← Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast
Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast
We Played Xbox Ally, Amazing SGF Games! - Kinda Funny Gamescast
01:22:57
Loading summary
Transcript194 lines
- [00:00]
Tim Gettys
Foreign what's up? And welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Monday, June 9, 2025. Of course, I am your host, Tim Gettys. I'm joined today by Blessing Adioia Jr. Good day, Tim. Snowbike Mike.
- [00:18]
Blessing Adioia Jr.
Good morning, Tim.
- [00:19]
Tim Gettys
And returning to the Kind of Funny Studio, it's Greg Miller.
- [00:22]
Greg Miller
Hello everybody.
- [00:23]
Tim Gettys
What's this little sweater going on?
- [00:25]
Greg Miller
This is a custom sweater from our friend Eka at Outer Loop Games.
- [00:30]
Tim Gettys
Love that.
- [00:30]
Greg Miller
You know him from a bunch of games, of course. Thirsty Suitors. The most recent one. He gave this sweatshirt to me. Well actually he gave Ben his own one I think when he came over at GDC and I was like, clearly Jen and I need that. And Eka said of course I like you guys enough and gave me and Jen them. Then Eka big timed me at sgf. I don't like throwing developers under the bus, but I'm gonna do it here. Right Wellington, he's showing his game dose of divas, right? I'm excited to see this. Obviously I loved all of Eka's games throughout the outer loop career here. I'm excited for this thing. But then I get the email, hey, Greg, can we reschedule you? Ek has been invited to be on Giant Bomb and he's worried about traffic so they're gonna he has need to leave. And I said no, I'm only there Saturday. And they said, well, can we get another Saturday time? And I said, you cannot. I am book solid with amazing games. And so that's why I don't know anything about his game. I don't know anything about it. And frankly, until he comes and makes me food and shows me the game, we're enemies.
- [01:27]
Tim Gettys
Those are the only options. Don't take it as a threat but take it as an opportunity, you know. Greg, how are you doing? You're. You were down at Summer Game Fest in LA while we were reacting to the Xbox Showcase. I guess top level. What are your Xbox showcase thoughts?
- [01:43]
Greg Miller
That is of course my Greg way today. You can go get it right now. 17 minutes of me talking about it and jumping off some thoughts from it or whatever. I thought it was a great one. I gave it an 8.5 on our kind of scale saying it was great. I think I am with you guys. Not to the as detrimental as Mike was of. I think Call of Duty was a bad ender. I think if you could have had a. Hey, we have this game that is going to be hype and caught you off guard or whatever. Even if it's just A tease. I think that would have been enough to for Most cement an 85 if not push it closer to an amazing. But I'm also being selfish because as I was BSing over on Blue sky about while the show was live.
- [02:19]
Tim Gettys
Nope.
- [02:20]
Greg Miller
You want me to say skating. I hate that.
- [02:21]
Tim Gettys
I just don't want you to say anything.
- [02:23]
Greg Miller
Well, you want to say I'm tweeting.
- [02:23]
Snowbike Mike
On Blue sky posting.
- [02:25]
Greg Miller
I mean I'm Tweeting I was BSing over there via that show.
- [02:30]
Tim Gettys
Deal with it.
- [02:31]
Greg Miller
The further it went, the longer it went. Was just built for me. Just games that I Clockwork Revolution. Are you fucking kidding me? Right there. Outer worlds to start. Our worlds at the end. Like everything we saw in there. The games they were announcing, Xbox playing where there's a lot of reasons to be super excited.
- [02:46]
Tim Gettys
Hell yeah reason for you to be excited. 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 at funny membership on Patreon, YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcast to get our shows ad free and a daily exclusive. Greg way for a chance to be part of this show though. Submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go and we'll get to them throughout the day. So if you have any questions for what Greg got to do at Summer Game Fest, please super chat them in.
- [03:19]
Greg Miller
But let's say this right now, okay? I'm loaded with embargoed information. Tomorrow's gamescast will also be about SGF and games I can't talk about right now. And then believe it or not, over the next few weeks there'll be little things.
- [03:32]
Tim Gettys
Very cool. Very cool.
- [03:33]
Greg Miller
So if I dodge a question, I don't answer question. No, I might have seen it. I might have done it.
- [03:37]
Tim Gettys
Read between the lines Everybody. We're an 11 person business all about live talk shows. We just did a kind of funny games daily covering Outer World's $80 price point after this, it's the kind of funny podcast and then the stream is going to be Mike playing some of that open world Mario Kart world.
- [03:53]
Greg Miller
Him.
- [03:53]
Tim Gettys
Yeah, I want them all. Cool. I did. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I, I'm, I'm, I'm cruising through the game. Cruising if you're kind of funny. Member today's Greg Ways. Greg's 17 minute review of the Xbox Game Showcase 2025. Like he was just saying thank you to our Patreon producers Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney Twining. Today we're brought to you by X Real and Factor. But we'll tell you about that later. For now, let's start with the topic of the show. We played the Xbox Ally and Amazing Summer Game Fest Games.
- [04:26]
Greg Miller
That's what I called it.
- [04:27]
Tim Gettys
I want to start with the Raj. Xbox Ally X. Yeah, yeah, yeah. From henceforth we will just call it the Xbox Ally.
- [04:37]
Greg Miller
That's such a nice name. Just call me Xbox Ally. Rose this Asus. Asus. You know what I mean? We're all over the place. A lot of these naming conventions and the fact that they just took the wrong Ally shoved Xbox into the name. You got to respect it. You got to respect it.
- [04:52]
Tim Gettys
You do.
- [04:53]
Greg Miller
Yes, Timothy, I have touched and played on the Rog Ally. I'm sorry, The Rog Xbox Ally. Henceforth known as the Xbox Ally. I did the Xbox Ally X. The black one, the fancier one with the crazy chip in it. The. I have it here. Don't tell me, don't tell me, don't tell me. The Z2. That's it. Where the AMD Ryzen AIZ2 extreme chip, which is better than the Ally X I have now with its chip. So obviously I'm super excited for this to begin with.
- [05:21]
Tim Gettys
So you got your hands on the higher end one. Did you get to get hands on and do they even have the lower end one?
- [05:27]
Greg Miller
They had the lower end one there, yes. So it ran in two different things where there was an hour long presentation. Seminar, maybe it was half an hour. No, it was an hour long presentation behind closed doors. Me and a bunch of other of the journos and media and creators there. Right where they gave a presentation. We got to hear from Roanne, who you've seen the videos and stuff. Head of Xbox design, Sean from Asus. We were. They gave a whole presentation and then at one point gave us the units, let us click around. It was a guided demo, but you were free to go off the rails if you wanted to go somewhere else. So to jump through the hoop, see what it was all about. Play Gears remaster. What is it? Gear, was it official title, Reloaded Gears, whatever the hell, you know what I'm talking about. On it at 60 frames a second out there, you know, doing the damn thing, playing it that way. We saw that on the TV through a dock or through a USB C connection over to it and then that was taken away. Then outside of that were creator pods where people could go and film TikToks or podcasts or interviews or whatever. And one of them had both the Xbox Ally and the Xbox Ally X in them that you could hold. They didn't have the software running on them so it was just basically a hold screen. But you could get the feel, take the photos. That's where the thumbnail comes from and stuff like that. So what do you want to know, Timothy?
- [06:42]
Tim Gettys
I mean what I want to know is first off how it actually feels in your hand. Because I really love a lot of these devices and I think that we're very lucky that we're at a point that more often than not they're premium experiences at this point, which is great. I love the way the Steam Deck feels very, very high quality plastic. We have the Raj Ally, the normal one, the Rog Ally X that you have. That is also nice. I wouldn't say quite as nice feeling as the Steam Deck.
- [07:08]
Greg Miller
See, we differ on that but go ahead.
- [07:09]
Tim Gettys
I mean, well, just in terms of sheer quality of, of the plastic and.
- [07:13]
Greg Miller
All that stuff, again we differ on. I like my Rog Ally X right now is my favorite handheld in terms of how it feels, the weight, the balance of it and the shift of it. And I'm including Switch two in there where extensively playing it in handheld on my flights. Damn, my hand hurts.
- [07:28]
Tim Gettys
So with this new one with the more Xbox styled, the grips grips, how are you feeling about it?
- [07:34]
Greg Miller
I thought these looked so dumb when the images leaked, you know what I mean? And I love my portal, don't get me wrong. But as somebody who does love how the Ally X feels right now natively in my hand at home, I was like, oh, this looks dumb, this looks weird. Holding it was a different story. It like everything they're saying in the documentary video Barrick just had up, you know, they have a whole thing in there of like the grips were so important. It's the evolution of the Xbox controller that I thought it looked dumb. Looking at it holding it, I was like damn, this does actually feel super nice. And I do. It's not that I miss it, I think or for the next however many months till holiday right is what they're saying. I'll miss it on my Ally X. But I think when I get it it'll be like, oh, this feels way better. It does feel like holding an Xbox controller. And I think that's one of the interesting things. I've been of course a fan of kinda funny for a long time and so you know, I listened to your Gamescast review of the Xbox showcase. I think I'M an hour, six minutes in. Watch the Greg Way that I had to stop the gamescast to record the Greg Way. And it was one of those things Andy, I think, was really not hung up on, but kept mentioning how he doesn't like how much it looks like an Asus piece of hardware. He wishes it looked more like Xbox hardware. And I think listening to the presentation from Roanne and from Sean and them talking about how this came to be and how collaborative they want it to be, I really do feel that they wanted this to be. You look at it and you see the Xbox ness of it and you see the Asus ness of it. And so I think there's an interesting line they're trying to walk that I think works for me, personally. I love the little, you know, Xbox rogs all over it and the graphics, you know, the handheld up there, even the Xbox button on it. Right. They had a whole conversation talking to us about it. I think it might even be in this video. Yeah, Right. Where it's like, they didn't want it to be round, they wanted it to be things. They put it all together angular and put it all together. I like it and I. I like it for what it is. And Tim, you, I think, said it really well in the Gamescast review of it, where there was such a. Well, it looks so much. It's not Xbox. It's not fully them. Why are they doing this? And you were saying, of course, like, well, it is this marriage between them. And there have been rumors of that Xbox handheld. And I know just last week it was. We on Games Daily talked about Jez being like, that's dead. That's not happening. Who knows if that's actually the case? But I think in my mind that's why they were so like, let's meet in the middle. We're doing this together. This is clearly the middle ground of two companies coming together. And then if, slash, they were going to do an Xbox handheld, it'll look, I would think, or wouldn't look, more Xboxy.
- [10:00]
Tim Gettys
Yeah. Whereas this is, I think, like their best first step, because they need to do stuff now because we're in a place where these handheld PCs are a market that is full of enthusiasts that you need to deliver this stuff to. So that leads me to the most important question, which is the os.
- [10:14]
Greg Miller
Yeah.
- [10:15]
Tim Gettys
Because all this other stuff, the screen's the same as the one you have, like. Yeah. It's more powerful. You're not going to notice that, just playing at a preview event.
- [10:21]
Greg Miller
Oh, yeah, yeah. No, no, yeah, that's again the thing for me as somebody who plays Rog religiously right now, right. His Ally X, like watching Gears and playing Gears and then they had it up on the TV and the 60 frames were clicking and it looked great. Now granted, older game, obviously remastered, res it up, whatever they're calling it, like different whole ball of wax there. It did look really great. It did feel really great. Now I think I'd love to see it on my current Ally X, see if there's any difference, blah, blah, blah. But no, I don't have intense thoughts, obviously, and how it is. I thought it looked really well booted faster than most of my games on my Ally X do. Granted, again, this is all preview hardware and preview os, so who knows how it'll actually shake out.
- [11:01]
Tim Gettys
Yeah, a lot of people in the chat are asking what the price is. We do not have a price.
- [11:04]
Greg Miller
You have a price. Do not have.
- [11:05]
Tim Gettys
You should expect $900 for this. That is most likely what this is going to end up being.
- [11:09]
Greg Miller
Sure. So then you want to know.
- [11:12]
Tim Gettys
$800. Excuse me.
- [11:13]
Greg Miller
Oh, they'll probably have what isn't. Right now it's 899 for ally.
- [11:19]
Tim Gettys
899, $900 and.
- [11:22]
Greg Miller
Then just regular allies. 799. Correct me, Mikey's on that. But in terms of the OS overall, I wasn't a doubter by any stretch of the imagination. But as somebody who already is in this ecosystem and already using so many of the things they are touting here and touted throughout the Xbox presentation, you know, driving home, Xbox play anywhere, all those games play anywhere. Working with third parties for play anywhere. I haven't had the hurdles that I had heard so many people talk about before. When I was talking about my Steam deck and how I wanted another one, but how I wanted to get my other stores on there and how I wanted to do these things, some people would pop up and say, Greg, you really should look into the, the Allies, right? And I said, well, sure, but I've heard this. I've heard that Windows, yada yada yada. I love using the version of Windows that is on my Ally X. I find it is super responsive to touch. It's easy to get in. I just leave all my games on my main screen. I let them create, you know, the desktop shortcut. I'm in. I'm going, I'm fine. Keyboards are actually nice, yada, yada yada. Occasionally there'll be the gripe where I try to bring up a keyboard and it doesn't go the right place and I have to do this. But for me and my personal experience night and day, versus trying to use my touchscreen on the Steam Deck to do the same thing. Because I think Steam Deck is doing what Xbox is trying to do here with Xbox Ally, right. In terms of having the OS there. And sometimes it gets finicky, touchy. I don't. I don't like it. Anyways, being so into Ally X already, I was like, okay, cool. I don't know how much this would be needed or work or what about this and what about that workaround? And I was not. I don't want to eat my words off a preview, but I was like, damn, this is nice. And they seem to have the answers in ways I didn't think they would. Of course, you know, as we've seen throughout the videos, and I'm sure Barrett will continue to show you, this looks like your expert Xbox system. Of course, when you're able to go in and jump into the system, it takes all your games from all your different libraries and has them there with their little logos on it for Battle Net. It has Steam down there. I know there's a lot of discussion on the reaction, or maybe it was the review about, oh, well, is it going to have Epic Games Store? From everything they said, it will have anything a PC could have in terms of a launcher. I think this is just. You don't want to bog it down with it. I don't think they showed in any of this stuff. Correct me if I'm wrong, but internally, when we were getting this demo, another thing kept talking about was Discord of like, okay, you know, you're going to be able to boot into Discord over in this window and be able to do it.
- [13:45]
Tim Gettys
That's in the My apps got it tab of this too. And then just something real quick while you're talking about this thing that I think is really interesting is the difference between your experience currently on your ally with Windows and this new Xbox OS situation going on is the Xbox OS can turn off all the Windows processes that the game.
- [14:01]
Greg Miller
Oh, I know that. Yeah. No, no, I'm getting to that. Yeah, that was. And that's what they were explaining. Right. Of course, is the fact that when you turn this on and you're running this, it will bring you straight to the Xbox screen. It will not load Windows. It will not jump through those hoops. All the resources they were saying that Windows usually eats up in the background would no longer be happening. They're Just there. Then all that stuff's available more for games. Right. Which is obviously great news in terms of not having some background process running. My question then became when I was tooling around, there was a, you know, go to Windows or, you know, load Windows mode or whatever. So assumedly you can still do that if you need to. Right. Which would be a whole kitten caboodle of booting out of it. But my question when I was like, all right, so at the end I grabbed Roanne, I was like, what is it going to be like if I want to install Discord, I want to install Steam, I want to do this. Like that's not built in. So do I have to boot into Windows, load it there, come out of this, do that, blah, blah. And her answer was no. Like in this version of what you're looking at on the screen already, there will be a Internet Explorer, a browser of some kind. Right. That you can go to Steam download and it will all do it there. So you never have to go to Windows and do that, which wouldn't be the end of the world. But I like the idea that they're so committed to not breaking your immersion and what this device is that they're doing that, booting it and loading and installing it all on the side rather than go into Windows, screw something up, start some background function I don't want to do.
- [15:22]
Tim Gettys
Yeah. And the exciting thing is the idea of this is that this isn't tied to these systems that Greg's using. Like this would be an OS that they can then put on even their older products, but then also their future products, but also other products. And I think that the main goal is getting this on Windows desktop PCs, because if you can then you have your PC have a gaming mode that actually works for Xbox the way that it's supposed to, that's going to be such a major step forward for how things currently are working, but with workarounds are working, but with a lot of caveats and a lot of things that it's not optimized and not, not that console like experience. So so far it looks really good.
- [15:58]
Greg Miller
Yeah. Yeah. And it ran really well. You know, I mean, it was exactly how you'd expect the Xbox to handle if it was in your hands. It was a handheld and it was that idea of, you know, holding down the Xbox button is what then kicked you into, you know, the multi screen mode of like, all right, well what program are you trying to get to? Are you trying to go from Gears to this? I think they even had Might have had Discord running on theirs to show that you could click over to that. Right. And of course it's all done on sticks, it's all done with buttons, it's all done with D Pad. Like you're not having to do it. If you want to go back. Addition to one frame, there's Barrett where it kicked off there. One back. Just one. One back. You know, one of the things with using the Ally X is it has of course a command center where you can go in and tweak all these different things. But then it has this right here, this command center where you get to jump in and you can go to Armory Crate, which if you're using a rog right now, Armory Crate is in a lot of ways what they're trying to do here, where you load up Armory Crate Army Armory Crate and it shows you every game you have with the little logos on it. But again, loading a different thing to do a different thing. You still have this time through the Xbox button, through your normal interface, all the stuff you would have from Command center where you go in, you put it into performance mode, you put it into turbo mode. You know, you dial down this, you put frame rate limiters on. If you're trying to play Expedition 33 and not have it explode like me, you go through and you do all these little hoops that if you want to really customize the experience for what you're using the handheld for in that moment. But again, as somebody well versed in the Ally X, it was interesting to see them merge that together with the Xbox, which I'm well versed in as well, and how well it worked. And it is super exciting. Like you and me both love these kind of handhelds and playing these things and doing it. So I'm very interested in my hands on the final product or a preview.
- [17:34]
Tim Gettys
Any downsides to it that you experienced.
- [17:37]
Greg Miller
I mean, the price will be the biggest one, right? I think that's going to be the issue. It's still the thing for me of I love Play Anywhere but for our very specific use case, it's always going to be weird of when I request a code from somebody earlier. Is this going to be the Play Anywhere's Windows version that'll also give me the Xbox version. Are you seeing me a Steam code that then's locking me out of the Play Anywhere thing? I want to. There's that idea of it. Right. That's such a 1%er problem in terms of reviewing things and doing things from. I mean, my main concerns are price and battery life, just to see what we're going to get, how you're going to get, see how it'll plug into the screens and all this stuff they mentioned. Of course, if you want to use the XG mobile docks that Asus makes, that if you did this and plugged it in, you can go up to like RTX 5090 laptop GPU, right. To get the most out of it even there, which is an exciting proposition I think as well to try to figure out if you wanted it just to be that idea and go. But of course you then are talking about even more of a financial investment and what do you want? And at that point, why not just have a very nice PC that you're doing that on and not even worrying about that. Have your handheld and go, or vice versa, however you want to shake it out. But for me, as somebody who's already into the system and already loves it so much, it's a great evolution of what I love about the Ally X and why I'd be excited about this. So I'm stoked about it.
- [18:58]
Tim Gettys
Yeah, I'm very excited too. And I'm also just excited that they're continuing to double down on this and having such a partnership like from the Ally side with Xbox shows, like they're trying to take this more seriously because like right now it is a very small footprint in gaming 100%. I do think that it's going to continue to be an enthusiast product and like enthusiasts are what make the entire.
- [19:19]
Greg Miller
Industry go round 100%. And I think their messaging was very clear in that. Again, Rowan Sones, if you don't know, head of Xbox devices, right. When she was talking presenting all this, the direct quote I wrote down, right is we're still very much leaning to our next generation plans. Like again, they're not trying to pivot in lifeboat to PCs. I saw a lot of, you know, skies falling stuff about it afterwards and she said that this is an. And this isn't your only thing. This is an. And this isn't a company device. So clearly, yeah, we're talking about enthusiasts, people with money to burn, people who this speaks to in a very specific way. But I think again, what I didn't agree with on like Mike's take on the Xbox showcase was the idea, you know, Mike was so hung up on, understandably. So I'm not saying it doesn't matter. They're not being first parties there, right. There's all these third parties. But watching them do every game like Xbox playing anywhere for me, I was like, I'm like, that's what matters to me in 2025, not trophies. So all these things ending with the PlayStation 5 logo at the end, I'm like, I won't play them on PlayStation 5. I will play them here so I can take them back and forth and hopefully have the best, you know, even as close as possible experience with this new Hanno.
- [20:26]
Blessing Adioia Jr.
He's so deep in the ecosystem, Tim, it's unbelievable.
- [20:28]
Greg Miller
It's true.
- [20:29]
Blessing Adioia Jr.
It's like he's becoming part of it. This is exactly what he wanted.
- [20:31]
Tim Gettys
That's how they get you jump on the home console.
- [20:33]
Blessing Adioia Jr.
If you got a nice PC, you can just boot up your Xbox app, play all your games.
- [20:37]
Tim Gettys
And now on the go with mobile.
- [20:39]
Blessing Adioia Jr.
That's great.
- [20:39]
Greg Miller
Yeah.
- [20:39]
Tim Gettys
Brandon in the chat says, is it going to be worth the upgrade from the Ally X though? I do think that is a big problem that we're facing here, which is PC gaming in general and how it's always been where there's always going to be a new upgrade. It's never going to be like consoles where there is this many year gap between the last one and the new one. Yeah, I feel like we're already seeing that. Like Steam Deck so far has been very. We're holding their ground and not putting out a Steam Deck too. Even though they very well could. And Ally are putting out products and Legion's putting out products saying though, like, do you need to. Is it worth the upgrade? I don't think necessarily, yes, especially because the Xbox OS stuff is most likely going to come to the original Ally X. But it is worth waiting for if that's the. If you don't have one yet and are thinking about getting one. But I do think that, guess what? Next year there's going to be another one. Maybe, maybe not next year. Two years from now there will be a follow up to this.
- [21:35]
Greg Miller
What's interesting about this, and this is where you get way outside of my territory. I can tell you if the game's good, how it runs right, But I can't get into the text and the specs of all this stuff. But one of the things Roanne was talking about was that with the AMD Ryzen AI Z2 extreme chip, right. Such a big part of that, and I wrote all this down is that it's the silicon, right, that it's ready to evolve with AI innovation. She made a point to say this and she, she was like, I know AI is. Everybody's got an opinion about it. She was like this is. But when we're divining designing a device, our job is to make sure we future proof it as much as possible. So it really made it sound like. And I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. So I'm just repeating what they were saying, that the way the chip works is that this chip in particular is planning to use the AI improvements of the upscaling and the up res and this that the other to try to get you the again as close to console/PC or tower PC experience as possible without it. So I wonder if that's where the gap would be between my regular ally and my Xbox ally.
- [22:37]
Tim Gettys
Wing commander in the chat says it still seems like they're not clear that this is not going to play native Xbox games. To be clear about this, it's not native Xbox games, it's native Xbox for PC games. And Xbox yesterday spent so much time clarifying that going forward all of their games are going to be Xbox on PC. So yeah, you're not going to be able to go back and play all the old stuff right now. At some point that can change. And they.
- [23:00]
Greg Miller
Well that, that's the whole thing. Baris got it up here of download natively, right where yeah, they're talking about downloading natively the games on Xbox Game pass PC or everything yesterday which was Xbox play anywhere, Xbox Plan anywhere. I think that was that it felt like that was the thread that so many people missed watching it is like that's their big pivot this year is like no, no. All this stuff which includes so many third party games is Xbox play anywhere, which it is not right now. Right. Where even like outer worlds when I went and redid that was an Xbox play anywhere. That's why I got it. But to the point of the device and what they're talking about right, is like with this idea, when you boot it up, I mean Mike's got it pulled up through his PC, right? And it's the exact same thing of home game pass my library, cloud gaming. It's the exact same here where they're saying like yes, your entire Xbox library will be there even if you don't own a lot of Xbox PC games. Because your library will be there through cloud gaming, it'll be there through remote play. Now are these asterisks and wrinkles and all these things? Yeah, but like if you're, if you're to the point where you're like, I'm interested maybe in this $900 Xbox handheld, I expect you to know all of this and have done that amount of research to get in to understand it. But again, going forward it isn't an issue. Which is why, yeah, Outer Worlds 2, that that presentation both in the front and the back was so good and I already liked number one so much. It seems like they've improved so much. Yeah, I'm gonna want to play that there so I can take that with me multiple times in multiple systems in multiple ways.
- [24:24]
Tim Gettys
Yeah, I think the big, the confusion there but like the big takeaway is that this is not a portable Xbox. This is a portable Xbox PC. It's a portable PC, period. And I think that's why the Xbox playing where this is next box, this is next box. All that stuff gets a little bit like confusing because you're like the, the words aren't adding up to what it actually should be. But I do think we're slowly getting to the point that it's not going to matter because all the games are going to be playable natively on PC I think within the next couple years. I mean going forward for sure, but I think they're even going to go back and make changes to all this stuff. And Ian John super chats in saying I like this ally X but it 100 feels like one more step into making Xbox just an operating system and eventually leaving hardware altogether. I agree with you that this is definitely another step away from hardware being their sole focus. I think that's a good thing for the strategy that they are currently in play of. And on top of that, I think this OS stuff, they need to get it right and it needs. This is baby steps towards it, but it needs to be everywhere. It needs to be on the Xbox, it needs to be on normal PCs.
- [25:29]
Greg Miller
And again, just the fact that Mike's thing, PC right now looks like an Xbox right. As you continue and when you boot up the Xbox app, it looks like that, like yeah, they're doing it, they're making the moves. And again I think it needs to.
- [25:40]
Tim Gettys
Just look like it needs to actually function it and actually turn off all the other things so it's not killing the battery life. And it needs to be run as good as games natively on other systems that are made to be able to play games that way. All that we're getting there, we're not quite there yet. But this, these are the moves to get there. And in terms of leaving hardware altogether, I think that the there I stand by Xbox will never stop making hardware as long as Xbox as a brand exists. I just do not think that the importance of the Xbox hardware is going to matter near as much. And I would be willing to bet that by next generation the Xbox. The difference between Xbox and Xbox PC doesn't exist because the console is a PC.
- [26:24]
Greg Miller
Exactly. Yeah, that. That. That was what the rumor was. Not too long ago. We kicked around on a games dealer I remember with Paris. And that makes perfect sense to see what they're doing and how they're marching and what's happening. And again, I think as I've fallen in line, as I've become one of them. Right. Of like, yeah, no, anything is Xbox playing where I'm going to play there? I think you'll see other people do this. I had a back and forth on Blue sky when I was BSing with some people about again, like, what outer Worlds is $80? Well, it's 20 bucks a month. You know what I mean? You get all this other stuff. Yeah, like, I understand like this. It sounds like marketing, but they've built an actual strategy that I think when all games are $80 and you're like, I want to play the hottest thing, but I just spent $80 last week, maybe $20 in a cloud and a PC or a phone or whatever, suddenly you're like, I'll try it. And then you're in. And you start going. You see it and you do it. Maybe it doesn't work.
- [27:14]
Tim Gettys
Parksview says play anywhere is the next step in smart delivery. The hope is the step after that is applying it to the back compat program.
- [27:21]
Greg Miller
Yeah, yeah, sure.
- [27:22]
Tim Gettys
I think that's. That is. I think we're actively taking those steps now. Bless. Yeah, you've been suspiciously quiet. Does any of this pique your interest whatsoever?
- [27:32]
Snowbike Mike
I mean, I think it all sounds cool. I'm having fun listening to it because I. After the showcase yesterday, me and Mike are in the parking lot, turn to Mike and I'm like, mike, play anywhere. Does that not. Is that not already applicable to every Xbox game? And Mike blew my mind when he told me no. I totally thought that I was already the case. And so to hear how they're building and hear Tim, you break it down, I think makes a lot of sense.
- [27:51]
Greg Miller
It's one where a lot. It isn't a lot already. I don't want to take away and make it sound like it's not. And I'm using Outer Worlds as an example. But there's the thing where that was private division published and Xbox bottom and you know what I mean? There's the game. Game pass right Usually there's that parody. Usually. Not always. Usually between PC and Xbox. And so if it's on game pass, you're usually set, you're fine.
- [28:11]
Tim Gettys
Yeah.
- [28:12]
Blessing Adioia Jr.
It's an exciting moment. I'm just a little timid. Tim of like this is for me, right. The Xbox, avid gamer that wants to go everywhere with a lot of my titles. And I just kind of feel like we're at like this moment where I'm going to see a lot more of these and I'm worried it's like, is this my one, Greg? Right. Like, is this my one to buy where maybe I'm covered for three to five years? Or is there going to be a Steam Deck 2 that's going to now come out two years later? I'm going to go, ah, why did I do this? Or is there are.
- [28:39]
Greg Miller
But is The Steam Deck 2 gonna.
- [28:40]
Blessing Adioia Jr.
Let you do well yeah. And then of course, like is Xbox going to say, hey, I know we said that that's on ice right now. But you know what? After seeing the rog ally how great it did, now we're ready for this in three years and I just feel like a little intimidated. Put down a thousand dollars.
- [28:55]
Tim Gettys
Yeah.
- [28:55]
Blessing Adioia Jr.
To buy this now and get like maybe a year or two good years of like this worked and then, then be like, hey, we got three more.
- [29:01]
Tim Gettys
And I'm like 100. That's going to happen. It's like phones, it's a cell phone. That's just everyone needs to prepare themselves. That's where we're at. That is what's going to happen. We're going of these things. But the hope is the OS works well enough and is on all of them and it is this open platform so you can jump in at where your entry point, where you want to be. And it's going to be. There's. There's the fact that they even now have two SKUs that they're coming out with this thing for the Xbox. It's like that's how this is going to be. Yeah. And I guarantee that Legion's going to get it and Seuss is going to continue. And yeah, Steam Deck is going to keep doing its own thing as well. But the big question is will Steam open up to be able to allow this? And I think that it might, I really do. And we also, I mean already Steam's being opening their side up to be on other systems which were in the last month seeing what that's looking like and that's working really, really well so far. So yeah, Mike, like It's a good timid.
- [29:56]
Blessing Adioia Jr.
But like, yeah, I mean, hearing Greg talk about the os, right. Like, as an Xbox gamer myself, I love that home screen. I like jumping into that, knowing I'm home and the idea that I can open it up and have other storefronts that I've put a lot of money into Steam now, like my world is Xbox and Steam. That's why I've put thousands upon thousands of dollars over my gaming career into those two storefronts. I kind of want to merge them and have like this shared experience when I'm on the go and be able to jump into that. So it's like, it's kind of perfect for me right now at this moment, I'm just intimidated of like the, the iPhone situation of next year. Oh, Mike, this one's even better. I'm like, well, you know, but like.
- [30:34]
Tim Gettys
Again, that is going to happen. But don't think of it as a negative. Think of it as we are already at a point that it is good enough and now we're going to have a lot of options. I do think there will be some options that aren't quite good enough that are on the cheaper side that you should be scared of. There's going to be options where the battery life is absolutely atrocious and all this stuff. But I do think more than not when we're talking about Legion and Asus at this point, they're going to keep putting them out, but I think that it's always going to be better and better, but it's always already working the way that you're going to need it to.
- [31:06]
Greg Miller
Yeah. And that's that my thing to assuage fears, Right. Where I think my Steam Deck is the launch Steam Deck. And as I told, I've talked about. So I've had that for years now. And as I was talking about the shows, like, OLED was tempting because of the better screen, but it wasn't enough for me to jump. Whereas I had said, a Steam Deck 2 I'll be all in on. Right. But then I got the Ally X and I was like, okay, this kind of is kind of isn't. I'm not talking about tech specs. It's more the features rich part of it where I'm like, oh, I'd stick with this. This would be an upgrade. And I don't think even a Steam Deck 2 would go so far above and beyond this, where I'd be like, I got to trade it in. Right. I feel like it's not even to the Point where it's in the old days where it was, I need a phone. Every year they've done something crazy. I feel like it's always going to be incremental from here on out. And if this Xbox Ally X and it's using AI or whatever to keep up and make the games look as good as possible, I don't think you're going to be like, oh man, two years later Ally x2 comes out or Steam Deck 2. Like me and this thing's dog shit now. Could be wrong. I don't know. I'm just talking, I don't know.
- [32:01]
Blessing Adioia Jr.
But it's got a lot of things that I want and I'm very excited about the idea of this right now. Like, looks like it has two back paddle buttons. Yeah, I like that. Right. Love to connect a controller. I'm sure you can do that. Wireless headphones, it's. It's a very tempting idea and I'm very excited about this. I'm sure Greg will probably get a day one. I can look over his shoulder and make my informed decision there. But this speaks to me a lot. I am very excited about the future of Xbox and this ecosystem that I want to be in and that they're getting very close to really join me in the green.
- [32:34]
Greg Miller
You got scared, you ran away, but you're always playing these PC games and basically the same thing.
- [32:39]
Tim Gettys
I want to move on to a little game called Mixtape that Greg got to play, but we're going to do that after a word from our sponsors. This episode's brought to you by xreal. Y' all know that a few months ago my life changed forever when I brought a pair of Xreal 1AR glasses on a long flight to New York. I legit could not believe how easy it is to use and high quality. My experience was playing games, watching movies, TV shows on the plane without just too much extra stuff around me. Or especially not a giant goofy headset around my head. No joke. This is my favorite new tech product in years and it has earned a permanent spot in my travel bag. It is only hard to believe that it works as well as I'm saying until you try every xreal1ar glasses for yourself. And then you will see that the future is now. The tech is here. Connect xreal1 glasses to wherever you are playing. Whether it's a handheld console, a PC phone, home console, you just get a massive 150 inch virtual screen anywhere, anytime. For any game gaming on the go, like a long haul flight, you need the xreal One Next. Starting to hurt from staring down at your handheld. We've all been there. You need an xreal one A screen as big as your wall. Instant plug and play with all of your devices via usb. C built in audio with sound by Bose anchoring your screen anywhere in space. It's awesome. It just works. Zero latency at 1080p full HD. These are what make Xreal 1amust have. And we hear Xreal 1 Pro is coming soon with an even bigger virtual screen. Hit our link below to get your X xreal glasses today. There's nothing better than when a sponsor of Kinda Funny is something that we are legitimately obsessed with. And that is exactly the case here with xreal. You're gonna hear me talking about these forever. Go to kindafunny.com xreal that's kindafunny.com xreal I promise you, you are going to love these things. This episode's brought to you by Factor Summer game fest is here. The Switch 2 is here. The sun is here. So many summer things are here. And the number one thing you don't want to be doing all summer, spending hours cooking inside. That's where Factor comes in. Factor's chef crafted dietitian approved meals are ready in just two minutes. Taking the hassle out of eating. Well, we love Factor here at Kinda Funny and Greg's often making and enjoying meals quick in between shows here in the studio. I just had a roasted garlic chicken and I'm telling you, you would have loved it. Factor meals arrived fresh and ready to eat. Perfect for any actual active lifestyle over summer and beyond. With 45 weekly menu options, you can pick gourmet meals that fit your summer gains and goals. Choose from options like calorie smart, protein plus keto and more. Get started at Factor Meals.com kinda funny 50 off and use code kinda funny 50 off to get 50 off plus free shipping on your first box. That's kinda funny 50 off at Factor Meals.com Kinda funny 50 off for 50 off plus free shipping back to meals.com kindafunny 50 off Greg.
- [35:41]
Greg Miller
Tim, last year, yeah, I saw a.
- [35:44]
Tim Gettys
Trailer for a game called Mixtape.
- [35:45]
Greg Miller
Yeah.
- [35:45]
Tim Gettys
The next game from Beethoven and Dinosaur.
- [35:48]
Greg Miller
Yes.
- [35:49]
Tim Gettys
Published by Annapurna.
- [35:50]
Greg Miller
Yes.
- [35:51]
Tim Gettys
My game of the year 20. I don't even fucking know what it was. 20. I'm gonna say 2021. The artful escape in flight style.
- [36:01]
Greg Miller
I'm used to going to all these different things, you know, these meeting developers. They're always like, oh man, Greg, I love you, Greg, I love you. You're so amazing. I grew up listening to you. One of the mixtape guys said all this, but the other guy, Johnny Galvatron, he made such a point to call out and make sure you thanked him for all the support on the artful escape. Like, it really meant a lot to them.
- [36:20]
Tim Gettys
Hell yeah. That's awesome. Me and him, DM all the time. Seems like a really cool guy. And I hate that you get to meet him. You know what I mean? Years we've talked about, hey, we should hang out, we should grab a drink, we should, whatever. Then Greg gets to fucking mean him. And Greg gets to play mixtape.
- [36:33]
Greg Miller
I did.
- [36:34]
Tim Gettys
Well, I'm jealous of you, but how jealous should I be?
- [36:36]
Greg Miller
Incredibly jealous. This is my game of the show. I played a lot of games and a lot of games I can't tell you about yet, but listener slash viewer, I was floored by this. If you are on a. If you are not familiar with mixtape, Tim hit him with a snobby.
- [36:50]
Tim Gettys
On their last night together, three friends embark on one final adventure. Play through a mixtape of memories set to the soundtrack of a generation. Featuring music from Devo, Roxy Music, Lush, the Smashing Pumpkins, Iggy Pop, the Banshees, Joy Division, the Cure, and Stan Bush, everybody. He's got the touch. He's got the power.
- [37:07]
Greg Miller
Sure does. There's a game I'm going to talk about, I believe tomorrow, where I'm going to tell you ahead of time I want to put all my hyperbole in a box and we're to set it aside, right? Because I don't want to just be like gushy, gushy, gushy, gushy. When I tell you this game was unlike anything I've played, I think you look at it and you immediately go, oh, it's life is strange, right? It's one of those kind of games. It's a great ass game for sure. Just glancing at it, talking about a bunch of kids in the, you know, late 80s, early 90s, they're kind of being ambiguous with it, if I remember correctly. Maybe just 90s, but they're like, you know, coming of age, doing all this stuff. Like, yeah, we played a lot of these and Greg has talked to you about them a lot through the years and stuff like that. But like it opens and it starts going and it was like, oh fuck. Like for so many years we've talked about video games and oh man, like it's like playing a movie or doing this thing. Da da da da da. Mixtape is like playing a coming of age movie, but specifically playing Ferris Bueller's Day off, where, like, the main character here is Stacy Rockford, or it's her two friends, Cassandra and Slater. And Stacy is, like, talking to you. Like, this is the thing. She's setting it up. She's explaining what a mixtape is, how you set this up, what's going on, why we're all together, blah. And I'm like. While she's doing this, like, there's this amazing thing of, like, she's talking about them being kids and they cut to real photos of children, like, being, like, cutting in and out. And they talk about houses and they're showing all these different IRL houses and it's like, whoa. Like, it feels like such a blend here between cinema and a video game, right? And then, of course, I know everybody I talk to when I talk. I was gushing about this game at sgf, like, well, what's the fucking gameplay, right? And the gameplay is living these childhood memories. And as you see her flying there, they're often amped up by what they remember. It's not necessarily how it actually went, it's what it actually felt like to them. So in the beginning, you get this whole rundown of what's going on, right? And she's explaining, you know, what's going on, what's happened, and, you know, it pops up, track one, that's good by Devoid. And it starts playing. And then it's that section. You saw them skateboarding down the hill together and going. And so you're in control of it and you can, you know, do your ollies. You're pushing, you're doing tricks and stuff as you want. The characters are all talking to each other, though. They're coming down, a car will come, like, car, and they'll all, like, slide off to the side. You can screw it up. I, you know, got hit by a car. It just rewinds and has you do it again or whatever. It's not like a fail state. Yes.
- [39:29]
Snowbike Mike
You say you're doing all these. You're pushing all this. Does it feel more skate or more Tony Hawk?
- [39:33]
Greg Miller
It feels way more skate. This is chill. This isn't about actually doing the trick or getting a combo or anything. It's not. It's not a skating game. It's just a skating mini game inside of what you're doing here as you go, right? And the whole thing is, yeah, you're coming down, doing the thing, blah, blah, blah. You get, you know, you park in front of the house and again, there's more cutaways. It's like, you know, I know. I love this. I know certain people don't, but it's cutaways, similar to a family guy, right? Of, like, they're talking to you, and they're back to the action of what's going on and how this is happening. But you get there, and then there's like, a button combo for your secret handshake with your friends. You go in your house, you're going upstairs to get your stuff for a party or whatever you're gonna go to that night, right? And Cassandra's like, all right, let's get it and go. And like, no, no, no. Like, that's the quickest way to get caught. You need to stay up here 20 minutes minimum, right? So then it's them dicking around in the bedroom, right? And laying on the bed having a conversation like you would with your friends growing up, right? And then here's where I was like, okay, cool. Now we're gonna get very. Life is strange with it, right? Of explore the room, pick up the thing, say something awkward, put it down instead. Because they've already established Stacy is talking to you and narrating the entire thing. If you go golden path to the thing that's literally golden, and click it in and go. Then you're right on the main quest. But if you picked up any of the side stuff, it feels the exact same way, because she's talking about that the same way she would talk about the other stuff. And there's this great line where she, like, goes over to the board of photos and grabs one, and it's. It's her and Cassandra with a person torn out of it. And I'm like, oh, man, I wonder who they're gonna. And she immediately referenced. She goes, jenny fucking Goodspeed jumped in, and I had to cut her out. Jenny sucks and then just puts it down. You know what I mean? But you're going through and do it. And then, like, they're talking about the mixtape. The whole. It turns out what's going on here to set it up and give it that real. Hey, you're in a teen movie, right? Is like, it's their final night together because Stacy is gonna go to New York the next morning, and she's going to go there and find this music producer, Bella something or other, and she's going to hand her her tape because she wants to be a music. Stacy wants to be a music supervisor. So she's going to hand her the ultimate mixtape. That'll then get her this job and set her up for life. And there's all the cuts and stuff. And this is where we're explaining what a mixtape is. They do this whole thing of explaining what a music supervisor is. And it's very documentary and are like going through and doing stuff. But, like, they find a tape that they want to put the kid, the Slater and Cassandra, the friends want to put on. And Stacy's like, absolutely not. That's a mixtape Colin made for her. Colin was her first kiss. And it was just to get it out of the way or whatever. And then this cuts to the memory them of them leaning and kissing. And then this is when one of the developers came over, Woody, and he's like, I gotta play this part with you. And he grabbed the controller and I had my side and it's just two tongues with the teeth open. And the two tongues, like lapping into each other and doing this that you could play obviously by yourself. But he wanted to make me uncomfortable. And so then that mini game ends. And it's just from the outside, like the tape getting thrown out of the window into the lawn or whatever, it's like funny like that. And so, like, you're going between it. Like, I. I had four tracks in it. It was. That's good by Devo, just like Honey by the Jesus and Mary, Chain Freak by Silver Chair and then Rainbow by Sensitive to Light. The freak silver chain part you saw earlier in there where they have the burgers and stuff in their car. This was an interesting one. And again, setting up how unlike anything I've played. This is where they get in the car and, well, they have the flashback to the car scene or whatever, right? And they're, You're. They're driving or whatever, and they put this thing on and I was taking a note and the rock out combo popped up and it was, you know, all the face buttons in the controller and it faded away and I missed it. I was like, oh. So then I just watched them driving in the car, being stoic, and I was like, wait, hit the button. It's like, oh, I did it. And then they just started doing and they're pumping their fists, blah, blah. And then rather than it just be them pumping like this, it would then cut and it would be Cassandra in the back playing with the lights as I hit the buttons, and then her, Stacy pounding on the side of the car. And then they went and got burgers and they're saying burger. Weird. Just all the dumb shit you would do with your friends driving around late at night, right? And then when we're out of that cutaway to do the Rainbow Sensitive to light one. This is when I made a fool of myself and laughed way too loudly at this whole booth for these games, whatever, because they go, there's three photos missing in the little chart as you're reminiscing. So you go and you find him and you put them up. And it's all from the first night. Cassandra snuck out with y' all. And of course, you go to a house party, she gets too drunk, so you got to carry her out. But the cops show up to bust it up and they put her in a shopping cart. And that's where rainbow sensitive light kicks up and you start pushing the shopping cart down the street. But again, it's what you imagine and remember it being so like your controls are steering, but they're also. You just want to spin the cart and be all crazy. And it's like just a funny little crazy segment in general as you're going off ramps and avoiding cars and they're setting up roadblocks, whatever. But then there's this bit where you take it onto the freeway where there's all these cars. And as soon as you hit the freeway, it cuts to a news helicopter and it's this newscaster doing a vo. I'm just like, here we are. This high speed chase and then bring the car down. I tell you, Sarah, I've been doing this for 25 years and I've only seen this five or six times. I was like, I thought it was the funniest fucking joke. And then they crash out and do the whole thing and it was just like, damn, they have set this up so well where I'm like, so I. I am so pained that I don't have the full game.
- [44:41]
Tim Gettys
I'm so stoked, man. This is music to my ears because, like, obviously I loved Artful Escape, which was also a gameplay light game, but more about the experience and kind of the, the, the vibes of going through the world and the story and the writing being so high quality and the just kind of musical experience. But looking at this, it really does seem like many steps forward in terms of gameplay. What would you say is the balance between active playing and kind of just experiencing more cinematic stuff?
- [45:11]
Greg Miller
It's hard to say. I would say gameplay is minimal. I think, you know, if you want to go into what's gonna catch this game and hurt it or what haters are gonna hate about. Right. It's the idea that, yeah, you're watching a movie for a lot. You're. You're participating. But again it's. I'm doing a skate segment that doesn't really matter and I'm spinning a card. I don't really. It doesn't really matter. I'm sure I could have hit stuff with the cart and failed to or whatever. It's those little things. So it's like even when you're playing, I don't even think it's really playing as much as experiencing. Which I obviously, as you all know, I'm all for in my games. I think that's going to be an issue for people. I wonder about length. You know this is a 30 minute demo. Maybe a little bit less when I. Because I sat and talked for a while too. Like I got through four tracks on it. How long is this mixtape? How much are we actually going to get in the music? Because it's so tied into it. None of that stops me. None of that scares me. I think this is special. This is a special ass game that I can't wait to play when you play it. Huh?
- [46:04]
Tim Gettys
When do we.
- [46:04]
Greg Miller
This year. Right. This was one of my hang ups of the. The. Not the demo and of course the trailer. They drop. Right. It was like coming soon this year. It's like come on, come on. But take your time.
- [46:15]
Tim Gettys
Yeah.
- [46:15]
Greg Miller
I think so far what I've played again, this 30 minutes is so good that if you can just expand that into multiple chunks, I'd rather you not rush it as you go through and experience this because again, this is just an incredible experience that I can't wait to play.
- [46:28]
Tim Gettys
Yeah. Our full escape was a little over four hours so I would expect somewhere around that for this as well. And yeah, come into multiple consoles this time because the first one, if I remember correctly was that was Xbox. Tied to Xbox. Yeah. Very, very cool. Thankful that it is as good as I hoped it would be. Greg.
- [46:46]
Greg Miller
Yeah.
- [46:46]
Tim Gettys
Want to talk about Ratatan?
- [46:48]
Greg Miller
Oh, there it is. Yeah. Of course. The Patapon successor.
- [46:51]
Tim Gettys
Yes. You got to play it. That's wild. Developed by TVT co with Rattata. Yeah. Rattata Arts. God, Mike. How do you say it?
- [47:00]
Blessing Adioia Jr.
Ratata.
- [47:01]
Tim Gettys
Ratata baby.
- [47:02]
Greg Miller
I have to slow down and go Rata tan.
- [47:06]
Tim Gettys
This is coming July 25th on PC Early Access. Rattatan is a rhythm roguelike action game that combines rhythm games and side scrolling action with online co op gameplay supporting up to four players. Recruit allies and dance your way to victory. March across the world of Redo, build your Coban army and combine forces with your closest friends. Greg.
- [47:26]
Greg Miller
Hello.
- [47:27]
Tim Gettys
Does it live up to your dreams.
- [47:30]
Greg Miller
I hope everybody knows how much I adore Pat upon how much I love Patapon. How intimidating it was to play this in front of the creators of Patapon. You know what I mean? It lives. It's different in a good way. I think there's two, well, three moments to tell you about in this demo. Number one, this is a roguelite, right? Did you read the synopsis on this one, Tim? Did you read it? Okay, cool. I'm already lost, sorry. So it's a roguelite rhythm, roguelike, which is different than what Patapon was, right? As you march through levels and do the thing. So in the very beginning, I impressed the out of everyone there. I was told when I finally fell to the first boss and they came over like, just so you know, you're supposed to die here, but no one's taking this much health off of him. Like, yeah, I still got it, you know what I mean? Because I'm dusting off some chops out here. Then there was the main section where again, they interrupted my demo and they're like, you're dying a lot, but it's because you're playing it like Patapon and you. That's not what this game is. In this game, you know, you control your middle character there, right? Your Rataton, who had then has the Cobun army around you, the little guys running around you. What's. I don't want to break brains and I also don't want to bore people to death. But in Patapon, to move your troops and yourself, you had to put in your drum beat commands and they marched to it. And then you put in drumming for attack or defend or whatever you had to do it on beat. You control Rataton with your stick. So you aren't sitting there going, I got a command. I have to. So I was running into battle with the stick, calling in my army and then my guy was staying there and getting wailed on when he shouldn't have because the Coban army will respawn if you stay alive, yada, yada. So like basically it's a. As they describe, you know, pat your head and rub your tummy kind of thing of I gotta bring my guy in, bring in my audit my. My troops. And then I gotta run back and get to a safe distance or whatever I'm trying to do to defend. Once I got that under me a little bit, I was like, okay, cool. And then I got to the end and they were very impressed again. They even said this in the Follow up email that I went in there and almost beat the boss but I went in with like 7 health out of 200 and they were like I was gonna get wiped right away but I hung in there to, you know, the very last second. So does it live up to my dreams? Is a great question, Tim. I would say this is a completely different dream. I'm just excited to see the creators of this have another shot to make something special. I didn't put it in my notes here but like, you know, this is a Kickstarter. I, I put my money into it over there as well, but it like set some records and did a whole bunch of things and you know, blew, blew apart the funding because there are so many pat upon sickos like myself. So this demo was a great taste of it. I am excited to actually get in and start really playing. There is a demo up right now for Steam Next Fest that you can jump in and do. But as you see like going in and leveling this up, picking the different, you know, Roguelite cards there at the end and stuff to figure out what your next thing is going to be. I got cards, but it was so fast and so furious in the 30 minutes. I didn't see the differences and I was picking different retatans to take out there because they have different powers or whatever. But again, kind of lost on me as I just tried to get in there and feel through it and go through it. This trailer, and I'm sure this is a function of the game itself, doesn't show it, but I like that on the very bottom bar of the actual game it keeps up the commands so you can look, you have your cheat sheet there so you know what you're doing. If you're looking at this and like, oh, they cleaned up the HUD for this trailer you're watching right now. And I'm sure again, once you've memorized everything, you can turn it off. But it piqued my interest I guess. Obviously that's stupid because it was already peaked leaked, but it is enough of like, oh, this is different enough where it's not going to be like what I think Patapon 2 Remastered was where Patapon 1 got re released finally, right? And I'd consulted on trophies for that with PlayStation, played at Platinum and had a great time. Patapon 2 came out finally and then I played again. I'm like, well, it is more Patapon and it is a game I've played and reviewed before and I walked away and I've Never felt compelled to go back to it. Whereas this is doing something different, let alone coming to early access. And I'm like, I want to jump back in there and try that out.
- [51:24]
Tim Gettys
Visuals look great. The backgrounds and the little text that pops up. I love the stuff because it very much feels like pat upon but different.
- [51:31]
Greg Miller
Yeah. And it's got the catchy beat. It feels like pat upon but different. And then it. But it looks like a lawsuit. I don't know who they've talked to over there to make sure this was kosher. But even having fever at the top of the screen which is such. That's directly out of Patapon. The fact that it is. Even though they look a little bit different, they are still the big black eyeball guys. I'm like, I don't know know. Go for it. They would have stopped you by now.
- [51:52]
Tim Gettys
Yeah, yeah, that's true. You played a whole bunch of other games, Greg.
- [51:56]
Greg Miller
I did, yes.
- [51:56]
Tim Gettys
Like Escape Academy 2. Back to school.
- [51:59]
Greg Miller
That's right.
- [51:59]
Tim Gettys
Coin Crew games coming in 2026 classes back in session with Escape Academy 2. Back to school playing solo or co op and explore an allnew campus. Escape life threatening puzzle rooms and unravel a conspiracy as old as the school itself. All before the bell rings. I know you and bless we really so fucking bad. Oh my God.
- [52:18]
Greg Miller
Here's my diary of a madman scribbles to get it. Yes, we love Escape Academy. Bless and me we they mentioned when we were there how bless and I had set records back to back years. Of course playing there and doing other things. This is a great trailer they're showing you right now. I think it misses what makes this special. Of course Escape Academy is first person escape rooms. You can play with your friends or whatever. There's a narrative then on top of the original Escape Academy that you're at a school where you're becoming the ultimate escape artist. Yet what was cool about this one is it is still that. But then there's this open world of the school and the campus to go explore that have puzzles all around them for you to solve and do things to either advance plot or just dick around if you want to and stuff. So this is always a hard one to preview because I never want to, you know, ruin the actual puzzles that you're going to get into. But you know, you start, you're on the train to class. This is a direct sequel to Escape Academy one. Not that you need to get there's a story, whatever, but you're the same character. One of the first people you meet is the girl from the very end of the game as well. You're back for your second year of Escape Academy. And so people know you and reference you a little bit when you're talking to them. But you start on the train back to school, you get gassed. You wake up in a classroom, and the ceiling is coming down with giant spikes. And so you have to figure out the names of the three founders by going around the classroom and doing all manner of puzzles, of doing some math, doing some finding, doing some lock picking, doing all that stuff. Stuff. Then you got out and you were out into the school. I think one of the fun things that, you know, one of the puzzles I will, like, I will spoil, I guess. But it's not a puzzle. Puzzle. But you get out of the thing and you're walking around, you're talking to people, and, like, your first thing is, like, you got to go to your locker, right? And there's just halls and halls of lockers. So it's like, well, who am I? And then there was this whole wall of students with their numbers underneath them. And I was like, oh, what a clever character creation suite of go and pick it and I'll walk to that class, go there. No, that's not how it is. It's like, I came back and then I got mad at him for it. But the dev did go, if you're stuck. And I was like, I would not. And he said it, you know, look in a mirror. And I was like, oh, that's really good. So I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror and came back and did it. It's like that kind of thing, right? And then it's key cards and it's this, and it's puzzles and it's statues and it's looking into this thing and it's staring at the COVID of a book, being like, all right, what. How. What is on the COVID of the book that would then go to this to then go to that to the end? Like, it's. It's what I loved about Escape Academy one and I love the fact that it's now cool. Get to your dorm, figure out how to do that on your own, like, through all these different bits and bobbles for it. It is still co op. You were asking me about this before. Yeah, it is still co op. I didn't get to see that. I don't know how that'll work in this open world, but I imagine you're tackling the puzzle together in terms of what you're doing, but I don't have a lot on that.
- [54:53]
Tim Gettys
Plus, you stoked for more?
- [54:54]
Snowbike Mike
Oh, I'm so stoked for more. I watched the trailer because this is when that appeared at Day of the Devs and I was both excited, but then at the same time concerned with the open world stuff because I did like the idea of hopping into these rooms one at a time and having it be this focused. All right, we know what our. What we're tasked here to do, and me and a friend just going through and beating the rooms one by one. Yeah, I don't know how it being Open World is going to like change that or maybe layer it, you know, like this year, Blueprints is such a big game and that's a game that is layers upon layers of the puzzles that are at play. And like, that is kind of an everlasting gobstop of a puzzle game and I love it for that. But at the same time, I really like Escape Academy for how focused it is. And so that's the one thing where I really want to see more and I want to hear more about what Greg thinks about that. But like, overall, I'm just. I'm just very glad it's back. Like I. This wasn't like a given thing for me of. Oh yeah, see more escape Academy.
- [55:40]
Greg Miller
Yeah, 100%. Yeah. I was worried to a degree. Right. Because we loved it and we loved the dlc. But then it kind of felt like no one ever talks about Escape Academy, so the fact that I am 8bit is making it happen again. I'm very happy that they're publishing this.
- [55:51]
Tim Gettys
Totally. Next up, Blighted Drink Box. Greg.
- [55:55]
Greg Miller
Yeah. Drinkbox of course came out and announced Blighted. You know, that's an interesting one. If you're not familiar with Drink Box, we've known them forever. Of course they broke embargo years and years and years and years ago and let me go into the trophies on Vita when we were there previewing their Vita games or whatever. Now you know them from. Of course, Severed, you'd know them from Guacamelee. The list goes on. Friends of the show for sure. This is one. Yeah. Jumping into was interesting, right? Battle your way through a psychedelic western nightmare to reclaim the memories of your people in this action RPG from the creators of Guacamelee. Harness the power of deadly reality altering blight and unravel the mysteries of a twisted world. Of course, seamless co op, they've shown some stuff. You running around with your giant scythe and slicing people up at when it debuted sgf, right? The Jeff show. Yeah, yeah. You know, they talked there about the action RPG ness of it. We looked at it like, oh my God, that looks so cool. It looks like Hades. It looks like this. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. It's got the drink box style, which is amazing. This is a souls game. They. When we sat down and demoed it, they were immediately like, you've played souls games, right? I was like, oh, here we go. Yeah, I have. I'm not really good at them. I've beaten Bloodborne. It's not my real take on a game or where I want to be, but that's what they're doing here. And they have some really neat systems they're working on. This is very early. They were quick to point that out that they're like, they're introducing things to me and showing me things with me. Like this could change, this could go this way, right. But you have your gun like a bloodborne, right? Which is not your main thing, but you have it. You have combo attacks. You can do all these different things. There's finishers to run up on what is interesting. Of course, there's pairing and there's all this stuff and there's the giant monsters to fight and da da da da. What I thought was really cool is that drink box games I think have a very wide audience. Obviously not mainstream by the stress of the imagination, sadly, because so many people don't have taste. But it appeals to a lot of different players that might be like me, where it's like, oh, we're doing a soulsy thing. I don't know if I'll join you on this. What's really cool is down right now. This could all change. In the left corner they have this blight meter, right. So as you play this starts filling in based on how you're playing. So if you are Perry, Poppy, Blessing and you're fucking knocking things back and chopping things up and doing this thing, it's going to fill up and increase your blight level. So the game is going to get harder for bless where suddenly, you know these things on the ground that are environmental things that wouldn't affect me because I'll be dog water at it. For bless. They're going to be obstacles, they're going to pop in, they're going to be this. Enemies might have a second wave or third kind of attack. That is something far different than what I'm trying to figure out with a basic block or whatever. There's also going to be like bonuses to it. So it's not just you're being punished, but it is the idea that the game for Blessing me might be distinctly different. When we come back and talk about how it was which I really thought was a nice way to keep it going. You know what I mean? If I'm using potions, which I would be I'd be bringing it down in difficulty. Difficulty might not be the right word, but some kind of scalability to make sure everybody can play.
- [58:48]
Snowbike Mike
Interesting.
- [58:49]
Greg Miller
Okay. So yeah, you saw one. There was a giant horse enemy dragon. It's a dead head over there. Right. Once we killed that, that got me the horse stomp that I could then use. It's a move I can use to break through stuff but also use it in combat, which I appreciate. Over that you can go to the tree and you can cleanse yourself of the blight if you wanted to, but then you would erase the positives you had. So if I did get over my head and I had a great section but I'm like, I don't like doing this. I could take that away. The idea though a story is, you know, you're trying to find the guy who is the big bad and to do that you have to beat his minions and eat their brains to get their memories to figure out where it is. So it's Metroidvania like Guacamelee was because you'd be unlocking new things with the new moves. But then it's also soulsy in combat. But then it's also this 2D Hades isometric kind of thing.
- [59:30]
Tim Gettys
A little bit of all the things.
- [59:31]
Greg Miller
Yeah. And I think most importantly it's distinctively drinkbox. You know, somebody who has connected with their games for so long. They all have a vibe slash art style to them and you can see that here and I really appreciate that.
- [59:44]
Tim Gettys
And then to him too by something we made come in 2026 step back into the shoes of a curious photographer and set off on a brand new adventure all about uncovering hidden details, helping friends along the way and documenting the world's little wonders to him.
- [59:57]
Greg Miller
I won't bend your ear too long on this one. Hopefully you all know how much I adored to him and also worth pointing out even even beyond the usual disclosure statements of gen did she did pop agenda of course my wife's company that she doesn't. It doesn't matter. I'm not getting in the weeds of it anyways. They did PR for drink box and for M tape I left that off because they're actually co. They're publishing to them with something we made this time around. So that's a big deal for them. So take anything you want with a grain of salt here. But you also know I love toem back in the day, Portillo was in it. It's a game that is a photography quest game. A cutesy little one. I won't bend you too long on this one. It's more of that, which I love. There's more quests on every screen. It felt like there are more photo ops, which I love. You now have a selfie thing like a drone that can be your selfie for you. So you can just take cool photos yourself that I like more. The camera is going to get new functions in every area. The one I had, it had the bonk function so you could break walls. Now you point your camera, you could break with the hammer, break walls, get through, use them in the little. Little quests, little puzzles to get the way to go. Do the thing to get whatever the person needs to give it to them to move about your way. Get your stamp in your little passport so you can move on to the next area of it again. It's hilarious. It's funny. Something we made is such a clever developer. It's so cozy, you know what I mean? Like, that's one of the reasons I love Tome so much. Just beautiful music. Tome 2 has gorgeous music so far. Just fun stuff. They've added platforming. You are jumping and climbing and doing in this one. So like the big one is these abilities like bonk. Then of course, being able to climb and do these things like it's fun. I like it.
- [61:24]
Tim Gettys
And then Directive 8020.
- [61:26]
Greg Miller
Yes.
- [61:27]
Tim Gettys
Developed by Supermassive. Coming October 2, 2025. Earth is dying and humanity is running out of time. It's like that one video of the girl talking about Call of Duty. The montage with the Daft Punk music. Oh, we're all here in this moment. 12. Yeah. 12 light years from home. Tao Seti F offers a small sliver of hope when the colony ship cast. Whatever. Greg, what's this game?
- [61:52]
Greg Miller
This is another super massive game. It's not the Dark Pictures anthology. It's a Dark Pictures game. Like, that's that. That's like the subhead of it right? Where it's like very much. This is Directive 80 20, a Dark Pictures game. Like, they're not trying to do that.
- [62:04]
Snowbike Mike
Trying to get away from an until.
- [62:06]
Blessing Adioia Jr.
Dawn level is how I put that.
- [62:09]
Greg Miller
It's in between. Because this one still says Dark Pictures. But I don't think we're gonna have the opening with the crow man and all that stuff, you know what I mean? I think we're gonna just jump into it and they put that on there. So, you know, it is a dark pictures game, right? Rather than anthology.
- [62:22]
Snowbike Mike
This was one that was the first trailer was in the last Dark pictures anthology game.
- [62:25]
Greg Miller
Okay.
- [62:26]
Snowbike Mike
And so yeah, I, I wondered about that because they seem to have been taken longer to put this one out. So I do wonder where that's gonna fall.
- [62:32]
Greg Miller
Scale wise, I think it's very good. We are super massive fans here, but we're super massive fans when we're like, oh yeah, there's some. It's a fun game. Even if it's bad. It's going to be a fun game, right? Of us going through and doing this one. Will this be good? Will it be bad? Who knows? The demo was impressive. It started with Monica Rambo. She's the lead actress here. I forget her name. Having a. It was just a conversation.
- [62:55]
Tim Gettys
Lynch.
- [62:56]
Greg Miller
It was two days before launch and it's her having this conversation with one of the guys you see here and going up and talking about her father who had died. But they're space people and they're going up to space to do all this different stuff, right? Then it goes and it jumps. Four years later, Stafford is the guy here. And it's like you're. They're in there. There's this weird growth all over all the, you know, the hydroponics or whatever and they're like, oh my God. And then a doppelganger shows up and then another doppelganger and it's very much like you. They immediately get into this fight with these creatures. And then of course I'm. I get cast as the other guy there and I'm trying to sneak around, get to the thing things. What I liked about it, as somebody who knows these games inside and out and why I think this one's interesting and different, right? Yes. There was the path, you know, choose which option do you want and like the A B choice to move it on. But number one, with this being a space one, the HUD elements when they popped up really were like, oh, this doesn't feel like the usual super massive thing. This feels like, oh, I'm. I'm playing a space game. Right? That's cool. The other thing that was neat is I did the sneaking section to get away from the monster. I climbed up the ladder right into another scene of tension of like, like there's a Guy in the scanner and they're like, stop. He's one of them. And it's the whole thing. And seamlessly. They didn't make a big deal about it. Even though I just climbed up the ladder and then went into this cut scene. I then had to make a choice from the other guys, the other guy who would come up the ladder as well. So it wasn't usually, you know, like, when we change perspectives in these games, it is like, now you're going to be Tammy. Like, see Tammy's face up close or whatever. Like, it wasn't that. It was just seamless of like, I'm going, the narrative is going, the movie is going. And I'm making this choice. And again, I made the choice. It was a big one of basically, would I have killed this guy or not kill this guy? It plays out the way it plays out. I won't ruin it for you. What's a nice addition again to what they've already done so many times here is they're kind of taking a page out of Detroit Become Humans book, but making it maybe a little bit better where when my demo was done, they're like, okay, look at this. And they pulled it up and it was like, you know, the giant timeline of choices, this thing. And then it branches here and it goes here. But at any point, if you want to, you can go and play from that point just. Just to play out the other option, do a new save and go. That is going to be like a hard mode that wouldn't allow you to do that. Like, but it's like, you know, whatever. It was a nice little shake up to how they've done this before. And really, I think listening and learning on what's going on.
- [65:06]
Snowbike Mike
Is there still co op?
- [65:07]
Greg Miller
Yes, of course they went through that. I. I made a point. Yeah, there's couch co op is always right. There's the normal one where you would pick a character and live out as that person. There's one mode where it just picks for you and there's another mode where it's like you pick your characters, but if yours all start dying, you start getting other people's characters so that you can still play and participate and be part of the game.
- [65:24]
Tim Gettys
Game.
- [65:24]
Greg Miller
Oh, yeah.
- [65:26]
Tim Gettys
Greg, you have three more games here that I hear about. All right. Crystal theater of Idols 2025 from Vermila Studios. Published by Blumhouse Games.
- [65:37]
Greg Miller
Yeah, this is. I did back to back Blumhouse games ones in here. You have this one here for Chris. Chris Old. And then we'll talk about Grave Seasons in a second. Last year, of course, Blumhouse made a big presentation at sgf, Jeff, about the fact they were doing all these games and they did the one that I can picture. Thank you so much. I was like, I knew it there, I played it there, I loved it there. I was so excited about what they were doing. They had two games there this year and I'm less excited about them. There is. I don't think it's a. That they're bad. They just didn't speak to me, if you will. So, yeah, this is Cruise all. As we said, you're in this and this doesn't really show it that off. Well, I think. But like, it's a first person horror.
- [66:19]
Tim Gettys
Action game set in Hispania, a twisted version of Spain.
- [66:22]
Greg Miller
And the idea, as you watch here, your guns shoot blood bullets. So you suck the blood out of dead things you find around the world. Right. These are mannequins you're fighting so they wouldn't bleed, which sucks, let me tell you. And if you don't have anybody's blood to suck, you can suck your own blood and use those as bullets to do it. But it's very, as you see, survival horror, you know, reminiscent of Resident Evil. So it was a lot of sneaking and a lot of trying to, you know, craft a resource or get the med pack to get to here to open the thing. But these guys are chasing me. And I don't think a abbreviated demo did it justice. I think it was one of those, like, I'd want to play that from the start to really get my head strapped on. Because in there I was like, okay. I don't think the blood getting sucked out looks that great. It's a cool concept, but it didn't look incredible. The gunplay didn't feel like I was enjoying this. I didn't. And maybe again, and that's the point. It is survival horror. But I'm getting multiple mannequins coming at me. I want them to die and go away. There's a big creature. I don't know, something about it just didn't work for me that well right where we are now. So I'll be interested to see as we get further in there because I like Blumhouse so far with the one game and the idea and the movies, obviously. But we'll see if it's. Maybe I'm just. I'm also not a shooter guy or an old school survival horror guy. So we'll see.
- [67:37]
Tim Gettys
And then Grave Seasons, the other one From Blumhouse Games. Grave Seasons, A narrative farming sim with a terrifying twist. Someone in the town is a supernatural serial killer. Farm romance. And investigate your way through the unsettling town of Ashen Ridge.
- [67:51]
Greg Miller
As we all know, farming sims are a dime a dozen. And so you're starting to see people put more and more interesting ideas on them. Yeah, this one is that you are an escaped convict. You showed up at this house and now have claimed it as your own because it was abandoned. So people in the town start showing up, you start lying about who you are, what you're doing, and you start doing the normal farming shit. And then all of a sudden, you meet somebody, this happens, and then a fucking werewolf attacks that person and drags them into the woods and there's blood and it's just like, okay, like, if it wasn't the farming sim, I might be more into it, but again, I'm just not the farming sim person. Like, that's not what I really like. I love an animal crossing. Not so much a harvest moon, you know, so it's interesting, it's quirky, it's. It's got a cool art style because it looks like that cute, cozy game, but it's clearly dealing with werewolves and the occult and whatever the hell is going on. So. So I'm interested to see more and actually see.
- [68:43]
Tim Gettys
That's a sick ass logo with the wolf eye.
- [68:46]
Blessing Adioia Jr.
Pop.
- [68:46]
Tim Gettys
That's awesome.
- [68:47]
Greg Miller
To see how in the weeds the farming gets and if it would be enough to keep me away or if it's gonna be like, oh, okay, this is so top level. I don't know.
- [68:56]
Tim Gettys
Yeah, this. That was a great seasons.
- [68:58]
Blessing Adioia Jr.
I mean, people love Fields of Mystery for all the sexy characters. Yeah, Yeah.
- [69:02]
Greg Miller
I wasn't immediately, you know, popping boners for anybody, but maybe we'll see how.
- [69:05]
Tim Gettys
Well, Greg, were you popping bonus for Crimson Death Desert.
- [69:08]
Blessing Adioia Jr.
Stop it.
- [69:08]
Tim Gettys
Tell me Pearl Abyss.
- [69:10]
Blessing Adioia Jr.
I need to know all about it.
- [69:12]
Greg Miller
Do you want to read the little synopsis?
- [69:14]
Tim Gettys
Crimson Desert's an open world action adventure game set in the beautiful yet brutal continent of Pie. Well.
- [69:21]
Greg Miller
This is the game that's the everything everywhere, all at once. The first time we saw it, we're like, oh, cool, it's in action. Oh, what? Oh, he's flying. Oh, he's got superpowers.
- [69:29]
Snowbike Mike
Oh.
- [69:29]
Greg Miller
You know, and everybody's been like, what is this game? Is this game real? Mike, you went and saw a tech demo at gdc?
- [69:34]
Blessing Adioia Jr.
Yeah, me and Andy went to the tech demo at gdc. We came back, we did a whole games cast about like, the insane tech behind this. That Pearl Abyss is putting in to their engine that they will use for the future and this game. So, yeah, we got to see the tech, but is it fun to play?
- [69:50]
Greg Miller
Here's what I want to do. I want to jump to the end and start there. There was a boss fight at the end that was so fucking fun. I. To jump to the start. Here's what I would tell you what I wrote down. Nothing is intuitive right now. And I think again, you talk about game previews and this is. They said I was 60% through the game when they tossed me in here. And it is. Okay, cool. You know, you have your light attack. You have your force palm. You have like. I took a. I don't want to show it to the audience because I'm not sure if that. But like, this is the controls. And then they were putting the combos down here, Mike. And it was like my head was swimming already to jump in there and figure this out. And so it was like everything felt like it took two more steps than I would want to of, like, talk to this NPC. All right. Oh, hold L1 and then hit square. Okay. And then it was this thing of, oh, this mission is. There is a flag that's been knocked down and it's just gigantic pole, right? Go over there. And I think I jotted this down because it was. So go over there. Yeah, you hit. You target it, and then you hit the square and you hit two buttons that'll then lock it. But then you have to use your stick to rotate it or no, then you tap, tap, tap to lift it. Then you rotate it with your stick and then you can go. And like, there's. I. There was a very nice gentleman with me who has a very highfalutin title over there, and I felt so bad for him because the first. I mean, he's doing it and I'm trying to do it, but there's things in this. So I clicked it and I lifted it, but then I dropped it too early, and it's a preview. So it bugged out on where I dropped it, so we had to reload and I did it, and then I put it down too soon, and then it was like, okay, I was walk. And it was like again, I felt like I was already mid marathon and they were asking me to sprint right now. I'm like, I don't know how to walk. That same mechanic gets used in the boss fight where I'm doing an. In a fight inside with this big dude right and you'd wail on him and get him stunned or whatever. He'd go down. And then you by. In the fight, you were breaking pillars, so then you had to do the same thing to pick up the pillars and then slam them on the fucking head with it. And I was like, this is dope. You know, 30 minutes, or maybe it was even an hour in. I forget. Now it's clicking. Now it's gelling. Which really made me go, man, I would have loved to gone back and do the start of this demo and go. Because the start of the demo was also kind of convoluted. The very nice gentleman was like, you know, we put a gajillion people on the screen. He's like, you don't have to fight them. So you can just run to the objective and do the thing. And then, because that's your real objective, this isn't your fight. It's like, oh, cool. And I take off running, and I got my horse. Big thing they need to fix. You call on your horse. Again, not intuitive. You still got to climb on your horse. Assassin's Creed had finally done away with that. Remember where the horse runs in and we just jump on the horse? I want the horse. Let me on the horse. I jump on the horse. I run it. I'm running through these fights, I get knocked off my horse. And then it was like 30 fucking dudes from different armies all fighting me, and I'm like, please fucking stop. And so then it became me running from 50 dudes trying to call my horse. The horse keeps getting knocked. So it's just like this whole whatever. But on a plus side of it, like, again, I think it's not intuitive, but then again, would any video game being tossed in there being there was a section of. Okay, cool. We get up there, we fix these cannons. Now we got to shoot these cannons to take out these watchtowers, right? And so it was finding the sweet spot, targeting, knocking them down. As you look here, the game is gorgeous. I didn't think it presented well on the tv. Not that it was bad, but I think this is prettier than what I was playing on the tv. It felt like HDR was broken, where it would be like, you swing around and everything's dark for way too long, where I have to walk and find the light kind of thing. And so there's little things like that, but. But inside, in that big boss fight, it looked better, for sure. Out here, there's so much going on. I don't like the font. They're picking as you see over here, like Crescent Isle Abyss. It kind of looks like Comic Sans. I'm not a fan of that.
- [73:23]
Tim Gettys
It does. It's a squished a little bit.
- [73:25]
Greg Miller
It is a, it's a demo that left me wanting to play more, which is good. I, I, I could easily see wanting to play more and be like this is six, five, six, whatever. I could also see wanting to play more and be like, oh man, starting from the scratch. Like imagine, Kingdom Come, Deliverance too. If they were like you're 60% in here you go. I'm like, how the fuck do I change my armor and attack somebody? Like I feel like it could also be that we get in there and there's so much in this game built on as you saw. Like you're flying a dragon. You're, you're in like Zelda sky islands there. There's a lot of stuff going on. You're changing your armor, you're changing your look. You're doing this like you again. You have force powers that I barely understand why or how or whatever. But I am intrigued. I would take another demo gladly. I would love a build, I would love final product on it and stuff like that.
- [74:13]
Tim Gettys
That well, Greg. Yep, that's all you have today. Today, Summer Game Fest play days experience. But throughout the week there will be many more games. Without the weeks to come, there'll be more games that you have played. So stay tuned for more GamesCast episodes about everything great got to do down in LA at Summer Game Fest. Real quick, I have three more super chats I want to get through. Big Afroman saying just to be clear, since messaging is vague, this won't play our whole Xbox library. Right. Only Xbox play anywhere compatible title. Talking about the Xbox Ally. That is correct. I don't feel like they're being vague. I feel like they're being very clear about that part. It's just where it gets confusing is that there's a lot of just different.
- [74:49]
Greg Miller
There's three avenues to play. There's natively with Xbox playing anywhere. PC, a PC game. An Xbox PC game. There's cloud gaming which would be your library as it is so far. And then there's remote play. That's what they're saying. So yes, it could play your whole library. Could it play your whole library on a plane? No.
- [75:05]
Tim Gettys
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then wicked pixelated says been a rough week. Personally just want to say thank God for video games and you guys have been kicking ass at all the coverage. Thank you so much. Wicked good luck with everything. I'm sure it'll turn out okay. And the TWA says I hope you guys have seen the Expanse game trailer from the weekend. Looks really cool. Imo. Bus is how you just drop something in Games Daily.
- [75:26]
Snowbike Mike
Yeah, I just put in just your coffee. I just put in the Games Daily slack and so we'll talk about it tomorrow.
- [75:31]
Tim Gettys
Talk about it tomorrow on Games Daily, everybody. But stay tuned because right after this, it's the kind of funny podcast best get hyped. Love you all. Goodbye.