay.
Andy Cortez
I appreciated blessings. Talk today in a pizza bet on
Greg Miller
what the sales will be, but big man Jordan Midler. So just because you can't capture some little creature, make it do as you're bidding, you're not reviewing this? Nobody at VGC was on top of this one.
Jordan Midler
No, we weren't. And we only review good games. I think it's very funny that all of a sudden I'm seeing 7.8. That's a great score. What is anyone worrying about? If I give something less than a six out of five, I'm told that I'm taking the food off the table of these developers. Look, I understand when I was a fan and on the other side I got very, very invested in games before they came out. And there is a personal attachment that you can, you can make to something you've pre ordered and spent a lot of money on.
Greg Miller
Anticipated for seven years.
Jordan Midler
Yes, exactly. But I think as per usual, the reaction has been somewhat ridiculous. It's also weird to me because there were a lot of positive reviews. Like if you wanted to find the review that matched your bias, you absolutely could. I think people get really hung up on when IGN who haven't put out a final review. To be absolutely clear, they have a little kind of graphic saying if we had to score it now. And I think that's a separate problem. The kind of like Twitter image ification of all reviews or just here's a number or and God love them because they always include vgc. And I appreciate that. I think those tweets that it's just like here's all the review scores. Very unhelpful for reviews in general.
Greg Miller
Right?
Jordan Midler
But yeah, I think that the reaction is not surprising. We've been through this many, many times. But for some players, this is their first cyberpunk reviews. This is their first big disappointment from from a Review period from a game. So God love them. Just I don't think it's ever that serious.
Andy Cortez
Of course not. And I think, you know, that's always my favorite thing.
Greg Miller
I love a game that comes out and gets these scores. I think it's so fucking boring when
Andy Cortez
a game comes out and everybody's like, 7, 7.5. We're all right there. That's what it is. Congratulations. The fact that you can get a Crimson desert right now and have people be like, I put 100 hours in and I hate my life. Or I put 100 hours in and this is the best thing I've ever played.
Greg Miller
Like, that's art. That is fascinating. And that's where it comes back to. I think of. I always talk about in these shows how lucky we all are to be
Andy Cortez
living and playing games right now because,
Greg Miller
you know, the reviewer on such a
Andy Cortez
different level than I did in high school in the, you know, the St. Francis computer lab, clicking on and be
Greg Miller
like, well, IGN gave it this and
Andy Cortez
not realizing there's going to be a difference between Mary Jane and there's going
Greg Miller
to be a difference between Doug Perry
Andy Cortez
and there's going to be a difference between Kaik Harris.
Greg Miller
Like, there's such a vibe here of
Andy Cortez
you can come in and be like, oh, I know that I never agree with Craig on anything, so maybe I'd like it.
Greg Miller
Or being like, oh, I like a
Andy Cortez
game that Paris usually likes. So this is a weird juxtaposition on
Greg Miller
where I'll be, but I think it really did kick the beehive into a conversation of we were prepared for the record cards on the table.
Andy Cortez
Is kind of funny.
Greg Miller
Did the original headline we had for this one was when we were reviewing it and we were all like, damn,
Andy Cortez
I just don't want to play this game anymore.
Greg Miller
We had prep the headline were we
Andy Cortez
wrong about Crimson Desert?
Greg Miller
Totally prepared that it would be.
Andy Cortez
Everybody else is saying a nine and me, Paris bless. Are all like, now I just don't want to play this game.
Greg Miller
So I thought the easy pivot here would be to talk about divisive reviews. The reviews that come out. And there is a smattering of opinion on of course, Jordan, you know, I've
Andy Cortez
been doing this a long time.
Greg Miller
You were a wee little lad when you started listening to Greg Miller talk
Andy Cortez
about video games or read Greg Miller. But now you've been doing it so
Greg Miller
long, I thought I could think of
Andy Cortez
nobody better to come in and talk about the biggest video game review fights you've ever seen on the Internet.
Greg Miller
Because I think we've been a part of them. So Jordan, start off. Where do you want to go?
Jordan Midler
So when I first started and you just mentioned it there, the genesis of the kind of Internet culture of knowing who the viewers are personally was finding like the IGN podcasts and stuff like that, who was part of the IGN podcast and that absolute charlatan Chris Roper giving God hand famously 3 out of 10. When I googled this, when I knew this was the topic, every single list included God Hand. The kind of the sevens. I want to know from your perspective, what was that like then and how does the reaction to Chris's review back then when it was more of like an on site comment style and freak out rather than a social media freak out, how does that compare and contrast?
Greg Miller
So I wasn't there when Roper gave
Andy Cortez
God hand on PlayStation 2 a 3 out of 10. If you're unfamiliar, yeah, God Hand a metacritic right now of 7.
Greg Miller
Roper gave it a 3 out of 10.
Andy Cortez
One of his final graph.
Greg Miller
His final verdict graph was the bottom line is that God Hand quickly becomes
Andy Cortez
a boring, annoying and frustrating game.
Greg Miller
Why should you be forced to try and complete a level with no starting health when you have no hope of survival and will just need to reload a minute later? What's fun in fighting the same annoying demon creatures over and over again when the fight was old the second time you tried it? Why, oh why did Clover Studio put so much money into such a risky joke? And why did no one see that the joke didn't have a real punch
Andy Cortez
at any point in development?
Greg Miller
Here's a better joke for free. What's green and has wheels? Grass? I lied about the wheels and it's like, I think even there you want to talk about like just Roper just
Andy Cortez
punctuating his point and really going after it.
Greg Miller
Like I when did God Hand come out?
Andy Cortez
Because IGN does the whole thing now where they do the I go to the review to read it for you
Greg Miller
and it's like, oh well, guess what,
Andy Cortez
here's it was updated in 2012. Like that's not when it came up.
Greg Miller
God Hands original release date here on PlayStation 2006 was it 2006? Yeah. So it was like the release date September 14th, 2006. So if you're you, your history books remember Everybody. I started IGN in 2007, so I
Andy Cortez
come in March 1st is my official day, but I came in in February. And so legitimately, yeah, I want to say one of the first introductions of Roper to me was either and I forget the timeline on this, it was he's the guy.
Greg Miller
Here's Chris Roper. He gave God hand a 3 out of 10. Or it was here's Chris Roper.
Andy Cortez
He closed Clover Studio because it was
Greg Miller
that level of it.
Andy Cortez
Even if you Google right now, God
Greg Miller
Hand then quotes Chris Roper, right? It's the review followed by a kind of funny subreddit. Don't forget the Roper Report is named for the IGN guy that gave God him to 3 out of 10 followed
Andy Cortez
by a GameFAQs post. God hand Chris Roper's blog rants where
Greg Miller
they're just like it was such a. A different time of working there. And I mean like in 2006, let alone when I start in 2007. Remember, IGN doesn't even have comments on articles. Like we would post an article, a review or whatever and then it was part of our job to go to the IGN boards and put it up there so people could come and rant
Andy Cortez
and rave about that.
Greg Miller
And so it was a joke. It was something that was said, but it wasn't something that chase you on the daily as I'm sure when we start getting into my skeletons in my review closet of oh well, Greg didn't like this. Greg didn't do that great. But like I see that in the
Andy Cortez
chat every day whenever I say anything.
Greg Miller
Whereas I think back then it was such a. Okay, yeah, this is a. Haha. This is when I. Because when did Clover Studio Clover Studio closes Clover studio died in 2006. No, March 2007. So yeah, it was. Was it Roberts fault or was it the game's faul?
Andy Cortez
Who's. Who's to say?
Greg Miller
But yeah, how does. Let me.
Andy Cortez
I want to see.
Greg Miller
Yeah, yeah. Capcom shut down Clover studio in late 2006 after a whole bunch of people left or whatever. So they're not even citing IG in there, which is nice. I'm looking back to see if they're the paragraph before, but it is that idea of these things legitimately chasing you. I'll toss mine out since we're here doing it right. Lair PlayStation 3 exclusive Lair by Factor 5, which of course I gave a
Andy Cortez
4.9, which really quickly people went with their rudimentary Photoshop and said factor 4.9, renaming the studio after that. My closing on that one was and
Greg Miller
by the way, the Lair Metacritic 53. But we'll get to that in a second. You might think I'm being too hard on Lair, but if you do, you clearly haven't played this game. Although there are levels with wide open environments and spread out objectives. I'm sorry, levels where wide open environments and spread out objectives trick you into thinking the six axis stuff isn't that bad. Whenever a handful of enemies are on screen, you. Your flight space becomes limited and you need to be precise.
Andy Cortez
The game falls apart.
Greg Miller
At one point, Lair looked like one of the most promising titles coming to the PlayStation 3. But the final version, even with its interesting story, occasionally impressive graphics and amazing score, falls well short of anything.
Andy Cortez
You should be playing
Greg Miller
the story. I would always tell you because if
Andy Cortez
you're young, you don't remember me reviewing Lair, which again was a PlayStation 3 game, depended on 6 access. And it was the one like, that is why they pushed this game of like, this is one of those. Like, this is why six Access works. This is one of the places this will be the PlayStation 3 exclusive you care about. And again, this is September 4, 2007, so you're doing your math there.
Greg Miller
I've only worked at IG in six
Andy Cortez
months, so it was very easy for
Greg Miller
everybody to be number one.
Andy Cortez
This kid doesn't know what he's talking about.
Greg Miller
But more importantly, this was a different
Andy Cortez
age, this was a different time when
Greg Miller
IGN would approach PlayStation and every other
Andy Cortez
company under the sun, for the record, and be like, hey, can we get the exclusive review? Basically, can we get the Game Informer cover story? Hey, can we have the exclusive review? And so PlayStation gave us the Lair exclusive review, meaning that they had no idea what we thought of it, no
Greg Miller
idea what I was going to write.
Andy Cortez
And I came out, I don't know, a day or two days before any other review. I was like, it's dog shit. And it was, it was a conversation with PlayStation after the fact. I remember that wasn't we're mad at
Greg Miller
you or anything like that, but hey, it was like.
Andy Cortez
Because it was like some junior PR person. It was like the head of the
Greg Miller
company being like, so if we ever
Andy Cortez
give you exclusive again, can you only run it exclusively if you like it?
Greg Miller
We're not saying we're influencing the score,
Andy Cortez
but like, yo, don't come out and be like this game's garbage and then have everything go to hell.
Greg Miller
Because I did. And this is another great example, you know, we're talking about Roper and what it was like. This was comments for sure on the boards, but there was no social media
Andy Cortez
for it to chase me on.
Greg Miller
So maybe it would be a letter written to the game Scoop, but it was usually on some forum I would
Andy Cortez
see people talking shit about me and
Greg Miller
it was I forget the name of the Dylan egg Bright Egg Brick the dev. I remember and I remember someone at
Andy Cortez
GDC that was a fan was a dev went to the booth and they were showing it.
Greg Miller
He's like oh, I remember this game.
Andy Cortez
Greg Miller hates it. And the guy's face dropped and he was like so fucking pissed off.
Greg Miller
And they eventually patched in normal controls thing but it was a whole thing.
Jordan Midler
Jordan I want to steal a story from Krusgalion or Andy Robinson. When they used to work in the magazine days all of the different platform magazines would be on the same floor of their offices. So when a game would come in everyone would pile around and watch them play this game. And when the PlayStation magazine got Lair they played it for five minutes, it stopped working and then someone turned to the crowd and went layer and started using that for months. And that is all think about. I think about your review. I think about factor 4.9 and I think about later that was such a. As someone that was in the trenches back then it was difficult to be a PlayStation fanboy who an even king of the PlayStation fanboys 2007 Greg Mellor was killing Kellen. Everything we hoped and dreamed for. But I mean your other. I wouldn't say most famous.
Andy Cortez
Let me give you more a couple more layer stories because I still got them. Oh yeah, I still got them.
Jordan Midler
That's just the layer I work throughout the rest of the.
Greg Miller
Because I don't get to talk about a layer all that often or whatever. Right. My favorite comment from a fan was in the review I called out how
Andy Cortez
unresponsive the six axis controls were to fly the dragon and someone legitimately with
Greg Miller
their full fucking chest was hey, it's a dragon.
Andy Cortez
Of course it's not going to listen to you.
Greg Miller
Which of course would later I'd be
Andy Cortez
a last Guardian argument when people are annoyed by that.
Greg Miller
Hey, it's not going to.
Andy Cortez
It's not meant to listen to you, you idiot.
Greg Miller
Blah blah blah. And then the flip of it was PlayStation at the time went into such
Andy Cortez
damage control about it that they sent. There was enough time that they went and threw.
Greg Miller
Must have been an all nighter put
Andy Cortez
together this beautifully like you know, insert
Greg Miller
book with color pages that they sent
Andy Cortez
to all the reviewers and all the outlets of like hey, here's how to
Greg Miller
play Lair and here's all the lore about Lair and yada yada yada. And it was thrown together so quickly
Andy Cortez
that one of the bios either for
Greg Miller
the town or the person or the
Andy Cortez
dragon itself was the Lipsum Lipsum, lipsum, lipsum. Like, they didn't even fill in the text. They just had to get it out the door so quickly.
Greg Miller
Sorry, you want to keep pivoting?
Jordan Midler
No, no, I was just gonna say like the. Those kind of reactions. I get them occasionally now. Like when we were filling out this document, the one that I thought of and it's another. It's another first party PlayStation game. I don't know if that's connected. You can draw your own conclusions. Was for Gran Turismo 7 when I gave Gran Turismo 7 three out of five on the VGC scale, which is a good game. Unfortunately, that translates to a Metacritic 60, which is the lowest Gran Turismo 7 review by some distance.
Greg Miller
Yeah.
Jordan Midler
So I spent a nice week being told by largely car perverts that I didn't know what I was talking about. And I had no business reviewing a car game. And I was like, if you read the review, I pointed out that the car part of Gran Turismo 7 is exemplary. The terrible parts are when you are forced to sit in a cafe for half an hour to learn the history of the hot hatchback and when the studio decides that what this car game and he did more of was less driving and more historical epics about the steering wheel. So that was a. That was also when I was a bit younger and a bit bitier. So I was arguing with them on Twitter for a long time and that's never the way to go nowadays. If I say, if I say something, I just ignore them. I'm not on Twitter anymore anyway. But if they ever come to Blue Sky, I just ignore them. Because it's very difficult to get the last word when you are reigning yourself in. When I know that other person can say anything and absolutely end me. Whereas I can't come back as hard as I want to come back. Public profile company, I'm representing things like that. So I just let it slide on by. It was even when I worked for the BBC and they were posting their stuff on all of their public Facebook pages to like 50 million followers and stuff like that. It was so much worse. But I think because the BBC is like our public service broadcaster, the people commenting on those videos just thought, oh, he's a guy on the television, he doesn't worry about this, he doesn't see all of it. Meanwhile, like 22 year old me is going through all of them and like reporting the comments that were horrible about me. I was like, man, really? And my feelings back then, now I just, I just don't care. I'm just holding on to this Zed Lust microfame until it all blows up.
Greg Miller
I mean, that's the way to do it. You've heard the story a million times
Andy Cortez
where I, you know, woke up literally in the middle of writing a mean tweet about the office. And I was like, wait, I'm acting like they wouldn't ever see this, but I see the tweets about me and they make me mad. Why would I, like, I won't do that. I won't be a part of that.
Greg Miller
And it's the same thing of the
Andy Cortez
argument, right, where, you know, I saw things on this kind of funny subreddit today of like, Andy trying to defend overall game critics to somebody who was
Greg Miller
being meat or whatever, and it's like,
Andy Cortez
there's no way to win that argument. I used to do the exact same thing.
Greg Miller
It used to be.
Andy Cortez
I remember, you know, long before he worked at ign, Mitch Dyer was a freelancer in the video game world.
Greg Miller
And he wrote an article for some
Andy Cortez
site that was like, the video game personalities you should be following on Twitter.
Greg Miller
And he put me in there and
Andy Cortez
he's like, one of the reasons he put me in his write up was, if you tweet at Greg, he'll probably respond. Because it used to be like, it used to be fun to go in
Greg Miller
and talk to the people who want to talk. But then obviously, as so many trolls
Andy Cortez
flooded the platforms and social media in general, so many arguments are in bad faith. When you would go back on them,
Greg Miller
I would often get a lot of,
Andy Cortez
hey, man, I'm sorry, I'm just having a bad day. It isn't about you or the opposite
Greg Miller
of like, no, no, fuck you. Triple down on it. And it's like, all right, so it's never get off your horse to wrestle a pig. Because they, the only way they, they
Andy Cortez
just want to get you muddy. They don't care. They're already muddy.
Greg Miller
They're not. It's like you're going to pull them
Andy Cortez
out of this and make them understand what's happening. And so nowadays I look at it where so many people come at me, maybe in a comment, maybe in or whatever, and want to fight something I said in the review.
Greg Miller
And I'm always very much like I said my piece in the hour long
Andy Cortez
piece of content you can watch, maybe you're misrepresenting it, maybe you're not.
Greg Miller
But this is also your forum to say that. But it also is an odor response
Andy Cortez
because I said what I needed to say. And if I have more than follow up on it somewhere else. But I got a life to go.
Jordan Midler
Yeah. And I tend to agree, like, what is your. What? You're in a weird position where you've had backlashes to extremely positive reviews as well. Whereas I feel like I've yet to get one of those because I feel like a massively positive review is kind of seen as quite boring these days because a lot of reviews have kind of power crept up towards the higher end of the scale, which is like a different conversation and has kind of its own problems. But you put your Uncharted review in this document. I didn't even remember that was a controversy because I just remember reading the review and thinking, thank God, it's brilliant. I'll just go and play it and listen to the podcast. I don't remember the backlash. If you could regale me with that.
Greg Miller
Yeah.
Andy Cortez
So me and Jordan put together a doc and started throwing things on here. I put Uncharted 3 Drake's Deception on here, which Metacritic of 92. I gave it a 10 out of 10 at IGN and I want to
Greg Miller
say it's my only 10 out of 10.
Andy Cortez
I gave it IGN. I should have done Peace Walker. I regret not doing Peace Walker, but I got in my head about it. My closing verdict on it was uncharted 3 Drake's deception. Or this actually my opening. I changed it up this morning when I put it together.
Greg Miller
Uncharted 3 Drake's deception is the reason
Andy Cortez
I play video games.
Greg Miller
From the smile plastered on my face
Andy Cortez
during the opening montage to the disbelief
Greg Miller
that swept over me as Chapter two began to the middle of the night
Andy Cortez
text message I shot a friend about our relationship reveal.
Greg Miller
I couldn't stop loving this touching, beautiful,
Andy Cortez
fun and engaging game.
Greg Miller
From the moment the music swells on the title screen to the moment the
Andy Cortez
Credits rolled, Uncharted 3 is a masterpiece.
Greg Miller
Can I get the one? The problem with my Uncharted 3 reviews?
Andy Cortez
And I'll tell you right now, I got no beef with Chris Roper about God Hand. I got beef with Chris Roper about Uncharted 2.
Greg Miller
All right.
Andy Cortez
Chris Roper should have given Uncharted 2 a 10. Then there wouldn't be an argument.
Greg Miller
Cause it wasn't so much, I think, that I loved Uncharted 3, Jordan. It was the fact that so many
Andy Cortez
people loved Uncharted 2. And so it was this.
Greg Miller
By me giving it a 10. People are like, this is head and
Andy Cortez
shoulders above uncharted 2. Thank you, IGN. And then they got it and they were like, what the fuck are you smoking? Ign.
Greg Miller
This wasn't better. And I was like, I never said that. I reviewed Uncharted 1 because Roper was on paternity leave. Then he came back, he got to do Uncharted 2. Then I got Uncharted 3.
Andy Cortez
What do you want me to do about that?
Greg Miller
I can't help you. And so, like, for me, it's the.
Andy Cortez
Yeah, to your point.
Greg Miller
The opposite of, you know, when you're
Andy Cortez
negative on a review, people want to love.
Greg Miller
I was positive on a game people wanted to be positive about. But this was, I think, for.
Andy Cortez
And I'm probably in my own head about it.
Greg Miller
We all have our own fictions we write about ourselves. But I feel like this is.
Andy Cortez
And I stand by the review.
Greg Miller
I love Uncharted 3.
Andy Cortez
I feel like this is when I gave ammunition to all the people who say, oh, well, Greg's a Sony pony.
Greg Miller
You can't trust Greg Miller. He's on Beyond. He's at psx. He's doing this. Da, da, da. And I also think so many people
Andy Cortez
point to it as like, oh, well, Greg's easy on games. I think now is what it would be. But back in the day, he's easy on PlayStation. First party.
Greg Miller
Oh, my God.
Andy Cortez
Da, da, da, da, da. And I think that was why it's there. Like, when this is brought up, it's that I was wrong about Uncharted 3 because it wasn't a 10 because of the shipyard combat sequence, which, yes, it does not, I did not enjoy at the time.
Greg Miller
But again, this is, I think nowadays
Andy Cortez
with all the podcasts and all the
Greg Miller
videos and all the things, and especially
Andy Cortez
ign when they do not only the video review, but then the review discussions
Greg Miller
that I love so much.
Andy Cortez
Like, you know, you're talking about Travis doing his review in progress right now on Crimson Desert. The fact that right at the top is him and Tom Marks talking about,
Greg Miller
hey, you've played this much. Let's have a conversation. I love that stuff. But back in the day, 10 out
Andy Cortez
of 10 at IGN meant perfect, which
Greg Miller
of course is complete bullshit.
Andy Cortez
I think this is the same year then we go and give the Zelda game that used the waggle that Everybody hated, a 10 out of 10 to skyward sword.
Greg Miller
Yeah, right. Like, I think that's the same year. Maybe I'm wrong. No, fuck, it doesn't matter. I'm my time.
Barrett
2011 sounds right.
Greg Miller
Does it? Okay, because I remember. Maybe I'm wrong and it doesn't matter, because I remember Cass Messina, when he
Andy Cortez
saw this was like, maybe I should
Greg Miller
have given the last sale. And I. But then it was Rich George who gave Time's a flat circle. But it was at the time that,
Andy Cortez
like, this minute was perfect. And clearly no video games perfect. There's gonna be something for everybody. But this is one that it was always. Is always thrown in my face. Always thrown in my face. Like, don't listen to greg. He liked Uncharted 3.
Jordan Midler
Yeah, it's a weird one. I think the audience and I sort of subscribed to this when I was a bit newer in my career when you really slam a big game. Like, I remember giving one of the Far Cry games. It was either two or three stars. It was like the lowest review. And I fully stand behind it. But I absolutely detest the opinion that's like, okay, now this is the real review. This guy's not paid off. He's the one that's telling us the actual truth. He's shooting here. But then when I gave Starfield five stars, a game that I think is excellent. Are you into Starfield, Greg?
Andy Cortez
You know, they sold me on it with these Lattice, these last updates. I might try it. I might try it.
Jordan Midler
I mean, now that it's coming to PlayStation, you can finally play it.
Andy Cortez
Exactly.
Jordan Midler
I know right when that happened. And people are like, oh, you're such an Xbox fanboy. You're such a Microsoft fanboy. And it's like, mate, the Microsoft profile picture, people DM'd me abuse for about a year after I said something totally innocuous on Twitter. So I've learned you can never win. It helps to share these stories with my wonderful partner who just look at me with this look of like, why does any of this matter?
Greg Miller
And you still have a job and
Andy Cortez
you still got paid and you still enjoy doing your job, so why are we worried about this?
Greg Miller
Yeah, but I think it's like, I'm
Jordan Midler
talking to her about this while I'm saying, oh, yeah, next week, I'm like, reviewing this or going this, and she's like, yeah, maybe. Maybe lay off the. The Twitter heroin for a while.
Greg Miller
But it's like, so you know how all this works. And I'm sure the audience knows too. But it's like, you know, there can be the hundred positive comments, but the
Andy Cortez
one negative is the one that, like. And you know what I mean?
Greg Miller
And like, yesterday, coming into Crimson Desert, like, I want everyone to know how much. And this has nothing to do with the game, but how much I was
Andy Cortez
putting on the armor for that review. Like, I knew this is Gonna be bad. This is gonna be this.
Greg Miller
It's that thing where it's like, I hated that. I am still, still. I am still so IGN coded.
Andy Cortez
And not only IGN coded, I would
Greg Miller
say I am 2007. This is where I learned what I'm
Andy Cortez
doing and how I'm doing it. Coded.
Greg Miller
So like, to show up and do a review, even if it says so far, Even if it's 20 plus hours
Andy Cortez
of playing, I didn't roll credits. And I don't like that. I don't like that feeling. But like the night before when I
Greg Miller
was hemming and hauling about it with
Andy Cortez
Jen, I was like, yeah, you know, I've done 20 hours, but I haven't rolled credits. And I'm like, but, you know, I don't want to play it at home. I refuse to play it at home because I don't enjoy it. And of course, like, as soon as this is done, I'm uninstalling it.
Greg Miller
And she was like, well, don't forget
Andy Cortez
that says all you need to say, like.
Greg Miller
And it's like that thing of like, you're right. Like, I. We aren't trying to be the bolt, the stalwart of video game reviews. We aren't trying to be like, we're here to present what we did, how we played it, why we played it,
Andy Cortez
and how much we played it, and then give you an opinion and then you go about your day.
Greg Miller
And so it's like, I got to remember that.
Andy Cortez
But I still carry the ign. You are ign. You're representing this bigger thing, bigger than
Greg Miller
you of what it is. And so, yeah, it's like all of
Andy Cortez
the reactions, positive and negative, were so expected. And even this morning, now the thing of the defenders of Listen, man, I
Greg Miller
put in hundreds of hours. I was at the review event and I saw press struggle with it and they're just inventing scenario. And like, people are trying to apply that to our review.
Andy Cortez
I'm like, I didn't say anything about the combat.
Greg Miller
I thought the. I like, I liked hitting a boss and be like, oh fuck, I can't fight you.
Andy Cortez
I'll be back later. And maybe I never was because I don't enjoy the overall game. Not that one part of it.
Jordan Midler
Yeah. I just like to say for the record that I am better at video games than 99.9% of the audience. That means about video game reviews and that that fractional percentage. Actually just tomorrow, Hussein, I completed every boss in shadow of the erdtree before they dumbed it down for you. Absolute freaks. And the audience that couldn't play it. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Before I have to go, I would just like to say that Kelly Plagey's review of Omega Omega, Ribbit and Alpha Sapphire on ign, the famous Too Much Water review. First of all, she didn't put that in the review. Second of all, it is absolutely correct that there is too Much water. It's the most unfairly abused review in history. Those games are fine. They are probably an 8 out of 10 and she gave them a 7.8. It is fine. I don't think it's fair that Too Much Water thing comes up all the time now. I don't think it's fair, frankly, that Pokemon social media posted the Too Much Water thing and I don't think it's fair that.
Greg Miller
Do you not think we've gone through the looking glass on it? I think when it happened I was
Andy Cortez
so like, shut the fuck up, everybody.
Greg Miller
Like you're boiling down a bullet point and making it like you understand what this means, even if you're not going
Andy Cortez
to read the review.
Greg Miller
But nowadays, like when it comes up, it's just part of meme culture now.
Jordan Midler
Yes, on. On the condition that Kelly's okay with it now. Because I think it's not for us to be like, oh, it's just a laugh when it was like such a detrimental thing for her. I don't know her personally. Like, she's got a lot of friends in common of mine. So I, I just think it's. We're never gonna get the. The definitive, like whether or not she's okay with it because she probably never wants to speak about it again. And why possibly would she? But I just, I don't like that when that comes up as like a kind of stick to beat reviews. And I think any of that stuff comes from the company themselves. That just. It left a strange taste in my mouth. Much like Moomoo milk, which you get by milking Miltank and the Pokemon series
Andy Cortez
before you run because you have a minute left. You put Driver three on here. I don't remember Driver three.
Jordan Midler
This is one for my UK heads. So. In the uk there used to be a lot of unofficial magazines and at the time a lot of those Magazines gave Driver Drift 3R, you may know as like 60s and like terrible reviews. Two magazines gave it a 9 out of 10 and they had the game long before anyone else. And the response to that was the usual, like, who's paid off? Who was getting paid here? And any comments about it on the games Radar plus, which has their full name forums were deleted, got a little bit libelous, and it was soon found out that some of the comments praising the review were traced back to Babel Media, a PR firm in the uk. Was that a coincidence? I don't think I can legally say. I would say there's a lot of good videos about driver gate on YouTube. Go and check them out if you enjoy some early 2000s UK video game magazine drama. And let me tell you Greg, if there's one thing I Love is early 2000s UK Video Game Magazine drama.
Andy Cortez
Jordan Midler, you're an absolute peach. I love you so much. Thank you for doing this on a short schedule today.
Jordan Midler
I love you too. I can't wait to be sitting in that office in August and jump through that wall like Chris Farley.
Andy Cortez
Don't do that. Kevin won't like that.
Greg Miller
Please don't do that.
Jordan Midler
Please.
Andy Cortez
Jordan, you run off. I'll tell everybody else.
Greg Miller
Remember, of course, while you're watching this, we couldn't do cool stuff like this without your support. Pick up a kinda funny membership patreon.com kindafunny YouTube.com kinda funny games Apple Spotify get everything ad Free. Get your daily dose of me in a series we call Greg Way Get Good Karma. But right now you're not using your benefits. So here's a word from our sponsors. Come one, come all. Step into a world of wonder full of laughs and sweetness. Enjoy summer's brightest moments and experience a circus of flavor with the new Cotton Candy Flavor a five hour energy shot. Astound and amaze your taste buds with sweet fruity clouds and a hint of vanilla, plus B vitamins, nutrients and caffeine, you'll be ready to see the sights and ride the rides. Try Cotton Candy 5 Hour Energy today. Order now at FiveHouseEnergy.com or Amazon.com this podcast is brought to you by Rula. I know I'm the strongest person you know, but even I, Greg Miller, struggle with mental health and know how important it is to talk to someone when you're going through it. That's where Rula comes in. Rula makes therapy simple, affordable and fast. They work with most major insurance plans and the average session copay is just 15 bucks. That's 15. That's basically the cost of lunch. But instead of a sandwich, you're investing in your own headspace. And with Rula, you're not just matched and left to figure it out. They check in and make sure you're actually making progress. Getting started couldn't be easier. You answer a few quick questions about what matters to you and Rula connects you with in network providers who actually fit your needs. You pick the time and you could be talking to a therapist as soon as the next day. Thousands of folks have already used Rula to finally get the care they needed. Don't keep putting it off. Go to rula.com kindafunny and get started today. That's Rula R U L A.com kindafunny Take the first step, get connected and take control of your mental health. This podcast is brought to you by factoring Somewhere between the first warm weekend and realizing short season is getting close, eating well stops feeling optional. But not if you're like me and have Factor delivered to your door. It's never optional, it's always happening. Get fully prepared meals designed by dietitians and crafted by chefs. Ready in two minutes. No planning, no cooking. Factor makes a mashed potato that would make Andy Cortez blush because they only use quality, functional ingredients including lean proteins, colorful veggies, whole food ingredients and healthy fats. There's 100 rotating weekly meals to keep things fresh and delicious through every season with options including high Protein Calorie, smart Mediterranean diet, GLP1 support and ready to Eat salads. I love Factor and you will too. Head to factor meals.com kindafunny 50 off and use code kinda funny 50 off to get 50% off and free breakfast for a year Offer only valid for new Factor customers with code and qualifying auto renewing subscription purchase. Make healthier eating easy with Factor. Finally, the Williams is have come back to San Francisco and this time they're going to make Nick and Andy answer for it. Join James and Elise Willems, Nick, Andy, Lucy, James, Max Scoville and more for a live trivia show March 2020 first 8pm at the Swedish American hall in San Francisco. It's the only trivia show where being funny is just as important as being right. And we all know Nick is never right, so he's gotta be funny.
Andy Cortez
But too bad he's also never funny.
Greg Miller
Head to kinda funny.com answerfor it for tickets and info.
Home Depot Announcer
Spring starts at the Home Depot and we are bringing the heat to your backyard this season. Fire up the flavor with our wide variety of grills for under $300 like the next grill 4 burner gas grill that's perfect for hosting your spring cookout. Then set the scene and turn your outdoor space into the go to spot the patio sets for every budget. Bring it this season with grills that deliver flavor and patios that set the vibe from the Home Depot. Start your spring with low prices guaranteed at the Home Depot. Exclusions apply. See homedepot.com pricematch for details.
Andy Cortez
So good, so good, so good.
State Farm Announcer
Spring styles are at Nordstrom Rack stores now and they're up to 60% off. Stock up and save on Rag and Bone, Madewell, Vince, All Saints, and more of your favorites.
Andy Cortez
How did I not know rack has Adidas?
Greg Miller
Why do we rack for the hottest deal? Just so many good brands.
State Farm Announcer
Join the Nordic Club to unlock exclusive discounts. Shop new arrivals first and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack.
Jordan Midler
Protein is now at Starbucks and it's
Starbucks Announcer
never tasted so good.
Jordan Midler
You can add protein cold foam to
Greg Miller
your favorite drink or try one of our new protein lattes or Matcha. I'm running away.
Starbucks Announcer
Try it today at Starbucks.
White Claw Announcer
This episode is brought to you by White Claw Surge. Nice choice hitting up this podcast. No surprises. You're all about diving into tastes everyone in the room can enjoy. Just like White Claw Surge. It's for celebrating those moments when connections have been made and the night's just begun. With bold flavors and 8% alcohol by volume, unleash the night. Unleash White Claw Surge. Please drink responsibly. Hard seltzer with flavors, 8% alcohol by volume. White Claw Seltzer Works Chicago, Illinois
Palmolive Announcer
this episode is brought to you by Palmolive. Family time isn't just the big moments. It's weeknight dinners, sitting around the table, everyone talking all at once. So when the plates are empty and the sink is full, use Palmolive Ultra. Palmolive's most powerful formula removes up to 99.9% of grease, leaving your dishes sparkling clean. And the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together. Shop now@palmolive.com
Greg Miller
and we're back.
Andy Cortez
And guess what chat. It's just you and me. Plus Barrett. Barrett wants to talk a little bit about being on the other side of
Greg Miller
the IGN review for that there Omega
Andy Cortez
Ruby and Alpha Sapphire because of course we have a super chat from Cuzpano who wrote in about this over on the Patreon quip I put up patreon.com kind of funny. If you're using the app you can
Greg Miller
get my quips that are a better form of social media.
Andy Cortez
Anon Anon Pants put up gotta be
Greg Miller
IGN's Pokemon water review Barrett, you were there. Take away equipment, equip.
Barrett
I actually don't know if I was there.
Greg Miller
God damn it.
Andy Cortez
You set me up wrong.
Barrett
No, but I wanted to circle back to the idea of you talking about, like, us being on the other side of the, like, the too much water meme and, you know, sure, IGN and like, Pokemon using it now and trying to, like, own it in a weird way. I personally think my perspective on it is that it's hard to be on the other side of that and try to. To own it, you know, with kind of in the similar vein of what Jordan was saying about, like, how Cali feels about that today and speaking out with that. And then also, like, too much water kind of being used so much for so many years as this weird dog whistle of minimizing a lot of, like, you know, critic voices in the industry, usually typically women as well. So that's where. That's the kind of, like, side that I just wanted to bring up of, like, it. I don't know if we can fully say that we're on the other side of that in. In owning it in that kind of way, but just wanted to bring in that perspective.
Greg Miller
No, it's. Sure.
Andy Cortez
I mean, you know, this is the thing about perspectives. We all got one, I think, not having any. Like, for me, when too Much water happened, I remember being that and like, okay, why are people flipping out and moving out of my life? And so when it pops up now you talk about a dog whistle to call out critics, like, well, who last 19 years of my life, if it's somebody throwing lair at me or uncharted at me or whatever, something else. Like yesterday.
Greg Miller
Remember, everybody, don't listen to Greg. He didn't like Ballers Gate 3.
Andy Cortez
Like, I understand it's not the same, but for me it is the same where every day someone tries to fucking check my opinion and tell me why I'm wrong. So for me to see the good guys in IGN or whatever use them, I was like, oh, or Pokemon Co. Like, ah, that's good for them, whatever. But of course, you're right that I'm not Galli. I don't know how you feel about it, but I also wonder at what point the things break out and go further than that. Like even like, you know, one of the ones on here, of course, is Franz. 7.9 for double dash back on GameCube Metacritic of an 87 Franz finale here
Greg Miller
on the old review, I expected so much more from. I expected so much more than this ho hum effort. I had hoped for deeper controls, more than one selectable costume, skins for karts, maybe GBA link up support, more intriguing level designs, more characters, much more high quality music.
Andy Cortez
The list goes on.
Greg Miller
I mean, it's still an enjoyable game, but not on the level it could have been. So think about Double Dash before shelling so think about Double Dash before shelling out your much needed holiday cash. If you've got a ton of friends that are into the title, you stand to enjoy the multiplayer, but even that may get old faster than you'd like. Double Dash is still a good one to add to the library of the
Andy Cortez
GC and exclusives, but with battle not
Greg Miller
what it used to be, versus racing
Andy Cortez
is probably where you'll spend most of your time.
Greg Miller
Obviously.
Andy Cortez
Totally a normal review I give. When I worked there, that was the first person I ever gave shit for because on the outside loving goddamn Double Dash so much in college, but being the exact audience Fran talked about in that review where it was me and a bunch of my college friends shoved together, that was it. And I guess that's probably my take on it. Of or not take. But my perspective on the Too Much Water angle is that I saw 7.9 become an owned thing too. I think they even sell the shirt or used to sell the shirt that had the review score on it like of owning people being haters and suckers like that.
Greg Miller
Because I was a hater and a
Andy Cortez
sucker back then and now I'm a hater.
Greg Miller
Cool kid.
Andy Cortez
Whatever that means.
Greg Miller
Like I said over on patreon.com kind
Andy Cortez
of funny the equip the in app Patreon social media that I'm trying I
Greg Miller
use more for stuff like this and stuff like this. 415-343-5034 we have a bunch in here
Andy Cortez
and I this is one again that I vaguely remember. I'll just read it.
Greg Miller
Okay, Brent Bird leads with Alien Isolation for sure. Only review to ever put me off a game that years later I finally played and loved. I'm still pissed about that review.
Andy Cortez
Zachary says.
Greg Miller
IGN's review of Alien Isolation it's come up a few different times there. If you are young and maybe don't recall. Alien Isolation of course came out and
Andy Cortez
Ryan McCaffrey reviewed it for the one, the only IGN. Ryan McCaffrey Friend of the show who I love dearly, gave it a 5.9, calling it mediocre.
Greg Miller
Alien Isolation erases the memory of colonial Marines, but it's still not the great
Andy Cortez
Alien game we were hoping for.
Greg Miller
Of course if you were to go
Andy Cortez
to Metacritic right now, Alien isolation has a seven, seven, I'm sorry, a 79 on it. And I remember this being a similar thing of this coming out. Yeah, Barnell says, dude, it was an ordeal.
Greg Miller
I remember when this popped and people flipped out about it and it was
Andy Cortez
maybe similar to what we're getting right now with Crimson Desert. Not anything else, they're just people being mad about it.
Greg Miller
But I remember starting in Alien Isolation
Andy Cortez
on my own and be like, oh no. Then let alone watching Nick's playthrough of it when he got to the guns.
Greg Miller
That was the thing. Alien Isolation is someone who did not finish it.
Andy Cortez
Just too goddamn long.
Greg Miller
It should have been way shorter.
Andy Cortez
It should have not had that. You pick up a gun at the end of it.
Greg Miller
It should have just like I'm with
Andy Cortez
McCaffrey from reading his review and then playing what I played of it, watching Nick when he streamed it recently, like,
Greg Miller
I I'm a ride or die Ryan McCaffrey guy, period. Of course.
Andy Cortez
But like I accept that we don't like the same kind of games, but this is one that I read enough,
Greg Miller
played enough and watched enough like, yeah,
Andy Cortez
no, this ain't for me.
Barrett
And it's also weird too that like they, I, I remember that particular review being the focus when that was not one of the only scores that low from prominent sites. That was such a weird one. And yeah, I, I think a lot of people, you know, shout out to the vibes of Alien Isolation, shout out to the first half being really solid. And I think a lot of people forget that game just keeps going, keeps going.
Greg Miller
It don't stop there, it keeps going.
Andy Cortez
But again, this is what I'm talking about with Jordan and with you audience of like how lucky we are to be where we are. Where I'm like, oh, I know I usually line up with McCaffrey so I'm able to read that be like, ah, it wouldn't work for me, but I understand why it would work for other people.
Greg Miller
I want to get some super chats in here. I want to keep going through the Patreon quips. Of course the one says this game
Andy Cortez
he's talking about Crimson Desert or I'm
Greg Miller
sorry, Crimson Desert feels like Black Myth and Kingdom Come. To Kingdom come.
Andy Cortez
Deliverance 2 of this year where the
Greg Miller
masses love and support the game so
Andy Cortez
much you can't criticize it at all. You that he has crybabies.
Greg Miller
I will be interested to see. There was a great discussion between Roger
Andy Cortez
and Bless on what this is, how many, how much it's Gonna sell. I'm with Roger. I think it's gonna sell incredibly well.
Greg Miller
My interest is once it sells, what
Andy Cortez
is the feedback of the audience? I am one of those people who's not conspiracy theory at all, but how
Greg Miller
is it gonna run on PlayStation 5's
Andy Cortez
base Pros, Xboxes, etc.
Greg Miller
But then also to the point of the show earlier and even to the point of people talking about the people
Andy Cortez
who want to be trying to dismiss all critics, which I know they're not, they're trying to dismiss the thing they've
Greg Miller
said, talking about difficulty or this or that.
Andy Cortez
And I read it in yesterday's review, somebody coming at Jason Schreier of like, I fucking.
Greg Miller
I love Delta Ring. So I'd love something.
Andy Cortez
He's like Shrier's like, this is one of my favorite Elden Rings, one of
Greg Miller
my favorite games all time, right? It's this idea that Black Myth Wukong, which is not a great game.
Andy Cortez
But listening to bless talk about it
Greg Miller
today, Kingdom Come Deliverance two, which is
Andy Cortez
not a great game.
Greg Miller
But watching stuff, playing it myself, Mike, like, I think those gameplay hooks are so much deeper than what I got
Andy Cortez
out of Crimson Desert.
Greg Miller
Now I say that again, 20 hours in, as you see people on Travis
Andy Cortez
talking about 110 hours and also being where I am with the score, you see Paul Tassie being 120 hours or
Greg Miller
whatever he said, being a 9.5. It's going to vary, but I think both of those games have something special that Crimson Desert doesn't. Where even though I'm not a Black Myth Wukong person and I'm not a Kingdom to Come Deliverance two person, I turn those on and go, man, this ain't for me. But I can see why it's back
Andy Cortez
to Baldur's Gate 3 for me, right? I don't like CRPGs. I see why someone would do this
Greg Miller
forever and I wish I could be them. Where Crimson Desert I play and I'm like, this is my genre of game
Andy Cortez
and I would rather go play Assassin's Creed Shadows. I'd rather.
Greg Miller
I'd rather go off and do something there. I'd rather go play do As I started earlier this year, restarted the Witcher, I should go back to the Witcher. Like, I'll be interested to see. Of course there's buyer remorse and you've invested your money and you want to be part of the conversation. And again, 50, 60, 70 hours into
Andy Cortez
this game when you are flying around
Greg Miller
a mech, maybe it's going to be a different experience. But for me, someone who walked off in all the different directions and was finding the enjoyment there but not the
Andy Cortez
desire to ever go back to it. It'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out.
Greg Miller
Now this is interesting and I want to bring this one.
Andy Cortez
This is a super chat that just happened.
Greg Miller
Another one I've seen people try to
Andy Cortez
throw at game reviewers on Crimson Desert.
Greg Miller
Andrew says you guys often limit long games. How much of that has to do with your pressure to always be reviewing
Andy Cortez
the new games coming out?
Greg Miller
The average consumer doesn't buy every game or get them for free. Do we lament long games? If anything, I would say I lament
Andy Cortez
not having the time for more long games.
Greg Miller
I would say that I can't remember.
Andy Cortez
Well, I guess I just did it
Greg Miller
for alien isolation, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here. When I say alien isolation was just too damn long, I'm not saying it was.
Andy Cortez
I'm mad about the hours.
Greg Miller
I'm saying that I don't think the
Andy Cortez
experience carried it that long. And I think that's the difference.
Greg Miller
When we're talking about critiquing something, we are talking about the pacing of it and how many hours you spent with it and if those hours were valuable, needed, et cetera. I look at the Witcher 3, everlasting
Andy Cortez
gobstopper of content and go, damn, I wish I could.
Greg Miller
You see me, a Starfield sicko, admittedly, talk on the show with Michael Hyam this week.
Andy Cortez
Yeah, you know, I'm not trying to brag. I'm five days and 20 hours into it or whatever. And everyone in the chat goes, rookie numbers, rookie numbers.
Greg Miller
I'm a thousand. I'm two thousand. Langley Amdaley's eight hundred something. It's like, yeah, like I wish to a degree that I could do that.
Andy Cortez
Like, I obviously love my job. I'm very blessed to be able to play the latest, the greatest. The next thing I, you know, my inbox is overflowing with review codes.
Greg Miller
It's awesome and great, but there is that part of me that wishes like,
Andy Cortez
damn, I wish I could just play
Greg Miller
Starfield and play every great creation quest that comes up. But I don't find myself lamenting long games. And again, maybe it's word choice that
Andy Cortez
I'm getting hung up on, but I
Greg Miller
don't sit there and go, oh, this
Andy Cortez
game's got to be fucking even.
Greg Miller
Crimson Desert. I wasn't like, oh, this game's got to be this long. I was like, oh, this game's got to be this uninteresting to play. And again, that's me talking about it,
Andy Cortez
you know what I mean?
Greg Miller
And back to it. I had seen people talk about like, oh, well, Crimson Desert. It was somebody and I don't know this person.
Andy Cortez
I feel like I'm coming at them and I'm not. But I want to respond to their comments so much.
Greg Miller
One of the comments was, of course,
Andy Cortez
this is what I expected from games journalists. They, you know, they want to play
Greg Miller
the next thing and do the next thing because that's their job. They don't play it this way, the
Andy Cortez
other way, blah, blah, blah.
Greg Miller
And it's like, I get that to a degree, but I don't agree with it. Where again, a Paul Tassi is doing it. And like, how many games have you
Andy Cortez
seen me review and do the review
Greg Miller
so far and go, this is so fucking good. I can't wait to go play more. We did it for Pocopia. I love this so much. I wish I had more time with it.
Andy Cortez
I can't wait to do more with it.
Greg Miller
It's going to be the game I play forever. It's going to be my everlasting gobstopper yet. Dah, dah, dah, dah. I don't think that works as the argument here, but it raises an interesting question that I look at and I will be interested to hear Pearl Abyss
Andy Cortez
take after all this is done, after it all is out with the wash
Greg Miller
right of did they need to do
Andy Cortez
reviews for this game? I argue they did not.
Greg Miller
I think that the trailers were so impressive.
Andy Cortez
I think the demos in the last
Greg Miller
preview cycle they just did were so impressive. Which by the way, kind of funny turned down because it was like, hey, do you want to come to LA and preview this game? I was like, what are we getting
Andy Cortez
codes like the next, the week after and you're saved from this won't carry over.
Greg Miller
And I was like, well, no, then we'll hold off and do that. I think it would have been an
Andy Cortez
interesting tactic to do the preview event. We're not giving out codes.
Greg Miller
We want everybody to experience together and
Andy Cortez
then have a gajillion live streams go up and then, yeah, to a degree,
Greg Miller
if that's the honest thing we were worried about.
Andy Cortez
I'm pointing at the comments like it was one of our people who pointed
Greg Miller
if it was this thing that, well, games journalists just don't have time for it or this, that the other. Let everybody play alongside each other and discover that and do it. But I don't like that argument Because I didn't play it that way.
Andy Cortez
And that wasn't one of my hang ups of it. I did wander the countryside.
Greg Miller
I liked smashing into that boss and getting my head kicked in and be like, all right, cool, let's go get some fucking cubes to level myself up. Barrett, you're up.
Barrett
And yeah, just like a. Something I kept seeing yesterday is like, oh, the, the longer people played it, the, the more they enjoyed it. So people who didn't put nearly as much time into it, like, don't see the full breadth of it. Trying to like kind of have a. Build a similar narrative to Dragon's Dogma 2. I remember, you know, like the drag dragon dog. Dogma 2 gets like really crazy in the end game and all this stuff and it all blows up. And like, I would, I would get building that narrative if I didn't also see split between. Split opinions between. The similar hour counts as well. Like, you know, there are plenty of other people who put in just as much time as Paul Tassey who are also just like, yeah, it's kind of whatever. And so that was like another aspect that I, I thought was weird yesterday of people trying to build up of like, oh, you know, similar with the conversation of lamenting long games and all of this stuff. I just thought that was a kind of a weird spin people were trying to make yesterday.
Greg Miller
We bring in Erg.
Andy Cortez
Oh, Jesus Christ. Let me try that again. All right. I've been drinking a little bit of this coffee, feeling pretty good.
Greg Miller
EJRPG5495 super chat and says, question. When you go to review a game, do you take what it has presented itself as in promotion into account? Like if an RPG is actually just a hack and slash or a shooter
Andy Cortez
is actually a visual novel with just a shooting mini game.
Greg Miller
An interesting question that I don't think I have a great example of.
Andy Cortez
I mean, what the great. That's not a good example.
Greg Miller
I. Maybe my takeaway from that would be
Andy Cortez
metal gear solid 2, of course, where they promoted that entire game. And I was, I was fucking in college when this happened. I wasn't working the industry, but, hey, guess what, you're gonna be Solid Snake. And then how quickly were we not solid Snake?
Greg Miller
I don't. I. Promotional accounts, you take them into. I mean, you take it into effect in terms of like, oh, I think
Andy Cortez
I know what this game is, but
Greg Miller
there's been plenty of games you jump into.
Andy Cortez
I had no idea what this is.
Greg Miller
And I love that about it. Like, I can't think of the last time I was like I'm gonna jump. It's an open world rpg. I can't wait. And I started and I'm like, oh my God, it's a shmoop. Like that's just. I don't think that happens.
Barrett
Barry, you're the best example I can think of is more so story and theme presentation. I talked about unbeatable last year and how I thought from trailers and promotion and all this stuff the the story was going to be one thing and then it ended up being drastically different. That's the closest I can really think of an example of that. Not so much like genre stuff like that.
Greg Miller
I like this one from Shiv over
Andy Cortez
on the one the only patreon.com kind
Greg Miller
of funny where by the way, quips are free.
Andy Cortez
I should say that. Join patreon.com kind of funny for free.
Greg Miller
Follow our quips there.
Andy Cortez
Get the weekly schedule delivered to you without Mike yak yak yakking in your face.
Greg Miller
Shiv says the canyon of opinions that happened for Dragon Dragons Dragon Age valeguard
Andy Cortez
For some reason we're talking about Dragon's Dogma and they just said Veil Guard and I bricked Veil Guard with reviewers
Greg Miller
hailing it as the return of Bioware and YouTubers and Twitter peeps lambasting the
Andy Cortez
dialogue and calling it the worst game ever. Parentheses this is ship.
Greg Miller
Enjoyed the hell out of it myself.
Andy Cortez
But the dialogue is not up to the BioWare standard. That's a great example of divisive.
Greg Miller
Divisive.
Andy Cortez
Divisive. I saw people saying my pronunciation of divissive is divisive.
Greg Miller
A great example of divisive video game reviews.
Andy Cortez
That was one here that me and Andy absolutely adored, right? And then, yeah, it went out into the streets and people beat it to death over and over again. And I thought, you know, Andy comes back when we talk about this of his playthrough was great, but he's seen other playthroughs, other choices with different characters, different pronunciations or different intonations. And he's like, oh, I could see why people hated this when I didn't have that experience. For me, what I always find interesting is so many people will come down
Greg Miller
and be like, hey, whatever, it's a good, maybe even great game, but it's
Andy Cortez
not a Dragon Age game.
Greg Miller
And that's where I go, ah, see,
Andy Cortez
I never played a Dragon Age game. I didn't like the other Dragon Age games and never got into them. So for me to get into this action RPG or whatever, very colorful, I Love the style, I love the thing. I had no hang ups on it. And I think again, while in the olden days, that would have been such
Greg Miller
a detractor to me reviewing it.
Andy Cortez
Slide at ign. Right. Well, Greg's never played a Dragon Age game, so don't have him do this. I think that's the power of where we're at now where I can come into the review and say, I never.
Greg Miller
I probably booted the other two.
Andy Cortez
I watched my ex girlfriend play him. I didn't love him. I didn't want to get into them. Here's me coming in as a new fan, a new person or whatever. That's a powerful review in a way that it wouldn't have been back in the day when it was like, no, no, we need a hardcore Dragon Age person doing this.
Greg Miller
But I like that this is an interesting one that I haven't seen. Of course, you know we love Giant Bomb here. Credence writes in and says, giant Bomb
Andy Cortez
giving Metroid prime for a 10 out of 10. Now any commentary on any game goes back to quote so it's not as good as Metroid Prime 4 then. I didn't realize they were living that life right now. And even if it's jovial, we fucking hate that. Back to like how y' all feel like we're talking about Cali, we're talking about me, we're talking about whatever.
Greg Miller
Like that's the kind of shit where like, can you just listen to the
Andy Cortez
fucking point I'm making? But Greg didn't like Ballers.
Greg Miller
Gate three. It's not that he didn't like Ballers, I just don't like crpg. Drives me crazy. Drives everybody crazy.
Andy Cortez
What else I got going on here?
Greg Miller
Fantasy Thinker fan Super chat that says, remember friends, a low to or I'm sorry, a low or mid Metacritic doesn't
Andy Cortez
mean a game is objectively bad or middle.
Greg Miller
Find reviewers with tastes similar to yours
Andy Cortez
and weigh those more heavily.
Greg Miller
Exactly. That's what it's all about, right? That's what we're talking about. Not to mention go watch your favorite
Andy Cortez
streamers, your favorite whatevers, see what they're saying. Did they like it? Did they not like it? Why didn't they like it? What was the deal with that? What about this?
Greg Miller
You know, that's the power of where
Andy Cortez
we're at right now.
Greg Miller
And again, I love it and I like it a lot and I think we have a more.
Andy Cortez
And I know this is saying something, a more literate audience, not you guys kind of funny. Obviously you guys are fucking awesome. But I mean in general, video game, press consuming, whatever.
Greg Miller
Barrett, read your tweet to me.
Barrett
Enjoy art, Talk about what works for you and what doesn't with your friends. Take something away from it. Don't let numbers be a fixation and control how you consume art. And then my follow up here because this was kind of more of a thread about people being obsessed with like games getting in the aggregates like 70s and talking about divisiveness and all this stuff. I ended with. I know this will go in one ear and not the other for some, so let me put it into the terms of the of the American education system that has brain broken. A lot of us Cs get degrees, baby. If Cs are good enough to get degrees, they're good enough to check out and see if you get something from it.
Greg Miller
Well said. This is a fun one from the
Andy Cortez
Patreon one to close on Jet says Greg Miller's 2010 IGN review of Sing Star Dance pissed me the hell off. SingStar Dance IGN review I don't. I don't. I mean I remember reviewing all the Sing Star. Oh, I gave it a 5.5 out of 10. I said now with 100 my subhead now with 100% more flailing. Damn. By now this is my lead.
Greg Miller
By now the Sing Star formula should
Andy Cortez
be pretty standard for PlayStation gamers out there.
Greg Miller
You buy a Sing Star disc along with some microphones, then you get to belt out tunes karaoke style in your living room. You can try to fill in pitch and timing bars with your voice to earn points, but most of the time it's just about rocking the Castbah.
Andy Cortez
Jesus, Greg.
Greg Miller
And getting your friends to have some fun. Layered on top of it is a robust online suite that allows you to upload performances, rate other people's work, and join clubs. Aside from a minor update here and there, can we get to what we're talking? Okay. However, SingStar Dance takes the PlayStation Move
Andy Cortez
and tosses it into the mix.
Greg Miller
Now, the 30 songs on the disc also have dance routines to follow along with and rack up points.
Andy Cortez
As always, the singing is fun, but this addition to PlayStation Move is a meth is just a mess of flailing arms. Please click on that. Gameplay Sing Start Dance Dancing Duet Gameplay it's me and a Green Lantern. Well, yeah, an Ion shirt technically with
Greg Miller
Jack Devries me dragging Jack away from
Andy Cortez
whatever Nintendo DS game they had him doing to come in here.
Barrett
I'm sorry, is Jack DeVries like 13 years old?
Andy Cortez
While working at Jack is a very Young looking person. And yes, back then was incredibly young. Keep it going while I read my verdict.
Greg Miller
If you're just buying who's mad about this? Why would you love this? If you're just buying this for the tracks, you're fine. I like the set list and the Sing Star Online features are cool. Trouble is, the game isn't just tracks. Sing Star Dance is a tacked on
Andy Cortez
PlayStation Move option that does nothing to further the fledgling control scheme.
Greg Miller
Sure, you'll have fun and laugh as your friends make fools of themselves, but that's just because they're waving their arms
Andy Cortez
like crazy and acting foolish. It's not because the system works. Damn Greg and I loved Singstar. So you knew.
Greg Miller
I throw that one back in your face. I don't want that.
Andy Cortez
I don't want that one.
Greg Miller
Okay, that's not where I refuse to accept that looking out. I'm looking at. Is there anyone I want to call out here?
Andy Cortez
No, we cover the most of them. Everybody. This has been another episode of the Kinda Funny gamescast.
Greg Miller
Thank you of course to VGC News's
Andy Cortez
Jordan Midler, the big man of video game jar.
Greg Miller
Remember, of course. You have homework. Call 415-343-5034. I leave very specific instructions for what I need for tomorrow's games cast. Go be a part of it.
Andy Cortez
Have a good time.
Greg Miller
Remember, our day of programming is far from done because we are all about
Andy Cortez
live programming here on YouTube.com kindafunnygames, Twitch TV, kindafunnygames and podcast services around the globe.
Greg Miller
Right now you're gonna get an in review
Andy Cortez
for Scream 7. I need to make sure I was on the right one.
Greg Miller
It's Joey, it's Nick, it's James and Elise Willems. They are here to party with us.
Andy Cortez
It's gonna be great.
Greg Miller
Then of course we will be back
Andy Cortez
on for a big day night of streaming. Remember?
Greg Miller
We'll take a quick break but at three o', clock, Blessing and I will
Andy Cortez
turn on Crimson Desert, start a new
Greg Miller
game, do a games cast plays brought
Andy Cortez
to you by five Hour Energy. And then when we wrap that up,
Greg Miller
Andy will start a marathon stream of Crimson Desert. So if you're like, will Andy like this game? Why not find out by funding him playing it for the next 130 hours. The longer you sub wait, the more
Andy Cortez
you sub, the longer he goes. Anyways, I digress everybody. This is another gamescast in the bank.
Greg Miller
If you liked it, of course, pick up a kinda funny membership patreon.com kinda funny YouTube.com kinda funnygames Apple Spotify. You give us $10, we give you everything ad free. That's more than 80 episodes a month. Of course you also get a daily dose of me Greg Miller in a series we call Greg Way and you get good karma for supporting 11 person 11 year old small business.
Andy Cortez
However, this is the end of this
Greg Miller
show so until next time, it's been
Andy Cortez
our pleasure to serve you.
Starbucks Announcer
Monster Energy. Everybody knows White Monster Zero Ultra. That's the og. It kicked off this whole zero sugar energy drink thing, but Ultra is a whole lineup now. You've got Strawberry Drinks, Blue Hawaiian Sunrise and Vice Guava and they all bring the Monster Energy punch. So if you've been living in the White can branch out. Ultra's got a flavor for every vibe and every single one is Zero Sugar. Tap the banner to learn more.
Palmolive Announcer
My dad taught me a lot, including how easy it is to forget to cancel things. So I downloaded Experian, my bff. Big Financial Friend Experian could help me cancel my unused subscriptions and lower my bills, saving me hundreds a year. Get started with the Experian app today. Your big financial friends here to help you save smarter. Results will vary. Not all bills are subscriptions eligible. Savings not guaranteed $631 a year average savings with one plus negotiations and one plus cancellations paid. Membership with connected payment account required. See experian.com for details.
Greg Miller
Experian
Netflix Announcer
baseball is back and the first pitch is on Netflix. The New York Yankees, led by seven time All Star Aaron Judge, head to the San Francisco Bay to take on Raphael Deverson. San Francisco Giants this season kicks off with one exclusive opening night game. Watch MLB Opening Night the New York Yankees vs. The San Francisco Giants live on Netflix tonight at 8pm Eastern, 5pm Pacific.
Jackson Hewitt Announcer
Jackson Hewitt has a great tax prep deal. $149 or less missing out is like ignoring the check engine light in your car. You'll regret it. Seriously, the price is only 149 or less no matter how complicated.
Greg Miller
So don't wait.
Jackson Hewitt Announcer
Like when you get a password expires today alert or you're shopping online and there's only one item left. It's like your taxes are in the cart. Just complete the purchase. Hurry. This deal for 149 or less is like your phone at 1%.
Greg Miller
It's about to power down.
Jackson Hewitt Announcer
Limited time offer for new clients on federal returns. Participating locations only. Terms@jacksonville.com 149.
In this engaging episode, Greg, Andy, and guest Jordan Midler dive deep into the most divisive video game reviews in history—from infamous IGN scores to infamous review-bomb moments and the culture around heated community reactions. With examples ranging from God Hand to Uncharted 3 and Pokémon's "Too Much Water" meme, the crew reflects on what it’s like to be on both sides of the critical divide, the evolution of review discourse, and what these controversies reveal about gaming culture.
Then vs. Now (06:48 – 07:09)
Matching Reviewer Tastes (08:01 – 08:09)
Dealing with Backlash:
Quote (Greg Miller, 27:42): “You know, there can be the hundred positive comments, but the one negative is the one that … you know what I mean?”
Reviewers have developed thicker skins, increasingly opting not to engage trolls and emphasizing the importance of setting boundaries online.
Alien Isolation (IGN’s 5.9 by McCaffrey) (43:07)
Mario Kart: Double Dash (IGN’s 7.9)
Dragon Age: Veilguard
Metroid Prime 4 (Giant Bomb's 10/10)
Barrett (57:06): “Find reviewers with tastes similar to yours and weigh those more heavily.”
Streamers, diverse voices, and reviewer transparency all help audiences find perspectives that resonate more than raw numbers.
Barrett’s Tweet (58:14): “Enjoy art, talk about what works for you and what doesn’t … Don’t let numbers control how you consume art. Cs get degrees, baby!”
On Review Scores and Fan Attachments
On Dealing with Outrage
The 'Too Much Water' Meme
On Lamenting Long Games
General Takeaway
The episode spotlights how divisive reviews have always been part of gaming, but the culture has transformed with social media, live content, and memeification. The hosts champion finding the reviewer whose tastes align with yours, using aggregate scores judiciously, and not letting numbers override personal curiosity and enjoyment. The show closes with reminders to use constructive discourse, and a hearty embrace of gaming’s rich, messy, and passionate culture of debate.
Final Words:
“Until next time, it’s been our pleasure to serve you.” – Greg & Andy