Justin, I'm sorry, no intro today.
We just gotta get into it.
It's a packed show, it seems,
and I just don't know if we're gonna be able
to talk about this.
I beat Hi-Fi Rush this week.
You beat Hi-Fi Rush, and your thoughts?
I loved it.
I loved, like, from start to finish,
what a fucking great game.
I'm not gonna talk specifically about the endings,
I don't wanna spoil it.
Not that I think there's a whole lot
of giant things to spoil, but the final boss,
I got a question for you.
How many tries did it take you to beat him?
What was the final, I know what it was.
Like, it was just the fight on the rooftop.
I mean, it's just very-
I think one, why?
It took me 11 tries.
Why?
I was getting my ass kicked, I don't know.
And it was the sort of thing where I beat it
the night before Resident Evil came out,
because I was like, I need to beat this,
otherwise it's just not, it's gonna get shunted down
and I'm gonna forget all the combos
and everything like that.
And it was like 1 a.m. and I was like, I gotta beat this.
And I was seriously just dying over and over and over again.
It could have been because it was 1 a.m.
And the first thing to go at 1 a.m.
are your rhythm skills, I think.
That's potentially true.
Yeah, so the only boss I died on was the coolest boss,
which was the Wolfgang fight.
Oh, that was also excellent.
You mentioned a beat drop or a needle drop moment.
A needle drop moment, and boy,
wasn't that fucking badass. That was pretty good.
That was one of the top moments in games
that I've played in a long time.
And it, I don't know, I've recently been back
on an anime kick, which we'll talk about in a bit.
But the game just bleeds anime to me,
just the hype levels. Oh yeah.
The characters are just awesome.
I love the power of friendship that comes through
throughout the whole thing.
And the canon part, the way they set up,
the canon part is one of the funniest moments.
That's the thing, the game is so funny.
It's so funny.
And I think that's pretty rare with video games,
just because, I don't know, it's got the timing right,
the script is so good, and it's so self-aware and silly.
It's almost not ironic that a game
about hitting the beats correctly
has such good comedic timing.
Yeah, oh, totally.
It is really such an important thing
with getting a joke, and I think
that's why video games often don't deliver humor well,
is because it's really hard to get that timing
when you have users inputting stuff at different times.
But it just all fits so well.
It's a pretty chatty game at times with the characters,
but I don't mind any of the chattiness.
I found myself talking to every character
between every mission to find out about
what was going on with them.
I would love to see this as an anime, or as a cartoon.
I would love this to be a cartoon,
develop these characters. A thousand percent.
It'd be awesome.
I was a little sad that you unlocked
customization at the very end.
Yeah, yeah.
So you can customize the guitar that he has.
They've got a lot of great guitars in there.
I just bought myself a fancy new guitar,
and it was in there.
Oh, that is awesome.
I was like, if I had customization unlocked
at the beginning of this, this would have been
absolutely what I was using.
I think the brilliant thing about that game
is that I button mash a lot in these kind of games,
and I know I shouldn't, but it feels like
even when you're button mashing in this game,
you got just the rhythm down of your button mashing
in a way that just made it work so well,
and by the end of it, you have so many systems
that you're juggling, but it doesn't feel overwhelming.
It doesn't feel like you're not in control of it,
and it's just a fantastic, fantastic game.
Highly recommend.
And I really like the way that it elevates everything,
by just introducing new elements and new enemies
and all sorts of stuff.
I think it's just so vibrant, pops so much.
Yeah, excellent game.
The only problem with it is there's no platinum trophy,
so I don't give a fuck about platinum it,
and I might have considered going back.
I really might have.
Yeah, I agree.
If it was a PlayStation game, this would have been one
that I probably would have platinumed,
because it seems pretty simple.
There are reasons to replay it, too.
There's all these hidden areas that you get
the key card for or something like that.
And there's literal missions to do afterwards
that are like, you go back and the level select gets open,
you can go back and play it.
So don't feel like, I mean, the game is very obvious
about like, oh, we're missing stuff, don't worry about it.
We'll come back later to do this.
There's these doors all over it that eventually become these,
what do they call them?
There's mysterious signals coming out of them
that you open up and you have to do some more fights and stuff.
But yeah.
I always like it when in a game though,
when the characters explicitly say like,
I don't think we have what we need for this.
Yeah, yeah.
And they just tell you, they're like, yeah, not now, bud.
And that also tells you that there's gonna be
a level select so you don't have to worry about it,
because the first time that happened, I'm like,
oh, I can come back and play this later
and get all this stuff.
Would you have thought this is a game I would have liked?
Not in a million years, I'm so surprised you liked it.
I'm so happy you liked it, because I loved it.
Yeah, no, it was just one of those that,
it's not my type of genre game that I usually enjoy,
but it was great.
Without going into super many spoilers,
what was your favorite boss fight?
That is tough.
I can't say I liked them all, because I liked them all.
Because it has to be my favorite one.
I'll be honest, I think the first one is really good,
and it might be because of the needle drop moment
with the nine inch nail song.
Which by the way, the final boss fight
also has a nine inch nail song.
And I love it.
Over my head.
11 times into it, I was like,
I fucking hate the beginning of this song.
I don't like this song.
That's funny.
You just hit a classical song for me, I know that.
I jammed to that one, but anything else,
70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s, 2020s, isn't that crazy?
There's that many.
There's like, it just keeps going.
There's that many between the 70s and the 2020s.
It's like 50 years, right?
It's crazy.
But yeah, I don't know, they're so memorable and good.
I really like the one, two with,
what was her name?
She's on the stage, she's performing.
And she's wearing a butterfly costume.
I think my favorite was the face off one.
The one that was really not a combat boss fight.
Oh yeah, but like all the counter stuff?
Yeah, it's just like a very simple rhythm.
And it fits with the story very well.
There is one input in that
that makes you get an S rank or not.
You have to catch the character at the end.
Fuck that one up.
Did you make it? Nope.
I did too.
I totally messed it up.
I love High Five Rush.
I think this is one I'm gonna be thinking about.
I truly enjoyed it, and hey, it's on Game Pass.
So give it a shot, give it a shot.
And hey, even if you don't think it's your type of game,
Justin loved it.
I did, I really did.
So, I don't know.
Maybe that means something to you.
Maybe it doesn't, I don't know.
It's in my eyes.
What's going on everyone?
Welcome back to Hitbox, episode number 137.
My name is Peter Hunt Spittek.
Joining me as always, my friend and co-host.
I didn't say my wonderful friend.
I felt like I was trying to vary it up,
and I just said my friend,
but I felt like I just downgraded you.
So my wonderful friend and co-host, Justin Ekebich.
How are you, Justin?
What's going on, man?
I have two words for you.
Hit me with them.
Spring break.
Spring break forever.
By the way, that movie is terrible.
If you've ever seen Spring Breakers,
it is literally a terrible movie.
It's with.
With, is this.
James Franco.
Vanessa Hudgens.
Ashley Benson.
Sure.
Selena Gomez.
Yep, yep.
Gucci Mane.
Yep, sure, yeah, I'll agree with that.
It is just literally like a trashy movie,
but the best part about it is the slow-mo montage
with James Franco just whispering,
spring break in the background the whole time.
Quite possibly, yeah,
one of the more memorable moments of a movie.
That was terrible.
I'm remembering this movie because it came out
when I was in high school,
and it was the sort of thing where it was like,
it was like right at the age when I was beginning
to be allowed to see things.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, and you suddenly realize that
just because you're allowed to see things
doesn't mean you should see things.
Yeah, I didn't end up watching it though.
You said it's not good?
No, I mean it's like just a trashy movie.
Yeah, I'm sort of reading a plot description here,
and it sounds like it.
James Franco's like a scumbag drug dealer
who is like, I don't know,
dealing drugs and stuff and influencing people to be bad
and not having, not making good choices.
It's like, not great.
Spring Break ruins people's lives if you're not careful.
That's why you should do what I do
and stay inside and play video games.
Yeah, that doesn't sound bad at all.
We're gonna be talking about a lot of video games today,
in fact.
Here's a preview of the news.
We're gonna get to it in a minute,
but here's a quick preview of it.
Resident Evil 4 Remake sells a whole lot of copies.
Ubisoft is employing AI to write its games,
and Xbox kills its excellent Game Pass deal.
We're gonna talk about all of those headlines and more
in a little bit before we hop into our Metacritic roundup.
Here's a reminder to hop into our Discord server.
The link to that is in the description of this episode.
You can support us on Patreon, patreon.com slash hitbox pod.
Become a $1 podcast producer
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If you become a deluxe podcast producer,
you get an additional 30 minute bonus episode
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This week, we're gonna look at Chia,
a little bit more in depth after talking about it today.
And then you also get access to the rest
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let us know by going to patreon.com slash hitbox pod
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Make sure to rate the show
and you're a podcast player of choice.
That would help us out a whole lot.
Justin, wanna head to the Metacritic Roundup?
Let's do it.
Metacritic Roundup.
Just one game in the Metacritic Roundup today.
It is Have a Nice Death,
which is releasing on PC and Switch.
There is no score for the Switch,
but on PC it has an 82.
Now, I think we saw this at some Nintendo directs maybe,
or maybe it was just a different showcase.
This is like a very Hollow Knight-esque
sort of 2D action game,
although I think it's a rogue light.
So it's got that randomly generated
and all that sort of business.
He plays the Grim Reaper,
and he's like overworked with paperwork
and all that sort of stuff,
so I always find it fun when stories come up
with a new way to talk about,
here's the Grim Reaper.
What was that game?
Death's Door?
I thought that was fun.
That was one of my favorite games of that year, 2021.
Yeah, yeah.
What do you think?
Are you picking this up?
82?
I actually was sitting there
reading some of the reviews of it,
and I'm not opposed to actually picking it up.
I know these are never the types of games I finish,
but it is something on the Switch.
It is something that looks pretty.
I hear it's funny,
but I do hear a couple things about it
that make it a little scary.
The permaprogression isn't great.
It takes a long time with a lot of your permanent boosts,
because it is a rogue light,
which means that you do get some permanent upgrades, right?
I think that's how it goes.
Because a rogue light is nothing.
A rogue light is mostly randomly generated,
to start from zero.
So they don't really have that stuff.
And I hear it's hard, specifically the bosses.
Some of the bosses, once you get to them,
are really, really hard to get through and learn.
The rest of the game is not as difficult,
and those bosses and those mini bosses
are really the choke point to a lot of it.
So I don't know.
This is one of those classic,
if it was on Game Pass, I would try it out
and then see if I like it or not.
But I was on the Switch,
and I was sitting there looking like, ah, Dead Cells
is on sale for pretty cheap with the Castlevania DLC.
Castlevania DLC.
And then they had this game,
and I was like, ooh, that's a tough choice for me.
I know Dead Cells is one of the best games ever.
I think it's on Game Pass, too.
At least the base version is, right?
I think.
Yeah, it is.
And anyway, so I was deciding between those two,
and then by the time I decided,
or finished deciding, I was like,
oh, my need to buy this is gone, but I don't know.
What are your thoughts?
It's interesting.
I get every so often the rogue-lite craving,
and it is sometimes, it's satisfied,
and then it goes away for a while.
So Hades hit that for me okay,
and then Returnal pretty much right afterwards
did me up in a very, very good way.
But ever since Returnal, I haven't had a huge desire
to stick with this genre.
I like the art style for this game for,
yeah, have a nice death.
It looks beautiful.
I mean, the lighting in it looks really cool.
The animation style looks really cool.
It's not as, what's the word, thirsty as Hades,
but I.
No, no.
I would say that if I describe this game,
it's like if Double Fine made an action game.
Yeah, yeah, actually.
Do you know what I mean in terms of the animations
and the way everything's drawn,
where it's kinda cartoony, but still very stylish?
Yeah.
Yeah, no, I probably won't be picking this up,
but there you go.
Have a nice death.
I mean, if it's the right price,
anything is possible for me.
Who knows? Also, very fair.
Maybe it'll end up being a really funny rhythm game,
and I'll love it, and it'll be probably
in my top 10 of the year, probably top five of the year.
Because right now, I'm gonna be honest with you,
Hi-Fi Rush, definitely in the upper one
of the games I played this year that are new.
I was gonna say, I was trying to think,
I think I've played four new games this year,
so yeah, it's up there for me.
It's for sure in my top four, you know what I mean?
I'll say this, though, it's not number four.
How's that?
Oh, okay.
Oh, what?
Ooh, the view bomb.
Four, that's an ominous number that you just mentioned.
The four.
Does that have anything to do?
Oh, you wanna talk about Resident Evil 4?
We could, yeah, let's do it.
Yeah, let's do it.
Leon, Leon, Leon, Leon!
We talked about it last week.
There she is.
This is, by the way, I was like,
you were talking to me, and I was trying to respond
while also cut this together.
I was not doing a good job talking to you,
I felt so bad, but I couldn't spoil it.
One more for the viewers, listeners at home.
Leon, Leon, Leon, Leon!
Leon, Leon, Leon!
And also, the little icon on my stream deck is Leon,
but you know that Midriff mod that people made?
Yep, yep, suddenly this is all making sense.
So I was asking you, I was like,
I smell Midriff, and you're like, what are you looking at?
There were some images, by the way.
I'm sure there were.
Question, is that from the new remake or the original?
So in the two seconds I took to find this image,
it is from the original, but I am happy to see
that they have brought that mod over to the remake.
Got it, got it, good, good, good, solid, solid, solid.
Yeah, yeah, so Resident Evil 4 remake, I've been playing.
I've played a fuck ton of, actually,
because I looked at my girlfriend,
and I said, listen, Friday and Saturday,
is it okay if we don't?
Is it okay if we do not?
Like, you know, come over, you know, you'll do your thing,
I'll do my thing, but like, I think I need,
I think I need this.
So we, she was like, yeah, no problem.
So literally all day, Friday night,
and then all day Saturday was just Resident Evil 4.
And well, it's a good game,
and I don't know what I was expecting.
Like, it's really good.
It is totally in line with the rest
of the, like, Resident Evil remakes.
I am really into those, and I was a fool to think
that I wouldn't be really into this as well.
I mean, it's good, it is good.
What was your hesitation going in?
I had a few, and I think I talked about them
on the show a little bit.
Nothing like, I didn't think that I would not like this,
but I had some questions about, like,
is this gonna be goofy, like,
in the way that the first one was?
And the answer is, so far, not really.
Like, he's still kind of a, he kind of yucks it up
in terms of, like, his, like, one-liners
and stuff like that.
But it's less like, now you're gonna run away
from a giant boulder, you know what I mean?
I just, I've gotten to the castle,
so that's when it really starts to ramp up
in its kind of silliness, at least in my memory.
So I guess I still have to report back on that.
But I was a little worried about that.
And then also, like, I think that,
and we've talked about this, that, like,
I know that the over-the-shoulder, like,
plant-your-feet shooting controls do kind of suck,
but I also think that they're a little,
they are a little bit necessary
in terms of, like, establishing, like, the tone of the game.
And, like, it makes, like, plant-your-feet
and shooting, like, a very, like, deliberate choice.
And I think that is really essential to that gameplay loop,
at least in the original, of, like,
okay, I'm getting overwhelmed, I gotta either shoot or run
and trying to figure out what to do with that,
I think is pretty compelling, to be honest with you.
And so the fact that it's,
you can just sort of walk and shoot at the same time.
I mean, you can't walk very fast,
but the fact that you can still do it,
I do think it makes sense when you're modernizing it,
but I think that deliberate choice of, like,
okay, now we're gonna stop and we're gonna shoot
is, in my opinion, still pretty interesting.
It's a good game.
Okay, so, no, I didn't know if you had another point.
No, no, no.
So what other, like, in general,
what were some of the updates that you found
to be, like, exceptionally good or different or better?
Okay, so it's been a long time
since I've played Resident Evil 4.
I don't, like, I'm not gonna say any of, like,
the story beats or anything like that,
because I don't, if they are new,
they seem like they're really interesting and different.
So it seems like the story has been, like, really modified.
And again, I don't know if that's
because I just don't remember it that well
or if it really has been, but, like, yeah, it is.
A lot of stuff seems to be out of order
in terms of, like, when things happen
in a way that I think is kind of fun.
And, like, I imagine that, like, diehard fans of the game
will be like, oh, weird, this didn't happen.
And then later it does happen,
and you're like, oh, cool, they did it.
I think, like, a really good example of them
sort of playing with your expectations like that.
People get weird about spoilers.
Here's a spoiler for some dialogue.
So if you don't wanna hear that, plug your ears,
and while you're doing that,
try and think about what matters in life.
But basically, at the beginning,
you're riding in the car with the two, like, local policemen,
and one of the cops pulls out a cigarette
and offers Leon, like, hey, do you smoke?
And in the remake, he just sort of, like, brushes him off,
and he, like, waves him away.
He's like, no, I'm good.
In the original, he, like, straight up looks at him,
and he's like, don't you know that those will kill you?
Like, brought to you by the fucking surgeon general, right?
Coming from an American, that seems odd, you know?
Yeah, it's a little weird, right?
But so, like, in the original, like,
that's like an iconic line,
because it's just so weird right off the bat,
like, just so, like, so odd
that you would just say that to a stranger, essentially.
And then in the remake, you know, he sort of brushes him off.
And then later, someone asks him, like,
hey, you got a pack of smokes?
And he's like, don't you know that those will kill you?
And it's like one of those moments where, like, they get it.
They know.
Does everyone just stop and look at the camera?
And, like?
That's what it feels like, right?
Where it's just like, like, we know what we're doing
with, like, playing with this sort of stuff.
And that's the sort of thing I really like.
And I think, again, my memory on, like,
the original game is a little hazy.
But it seems like they're doing that with a lot of the beats
of, like, the big set pieces
that are some of the more memorable ones
seem to be shifted around a fair amount
and stuff like that.
I'm loving it.
It brings to mind, like, the question of, like,
how necessary is this?
Since I think that Resident Evil 4 is, like,
is a pretty perfect game.
And I know that, like, there is that grab, like, that, that,
like, counterpoint of, like, well, what about the controls?
And I say, like, yeah, they are frustrating.
But I think that if you can take the time to learn them,
I think that that still makes it,
I think it's still not terrible.
You know what I mean?
I mean, from me just playing the beginning of both games
recently in the past, like, two weeks,
I think something like this, it's, like,
that's a different conversation to me
because they're different enough that it updates it enough,
that it makes it new enough that I think it can, like,
satisfy the old fans but also bring in new fans
or hesitant fans because we've all talked about
how it's just not as easy to play of a game
for a modern gamer anymore.
And that can really stop people from playing it.
And I do think they made enough significant changes
to combat, to the inventory system, to the questing system,
to even how you explore the world, if I'm correct,
in some of the areas.
I mean, you-
I think so.
I mean, you've played more than me.
I've only played the demo at this point.
But I don't know, I think there's nothing wrong
with updating a classic game.
And I think, if anything, the sales numbers are showing
that it is, like, definitely something that people
are liking and people are playing.
Agreed.
Before we talk about sales,
I think that you actually bring up a really good point
about, like, letting this be, you know,
if someone who's 15 or 16, who's really into gaming,
probably knows about Resident Evil 4, right?
Because, I mean, it's just, it's talked about so much
as one of those.
Yeah, it's one of the top games of all time.
Yeah.
You are totally right.
I imagine if they go and try to play it, it's like,
this is fucking old.
And so you play this, and yeah, I think, like,
this is a great gateway into it.
And then also you play this, and it turns out you love it,
and you go, okay, well, you know what,
let me put up with the oldness of the original to play it.
You know, and I think that you're totally right
that that is a really solid entry point.
I will say, the one, the one, like,
and also, sorry, this is, this is by all means,
like, a good remake.
Like, don't get me wrong, like, it is a good remake.
I think, like, we were saying, like, adds enough
and does enough to it.
Remixes enough stuff that I think it is well worth a buy.
And like, I'm satisfied.
I played, I paid full price for this, you know what I mean?
Like, I'm not doing it for work, out of my pocket,
I bought this, and I'm super, super happy
with it, having a great time.
And like, I think, do you know Skill Up?
He's a YouTuber.
He does like YouTube reviews and stuff like that.
And he talked about Last of Us Part One,
where he basically said, he compared it to his love
for the movie RoboCop, where he's like,
I own so many different versions of RoboCop.
And he's like, I've paid a lot more for a lot less
in order to love RoboCop and have these different versions
of RoboCop in reference to Last of Us Part One,
like the remake.
Same thing with this.
Like, there are a significant amount of changes.
And like, if you are the type of person
who maybe is skeptical about playing the original,
obviously that's still there.
But they're like, I've also paid a lot more
for a lot less in terms of like, actual changes
and stuff like that.
But the one big gripe I have with this game
is that one of my favorite things
about the original Resident Evil 4
is that the laser sight as your aimer,
as like your aim tool, you know what I'm saying?
You can get that in the game,
but you're only able to use it on two different guns.
And like, listen, I get it.
Like, I get you wanna have the reticle for the shotgun
to know how big of a spread you have.
But I always really liked the laser sight.
And I was so excited when I was like,
oh my gosh, I can attach this to my weapon, whatever.
And then the next pistol I picked up,
and I was like, well, this is the better pistol.
It's like, oh, but it can't have a little sight on it.
And I wish it could.
Is the game, so for me,
one of the things I've always complained about
was the goofiness of it.
And you said they kinda remixed some stuff
with the cigarette thing to maybe not make the goofiness
right in front, but they kinda put it back in there.
Is the game still goofy?
It's still cheesy and campy sometimes.
Like I said, with Leon's little one-liners and whatever.
But it's not like pie in the face.
I don't know if the original one
was ever really pie in the face.
But I would say that it feels still pretty authentic
to what the original one was going for.
Okay, yeah, because I mean,
I think that was one of the things
that was the most shocking about Resident Evil 2
when I was playing that one,
was how they had some genuinely dramatic moments in there
that really built to some good character stuff.
The part where the dad has to kill his daughter
and you hear the shotgun.
It's right away after you leave the police station.
That's a very real moment.
Even the whole revealing of what was actually going on
in the labs and who Ada was and all that kind of stuff
was done in a way that wasn't comically ridiculous.
It was done in a way that was dramatically significant
for me.
And then I saw this Twitter video of someone said,
when everyone else would duck, Leon would dot dot dot
and it's two chainsaws coming through a wall.
And then instead of ducking,
Leon does a back kick and spins.
He kicks off the wall.
Yeah, kicks off the wall to avoid them.
So I'm like, okay, well, still there.
It's still got that to it.
You know what I mean?
It's not super serious.
That said, there are some pretty absolutely
unnerving horror sections of it.
I think the opening is a great example of it.
I think that village section where you just survive,
I don't know, figure it out, is so unnerving and scary.
And I think that that is a really good tone setter
because then it also ends with him being like,
where's everyone going?
Bingo.
You know what I mean?
So it's able to juggle, actually being pretty unnerving
and frightening while also having those silly little quips
and one-liners and whatever.
Which by the way, did you see that you can
enter that section early if you shoot the bell tower
and sound the bell in that section?
Is that only in the remake or is that?
Yeah, I don't know if it's in the original,
but the videos are going around on Twitter today
of people doing that and going like,
oh my gosh, this is so cool.
And I appreciate that attention to detail.
It's hard to do unless you have a sniper rifle
because the tower's far away.
But I think that's pretty fun.
Yeah, it's awesome.
Yeah, let's talk real quick about its sales numbers.
So Red Nable 4 remake is the first of the remakes
to outsell its original counterpart
in its opening weekend.
So basically, this is an article from gamesindustry.biz
by Christopher Dring titled,
the Resident Evil 4 remake launch 29% bigger
than the GameCube original.
And it basically just goes on to say that in the UK,
its sales are 29% higher for the remake
compared to the original,
which launched in March of 2005 in the UK.
But it does go on to clarify a little bit.
Of course, the GameCube Resident Evil 4
was only released on one platform
and not a particularly popular one either.
However, 100% of its sales were physical,
whereas this remake will have substantial digital sales.
Downloaded data is not included in this report
and will be available later in the week.
So yeah, and then it does go on also to say
that none of the other Resident Evil remake games
have been able to outsell their originals as well.
And then to go off of that,
the concurrent players are also pretty huge.
A GameSpot article by Joseph Yadden titled,
Resident Evil 4 remake already has
most concurrent Steam players in series history.
They talk about how Resident Evil Village peaked at 106,000.
And then the remake already has 200,012 Twitch viewers.
And it peaked, wait, no, no.
I read this wrong.
The remake, I don't know if they say the concurrent numbers.
What are the concurrent numbers?
Oh, it has surpassed 118,000 already
and it's only been out since the 24th, which is crazy.
Yeah, it's good, man.
It is really good.
And I know that you were talking about
how you weren't such a huge fan of the combat
in the Resident Evil 2 remake.
And it does still have a lot of that flavor to it,
but it is a lot more,
because the game is more combat focused and combat heavy,
there's a lot more that you can do.
And it's a lot less about just
juking around slow moving zombies and more about
crowd management and trying to figure out what to do about
this, that, and the other thing.
But it's good, it's real good, in fact.
So that's Resident Evil 4.
We'll be talking about it more as I get through it.
I mean, I'm probably gonna finish it this week.
I imagine I'm about halfway through.
I'm trying to take my time and go over,
turn over every single, leave no stone unturned.
I heard a completionist run could take upwards of 30 hours.
Yeah, I guess it, if you do all the side quests.
I'm not sure as to what the completion is,
what that means in terms of what you actually need to do.
I'm doing all the side quests.
By the way, the side quests were billed as some big thing.
They're pretty much nothing.
Give me an egg, give me an egg.
Yeah, it's literally like, yeah, find the golden egg,
which will be marked on the map, or like,
hey, destroy these five blue pendants.
I'm like, yeah, that's cool.
That was in the original kind of,
but they don't add significant,
they're fun, but they don't add a whole lot
to the actual experience.
But yeah, I'm going over it with pretty much
a fine tooth comb, but I am also in love with it.
So it's gone by.
It's good to be in love, you know what I mean?
It is, it is.
Can we talk about another video game that I love?
Persona 5?
We can talk about Persona 5.
I'm always down.
I'm always ready.
Justin, what do you think of Chia?
Chia, Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia, the song that you are gonna jump off
a bridge if you hear one more time.
I just, every single podcast this week
that I've listened to that's talking about games
is like Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia, and I'm like,
it's not even funny, guys.
It's not even a joke, it's just word association.
Though, it makes you remember the title.
I suppose that's true.
Because that was first like when I saw this,
Tachaya, Tachik, Tachia, but now I know.
Chia, Chia Colon, a game inspired by New Caledonia.
That rolls off the tongue.
That just rolls off the tongue.
But, do you remember how last week we did the
find New Caledonia on the map?
Yep.
This game does a fantastic job of telling you
where the heck New Caledonia is.
Yo, dude, this is, oh man, I'm gonna be so interested
to hear what you think about this.
I love this game.
And right off the bat, when it just is like,
hey, here's what's inspired, here's what this game's about.
It's inspired by New Caledonia,
one of the people who, one of the studio heads
is from there, they all went there,
all the voice actors are people from there.
It's all based off of that, and folklore,
and all that sort of stuff.
I love that, that it just opens with,
hey, here's a little bit about what this game is about,
and the things that inspire it.
And I know that so many of the games that we play
are Western made and whatever.
I'm not entirely sure where the Chia studio is based out of.
I don't think they're from New Caledonia.
But what a fun way to start that and say,
hey, here's a culture that you might not know about,
and here's what you need to know about it,
right off the bat.
So that you're like, you know exactly what you need
to know about this game going forward.
I love this game, dude.
I was not expecting to like it so much.
I love this game.
What do you think about it?
It's fine.
Yeah, I figured you were right.
I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.
I think from a cultural standpoint,
that's where this game shines the most.
I think that is clearly where,
what makes this game stand out from other games.
I think it's beautiful in a way.
Like when you're going through certain areas,
I think the colors are bright, the sound is bright,
everything just looks cool and looks fun and looks awesome.
But everything else about it, it's just like okay to me
in terms of like the moment to moment gameplay
that you do with it.
I do like that it is not overwhelmingly large,
but it's still large.
I feel like it'd be really easy to make this game
just like insurmountable with a lot of the stuff.
But like the tasks that you have to do,
the shrines that you have to do throughout it,
everything is like fine.
It's just like doesn't have the clear kind of,
I don't know, I mean like maybe like the Breath of the Wild,
what made that game stand out versus this game
is the physics system and how they really play
with the physics system in a unique and interesting way
with every aspect of that game.
The physics system is at the heart of it,
from the exploration to the puzzles to the combat.
Everything has to deal with its basic,
how you move items, how you fight people,
how you do your weapon inventory and stuff.
This game, like its number one selling point
is kind of like you get to possess
almost anything you see in the world
and you get to explore the world with that.
And I feel like that is such a wasted opportunity
because it's come down to me either possessing
the first inanimate object I can see
so I can roll to my destination faster
or looking for a bird and possessing that
so I can fly to my destination faster.
And like there's nothing wrong with it.
It's just like I wish I could do more as a pigeon
than just have the option to poop.
Which is funny but you do it once and you're like oh great
and then you're like oh there's nothing to this I see.
And there's a couple things at first about it
that let me talk about the good stuff that it does
before I just talk about it's a pretty game
that is average.
The way you interact with the world is like in the map
is like a few tweaks from being amazing.
Oh you think so?
Okay.
Do you not?
I love it.
Oh okay.
I think like I hear everything you're saying and I agree
and I will talk about it in a minute
but I think that it seems like what it's setting out to do
it is doing so wonderfully that I love it go on.
So it's a few tweaks from being amazing.
It was a little cumbersome at first
but then the more I get to use it
the more kind of fun it is.
Can you explain just for people who haven't played it yet?
Basically the way the map works
is you literally get a map.
And usually in a video game you get a map
and you see this cursor of where you are at all times
in the direction you're facing going there.
You don't get that in this game.
You get the map and then you just can like scroll through it
and then you might find your ship
or you have to kind of guess the general vicinity
of where you're at.
There's a feature that you can just be like
I think I'm in this circle.
And they show you like a giant like quadrant of the map
that you could be in.
Because it's like based on like landmarks
and like oh near the city.
So like I must be here.
So I have to be in this large area.
And then throughout the world they have these signposts
that like give you directions.
And when you interact with the signpost
it will like show like a little cartoon figure of you
on the map where you were at that signpost.
And that little cartoon figure remains by that signpost
until you get another signpost.
So you still see like where you were
the last time you were at a signpost.
But you don't, that thing doesn't follow you.
So you never actually have like a live representation
of where you are on the map.
But what you can do is you can like put a pin down somewhere
and that pin shows up on your compass
and you know the direction that you have to go.
They have the same thing when you have like a quest
that you have to go.
The direction of that quest is shown around the compass
like you would in a game.
But like there's no like path guiding you there.
It gives you enough guidance
without giving you too much guidance.
But some of the things that make it cumbersome is like,
I don't know if I'm like looking at the map
and then I leave and then I come back
and I'm like I'll look at the map a bunch later.
I have to like, I'm back at the other end.
Like if I fast travel, the last place I'm looking,
the map when it opens is where I was looking last
on the map, not where I currently am
or the vicinity where I currently am.
And it just becomes like, okay,
I'm gonna move this thing over here.
And there's just a few tweaks about it that
I like what it's doing.
I like that it makes me feel like
I'm exploring the world better.
I like that it's a better map than you get
in Breath of the Wild, which is just icons and you go here.
But it's just a little cumbersome at times
to a point where it just annoys me slightly.
But it's not bad.
It's not like, the more you play with it,
the more you get used to it.
And the more you get used to it,
the more you realize how it's unique and novel.
And I think what, like the map really sells
a lot of the experience for me as well.
Because I think that like first and foremost,
this is a game about a place.
You know what I mean?
It's about, it is a love letter to these islands, right?
I think that the actual in-game setting is fictional.
It's my understanding from the beginning of the game,
it's like, this is a fictional island,
but it is all inspired directly by New Caledonia
and New Caledonian islands.
And basically, because the game does not say,
hey, here's where you are,
here's exactly where you need to go,
it really makes you look at where you are.
And you're like, I'm using the compass to figure out,
oh no, okay, overshot.
I'm at the path now.
I was looking for this little stamina fruit
that increases my abilities to hang on
and use my paraglider.
And like, it just really makes you,
because it doesn't give you super explicit instructions
as to where you are,
it really makes you look around
and really understand where you are
and find that sense of place and go like, oh,
like it makes you so familiar
with the different areas of the map.
I spent a lot of time in that first island,
the Northern one.
And so like now I know where to go,
like I know where everything is on that island.
Second one, the Southern island,
I haven't, like I've just been sort of starting
to explore that now,
because like that's where more of the quest stuff is.
And I'm loving so much of that,
of like exploring around and everything like that.
And I think that there's the potential
for people to sort of miss what Chia is going for
by saying like, oh, I'm just like,
I'm becoming a bird so I can just fly
exactly where I need to go.
And like, yeah, but you're missing the point.
You know, like, I think that I would, I agree with you.
I think it's a gripe of like, well,
the soul jumping stuff just isn't that interesting, right?
And like the only thing to transform into really is a rock
so you could just roll fast or preferably become a bird
so you can fly fast, you know?
But I think like, and I'm not saying that you're saying this,
but I think that people could potentially miss the point
of like enjoying the exploration of this place
and enjoying being like put in this specific place
and seeing all the little details
that I'm sure are direct references to the place.
Like all the food items, you can stop and get like,
like little food stands and it all looks delicious.
And I assume that it's all just like directly lifted
from New Caledonia Pousine, you know?
When you go to like one of the shops, I think,
they'll literally, you'll eat the food
and they'll have the name of the dish on the,
on the table underneath it.
Yeah.
And like what a sweet little touch that, you know,
if you're just flying over everything directly
to the next objective, like you're not gonna get that.
And then also I think if you're just mainlining
the objectives for like the story,
it's like a fun little story, I guess,
but it is not like a gripping edge of your seat narrative.
It's like a fairy tale, you know what I mean?
Like, so I think that if you just mainline the story
and fly and not spend any time in the actual world,
you're gonna totally miss the point of this game.
And for that reason, like for the stuff that it's doing
with like just being a real love letter to a specific place
and like showing me all about that place,
I don't know fucking anything about New Caledonia.
Now I know where it is from last week's hit box.
And now I know about the food they eat.
And I know that like they speak two different languages there
and like, you know what I mean?
Like I think it's really cool
with all that sort of stuff.
I'm gonna add, you gotta remember it's a fairy tale.
Like it is a fairy tale, right?
But I'm playing the game at the very beginning
and you have this like this nice little like relaxing
kind of island thing going on.
And all of a sudden this helicopter made of wood and vines
comes like, it looks like a goblin made it or something
that it's like coming down.
And then there's these like, I don't know,
fabric creatures like on it like coming off.
And I'm like, okay, so is everything
that I just was thinking was like the New Caledonia,
is it just actually just like fairy tale land?
Like it like is just flirting on realism enough
that it's like that modern day fantasy.
There's a name for that, I can't think of it.
Magical realism.
Yeah, it's like the magical realism that is just,
it just took me away from what I thought
the initial point was like here's this island,
but there's also these fabric monsters
and this like magical thing up in the air.
I think they could have easily have done that without it,
but maybe where the story goes,
it kind of explains that a little bit more.
And maybe they are people like part of their narrative
is about like this like magical realism in the world
or something, but I don't know.
It just seemed a little out of place
when that helicopter came for the first time.
And then I was taken out of like,
this is just a pretty island.
Yes, it's definitely like drops the, it is,
you've not gotten to it yet.
You go full fairy tale in certain aspects to it.
Cause it is about, you know,
the premise is you're trying to get your dad back
from the bad guy.
Yeah, Miavara.
And can I say, and I'm not gonna spoil anything here,
I think there should be an ESRB rating thing
for violence against children and babies,
because there's some shit that happens
that is like very shocking in a game that's rated T.
And I don't think it should be rated M,
but I just think having something saying,
hey, just so you know,
violence against children in an upsetting way.
And like, this is the kind of like violence too
in a certain way that you get in the game.
Like this is maybe a light spoiler
if you don't wanna hear anything about it,
tune out for like 30 seconds.
You have to bring a dead chicken back
to like make an offering to see someone.
And like the character you get the chicken from
literally just cuts its head off.
You don't see the cutoff,
but you see the body of the chicken go down
with its like neck bone just hanging out.
And occasionally blood doing,
and just keeps walking around.
And they're like, oh yeah, they walk around for a while.
And it's like this oddly horrific yet,
they made a joke out of it thing
that is just unsettling with how like sweet of a moment
you just had with this other little girl.
Like as you're like sitting and like taking in the sights
and you just have this like gushing blood,
headless chicken running around.
But what I like about that though too is it's like,
I imagine that's a cultural thing, right?
Like if they're always dealing with chickens
and if they're beheading chickens that they can eat
or make offerings or whatever,
like it's probably just a pretty passe thing for them.
You know what I mean?
And so for us, we're like, oh my gosh, that's so crazy.
But like, I imagine if that's the case,
you know what I'm trying to say?
Yeah, I get that a hundred percent,
but like it's played for laughter in like a weird way.
Yes, 100%.
In a way that it's like, whoa.
It's like just disturbing enough.
Like not so much that they're killing a chicken,
the fact that they like just have it like run around
like that with the blood coming out.
Like there was a million different ways
that they could have done that that didn't feel so like
gory but like also funny.
Like it was just, it's like a weird vibe.
It's the first T rated game that I've ever seen.
I'm fascinated by ESRB ratings by the way.
It's the first T rated game that I've ever seen
like that's rated for blood and gore.
Cause usually you have, whenever you have gore in a game,
it's like, hey, it's M rated, you know what I mean?
But yeah, I love this game.
It's just, it's, I think it's just so,
it's clear that the people who made it love this place
and that they were trying to make this place, you know,
I've never been to New Caledonia.
I may never go to New Caledonia, but like,
so, you know, maybe it's not super, super accurate
in terms of their portrayal.
But for me, if they're saying, hey, we made this game
and it's accurate, like it feels like a completely different
interesting culture that I've just had a lot of fun
diving deep into and just like enjoying
the beauty of the game they made.
Like, when talking about like people who are just gonna fly
from objective to objective and go like,
nah, I didn't really like it.
It wasn't really a good open world game.
It's like, like I said, I think it's missing the point.
Like I noticed recently like, oh wow,
the clouds move and change.
And I know that's such a small thing.
And like, you know, you could say like, who cares?
Like in video games, we can have a million things happen.
Like who cares about the clouds?
But I don't know, it was just like a nice, like,
oh, they really thought about what the clouds
would look like here.
And I'm sure that they took notes of how the clouds work
and behave out there.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, yeah.
One more kind of like, there's, it's buggy.
I don't know how many times you or an item
has gotten stuck in the world.
That kind of has bothered me a little bit.
Nothing like game breaking, but just like,
there was a time I was sailing my boat
and then I was like, there's like all these like caution
signs, like as you're going through it.
And my boat literally got stuck on the caution sign.
And you might think like, oh, if you just like turn around,
you can get unstuck from it.
No, like there's literally the sign post
was in the middle of it.
And it would pivot around the sign post.
And if you turned it to a certain thing,
it started to violently like shake in like a really weird,
funny, uncomfortable way.
If you are a Patreon member, I can show you the video clip
I took of that.
So that would be a little bit of a tease for our Patreon.
But like, so there's moments like that
and a couple of things get stuck occasionally and everything.
I feel like the combat is kind of lame at times.
I think this game shouldn't have combat.
It was like, you fight the cloth monsters
that you were talking about earlier
in these like little like, they're like four of them
hanging out a little encampment.
And basically you soul jump into like a lantern
or can of gasoline, you just fucking light them on fire.
Like it adds nothing.
It's like, I don't know how you do it,
but I like basically go in a lantern,
explode the lantern, I fly up in the air
and I ragdoll to the ground.
Hop to another one.
Get to the next one.
The ragdolling in this game, by the way, is fucking great.
She fucking brutally just like on the ground.
It makes me laugh every time.
Yeah, it's not, it's nothing.
And then the boat sailing is like
interesting mechanic enough.
There's three stations on a boat
that you have to deal with.
You have the sail to increase the speed.
You have the udder, it's not the udder.
It's the rudder.
The rudder, that's it.
It's the rudder that steers it.
And then you have the anchor that stops it.
And like, while in theory it works,
like I think that's cool.
And I like that like simple immersion
to like just make it not just simple
like pressing A to go forward.
There's so many times when the,
you get stuck on the wrong one,
like I'm at the rudder and then I wanna get off of it
to go to the sail so I leave it.
And then I go to the sail but I haven't walked far enough
and I go backwards like a couple steps
to get the rudder again.
Same thing with the thing.
Like I get like that, like I don't not like this game.
It's just like okay in terms of like
the gameplay stuff from it.
But like the world and stuff and the exploring and stuff.
And are you kidding me?
I love Breath of the Wild.
This is just more of that kind of exploring the world
in a beautiful place with some nice music in the background.
I eat this shit up.
I wish it was on the Switch.
Thank you.
He yields his time everyone.
Thank you.
I think that's all we're gonna say about Chia.
If you wanna hear more, we're talking about it even more
on our Patreon exclusive episode this week.
Justin, let's talk about the news.
Let's do it.
Multi Versus, a video game that you,
if I'm remembering correctly, are a pretty big fan of.
So it's shutting down but wait, hold on a second.
Not forever.
It's closing its beta in June
and then it's gonna relaunch its 1.0 later in 2024.
On June 25th, the game is going down
but it's not going down for good.
It's just gonna be relaunching for its 1.0 version in 2024.
As a fan of this game, Justin,
and just a general video game enthusiast,
how do you take this news?
What does this make you think?
So if you remember just looking through news,
Multi Versus player counts have been plummeting.
From when it first launched,
it was one of the more successful free-to-play games
in terms of player count and now it was really, really low,
concerningly low.
And then all of a sudden they're like,
hey, we have our open beta is shutting down
and we're gonna actually launch the real game
next year in early 2024.
And to me, this seems like it wasn't the plan.
It seems to me they're using this as a moment
to be like, we gotta fix something.
We've run out of stuff for people to be interested
and engaged with it and we gotta do something else
when we release the actual game.
Maybe that's gonna mean it's not gonna be free-to-play.
Maybe that means they're gonna be changing
how they dole out content.
Or maybe they just need time to catch up
so they get more characters out there.
But I think this is one of the problems
with every company trying to chase Fortnite
is that what Fortnite does that is brilliant
in terms of it being one of the longest lasting
free-to-play games is that nothing you get
or pay for impacts gameplay at all.
It is all cosmetic.
It is all cosmetics you want because they're awesome.
The battle passes themselves.
You get cool stuff from them,
but it's not like it changes your gameplay experience.
You are still on the same playing field
as everyone else at the start of that match.
That is not the case in multiverses.
The more characters they unlock,
the more of a paywall there is behind it,
the more it de-incentivizes new users from doing it
because it's like, oh, well, I don't have the new character.
I have to pay money to do this.
Well, yeah, I'm just using Superman again, whatever.
I have to put all this time into it
to unlock these other characters and stuff.
Yeah, you can still grind to get this currency,
but you don't want to grind for two weeks
when a character gets released to get it
just to have people stop talking about that new character
because it took you forever to unlock it for free.
So I think the things that stopped me from playing it
were partially that.
I wasn't going to spend money on this
because I guess I'm a bad fan.
And the other thing that really killed me
was I got so into, I forget what version it was,
but they rebalanced everything
and it made characters significantly worse and changed.
And I'm like, I'm not the kind of person
who can learn all this stuff again
and then plus be behind
because they don't have the right characters.
And then all of a sudden the meta is saying
that these paid-for characters are the better characters,
so I have to do those characters,
but I had paid for the characters
that were currently the better characters,
or not paid for, I unlocked them with the free currency,
but now they're not good anymore,
so I have these unlocked crappy characters
and all these other ones.
So I just think the model itself needs to be looked at
because yeah, free-to-play is cool.
It gets people in there,
but if you start sectioning off content like this,
it's not going to sustain the free-to-play audience.
I think it's, I don't know if we talked about this as well
with the closure of all of those games
that we were talking about two weeks ago, three weeks ago.
I think at a certain point,
there's only so much free time that people have.
Right?
And at a certain point,
people are just going to go back to Fortnite
because that's what they know.
They're going to go back to Apex Legends.
They're going to go back to PUBG and the Call of Duty one.
Right?
Like, I don't know.
I don't know if there are enough people
who are going to be like playing this
for it to be able to sustain that.
Does that make sense?
And yeah, people are, I think, kind of rightfully upset,
basically saying that, you know,
it would be cool if we could get some refunds.
So someone responded, I don't know who this is,
Wrench D, they're verified on Twitter.
Who are you?
Are you a legacy verified account?
So potentially, somewhat interesting.
Twitter fucking blows.
They responded to Multiverse's official Twitter account
that's announcing that they're closing the beta
by saying, can I get a refund
for the $100 Founder Pack in that case?
And people are talking about it on Reddit as well
because it's going off for at least six months
because they say it's launching in early 2024,
going offline in June.
So at least six months, it's going to be offline.
But then there are questions too about like,
is it even going to come back?
Like, you know, if they were having like,
if they were tanking in terms of player numbers
and stuff like that, before the game even launched,
like, is it even going to come back?
And like, you know, you look at the closure
of all these other games and like,
it just seems like it's not a great space right now
because I think people have reached their maximum capacity
for the amount of these sorts of games
that they're willing to play.
I don't know.
Like, I'm not going to, when this,
if slash when this comes out again,
like, I'm not going to touch it.
Like, it just doesn't really seem like, I don't know.
Do you know what I'm trying to say?
Oh yeah, no, I know.
It's like, I don't know.
So I guess that's a good question for you.
Is there anything that they could do
to make you want to pick this up
when they relaunch it in 2024?
No.
And I would say things that could get me on board with it
are not realistic things for me to want.
Things that I would love would be
to have more single player content, more like, you know,
the, one of the things that I love Smash for,
as stupid as it was, were those, the stickers,
the trophy, were these stickers that you get?
Or the-
Spirits?
Spirits, yeah, the spirits.
I got like obsessed with getting those spirits.
Whenever they'd have new ones come out,
I'd be like, I gotta collect these.
That would be a complete single player thing
that was just something I would go back to.
Even the spirit, the single player game in that,
again, it's stupid, but it gives you something to do,
yeah, it's a free to play game,
but it gives you something to do.
And it's high quality content.
Like, there's a lot of stuff that happens in that.
And I mean, oh yeah, you're just saying it's a spirit.
It's like a stupid like 2D cutout.
But they had challenges involved with all of them.
Whenever you get a DLC pack,
I look forward to looking at their spirit challenges
that they would have associated with those DLC characters,
because they would be like, they'd do creative things
to get like the other characters involved.
This one, it is all online.
And when you have the game that is all online,
the thing that you care about is the important stuff,
like which characters are viable to play online,
which characters are the good characters to play.
And then if it turns out that some of those characters
are behind a paywall of any sort,
or behind a grind session of any sort,
it's just not gonna keep people coming back to this,
because they're gonna go online, get their ass kicked,
and then be like, oh, this isn't fun.
I can't even train or get better with single player,
because the only single player they have
are like some like basic,
like I think it's like a training mode lab,
I think it was in multiverses that you could do.
So I don't know, I mean, it would have to take a lot.
But I think if they would release the whole roster,
if they would release some single player content,
I might consider if it's the right price,
if they have it as a price and not free to play, buying it.
But if it's not, and if it's something that keeps doing
this like free to play model that is gonna nickel and dime
me to death for the rest of its lifestyle,
that's not gonna sustain me long term.
So single player and then full roster at a price
is what I would suggest.
Yeah, yeah.
I guess we'll see.
You seem so sad, you didn't even really play the game.
No, I'm not sad.
I just like, this is like, it's just,
it's such a weird situation.
And also, I mean, like I know that like games will be
in early access for like extended periods of time
before launching.
But like you think about like, oh my gosh,
this game came like launch, this beta launch in 2022.
And then in 2024, the final game is coming out.
You know what I mean?
And when you think about like, truly,
what is actually going to be different like,
to anyone who's just like glancing at it, nothing, right?
Like for me, like someone like me, who I played it,
went, yeah, I don't know if this is for me.
And then moved on, like when this eventually does come out,
if it does come out, like I'm gonna have the same exact,
like nope, there's nothing that they could do
to get me into this, you know what I mean?
Yeah, I mean, has there ever been a situation
like this before?
Like when a game that was like in a closed beta
and then I guess it was an open beta,
but like you could like significantly spend
a lot of money on this game
and you could put significant amounts of money in it
and they just take it down for six months at least.
I mean, I'm assuming it's going down
and they're gonna get out in January,
which I don't think that's possible.
Like that seems to me like a very predatory thing
that I'm not like, even if this is for the best
of the future of this game,
I'm not gonna trust these people again
that they're not gonna do something like this.
And why would I ever put money back into this game
if they can just shut it down,
if it doesn't have enough players in the future?
Like there's no reason for me to do that.
I will say, they did say that all purchase items
and progression will be carried over for the final launch.
But your point remains, like it's like that,
yes, good, that should be fucking, yes, you should.
Like that is the minimum, right?
But yeah, no, I think you're 100% on the money here.
Like, yeah, I mean, right?
Like it's just so fast to open and close
and then the question of like,
and not even having like, just saying early 2024,
you're right, it could be January 1st.
Or it could be.
Or it could be, early 2024, when does it even come,
like are we in early 2024, 2023?
I would say maybe.
It feels like it's 2030 has been happening forever,
but then it's also like only March,
but then I'm also like, wait, it's already March,
you know what I mean?
A thousand percent.
I'm very confused.
But right, like it's just that whole question of like,
we won't be seeing this game, it's full release
until probably around a year from right now.
A year from right now,
my life is gonna be very different, I think.
Like just in terms of like what my life is gonna be,
you know what I mean?
Like think about where you're gonna be a year from now.
Like that's crazy, you're a teacher, so you're a teacher.
I was like, the easy answer is that
my life will be different.
The sad answer is it might not be, and I really.
But like you'll have a house by then probably, right?
Like think about where you were a year,
like think about where you were like last year right now.
Like I didn't have this metal ring on my finger.
Yeah, you weren't married.
I was fucking not, like I wasn't making money doing,
like writing like crazy.
It's what I'm trying to say.
I didn't have a job, it was fucking crazy, man.
So yeah, I don't know.
Let's talk about Ubisoft.
They announced that they are not gonna be attending
E3 2023, and instead they're gonna be hosting
their own live streamed event in June.
This I think is a pretty big blow for E3.
Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony all said,
hey, we're not gonna be at E3 this year.
A lot of people are like, that is the death of E3.
When that was announced, I think we talked about like,
well, you know, you're still gonna have your EA,
it's probably gonna be there.
Ubisoft will probably be there.
Insert other big publisher will be there.
And then, you know, you got the full lineup of indie games,
like that's huge and everything.
But at this point, like, okay, Ubisoft's not gonna be there.
Like that is the, I think, the start of these more,
like these bigger publishers also sort of dipping out
and whatnot.
What do you think?
I mean, I'm trying to find out like,
who literally is going to be at this show at this point.
Like who's going to be there?
Are people gonna care?
Like, is Jeff Keighley going to win the presentation
because people are just gonna give him leaks
and his like award show is gonna be awesome or things.
Like, to me, like, what is E3 anymore?
Well, I think that's the big question.
Also it's worth pointing out that Ubisoft said last month
that like, we will be going to E3.
And then are now like, we are not going to E3.
They're gonna move in a different direction
according to VDC.
But yeah, no, I think you're asking the right question.
I think you're asking a question that E3,
cause who's in charge of it now?
It's not the ESA anymore.
It is-
Readpop.
Readpop, yes.
I'm going to C2ET this weekend.
That's a Readpop event.
Like, I think that like, they need to be asking themselves,
what is E3 and like, what are we gonna do with E3?
And I think the big thing for that could potentially be like,
it might just have to turn into a fan thing.
You know what I mean?
Where like the big publishers just aren't really there
or like, you know, big publishers,
some of them might be there, you know, EA might be there,
Activision might be there, but for the most part,
it's gonna be more indie games.
And then also just a big fan convention.
You know what I mean?
Which is weird cause you know,
up until this point has been an industry event.
You know what I mean?
Which is very different than a fan thing.
But yeah, I mean, like, I don't know.
Like, yeah, for Summer Games Fest,
one of these big publishers might join in,
but like Nintendo won't, you know what I mean?
I don't think Sony would either.
Sony might give them something for Summer Games Fest,
but like, I think Microsoft's really the only one
who would wanna play ball, but even then,
if they're having to compete against everything else,
then maybe they just do their own showcase
and let Summer Games Fest be another sort of
E3 type thing as well.
I'm gonna say like, two hats here, as a fan, this is sad.
As everyone else, like specifically these publishers,
I think this is a good thing.
I think there's so many times when announcements
have been pushed and rushed for these big media events
that they have that it creates unnecessary stress
on the studios to try to fill deadlines.
The studios feel like they need to have announcements
cause if they didn't have announcements,
oh no, you didn't announce anything,
you didn't give a date to this, oh no.
And then for showing something cool,
they get flack for it because they did not show enough.
And then at a certain point, what is enough?
Like is it everything you want to shadow drop?
Like is the only way to make people happy?
Like oh, in Breath of the Wild, you can have it right now.
In fact, it's already in your Switch
and you like open up your Switch
and then like the Tears of the Kingdom starts playing on it.
Like I think it's cool for a fan
to experience these press conferences,
but I think almost everything else about it
is bad for the industry other than getting eyes on it.
But like we have this thing called the internet
and guess what, eyes get on things now,
whether we have E3 or not.
So I think if anything, it's stopping these companies
from feeling like they have to announce things
that aren't coming out like that close too soon.
And then we have more delays and things get pushed back.
And I think we're just in a world where things,
it's harder to stick to a schedule.
It's not smart to stick to a schedule.
And when you don't have clear dates on stuff
and when things are getting released,
these press conferences only create more resentment
between the consumer and the publishers.
So I think this makes sense.
Do a press conference when you're ready.
You can control the, it's cheaper,
you can control the message and you can control when it is.
I think the one thing that's really gonna hurt
with that sort of change though,
this sort of change is indie devs and publishers
because so much networking was going on behind the scenes
with that sort of stuff.
You know what I mean?
Like if you're an indie developer,
like how do you get in the door to be like,
put on Game Pass, to find a publisher,
you know what I mean?
Like E3 I think did a lot for those types of people
of just saying like, hey, we're gonna be,
we're gonna jump in and do this.
I'm meeting you, hey, I've got a game, come play our game.
Okay, cool, we're gonna publish your game.
You know what I mean?
And so the death of that, the death of in-person events
for that sort of networking industry stuff I think
is probably going to maybe impact things
not in a very super public way, but still impact them.
Well, I mean, even like, there's still gaming events
and stuff that are out there.
The things that are happening that still allow
for that kind of stuff.
Didn't GDC just happen?
Yeah, it's not completely gone, but you're saying,
okay, listen, we are in, you know,
this indie development company studio,
we have created a Ford for two people
to go to one conference this year.
Where do we go?
The answer used to be E3, no matter what, right?
Now it's like, do we go to GDC?
Do we go to PAX?
You know, like, there's not like the one big one
that makes sense because you know all of the big people
are gonna be there to do whatever.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Yeah, yeah, no, yeah.
And I don't think you're wrong.
Like, obviously, yes, this isn't like the death of all
industry events and whatever,
but I think it is still potentially kind of tricky.
Well, and I was just gonna add too,
but like, think about how many times in these,
like summer game fest digital things
that they still are able to highlight these indie games
to get them there.
Well, yeah, you don't necessarily get the networking
with the adults talking to adults.
You get at least their names out there
for people to see and still can get interest and stuff.
I just think we're moving to a place
where digital marketing is way more important
and cheaper and efficient than in-person marketing,
which might be an interesting transition
for the next story you're about to mention.
Yeah, and it's interesting, like,
for the same counters that I'm gonna have
for this next story, it's like, you're probably right.
Like, it is probably more efficient,
more cost effective, whatever,
but there is something that you miss out on
when you have a large group of people in the same room,
right, like, that are all seeing this thing
for the first time or all being able to actually play
the demo for the first time and you're able to see,
watch them in person do whatever, you know what I mean?
We were, I was at a state competition
and they had a state winning film, short film,
like a five minute short film being played.
And like, you know, you can watch it yourself,
you can judge it yourself, you can see it yourself,
but they played it in an auditorium
filled with 850 high schoolers.
And the reactions that the film got were like amazing.
Like, they laughed at every part
they were supposed to laugh at, they clapped at the end,
just like having those emotions about the in-person thing.
And I know 100%, I'm a communications guy,
I'm a communication, I got a master's in communication,
like I do communication, you know, 90% of my days.
I think there is definitely face to face stuff
that's important, that is huge, that is like industry,
like that is important for any industry that you're in,
not just video games or anything,
but money is also a factor.
A thousand percent.
And I will say, like, I will say that, you know,
for in terms of like funding and whatever,
like it is tough to figure out where to go,
what to do, whatever, but Ubisoft has a new AI writing tool
that it debuted and showed off at GDC called Ghostwriter,
where basically it is an AI tool that helps them write,
like non-cinematic, like NPC barks, if that makes sense.
So like you're walking on the street
and you get someone going like, hey, I'm walking here,
like that sort of like dialogue.
It's not for like lore or for like flavor texts
that you're gonna find or for like actual stories
or cinematics or anything like that.
It's more of just like for additional dialogue
and stuff like that.
And so Ghostwriter was shown off at GDC
and it has had a pretty negative response.
And listen, like I'm on board of the idea of like,
hey, fucking invest in real writers,
invest in real people to write and stuff like that.
But it seems that there's more to the story
than just saying this is an AI writing tool
because Ubisoft LaForge researcher, Ben Swanson,
who is the person who was showing it off at GDC
really emphasized like it still requires people to use.
I don't know, I'm not smart enough to understand
how like chat generators work and stuff like that.
I'm hesitant to call them like AI because they're not,
right, like chat GBT is not an AI, it is a chat bot.
It's not thinking, right?
It is just regurgitating text.
And that's what this is.
So I'm not entirely sure how this will impact people's jobs
and stuff like that, but it seems like it's the sort of thing
that could be used to just make the process
of coming up with that additional dialogue
a little bit easier.
That said, if you told me that all of the Ubisoft games
for the past five years, five, 10 years
have been written by AI, I would have believed you 1000%.
I would have been like yep, that tracks.
What do you think of this?
I think this is, folks, the genie is out of the bottle
with this stuff.
It's not going back.
People are only gonna keep iterating
and the first company that can accurately make
a dialogue generator AI is gonna make a lot of money,
whether that's Ubisoft, whether that's Microsoft,
whether that's some company that we don't even know about
that exists yet.
There's money in this and it's gonna only keep happening
and keep getting better.
I understand the negatives about it, the human cost to it,
and I think a lot of people who counter like,
well, you still need smart people to be able to input
into this generator to get good results.
You almost need to have a programming language
that you create in order to get the right results
out of this stuff.
That's where we're at with this now.
I mean, eventually, the longer this stuff goes,
the less you're gonna have to be that specific with it.
We talked about this on one of our bonus episodes
for Patreon subscribers in which we actually were writing
scripts and stuff using Chat GBT and a lot of it's basic,
but I remember using the CRAN AI,
which was the, you can make pictures of stuff.
I used it last summer and the pictures you got from it
were weird and blobby and not good.
Have you tried that recently?
Because it's still blobby, but it's better.
And every iteration of this stuff,
it's only gonna get better and eventually,
this is something that, ironic that Ubisoft is doing this,
but this is something that can help smaller studios
compete with bigger studios to have a studio
of three people will be able to have a team of people
working behind them that are computers
that can help create dialogue and stories and worlds
that they couldn't do otherwise.
And I'm not saying that this is a good thing
and there's definitely a real human issue
that's going to be coming up with this stuff,
but I always reckon it to the same thing that happened
when computers were invented.
People were afraid of computers when they first invented.
Can you imagine your life without a computer now?
Right, right.
And it changed jobs.
It probably replaced some jobs.
Heck, I was replaced by a machine at one point
when I was working at the movie theater.
Like I used to be a projectionist and then eventually,
they had a computer do all that stuff
so I didn't have to run film anymore.
So I don't know, I think my opinion about all of this stuff
is that it's going to change industries.
That doesn't mean it's going to replace the need for humans
in certain places.
How we interact with it is going to always be important.
But yeah, it's a weird, interesting precipice
that we're on, a starting point
of something new and interesting.
I'm fascinated by where it's going.
Not in terms of like, I think it's the best thing ever,
but it's just, this is a technological jump
in our society in a way that whatever comes next,
it's already happening.
We gotta just look, adapt, and react.
Yeah, and I think that the general nervousness
that a lot of people have towards this stuff
is very warranted, especially with a studio like Ubisoft
who I think is fine cutting corners in certain regards,
you know what I mean, and saying fine looking at things
and going like, okay, we're just gonna scrap these people
because we got AI to do this job now, right?
I think automation, like you said,
does replace jobs and whatever,
and I think it's just something to be cautious of
and wary of.
But this one in particular, I think it's a little too early
to know what sort of ramifications it's going to have.
Obviously, it's Ubisoft's job as the producer
of this new tech to go like, no, no, no, it'll all be fine.
Don't worry, this will not impact anyone's jobs.
That's their job right now to make sure
that people are comfortable enough to be interested in it.
But yeah, we'll see, we'll see.
I think a funny thing too is that it's Ubisoft,
as you joked, it's not like their writing is great
to begin with, it's indistinguishable from AI stuff.
No offense to the writers on Ubisoft projects.
But can you imagine if Naughty Dog came out and did this,
we're creating their next Last of Us,
and not only will you see Ellie put on a shirt
and every character take off all their clothing
and put it back on perfectly,
you will also have dialogue written by an AI.
You know, like. But it'll just be like
the fucking Chad GBT stuff that we came up with
is like, hello Ellie, how are you doing today?
And it's like, I am good, how are you doing today?
And it's like, I am also good.
Well, but you know, programming jobs
weren't really a thing 70 years ago.
Like if you were a programmer that was such a niche field,
now programming is like a huge job,
a huge market that came up from this stuff.
So I don't know, be wary, but this is not the end.
This is just a change.
As I will say, as a writer specifically,
this sort of stuff always makes me nervous
just because executives do not see the appeal.
Like they just don't understand the value
of having human beings read and write
and connect and talk to other people.
They're like, well, if an AI can just write this,
we'll just do that.
And like, oh no.
No, it's really important to have a human being
who has a memory and has context
and is able to interpret and analyze something.
Yeah.
I don't wanna be this guy, but.
Be this guy.
I would say you are an exceptional worker.
Do you ever look around at your coworkers sometimes
and note that they are not as exceptional as you?
I refuse to talk poorly about anyone I work with, but yes.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, right.
I think that there's always people,
I'm not saying that this is necessarily me,
but I always think that there are gonna be people
who are willing to go above and beyond for something
and people who are willing to just sort of coast.
And I'm not trying to say that, again,
I'm not, that's me sometimes.
When I worked for fucking old Navy, that was me.
You know what I mean?
I'm here to get paid and whatever, and that's fine.
And there are people who work similar jobs to me
who do the same thing, right?
There's nothing wrong with that.
It's not a moral judgment or anything like that,
but totally.
Yeah.
So, Justin, Microsoft, you know them, we know them.
Do they have an AI yet?
No, no, no, a new one just popped up, Google Bar.
Yeah, I'm actually on that beta, so.
Are you really?
You know what I mean?
Tell me what you think about it when off air.
Because I was writing about it today, or yesterday,
just like, hey, you can sign up for this now.
It has some difficulty.
Fucking, when they showed it off in February,
just straight up answered a question incorrectly.
It was like, who discovered this?
It's a planet thing.
And they just didn't have the answer.
Just like, Google it, man.
Microsoft, no, they are discontinuing
their $1 Game Pass trial.
If you remember, it was $1 for three months
of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which is awesome.
And it was three months, right?
$1 for three months?
Yeah.
Or maybe, no, it was just $1 for one month.
For the first month.
Yeah, and then it kicks off in full.
But, yeah, this is kind of interesting.
I know a lot of people are a little bit worried
about Microsoft right now with the Activision Blizzard deal
that they're trying to acquire and whatnot,
in terms of, I know people are very wary of,
oh, is Xbox becoming a monopoly or not?
We answered that in an episode.
So we finally did it.
They've been asking us for so long
and we finally answered it.
We gave the definitive answer to that question.
I'm obviously being facetious.
But now we've talked about that pretty much at length.
But I think it's good right now to be a little wary
of the way Microsoft is conducting its business
and the way it's charging for its services.
But I think they had a pretty solid response to this.
Basically, Diverge reached out to them
and Kerry Perez, head of global communications at Xbox,
said, we stopped our previous introductory offer
for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass
and are evaluating different marketing promotions
for new members in the future.
Again, I think it's important and worth it
to be looking at what Microsoft is doing
and looking at what any of these companies are doing
for their promotions and whatever.
But it's not unheard of or even unusual
for a company to stop offering a promotion.
They just, at a certain point, they just do, right?
And I think for a deal as $1 for a month of Game Pass,
at a certain point, yeah, that is an X.
The deal of Game Pass just gets better and better and better.
I imagine at a certain point they're gonna say,
we gotta stop doing this.
Peter, do you know how easy it is
to make a new email address?
Let me try right now.
So while you're-
It's actually pretty easy.
While you're doing that, it is really easy
to make a new email address.
And I'm not saying that everyone did this,
but I'm sure they see numbers and I'm sure they see
that a lot of the times,
who are people playing these new games?
I'm sure they did a cost benefit analysis
and were like, a lot of these people are just using this
to play a game when it comes out for the first month
and then canceling Game Pass.
I'm sure that's not everyone.
I'm sure for every 10 of those people,
one person forgets to cancel and they're on it
for another couple months or whatever.
Yeah, I'm still on the PlayStation, the premium,
whatever it is, the highest tier of that that I don't use.
Yeah, but you got 30 fucking bucks out of it for a cheetah.
That's true, but I don't need to be on the one
that gives you the old PlayStation classics.
I have not touched Ape Escape, so I don't know why I'm there,
but I still have it.
I saw the auto renew a couple months back
and I got really sad.
I was like, there's always nothing I could do about this.
Yeah.
But I'm sure they see that and they do that
because they noted that it's something
that is probably losing the money
and they're still businesses.
I know it's a great thing for a consumer,
but it's still a business
and they're still trying to make money.
And I'm sure if anything,
what does Microsoft want people to do?
Play Game Pass.
They'll come up with something
to get people to play Game Pass
because I guess apparently the awesome catalog
of games isn't enough.
Hey, for $9 or maybe it's $10, whatever.
And it's even less than that
if you're just getting Xbox Game Pass,
if you don't need Game Pass Ultimate.
Play Hi-Fi Rush.
It's pretty good.
For nine fucking dollars, it's pretty good, y'all.
So, I was looking for a game for my wife
to play on Game Pass this morning
and I had a bunch of stuff downloaded
that either she had played in the past
or I thought she'd want to play.
Turns out all of those games I had downloaded
are no longer on Game Pass.
Yeah, that'll happen.
And quite a significant amount of them.
So then I went on the PlayStation Premium
and almost every game that was off of Game Pass
was on the Premium for PlayStation,
which I thought was pretty funny in the world we live in.
One of them was Spiritfarer was a good one.
But awesome game, by the way.
I don't know Claire's gaming habits at all.
And I also don't know if this is on console Game Pass,
but I'm just scrolling through PC Game Pass right now.
And Elena got a lot out of Frog Detective.
Oh, okay, I'll look at that.
It's three games, they're very, very short and simple.
The How Long to Beat thing is three hours
for the main story of the Frog Detective colon,
the entire mystery, which is all three games.
Is that anything like Frog Fractions?
No.
That's disappointing to hear.
But Frog Fractions is excellent.
Yeah, I don't know what kind of game she's into.
She's currently, she found Power Wash Simulator
and that is exactly up her alley.
That is a good ass game.
I don't know how into Disney she is,
but I know that Disney Dreamlight Valley is,
I know a lot of people are hooked on that.
Well, I mean, she played a lot of Disneyland Adventures,
that one.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, she was really into that one.
Hasn't really got the bug for Dreamlight Valley yet, but.
I'm also, I'm just browsing.
Wait, wait, wait, what did you say?
She said it was scary.
Disney Dreamlight Valley?
Why was it scary?
She didn't like the wizard, she said.
So if anyone's played the game
and you think the wizard is scary.
No fucking context for that.
That's fucking awesome.
I'm also, by the way, scrolling through
the powerful women of Game Pass.
It's just like a playlist
of a bunch of different games on here.
And I think this is like a cool thing to include.
But sometimes it makes me laugh
about like the inclusions that are on here.
It's like, obviously you get, you know,
your Life is Strange True Colors,
Hellblade, you know, Frog Detective,
you know, my friend Peppa Pig.
I saw that.
Hey, what's wrong with Peppa Pig?
That was actually my nephew's first video game
that he played.
Peepa.
I've heard this game is great, by the way.
Yeah, that was the first game he played.
He got to customize his character.
It looked adorable.
I'm not knocking Peppa Pig.
I'm just, it's just like fucking powerful women, Peppa Pig.
I just realized Peppa Pig was a woman
now that we've had this conversation.
Psychonauts 2 is on here
and there are like powerful women in the game,
but it's interesting, interesting.
I wonder where it qualifies.
Because to me, it seems like these are all like protagonists.
You can play as women.
I don't know.
Yeah.
I'm clear.
Is Peppa Pig a woman?
I have no idea.
I just, I'm assuming that you said that.
Maybe not.
I didn't even know.
I don't even know what Peppa Pig sounds like.
Peepa.
She's, they're Australian.
Oi?
Peepa.
Oh.
They had to take an episode off air
because it like taught kids that like,
hey, spiders are friends.
And then like, no, not in Australia.
Do you remember when I sent you that video
about the flying spider currents?
And I was like, are these real?
And you said yes.
And I never want to go to Australia.
Yeah, they are real.
I never encountered them.
I think they're a Northern thing.
I was in the South.
So to be clear, they're literally just like spiders
that get caught up in updrafts
and then the updraft stops and they just fall?
Well, you think about like,
you got a lot of spiders in one place, right?
And you get like, they're all like on their webs
and whatever, and then you get a bunch of wind,
like fly through the webs and the webs break
and then they all sort of float around
and then they come down, right?
And people like walk through those?
I don't, I imagine you would try not to.
Oh gosh, I just imagined doing that.
I imagine you try not to, but,
I'll say this about the Australians.
They just think a lot of random stuff is very passe
that's fucking crazy.
I'm like, I'm not gonna do that.
In Cairns, it's in Queensland.
It's like Northeastern.
It's where like, you go to swim in the Great Barrier Reef.
At night, flying, I don't know,
maybe 12 to 24 inches above your head
are just giant hoards of like two foot long vampire bats.
Not vampire bats, flying foxes.
No.
And they're cool, they don't bother you,
they're just flying around and they're just screeching
and screaming the whole time.
And the first night I was there, I went into my hotel
and I was like, hey, something is going on.
And they're like, what?
I asked, is this regular?
And they're like, what do you mean?
They were like, what do you mean by that?
And I was like, okay, so the fact that you are
completely unfazed by this means, yes, this is regular.
Oh no.
Yeah, so peep-a, peep-a-peek.
Justin, that's all I got in terms of the news.
What do you say we wrap this bad boy up here?
Yeah, let's wrap her up.
Actually, I know that people will be upset
because you said that you're watching anime
or something earlier and then you were like,
we'll talk about that later and then we didn't.
So tell me about anime.
Oh, I mean, so I just finished watching
the season six finale of My Hero Academia.
Is it good?
I mean, it's like setting up.
Is season six good in general?
Yo, yo, dude, dude, dude, season six,
it starts off with a war and then it ends up.
A war?
Yeah, it's one of the most action-packed starts
to a season ever and so many heroes get injured.
Some main characters die.
Whoa.
I know, I know, it's pretty intense.
Which ones?
There's fucking a thousand.
Yeah, that's why I said main characters in quotes.
The listeners weren't able to hear that.
But it goes to some pretty awesome places.
So yeah, I was gonna talk a little bit about that
but there's always time to talk about it later.
Don't you worry.
Okay.
Yeah, then I can talk about Chainsaw Man 2.
Did you watch Chainsaw Man?
I don't know if I did or not.
Maybe, maybe that'll be a future episode
that we can talk about it.
Justin, right now, did you watch Chainsaw Man, yes or no?
No, I read the first volume.
Oh!
Ah!
Oh!
Pfft!
Dude, it's so good!
Is it?
Oh gosh, you don't like it?
Oh!
Wait, what happens in the first one, hold on.
In the, oh, you're bringing it out, he's bringing it out.
Pulling it out.
Actually, I have two copies of the first one
just in case I need to either lend one to someone
or need it on the go.
Wait, wait, so you always carry it with you then?
I've got copies of the first three.
Oh, okay.
Two of the first three.
Oh yeah, no, you don't like it?
He's so boob motivated.
I know it has to get better, but he's like,
all I want is a good meal and a touch of boobs.
That's literally...
Justin, holy shit.
Wait, did you get, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Okay, so the resolution to the boob arc is incredible.
Think of what you just said, think of what you just said.
Justin, I know, Justin, I know.
I'm not one of those guys out here
like defending the fucking boob animes, right?
Like I'm not, that's not what I'm doing.
The resolution to the boob arc is so profound and meaningful
that I think about it often.
Okay.
I think about it often.
I could talk about Chainsaw Man for fucking nine hours.
You know what, maybe I should actually watch
the first season, which I have purchased, by the way.
You've purchased?
Yeah, it was like two bucks.
I bought it, it's two bucks.
I don't know what I bought it on, but it's there.
I would highly recommend Chainsaw Man.
Yeah, no, I think that on its surface,
it is one of those super macho, edgy manga anime,
but I think the things that it says about being alive
are very profound and deeply impactful.
And the first season of the show is very good.
And it follows the books pretty closely.
I'm sure it does, I don't wanna be like this guy,
but I'm sure it fills some of the,
between some of the panels in better ways
than the actual manga does.
Oh, Justin, I'm so excited to talk more about Chainsaw Man.
Maybe we'll do a Patreon exclusive
Chainsaw Man only episode.
Hey, I'm on spring break, maybe this is the week.
Means what, like nine episodes, 10 episodes?
Something like that, yeah.
Now that my hero's done, I got nothing else.
Yeah, yeah, oh, and I think Denji as a protagonist
is so interesting compared to someone like Deku,
where Deku is like,
I think Denji, oh, fuck, well, we get,
here's my thought, and then we'll end our show,
and then we'll save it for whatever bonus episode we do,
or whatever we end up talking about this more.
But Denji, I think he's such an interesting character,
because there's so many of these manga protagonists
who are all about, I need to be the very best,
I need to get to the top of the whatever,
and Denji's just like, I just wanna eat three meals a day
and have a place to sleep,
and I think that that's very compelling.
And?
And then when he gets that need met,
he's like, well, now that I kind of have
the basics for living, what do I need?
I think I wanna touch some boobs.
And then how that wraps up?
Basics for living.
But how that wraps up, Justin?
How that cups out?
How that is,
how that is, how that is, how that is, how that is,
is extremely, extremely profound, in my opinion.
Thanks so much for listening to our show.
If you have any thoughts about Chainsaw Man, tweet at me.
I wanna know.
I can't stop talking about Chainsaw Man.
I can't stop thinking about Chainsaw Man.
Here's my Chainsaw Man tattoo.
It was a joke, I don't have one.
Oh, what if you did?
I would, I would, man.
I'd make sure I- It's fucking good.
If you did have one, I'd kick flip away from you
the first time I saw you.
Ah, I like that, I like that.
I actually wrote a piece on Digital Trends
about how I think Chainsaw Man and Resident Evil 4
are a lovely little pairing together.
Oh, yeah.
And it's more than just the hooded chainsaw guys.
Yeah, I think tonally, in terms of being goofy,
but also being pretty serious and kinda scary sometimes,
I think that they go together pretty well.
But that is for another time, another place,
another space, like patreon.com slash hitboxpod,
where $1 podcast producers can donate to us $1
if they want to.
I said that all backwards.
If you got $1 a month that you wanna give to us,
become a podcast producer, or if you've got $3 a month
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like Jay Nolte and Dave Parker,
or, and or, want our 30-minute additional bonus episodes
published every single week,
you know where to find that, patreon.com slash hitboxpod.
Join our Discord server.
Link to that is in the description of this episode.
Follow us on Twitter at hitboxpod.
Review the podcast onto your podcast player.
Am I missing anything, Justin?
No, you're not missing a single note.
You've hit every note perfectly.
In fact, you got an S rank on that encounter.
Whoa. Yeah.
Those are references to Hi-Fi Rush.
Justin, to quote Chainsaw Man.
Are you just opening a random page?
I wanna touch some boobs.
Always remember, old games are old.
Bye. Bye.
All right. That's, I'll stop recording.