Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, Wheel World Reviews - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast
Episode: Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, Wheel World Reviews
Release Date: July 23, 2025

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Introduction to the Episode

Hosted by Tim Gettys, Greg “GameOverGreggy” Miller, Blessing Adeoye, and Andy Cortez, this episode of the Kinda Funny Gamescast delves into two major game reviews: Wuchang: Fallen Feathers and Wheel World. The discussion is rich with personal insights, detailed analysis, and candid opinions from the hosts, providing listeners with a comprehensive understanding of both titles.

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Review of Wuchang: Fallen Feathers

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is spotlighted as a souls-like action RPG set in the tumultuous late Ming dynasty, developed by Lenz and published by 505 Games. The game currently holds a Metacritic score of 75.

Initial Impressions and Gameplay Mechanics

Andy Cortez shares his transformative experience with Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, initially underwhelmed after playing it at GDC. However, after delving deeper, he praises the game as the "best attempt at this since Lies of P" (07:00). He highlights the game's stellar production quality and player-friendly mechanics, noting:

"Everything about this game is stellar production. Everything's amazing in this video game."
— Andy Cortez [05:58]

Story and Design

Andy expresses some frustrations with the story's complexity, mentioning difficulty in remembering character names:

"I wish that as I was playing I was talking to Lance McDonald... because I’m getting to these story beats and I go, I don’t remember who a lot of these names are."
— Andy Cortez [07:00]

Despite this, he acknowledges the game's rich narrative and the staggering amount of optional content, which adds depth and replayability.

Level Design and Boss Fights

The hosts commend the level design, comparing it favorably to Dark Souls 1:

"This is the best Souls-like level design that I've experienced since Dark Souls 1."
— Andy Cortez [08:12]

Boss fights are described as engaging, though Andy suggests there could be more variety in weapon types.

Character Customization and Skill Tree

A standout feature is the game's innovative skill tree, which focuses on weapon-based upgrades rather than traditional character stats. Andy elaborates on the flexibility this offers:

"You can have a lot of fun with this... you can mix and match and transmog at any point at any time."
— Andy Cortez [22:07]

This system allows players to tailor their characters to their playstyle seamlessly, enhancing the overall experience.

Overall Rating and Recommendations

Andy enthusiastically recommends Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, rating it an 8 out of 10, emphasizing its quality of life improvements and overall enjoyment:

"I think this could really kind of hit some nines with the right sort of crowd."
— Andy Cortez [08:07]

Greg Miller concurs, highlighting the game’s ability to surprise and satisfy fans of the genre.

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Review of Wheel World

Wheel World, developed by Meshof and published by Annapurna Interactive, is the second major focus of the episode. It currently holds a Metacritic score of 73.

Initial Impressions and Gameplay Mechanics

Greg Miller leads the critique of Wheel World, describing it as his most disappointing game of the year. Despite initial excitement, both Greg and Andy found the game lacking in depth and engagement:

"Wheel World is my most disappointing game of the year... it’s so close to being good but also so close to just being completely forgettable."
— Greg Miller [31:12]

Story and Design

The game centers around Cat, a rider chosen by Ancient Cycling Spirits, navigating through races to save a universe. While the premise is intriguing, the execution falls short. Andy criticizes the repetitive nature and lack of meaningful progression:

"It's a missed opportunity... the game is just rinse and repeat that GDC demo."
— Andy Cortez [38:09]

Level Design and Boss Fights

Both hosts highlight the game's inability to maintain interest beyond the initial stages. Greg points out the lack of variety and depth in boss fights:

"Every region you’re doing... it's just one of those things where there’s no variety."
— Greg Miller [41:29]

Andy echoes this sentiment, noting that the game's difficulty spikes and limited biome diversity make it less engaging:

"They have two biomes... and there’s no incentive for the entire second half of this game to trade any piece of my bike."
— Andy Cortez [33:04]

Character Customization and Design

Customization options are minimal, limiting player engagement. The lack of character creation further detracts from the experience:

"I really wish I could have just created my own bike rider, like."
— Andy Cortez [42:27]

Overall Rating and Recommendations

Wheel World receives a 6 out of 10, described as mediocre and filled with missed opportunities:

"This was just a missed opportunity... it's an okay game."
— Andy Cortez [37:38]

Greg highlights that while the art style and initial gameplay have potential, the repetitive mechanics and lack of depth prevent it from leaving a lasting impression.

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Additional Discussions

Wild Gate

A super chat introduces Wild Gate, a multiplayer battle arena game. Snowbike Mike describes it as a refreshing take on the genre with engaging ship battles and cooperative gameplay:

"This is a breath of fresh air for 2025 and just a great multiplayer experience."
— Snowbike Mike [47:28]

Digital Extremes' Soul Frame

Andy Cortez briefly mentions Soul Frame, an upcoming title from Digital Extremes, praising its early development stages and high production quality:

"I was really blown away... the level of production already that I'm just blown away by."
— Andy Cortez [51:05]

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Conclusion

In this episode, Kinda Funny Gamescast offers a thorough analysis of two contrasting games. Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is lauded for its quality, depth, and player-friendly mechanics, making it a standout title for fans of the souls-like genre. Conversely, Wheel World is criticized for its repetitive gameplay, limited customization, and lack of engaging content, resulting in a mediocre rating. The hosts also touch upon other exciting releases like Wild Gate and Soul Frame, providing listeners with a well-rounded view of the current gaming landscape.

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Notable Quotes:

• Andy Cortez [08:12]: "This is the best Souls-like level design that I've experienced since Dark Souls 1."
• Greg Miller [31:12]: "Wheel World is my most disappointing game of the year."
• Snowbike Mike [47:28]: "This is a breath of fresh air for 2025 and just a great multiplayer experience."
• Andy Cortez [22:07]: "You can have a lot of fun with this... you can mix and match and transmog at any point at any time."

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This detailed summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and evaluations presented in the episode, providing a clear and engaging overview for those who haven't listened to the podcast.

Transcript

[Andy Cortez]

Foreign.

[Tim Gettys]

What'S up and welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Wednesday, July 23, 2025. Of course. I'm your host, Tim Gettys. I'm joined today by Snowbike. Mike.

[Snowbike Mike]

Tim Gettys, it's nice to have you back. As I told you before, you are the heartbeat of this company and we missed you inside the other room over there.

[Tim Gettys]

I appreciate you very much, Mike. We also are joined today by Greg Miller.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, where you gone, Tim? Didn't notice.

[Tim Gettys]

Hey, so much. That was a good one.

[Greg Miller]

I thought it didn't smell like game showdown Loser in the office. I guess I should have known.

[Tim Gettys]

Rounded out the group today it is Andy Cortez.

[Andy Cortez]

Really good comedy bit right there. Sorry I was a little bit late getting out here. I was busy showing Nick the new base layout with our two ornithopters.

[Tim Gettys]

Got it.

[Andy Cortez]

It's so hard to see the normal folk down there when you're so high up in the sky. You're flying, you're soaring over Arrakis in our very sl. But there's.

[Tim Gettys]

Can you speed them up? Can you upgrade those?

[Andy Cortez]

Oh yeah, oh yeah. Oh yeah.

[Greg Miller]

You got to get the spice.

[Tim Gettys]

Everybody's getting the spice.

[Andy Cortez]

Your base is looking great.

[Tim Gettys]

Well, remember, this is the kind of Funny Games cast each and every weekday weekend together to talk about the latest and greatest in video games. Whether it's previews, reviews or just topics, we're talking about games live on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, please support us with the kind of Funny membership on Patreon, you, YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts. You get the shows ad free. All of the shows. We do so many shows each and every week and you could be getting them ad free and a daily exclusive show in addition to that. It's Greg way. It's a great time for a chance to be part of this show though. Submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go. Little housekeeping for you. We're an 11 person business all about live talk shows. Games Daily covered The outer world 2. The outer world 2 price decrease, which is a little crazy. And then after this it's a Magic Commander stream with some special guests. You want to talk about that, Mike?

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah. Super excited. We're bringing Magic the Gathering into the studio and today we're going to have a nice four person game of Commander going on. Some special guests that Blessing has booked and we're really excited to show it off. Kevin has gone above and beyond on the production Side that you're going to really be impressed by the look of it.

[Andy Cortez]

Awesome.

[Tim Gettys]

That's very, very cool. That's after this. If you're a kind of funny member. Today's Greg Ways. 18 minutes of Greg scheming on how to review Pokemon Z. I watched the Pokemon presents yesterday. I watched Yalls reaction to the Pokemon present. So I heard it all, Greg. I heard it all.

[Greg Miller]

Then you must be on the same page as everyone on the panel. If someone was to go and compete at the Pokemon World Championships, maybe they should automatically get to review.

[Tim Gettys]

I did. I mean, I don't know what you're scheming, but I did see that somebody in the chat was like, Greg, like, you can't. You can't just compete like that's closed. You can't do that.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, Greg, figure it out.

[Andy Cortez]

He'll figure it out. He had to do a door parade.

[Tim Gettys]

If you end up going to the goddamn Pokemon World Championships before me, I'm.

[Greg Miller]

Gonna be so you've never been.

[Tim Gettys]

I have not been.

[Greg Miller]

I don't know of a guy who never mentioned review.

[Andy Cortez]

One of my. I see you soon, Anaheim. I don't know. I don't know.

[Tim Gettys]

SF next year.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, wow.

[Tim Gettys]

We're all gonna go.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I'll show you the ropes. Yeah, I'll show you all around when I. When it's your turn.

[Andy Cortez]

I just kept on laughing at myself the whole night thinking, just, oh man, this song.

[Tim Gettys]

Song.

[Greg Miller]

I showed it to Jen last night and let me tell you, the context did not. There was. I couldn't give her anything to make it funny like this and like this song.

[Tim Gettys]

Thank you to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney. The Psalm Twining. Today we're brought to you by Mood and Factor, but we'll tell you all about that later. For now, let's start with the topic of the show. We're doing a two for one, everybody. Wu Chong Fallen Feathers, Wheel World. Two big games this year that we've been looking forward to and we're about to review them. Let's start with Wuchang Fallen Feathers. The stream description is as Follow wh.

[Andy Cortez]

World saying Wheel World.

[Tim Gettys]

Wheel World.

[Andy Cortez]

I just love saying world.

[Tim Gettys]

Wuang Wuong Wuong Wuang. Fallen Feathers is a souls like action RPG set in the land of Shu during the dark and tumultuous late Ming dynasty. Plagued with waring factions and a mysterious illness spawning monstrous creatures. A blight, if you will. The dev is Lenz, the publisher. 505 Games Metacritic currently at a 75 as of 10am this morning. Who here's played it?

[Andy Cortez]

Me.

[Tim Gettys]

And you want to talk about Wuchong Fallen Feathers?

[Andy Cortez]

I would love to, Tim. I played Wu Chong Fallen Feathers at GDC and came back really underwhelmed. Wanted to play that other Blades of Fire game which ended up being pretty mid, I guess when Blades of Fire came out and I regretted not playing more of that other game and I was like, I spent too much time on Wu Chang. It didn't feel great. Wasn't loving the systems. And so I came into this when Greg goes, are you planning on playing this game? I go, well, I probably should. I'm the souls dude. I'm not Souls like Mike granted, but I'm the souls dude. And I expect to maybe put in 10 hours into this and maybe fall off a little bit, but. And this game is probably my surprise of the year. Yeah, I, you know, it's one thing to always be looking at all these games. I totally get it. I get it. When Greg, Greg made the perfect thing when he brought up, was it GDC going, oh God, another one of these like bloodborne looking, dark, everything's freaky looking sort of games. I get it. There's a lot of these games that come out. However, I think this is, I think this is the best attempt at this since Lies of P. Wow.

[Greg Miller]

I think you loved Lizbee.

[Andy Cortez]

I love Liza P. I think that this is the best version of one of these Souls like action games since Lies of P where I enjoyed Kazan 1st Berserker. Kazan fell off of that. Like it just, it wasn't kind of keeping me in there. Everybody, you know, Black Myth Wukong. Is the combat bad?

[Greg Miller]

No, it's just not great.

[Andy Cortez]

And that was one reason why I fell off. I'm like, everything about this game is stellar production. Everything's amazing in this video game. But the actual fighting things is like one thing I'm just not loving here. Again, it's all different jokes for different folks. But man, this game really, really surprised me. I. I think it does such a great job with being player friendly while not, you know, would it be even player friendlier to have difficulty options? Sure. But I think it does a lot of stuff to make the experience a lot more streamlined when it comes to just respecting whenever you want. I, I don't know, man. I, I wish that as I was playing I was Talking to Lance McDonald who's the guy who helped me mod my PS5. He was playing it as well. He does a lot of like souls content and we both had the same thought about 15 to 20 hours in saying, man, I, I wish I was really pay attention more to the story, like, because I, I'm getting to these story beats and I go, I don't remember who a lot of these names are. Now granted, a lot of that could just be my ignorance and mistaking one Chinese name for another Chinese name, I think that's just like me not, you know, not paying attention enough. And there are a lot of awesome story beats in this. There are, there's an insane amount of optional content. Like a staggering amount of optional content where, you know, I beat a boss and said, wow, that might be my favorite boss of the video game so far, about 20 hours in, and then was told that the whole area I just explored was all optional. Completely optional. I'm about to make a big ass statement right here. All right, prep everybody.

[Greg Miller]

Roger, get the clip button ready.

[Andy Cortez]

Batting down the hatches, everybody.

[Greg Miller]

Matt Batson them down.

[Andy Cortez]

This is the best Souls like level design that I've experienced since Dark Souls 1. And Dark Souls 1 to me is the pinnacle. Maybe that's a hot take, maybe it's, you know, a little recency bias, but the amount of interconnectivity, the amount of crazy shortcuts that just kept on going and blowing my goddamn mind, like, how the is this over here now? And I just explored this whole zone and then I have a magic thing that opens the door. Like, oh my God, that's so smart. And like it was constantly surprising me with really, really smart level design moments. Boss fights are a lot of fun. Could do a bit more with weapon variety. There's not a whole lot, but there are different weapon types. Anyway, I've been blabbering. I'd like to get more into the specific.

[Greg Miller]

I would like to jump in.

[Andy Cortez]

Go ahead.

[Greg Miller]

Greg Miller, you don't mind? You talk about coming out of GDC like, ah, I don't know, not, you know, didn't spend too much time with it. There was a great moment in the office where you went to Blessing and said, hey, you actually need to go back to Wu Chang. And he's like, really? What about the opening or the jump or whatever is off putting that you then power through or find something that other people, if you were to do a preview of, you might miss. So, like, what, what changed?

[Andy Cortez]

Okay, honestly, this is gonna sound very, very spoiled, but I think the reason why I didn't love the way that it felt was because I was just playing on inferior tech. I think I was playing on a not great monitor with A not great machine maybe, sure, maybe that's not even the case. But it just, it felt like it wasn't responsive. There, there's a parry mechanic in the game that you can use if you want. You don't have to. It's a skill. So it's a skill that you like actually bind to one of your buttons. And if you don't want the Perry then you can replace it with another sort of move that does like some cool animation based on, you know, every weapon has their different type of moves. And when I was playing it at that GDC presser or you know, preview, it's like it didn't, it didn't feel good, it didn't feel responsive, it didn't feel tight. It just like it, it always felt off. I was having to hit the button way sooner than I needed to and it just, it just didn't really feel like it was kind of coming together. And I think they had me exploring an earlier section in the game which is pretty generic looking. Like it's. I think the game's. The game's pretty. It does some really nice stuff with art direction later on in the game, maybe about 40% of the way through. But early on I think when you look at this game, I got a lot of responses on Twitter going like I've, I've played a lot of these souls likes based in like Asian territories and like this being a kind of like alternate take on history and stuff. Like I've done a lot of these before. I'm good. You know, Sekiro is the last one that I really, really enjoyed or whatever and I totally get it. And maybe when I did that GDC preview they had me do two sections. They had me do just kind of run around this early sort of area. Very foresty, kind of generic looking. And the second one, the second part of the preview was Go fight this boss. That area looked a bit different but still kind of like what you would expect from one of these video games. But I think there's some really awesome kind of like mind blowing stuff they do. Art direction wise. That was really, really impressive. But yeah, I think a lot of it was just the responsiveness and the feel of it. And once I got into here, the. I think the game's a lot of fun. It's a massive surprise for me. I. When it comes to like review score, it took me about 44 hours to beat when it comes to review score. Like I, I think this game is like an easy eight, like an easily recommend if you are into these games. I think it could have been done a bit more if there was different production. I think maybe if they were doing storytelling a bit differently in the way that maybe Stellar Blade did it, where they said we're not going to really do the from software. You have to uncover clues and kind of put it all together by yourself. We'll do it more kind of front facing. Here's the narrative. I think it could have benefited from that a lot. However, when you are. When you are able to put together some of these clues and you have those revelations in the game, it's like, oh, that's this character. Oh man, I can't believe like does that. Just not anywhere close to how From Software gets it. I think Lies of P this year is like easily the best example of doing it the perfect right way. But yeah, I would say this is like if you are into action Souls likes games and I know they're a diamond dozen these days. They feel like they're always around and playing this. I thought it was going to be another one of those experiences and I was like, God damn. They. They made another good one. Like they just keep making good ones. It's not my fault that they're making good ones.

[Tim Gettys]

You know. Guitar Hero Arrow Super Chats in saying Wo Long Wukong and Wu Chang.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

How would you rank them?

[Andy Cortez]

I would go. I would go Wu Chang easily number one. Oh man, it's. It's a tough one because. Wokong Fallen. Wukong Fallen Dynasty. No, Wo Long Fallen Dynasty is. The combat's great. It's. It's Koei Tecmo. It's. You know, it, it feels the way the Neo games do and the way that the game that came out on PlayStation exclusive Stellar Blaze. No, no, no, no, no. The Samurai game.

[Greg Miller]

Ronin.

[Andy Cortez]

Ronin Rise of the Ronin. I mean the combat feels amazing in those games. It was just. It was lacking everything else around it. I would put Black Myth Wukong over it even though I like the combat more in. In Wo long Fallen Dynasty. Black Myth Wukong just had a lot of those. Like, I was surprised. I kept on going with Black Myth Wukong because the production was so high and fantastic and the cutscenes were amazing.

[Tim Gettys]

So the Metacritic at 75 right now. You giving it a. Not that much higher than that. But are you surprised that the consensus seems to be slightly lower than you?

[Andy Cortez]

For sure, yeah. And I, you know, I was looking at something. I saw like a 4 on there. I was like, whoa, that's crazy. You know, again, different tastes and everything like that I, I could totally see this game getting sevens, but while I was playing it, I was like, man, this could, this could really kind of hit some nines with the right sort of crowd. I, yeah, I'm a little bit surprised that it's as low as it is, but I just think, I just think it's easily my most surprising game of the year. Like another one of these that I expected to kind of not hit and miss all the marks and try to emulate from software in ways where it's just like, ah, you don't got the stuff. Don't try to do that. But damn it, they did it. Like, it's, it's a really, really damn good game. And even again, even if you're not, if you're the type of person that goes, yeah. Eliza P. May be more of my jam because it has difficulty settings and I don't want to be struggling through a boss because I gotta, I got a kid, I got a wife, I gotta, you know, you know, I got a husband, I gotta eat dinner tonight and like that. I don't want to spend four hours on a boss. Eliza P. You could just drop a difficulty and make it a lot easier. This game does a lot of stuff with just quality of life improvements that I, I think were really fantastic. Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Do you know the price of this one?

[Greg Miller]

I don't say 50 as they asked. Somebody asked this earlier.

[Andy Cortez]

50. Holy. Okay, that's really good. But also game pass. Game pass?

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. $50 for, for the game physically. And you can also get it on game pass.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Very cool. The. There are some crazy difficulty spikes, I would say. Like, I, I think every boss took me around five to eight to 10 tries maybe. So like it was fairly easy. You know, some bosses you'd get through quick, but then there would be space, but. Well, I guess, you know, I know, I know. Grading on a curve. But then there would be some bosses that you were an hour and a half, two hours in and it's like, oh man, I'm stuck here right now. I don't. Should I go kind of grind a little bit? Should I? Like, yeah, I, I was often met with those two hour long bosses. I would say, like at least three bosses were pretty big roadblocks for me. Where you're talking in the hour to two hour range. Well, no, one of them was around two hours. The other one were like a little bit over an hour. But still was like. Some of these bosses difficulty spikes are I think, really easy to maybe tune down a bit because the, the level of aggression some of them have is insane. And once, once you get to that boss you go, oh, I haven't fought anybody like you so far because I'm having to dodge a million times in a row and I have no opportunity to attack. So I have to dodge perfectly seven times with this crazy flurry of like wild you're doing. And if you hit me one of those times I would like to heal. But you better believe as soon as you hit that heel button they have, they have their button, you know, button input, reading or whatever. And as soon as you hit heel they go for that crazy stab and it's like God fucking damn it. You know. So there are. One of the first big roadblocks in the game was the one that I played at the. At the GDC thing and it felt a little bit easier than maybe. But this time around it was still really tough. Took a while and the level aggression is insane. And I guess when I'm comparing this game to something like Sekiro or First Berserker Kazan or Stellar Blade where if it's a parrying based game where you're having a deflect, ding ding ding. All the attacks you normally you see the posture meter grow up, you kind of see it going up. But if you don't have your deflect attack or your deflect skill equipped, you're having to dodge all these moves at no benefit to you other than not dying. You're not like hurting them in any way. It's not like making you know they're. Which it shouldn't. But it's like I would love if the deflect was able to bring up their posture. The only way their posture meter goes up is by attacking them to then eventually break them down to where they are stagger, you know, where they become staggerable. So there are some mechanics that I don't feel work out perfectly. But you know, you. You force your way through it. You bang your head against the wall and. And get through it. Oh, sorry.

[Tim Gettys]

Pabzulu wants to know about the skill tree.

[Andy Cortez]

Skill Tree is so awesome. It's not your stereotypical fromsoftware or even Liza P or any one of these games where it's. Do I put points into health? Oh, I just leveled. I have two level up points. Should I go into strength or dexterity or where should I. It's all. It's all weapons based. So there are four weapon types of the game. You have a long sword, like a two handed long sword, dual blades, an ax and Then you have a one handed sword, which is normally more of a magic based type weapon. And the way the skill tree works is you are putting points based on going into the weapon tree. So I've started putting a lot of points into the two handed sword tree because I found a weapon I really, really liked. And the points will be like, all right, this is a strength point, so add one to strength. And as you're building out the tree now the next one is because long swords are strength and agility, the next one might be agility and the next one might go into health if you want. So you're building out your character but making your weapon better because you are enhancing it to get like it has like up to 10 levels of mastery to where you level up your weapon, but you're also finding discipline skills which are the actual like kind of special abilities. Whenever you build up your, your meter, we'll call it, I forget the the in game term for it, but if you're dodging a whole lot, if you have, for example, the weapon I used whenever I would, whenever I would make contact on the second swing of an attack, it would give me a little, a little point of. All right, your meter's been built up or whatever. And if you can keep building it up if you want. And then those discipline moves are your special moves and those are the ones that are. It's either you could use a parry or you can have some really big attack double spin, or this one adds fire or whatever the hell. Like there's a lot of like kind of special abilities in here that really make the game and it just adds a lot of variety to the game. You can have a whole lot of fun with this. In addition to. Once I started building up the long sword tree quite a bit and I'm kind of really, really leveled up there with strength and agility. I'm like, oh, I haven't been using a secondary ax this whole time. And this game tells me about this mechanic that whenever you click in the left stick and you have your meter built up, it swaps to your other weapon with a big attack.

[Tim Gettys]

Cool.

[Andy Cortez]

Like a special animation type attack. And I was like, oh, that would be really cool to go into act. Since I already have a lot of strength and the ax uses strength primarily. I'll start building up my ax stuff to make my ax stronger. And I had a really, really awesome sort of time doing my attacks and then when I would build up my meter, click in the left stick and suddenly the sword she busts out the axe and does like a crazy big hit that adds a lot of stagger and then that there's just a lot of like customization here. And again, the awesome thing about this though is if you find yourself at a boss where you go, oh, maybe this weapon isn't the best for it. Maybe I'm in a situation where I am not super specked out for it. You just go to whatever point you want and uncheck it and then go put it somewhere else.

[Greg Miller]

I like that. That's nice.

[Andy Cortez]

It is awesome. You're not having a. You know, every souls game you always got to go to the special little ah. You're looking to learn new powers and you got. They always got to give you some special item that makes no sense and.

[Tim Gettys]

Goddamn forever makes you unspec everything and redo it. Donkey Kong goddamn Bonanza. I'm looking at you, Liza. Why does it take so long?

[Andy Cortez]

Liza P. Special Gold. Gold coin fruit seeds or some like that. So you need those like respect. And then it becomes a whole deal or whatever. But it is so player friendly to just go into the menu and. And go, oh, you know what? I'm dying a little bit faster here. But I'm still doing decent enough damage. Let me take three points out of strength and then two points out of dexterity and I'll go look somewhere else on the tree. Oh, there's health. I'll put a health there. Oh, there's two more healths over here. I'll put two more healths there. And it's so freaking user friendly and awesome. And I. I loved it. I was so in love with this, with that system. In addition to not only building out your health, but also getting more flask charges to where you have eight heals now instead of just two or whatever. And then you can also upgrade how much health you're getting back from each. You know, drinking of the flask camera kind of was dookie in some moments. It doesn't. It didn't really let you look down or up a whole lot. It kind of like there's a lot of moments where it's like, oh, can I drop down here? I'm not sure. And it just. I hope they. I think that's an easy change and I hope with feedback they're able to fix things like that. The transmog right off the rip, which is important because this game's a little bit of a gooner game. Warning forewarning for everybody. But the further and more powerful you get, the less clothes you wear.

[Greg Miller]

That makes Sense in the narrative though, we all understand. Of course.

[Andy Cortez]

Of course. Which was kind of surprising because at the preview event I was like, they put me in that early section.

[Greg Miller]

Like we're not one of those pervert games.

[Andy Cortez]

No, they put me in the GDC section where I'm just kind of early on in the game adventuring. I'm just normal, normal, you know, fighting lady or whatever. And they're like, all right, well now you're done with that section. Let's go fight the boss. I go fight the boss and I'm wearing some crazy hat and it's just like, you know, the titties are just doing their things and you know, like. Like bear nip or barely being cover. Covered Tim. In some cases you can maybe kill a boss. Whenever you kill a boss you can get their armor set. And a lot of them look really.

[Tim Gettys]

Because you don't need that.

[Andy Cortez]

A lot of them look really, really cool. But you can mix and match and Transmog at any point at any time. Which is super awesome because a lot of times it'd be like, all right, this looks really sick. I love the way this look is. But this enemy that I'm fighting does a lot of like corruption damage where it's like it poisons me. And then, you know your point, you know. So it's like, well, let me spec out all of my armor with the best corruption possible. Because they're not doing a whole lot of physical damage. I'll go all corruption defense and let me just transmog and swap out my look and make me look however I want. Which is again another one of those super player friendly quality of life things that I super love.

[Greg Miller]

Crazy. When games don't have Transmog ready to.

[Andy Cortez]

Go right away 100 they also have a. A standoff perspective mode similar to Ghost of Tsushima. Whenever you're locked. Whenever you're locked on. Which maybe isn't great, but I guess in Ghost Sushima a lot of enemies can kind of like, you know, flank you and all that sort of stuff. But yeah, so you can choose to have your normal lock on where you can still move your camera but you're just locked on to the enemy in that moment. Or you can switch to standoff perspective where it's just always third person behind the back and you are just looking at that person. Or you could swap your lock on. But I thought that was like, oh, pretty neat. Another thing I love, again, I'm just kind of like super glazing this game. I think it's Just really, really damn good.

[Greg Miller]

Can I interrupt then? Because you are glazing. You're doing all this different stuff. Is this a contender?

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, man, I think the year is way too packed to say so. I think in any other year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the more I think of it, I think maybe like 8.8.5. I'm around. I'm around. There no official, there's no, there's no official podcast go.

[Greg Miller]

Another 30 minutes will be nine.

[Andy Cortez]

But one thing I love, another one little tiny option that I love that I've experienced with a lot of Souls games where, you know, the old, you know, the old dark Souls games had the largest UI possible. Cover up so much of the screen. And then when I would download mods, they would always offer like scale the UI down and shit like that. And, and I think a lot of the Souls games have UI rescaling. Maybe I got that completely wrong. I think they already have UI rescaling. But there's a lot of games that don't offer that. This one does. And you can make it larger if you want or make it smaller. And then you know, the. Suddenly your health is super tiny on the bottom left of the corner. It also has the, the hide the UI option whenever you're not in combat, which is great because the game looks awesome. I wish I always was saying during my streams that I wish Liza P. Had that option. I was looking for a mod of that where I just like walking for the. I like walking for the bit rate and just like see taking in the sights, but the UI is always up unless you go turn it off. I love when Souls games and this one, whenever you're not in combat, it'll just fade things away and then you're just kind of walking around. Then as soon as you see an enemy, you know, you see your health bar pop up, your stamina bar pop up again. Games Great. Highly, highly recommend if you are into this style of video game.

[Greg Miller]

Oh yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Hell yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Boss Fights Rock. And again, the level, the amount of optional shit is crazy. Like the, the, the stuff that's missable and like an entire fifth act that's not playable. If you do certain things a certain way, it's awesome.

[Tim Gettys]

Awesome Chocolate Fox super chats. Insane birthday tax. I'm ready to try both of these games. Happy birthday, Chocolate Fox. In both these games, of course, Wu Chong Fallen Feathers is glowing about and also Wheel World that we're about to talk about right after a quick word from our sponsors.

[Greg Miller]

Wheel World.

[Tim Gettys]

This episode's brought to you by Mood Let me tell you about the online cannabis company that's revolutionizing how we deal with life's challenges. From sleepless nights to stress filled days, Mood.com has created an entire line of functional gummies that target specific health concerns. And with 100% federally legal THC blends, they'll deliver them discreetly right to your doorstep. And you can get 20% off your first [e-mail] with promo code Kinda Funny. I've been having a great time trying out their different gummies and am loving how each one feels and each one is crafted using federally legal cannabis grown on small family owned American farms. No pesticides, no BS and they can ship to most states in the us. Best of all, not only does Mood stand behind everything with an industry leading 100 day satisfaction campaign guarantee, but as I mentioned, listeners get 20% off their first order with code kinda funny. So head to mood.com browse their amazing selection of functional gummies and find the perfect gummy for whatever you are dealing with. And remember to use Promo Code Kinda Funny at checkout to save 20% on your first order. That's mood.comm o o d.com promo code kinda funny this episode's brought to you by Factor. Summer is here baby. That means more sun, more light, but it should not mean more hours inside cooking. 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. Multiple people here at Kinda Funny have been loving their experience with Factor and you can too. Factor meals arrive fresh and ready to eat, perfect for any active lifestyle over summer and beyond. With 45 weekly menu options, you can pick gourmet meals that fit your summer game gains and goals. Choose from options like Calorie, Smart, Protein plus Keto and more. Factor powers your day sun up to sundown with nutritious breakfasts on the go, lunches, premium dinners and guilt free snacks and desserts. Factor has your whole day covered. Enjoy more this summer. Get Factor if you want all the flavor and none of the fuss, get [e-mail] kindafunny 50 off and use code kinda funny 50 off to get 50 off plus free shipping on your first box. That's code kinda funny 50 off at factor meals.com kinda funny 50 off for 50% off plus free shipping Wheel World Steam Description Dive into Wheel World as Cat, a rider chosen by Ancient Cycling Spirits Race Elite teams. Trick out your bike and perform the long overdue Great Shift ritual to save A universe on the brink. Your bike is your destiny. The dev is Meshof. You know them from Nidhogg. Very cool publisher Annapurna Interactive. It's currently at a metacritic of 73 as of 10am Greg is one that you've been very much looking forward to.

[Greg Miller]

That's 100% correct.

[Tim Gettys]

Have you beat it?

[Greg Miller]

I have beaten it. Five hours to took to beat this one.

[Tim Gettys]

What are your thoughts?

[Greg Miller]

Andy just said his game was his most surprising game of the year. Wheel World is my most disappointing game of the year. Yeah, I'm gonna give this1 a6 on the kind of funny scale. Call it mediocre. It's a heartbreaker. I had such a. I'm sorry. Okay. I'm just calling it. Okay. Got confused there.

[Andy Cortez]

That's why. That's where I'm at too, Greg.

[Tim Gettys]

A six.

[Greg Miller]

Okay. Thank you. Sorry for misnaming and edit it. Right, Roger. But it's the idea that it's so close to being good but it's also so close to just being completely forgettable and everything else. This is another one similar to Andy I played at gdc. But I walk away from that Xbox GDC event so high on this game of like, I love the art style, I love the music, I love how pedaling feels. I love biking. In this game they're doing this burnout kind of bike game right where it is. You're riding from area to area going race to race. You're earning your earning reputation rep so that you can unlock other races. You know the idea here is that yeah, your cat, you wake up, you pick up your bike. Who's this ghost bike? Obviously they can talk to you. All of the legendary pieces have been stolen from this bike. You need to go get those legendary pieces so you can go challenge and beat all the guys who have stolen it to then, you know, save the universe kind of thing. I think all that sounds great. As you see the roam here, we see the race here, we see the things here. The problem is that the game is just rinse and repeat that GDC demo. And my biggest problem with Wheel World is that it didn't commit to an A or a B. If this game would have committed to the A of hey, you know what? We are going to go and be burnout. This is going to be a game about bike racing. They you unlock so many parts in this game, Tim, and they have, you know, a little bit more handling a little bit this. It's better. It's better. And gravel or dirt or you know, this kind of thing. None of that matters. Like, none of that is put into any way where I'm playing a game or a race where I'm falling behind. I'm like, oh, if I could only gra. Do better on gravel. If they would have leaned into being an actual bicycle. Bicycle racer. Where it was, I came in, I did this thing. Okay, I lost, but I was on gravel, so I should switch these tires or I should do this. I should.

[Andy Cortez]

That.

[Greg Miller]

That would have worked. They don't do that here. To the point that there's spoilers. Like, two biomes, really. There's technically, I guess three, but two biomes you're mainly in. And so the first one at the. Your whole point in the game setup is, hey, go through and get these legendary parts right that got taken from you so you can do the thing. You get all of them in the first biome, then get put into the second biome where it's like, okay, well, get your rep up to 100, I think it is by doing all these things to then do the final MacGuffin to do whatever. It's like, okay, but I'm doing the races and I'm still earning rep and I'm still earning the currency that I can go then get new pieces from people. I don't need new pieces. I'm using the legendary thing which gives me the boot, you know, makes up its own boost. So it's like, I have no incentive for the entire second half of this game to trade any piece of my bike. It's not until the story is like, you have to, you know, use these new things to do it that I did anything with that. So it's like, okay, that's been removed again. They should have leaned into that. A part of it of, like, cool. We want you really into it. The other way to go that I think would have worked for this game is go the B direction on this crossroads I'm talking to you about and say, hey, we are going to tell you a story. This is going to be a Greg game where the gameplay is super easy and whatever, but we're giving you an emotional tale of this and that and the other. I'm playing this game. It's all about spirits and stuff like this. I'm like, oh, is. Am I dead? Is that what's going to happen? Is, am I doing? So none of that at all is touched on by the end of the game. You just do the thing and the game's over. And so it's this sadly, really, I think, impressive looking Game, I think on the bike feels great. I enjoy the races. The problem is that as you unlock these legendary pieces, I never felt challenged in the races. And by the end, I was just blowing the doors off of everybody I came in contact with. So it's like, okay, they do an all right job of, you know, again, to get more rep. You have obviously come in, you know, first on some of them, come in, in the top three, beat this guy's time, collect all the letters K A T and the race. So there's like sub objectives you could challenge yourself with, but none of them. At no point was I hurting for a rep that I needed to go do, that I needed to double back. I never wanted. I'm not a big, I want to do the race again thing. I just wanted to win the races, and that was enough to win the races. Often set the high score to get the extra rep there. Like, you just. I steamrolled through this game and really felt like it was Groundhog Day. I think it's one of those things of. There's no voice acting in it, right? So you walk up to these NPCs to race them, and inevitably you walk up, they're going to say something funny, but. And then challenge you to the race or whatever. But it's not hilarious. It's not like you're really into it. It's not like I remember any of these people, which they tried to make a joke about at the end. And I'm like, that's not. You don't want to remind me. Because it's like when you're about to go into the fight, the final bad guy, I guess, like, your. Your bike's like, hard to believe we beat Billy and Jimmy and Joey and.

[Snowbike Mike]

Like, you don't remember the rooster, bro. And then come on.

[Greg Miller]

And it's like. And what was her name? And then you go to your character. It's like, dot, dot, dot, and back to Alice or something. It's like, yeah, none of these people had any real personality. Sorry, rooster. That made me anything with this to do it. So it's just like, this is a game that is on game pass. And I would say this is so many people's interpretation of a game pass game. This is a great game to drop in, check it out, play. I would imagine you'll do your first few things and be like, what was Greg talking about? I think when you do it again and like, oh, they're just replaying this song. That was awesome. The first time I heard it, they're Just replaying the song. You get to new biome a new song and then they play that over and over again. They have this game where you are racing and you do need to pay attention on what you're doing, where your curve is when you're breaking whatever. But they still have dialogue popping up from the characters or like shit talking. I'm not gonna read that. I'm not reading that right now. Why would I take my eyes off what I'm doing in the game to do that? It's. It's an okay game. I, again, I. The reason Mediocre was on my mind is that I was very. I went and made sure I was googling it and dialing into it and it's like mediocre, you know, of only moderate quality, not very good. That's not the definition of Wheel World. That's why it's okay. Right? Like, it's like there's fun to be had here. Again, five hours. But nothing about it is going to leave a lasting memory. I. I have. The positive memories I have are summarized by the GDC 30 minute demo idea.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Where it's like, I don't need more of it.

[Andy Cortez]

If you all remember chat. The. The unofficial Andy Cortez Cortez scale. I think it was like a 6 out of 10. I highlighted the phrase missed opportunities but tease was te a s e because it really just teases you that this could be something really cool.

[Greg Miller]

That's really good, Andy.

[Andy Cortez]

I like this game. Just has a lot of missed opportunities. Really, really bummed me out that I wasn't loving it. Even though I would redo races to beat Greg's ass more often than not.

[Greg Miller]

Totally fine. It's. I mean it shows, you know, I was beating the hell out of like the gibberish name underscore whoever the testers were. But again, like I'm not at all compelled to go. Like, again, if it would have gone, we are full on burnout. Like, you know what I mean? Here is Andy's time and I'm like, he did what? I'm gonna go in and tweak my tires and do. I'm like, no, I'm just gonna keep on going.

[Andy Cortez]

I would have. I would love to hear from the devs, you know, whether it was maybe a time or a budget thing or maybe just not the best direction. But like I, I think I just needed the final boss. That's like where I kind of fell off because I was playing the game on Steam Deck and ran great on Steam Deck. The. My. You Mentioning you wish that they went all the way. I was telling this to Barrett where I. I wish. You know how in Ollie ollie world the whole game is like everybody's a skater. Like when we make fun of Karate Kid, the whole world revolves around karate. Like there's cars in this game but like it's the statues are these, these monumental figures all with like bike parts. I wish like cars were like four person bikes or you know, like I wish there was like I wish they did cuter things like that. Which would not have changed the core of the game but it would have. It would have shown a bit more heart. And the again you break you bringing up the soundtrack is I think one of the biggest, you know, drops in and one of the biggest negatives I have. Because the first couple of songs are so good and so sick to just bike around and zen out. Right? Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

100.

[Andy Cortez]

And then my biggest problem with it is like every region you're doing like Greg is mentioning small side quests to then take on the big boss of that zone. And they have your legendary part and it lacks any fanfare whatsoever when you finally get to that final boss. Like sure, they. It's a. It's a gang of bikers and they have their cute little pun name where they're like the wheeljackers. I don't know what the. Like they just have like some sort of bike pun and they're. They're all like their own sort of personality and they could have done a lot more with it. And then the race starts and it might be a song you heard three races ago. It might, it might be some more kind of like lo fi beat with like a like Billie Eilish style singer. Like and it's like dude, this needs to be hype as right now. And it's just not hitting right now. And just a lot of the music is just total. A total miss. Well no, the music is awesome. It's just not utilized correctly. Yeah, it's just not really utilized well. Where the boss fights should feel like this big moment and then when you beat them, it's over. You. You beat the boss. Not another word.

[Greg Miller]

You get like a caption box of like oh you beat me, here's the part or whatever dude.

[Andy Cortez]

And that's it. Like it. It was so disapp that there's just so little fanfare to make you the player feel stoked about this big thing that you just achieved.

[Greg Miller]

And again that's like one of the things I would go back towards the emotional. So I would have ditched the second area, which I find so less exciting and interesting than the first. The first area is what you've seen over and over again. The. You're in the trees. It's a mountainous town. It seems like a bicycle kind of town. Right. Double the size of that or just double the amount of activities in there. Change them up. Because the activities are go there and race. Like, there aren't really side quests as much as, do you want to race me? You can find other people on the road and ring your bell at them and race them, but it's like you're not encouraged to do that anyway. And it's just like the race I'm going to anyway, so why would I like.

[Andy Cortez]

It's an.

[Greg Miller]

It's.

[Andy Cortez]

That's an odd mechanic because again, you just see these random races with an icon and it says, ring your bell. And they're like, oh, shit, let's race. And when you beat them, they go, ah, damn, I lost. You own this. You own this street now. But like, nothing changes. It's just you beat somebody as a little side quest. I. I just wish there was a bit more there. I wish I could create a character.

[Greg Miller]

Way have my ghost in it. Have Andy's ghost in it that's walking around.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I really wish, like, when I spoke to the devs at GDC when we were playing there at that little Xbox mixer, they had mentioned that they created their own create a character and that every NPC in the world is made using this created character where they kind of hit randomize and eyes will be put on the head with a different skin color and a different hairstyle or whatever. I just saw water splash back in your face. And I just really wish I could have created my own bike rider, like.

[Greg Miller]

Especially for his generic as Cat.

[Andy Cortez]

Exactly.

[Greg Miller]

Because no thread to Cat of what who she is, why she's doing this.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. There was no story of why Cat needed to be the main character. And I really wish I could have just created my person and been my avatar because I did like customizing the bike, but there wasn't like, a whole lot of. You couldn't really color it in any way.

[Greg Miller]

Like, the bike has different parts, which again, could have been cool, but it's not because I'm just gonna.

[Snowbike Mike]

I want a legendary.

[Andy Cortez]

I want to put a little cute helmet on me. Like, cool jacket. I don't know. It's just.

[Greg Miller]

Mikey, you played this?

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, I've had the easiest day today. These guys got in their bags. They told you everything. Yeah. Real World, for me was a vibe. The first 30 minutes to an hour, you will smile. You'll get lost in the art style. You'll get caught up in the music. You'll have fun exploring this cool little open world that they've created, Pulling off the side of the road to go grab a new box of loot that might have a bike part in it. You'll love rolling up to different bike teams and hearing what their story is, right? Like, hey, we're the Bruce Bros. We're going to go out and get some brewskis. Come race us over there. You're like, yeah, that's fun. And then by about race number five to 10, you're like, all right, this is too easy. It's not engaging or exciting. This is boring. I'm done. And, yeah, you guys said it best. This was just a missed opportunity. This game had some potential here. It has a vibe it just doesn't nail. Hey, Keeping me invested in this past hour one, you're gonna be like, all right, this was good enough. I don't need to play this anymore.

[Tim Gettys]

Did you beat it?

[Snowbike Mike]

No, I put about three hours in. I kept playing it. I had fun. I liked the different. The first area. I like the vineyard going into there. I liked going, oh, there's some moments, Tim, where you're like, is this going to become a platformer? Am I going to get that extreme biking where the guy's hopping from platform to platform like you see on espn? And they could have done that, but they didn't. They have one cool little jump and that's it. So, yeah, for me, it was just a vibe, a missed potential, an okay game, as Greg said, and I'll remember it for that.

[Greg Miller]

To jump in and give a comparison. I think like Dungeons of Hinterberg, right? That's the game I talked a lot about last year after seeing it at GDC in a very similar fashion. Right. And I think this game is what Wheel World would love to be in the. Like, here's a striking, beautiful art style, right, that Wheel World also has. But there's just so much personality to Dungeons of Hinterberg and the characters you meet. And again, the gameplay is easy. This isn't like a Souls. Like, this isn't a challenge thing. It is about being in this town, finding yourself, meeting these people and having these relationships. And I think there's so many cool opportunities for the experience of this to be merged with Wheel World of. Yeah. Here are the Brew Bruise Bros. We don't like you. We're racers. You Beat them, let's get a beer. And even if it's just a little scene of them having a beer and talking about what is going on in the world or their life or whatever, like that would have gone. But again, that's that A or B choice that they don't make. And so they stay in this very okay lane that I don't think appeals to necessarily anybody like Greg brought up.

[Snowbike Mike]

They have the Tony Hawk pro skater mentality of every race has five mini objectives. Right place first beat the ultimate time of 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Collect cat. And so there I am blowing the doors off of everyone and now I'm looking around the map going, okay, where's. There's the K, there's the A. I'll even turn around, hit the brakes, stop, grab the A, turn back around. Still no one beating me. So, yeah, it's just one of those of. It was too easy for me on that one.

[Andy Cortez]

The. Oh, gosh. I had another sort of. Oh. They kind of maybe halfway through the game, introduce a different a way to switch gears while you're biking or whatever. And so it's not just like a single gear thing. You can, like, if you need to go faster, you hit a thing and you will max out your speed that way and that's the way that you want to go the fastest. But if the devs are still listening, sorry for, you know, didn't love your game. I feel like there's a lot of missed opportunity there. But the. I was just really annoyed when I tried doing that because I wanted to like, oh, what if I can min max this in a way. And whenever you do need to change your gear, the notification is like on the bottom left on the screen. So you're constantly having to like look down there. And I wish it was just like, I wish something on your bike flashed or something like that. Like just kind of more directly in the frame.

[Greg Miller]

And again, I think that speaks to if they were going choosing the A route and we're making a racing game. This is a burnout game.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

However, all that said, like, we led currently a 73 on Metacritic, but an 81 on Open Critic. So if everyone could stop reviewing on.

[Andy Cortez]

A critic right now.

[Greg Miller]

For my fantasy team, I was like, this is when I refreshed it. I like Winston 11 points. All right. I'm sure it'll be like 2A T though. Just keep falling, never start well.

[Tim Gettys]

So that was Wheel World. We have a super chat from Mike saying, I'm wondering if y' all are going to Talk about Wild Gate. I saw Mike playing it last night and it was so epic. Love, y'.

[Andy Cortez]

All.

[Greg Miller]

I did a podcast yesterday, and at the end, the guy was like, also, if you haven't played Wildgate, go play Wild Game.

[Snowbike Mike]

Hey, let's talk about a game with just a nice little breath of fresh air. A really fun, interesting take on the multiplayer genre. Tim, this is cool. I want to get Andy involved. I'd love to get Nick in a stream going here.

[Tim Gettys]

What is it?

[Snowbike Mike]

It is a four player multiplayer battle arena, we'll call it right now, but it's five teams of four. You're in a spaceship and you're on a large, giant map. That is space, right? And so your goal is amongst the five teams of four to go out and explore space and find the One Piece. Okay? The. The artifact is what they call it. So as you're traveling, think Sea of Thieves out in the ocean, right? We have to now navigate our ship. Someone has to pilot it. The other members of the team are putting out fires. They're repairing the ship. When we get into fights, getting the guns, jumping on the turrets. Yeah, they're fighting. They're also probing out into space. You can send three probes out and you'll be like, hey, there's fuel, there's rockets, there's coolant out there. Oh, look, there's this crazy outpost that we can go to and we can get ship upgrades. We can get better guns for our characters because when we do collide with one of the other five teams out there, we want to make sure we're at our best. And so you're playing this push and pull of, hey, let's go out and play cat and mouse, where we need to go get more coolant, we need to get more energy, let's go get better gear. But also we need to find the artifact so we can then go get the artifact and extract out of it through the Wild Gate to be the winning team. And so you have a really good time of like, oh, my God, there's a ship over there. What should we do? All right, let's run away. No, they're coming at us. Now we get into this epic ship battle where people are jumping off their ship into your ship. They're trying to mess up your reactor, you're trying to mess up theirs. This was a breath of fresh air for 2025 and just a great multiplayer experience. My worry, of course. Will this last three months or six months? Probably not. But right now this is a really fun time. This is a really good game.

[Andy Cortez]

One thing I loved about it Mike, when I I got to play maybe one round during the Steam Next Fest several months ago. I love how like player friendly it is in the sense that whenever you go to another ship, if you find a crashed ship just kind of out there like this derelict thing that already crashed and you want to upgrade your ship in any way and you run to the wall where maybe the power block might be or whatever. It's such just like a big ass chunk of like hey, this is gonna make your shield stronger and you just pick up this big chunk and you fly and jetpack back to your ship and you just play. It's all like so plug and playable as if everybody's using USBC out there. I love it. It's such a cool little a way to make the game a lot easy, a lot easier like and more visually identifiable. It's a really neat concept. I wanted to hop in last time but we have to get those ornithopters.

[Greg Miller]

Like I don't know, I had to get them.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, he had to play with Nick.

[Andy Cortez]

Nick was already on. Mike didn't want to join.

[Snowbike Mike]

This is a game that you should check out. 40 price tag, not on game pass or anything. So it is kind of a steep jump in. But it is a budget title at $40. But it is worth the 40. It is super fun to jump in and play. Like I said, I don't know how long this will last. What kind of game modes do you add? How do you switch up the formula? In my mind we go five versus five teams Tim. And we do a capture the flag and the goal is you got to go capture their artifact, get across to the second half of the map, your side of the map.

[Andy Cortez]

30.

[Snowbike Mike]

That will get you more. 30 okay, so there you go, $30. So that's a nice budget title. But yeah, you gotta. This is one of those jump in early before it goes too far and it either starts to die or you have a lot of kids destroyed before.

[Greg Miller]

Everybody gets too good.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, that was the feedback that I heard immediately from for Washburn and JD last night in the Discord saying like yeah, it's a really cool fun game, really well made design game. And then you're gonna have you know, 13 year olds that just on you.

[Snowbike Mike]

In the game you have a AI option where you can play matches against AI. So the other four teams, our AIs but they make the map much smaller and there's only three other AI teams and when you go to their ships it's like true AI they're just sitting there waiting for you and it's like, oh, we got to be able to play with that. Of like that's a perfect onboarding for like me to show Tim the game. But then I need AI level one, level two, level three where they actually are doing stuff because you board the ship and the guy's just still on the turret and he doesn't even look away from it. You're like, oh, elevate that a little bit more. But it's good, good game.

[Tim Gettys]

I want to bring up it out.

[Andy Cortez]

Some real, one real quick thing that happened recently. The Digital Extremes, the devs of Warframe, they are working on Soul Frame which is more of a fantasy style ish type offering. And I think they, they recently opened up their servers to anybody who wants to join into like these early episodes. They just do stuff a lot more different because their stuff isn't on Steam. You don't request access there. You like got to go to their website and obviously Warframe has been very, very, very popular for a long ass time and you kind of got to do things their way by like downloading a little executable file and stuff. But I, I'd hopped in a couple of times and I know it's like way too early to even call this an alpha. Like they are building the game with you. They want you to in these tests, they want you giving feedback but just a tiny bit of what I've experienced. Like oh, this is like again I'm such a, a noob at at this but like I never played Warframe and as I'm playing this early, early ass look into Soul Frame like holy, this is so impressive. This looks great. The already what's there? Just there's such a level of production already that I'm just blown away by. I guess I'm just used to hopping into early access games all the time with you know, 50 missing art assets and stuff like that. I was really blown away and immediately understood, oh, this is why Digital Extremes has been killing it for so long. It's really impressive. Three classes you choose from. It's going to be like Warframe where it's sort of a, an open world, open shared world, whatever you want to call it.

[Greg Miller]

Damn, that's cool.

[Andy Cortez]

But you start you could pick out of the melee class, the mage class or the bow and arrow class. And it dude it's super impressive for just what I experienced and the couple of missions that I did. I, I was, I was kind of floored by it. Like, holy. I need to really, really keep this one on the calendar for myself, you know?

[Tim Gettys]

Hell yeah. Well, everyone, this has been today's kind of funny games cast. We're about to jump into some magic the Gathering Commander with some special guests. So that's going to be a ton of fun. Stay tuned. If you're on Twitch, you can stay where you are. If you're on YouTube, you have to make the jump over to that video. But thank you for hanging out with us today. Till next time, love you all. Goodbye.

[Andy Cortez]

Bye, Wheel World.