What do you mean you're pissed on your floor?
I saved that for the patrons.
What do you mean?
I saved it for the patrons.
That's where the good shit comes out.
Anything involved with piss and shit?
How have you fucking spilt that on the floor?
Look at that, look at the mess. Look at that.
It's the first time I picked it up, so it's obviously you.
No, it's you, because you're the cunt that put it down.
Look at the mess, no, look at the mess that you've made.
It's not me, is it?
That's gonna stain.
Oh, fuck off.
What it is is coffee.
It's gonna stain.
You'd be fucked if this was carpet.
Luckily this is tiling.
Give it a rest.
Look, animal.
Piss on the floor and now you're fucking spilling coffee on mine.
It's mental.
We're here.
Again, for another week.
You need to liven up.
What are you doing?
Looking at your Tesco socks.
Tesco's value, mate.
Do you like that?
You know I got the jump of the match.
Of course.
Yeah.
I had no T-shirts and shorts, otherwise I would have got full gear.
What can I say?
It's how it works.
Feel like adding anything today?
I was waiting for you to do your intro.
This is it. We're in it. We're in the mix of it.
The thick of it.
Episode number...
Oh, fuck knows.
40...
50...
50-something.
Okay then.
Before we do that,
we have surpassed 5,000 downloads.
65.
Episode 65.
So we've surpassed 5,000 downloads.
So thank you.
Do the maths with that, what you will.
What is that?
I don't know, it's a lot.
It's a fair bit.
5,000...
I don't like the maths.
50-something.
Fucking small numbers.
How does that make sense though? Because that's not the average.
I don't want to talk the numbers.
That's not the average.
What do you mean?
That's not our average of listeners.
We've done a lot better than others.
This is true.
So thanks for that.
Anyway,
you finished Assassin Creed Mirage. Let's go.
You gave it a...
I'll let you fucking reveal your score.
Well, Mark's platinumed it.
Last week you said,
I've only played a couple of hours, it's looking good.
So let's jump off from that.
Last week I had put two hours into the game.
Was it two hours?
Yeah. Well,
I've now finished it with 16 hours.
Bang on 16 hours into the game.
It came out last Thursday.
So we're a little over a week.
And Mark
platinumed it. He started playing it Friday night.
And had it platinumed on the Saturday.
Which is quite...
He platinumed it in 24 hours?
Something like that, yeah.
Or he had it done Sunday.
Either way, he started it on the Friday.
And it was done before the fucking week
the next week begun.
So...
I thought, right, well...
I'm not interested in platinum, but I will
obviously finish it.
And it's a short campaign.
Alright, Mark.
I'll give you the overall score first, and then
I'll explain why I've given it the overall score.
This review will be spoiler free, by the way, I'm guessing.
There's not much to spoil?
Well, let's not, because
I see that Sam said he was going to play it soon.
Okay, alright, it will be spoiler free.
It will be spoiler free.
I give it a
5.5 out of 10.
Oh, you gave it a 6?
Yeah, it's gone down. It's quite possibly
one of the worst Assassin's Creed
I've ever played.
That's crazy.
And I don't think I'd bother buying another one.
No, that's your favourite franchise, isn't it?
It's awful. I hate saying it.
I feel sorry for you. You'd be laughing at me
if this was the other way around.
But we've grown up. We've grown up
in our time together.
I think
Ubisoft need to leave
Assassin's Creed, if I'm honest.
I think it's done.
It's run its course.
So the game
itself, it's not a bad game.
It's so difficult
to relay
properly, but
there's three aspects in the game that
are incredible, like the best
I've ever experienced. Number one is the assassinations.
For some reason,
they just feel
so incredibly
good, and they're gory,
and they're just fun to do. You spend
probably 95%
of your combat is stealth
and assassinations. That is the most
of it.
Admittedly, there's no
twin
hidden blades.
You only got the one, which is
old school. That's where it used to be.
That is canon.
But
your assassinations,
albeit slightly limited, are still
very fun to do. The tools
that you get, so throwing knives,
smoke bombs, the typical
tools that you've always
had throughout pretty much all the games,
very, very, very fun.
They feel very
responsive. They feel very useful.
You know how
I genuinely thought that was the What's the Buttons
hoodie that you was about to throw on that?
I appreciate you using your own hoodie.
Oh, it is the What's the Buttons hoodie.
It's the fucking
Genesis. It's the old one. You just threw the
OG.
It's giving me anxiety at being there.
Yeah, well, I suppose if anyone's
allowed to put What's the Buttons merch on
fucking coffee stains, it's us.
I guess.
If we're not allowed to. If anyone can ruin
their own flag, it must be the owners of said flag.
Okay.
So you know how in a lot
of games, if they give you
a wheel of tools that you can unlock,
nine times out of ten, you don't really
utilise them. Correct. I throw you
over to Horizon Zero
Dawn. You have a whole fucking load
of different things, different bombs and arrows and
shit like that. You normally find
your niche and stick with it.
Is usually what happens.
Well,
in this game, in Assassin's Creed Mirage,
it feels good to
use everything.
Absolutely everything. For example,
smoke bombs.
You throw it down and it blows up. A big
old red mist comes. And regardless
of if you're in combat or not in combat,
you can throw this bomb down around
a load of people and you can start assassinating
them. And it lasts quite a while
and there's all
different talents and stuff like that that
you can pick which enhance
certain tools like
your throwing knives and
your abilities and things like that. So
the assassinations and the tools feel
really good, especially the throwing knives.
Throwing knives feel really, really
fucking responsive, really, really nice
to use.
Of which myself and Mark,
that was our primary source of fucking killing
people was the throwing knives.
The third thing
that I found really, really great
and was
one of the things that everyone speculated when
it was first announced and when we first saw that
reveal trailer and the game plan and things like that
is it's called Focus. You know that teleportation
ability? Yep.
It's called Focus. So fucking
fun to use. Unbelievably
fun. You can
skill it up
so that you can get... I had five
bars of focus. It's basically like
Dead Eye from Red Dead.
You freeze time
and then as long as you're within range and you
can visibly see people, you can tag them.
And then yeah, you teleport behind them.
So you find yourself, like I said, I had
you start with four bits of focus
so you can kill four enemies at once.
And then I had
five. I can't remember if you can go up to six or not.
But
you can take out an entire
room with it and it just
makes life so much more
fun and the combat
a lot more engaging
and the stealthy side of it.
And I feel like
once you delve
into the story, because it's revealed
to you very, very early on as to why you
can do this,
it makes perfect sense.
When you sit... When we all saw that teleportation
first with no
reason as to why you're able
to do this, it was very much like, well, what the fuck's this?
Why can we suddenly do that? But that's revealed very
quickly and you understand it.
And it's one of those abilities
where you use it
consistently all the fucking time.
And once your focus is done,
you can rebuild it every time you
get an assassination kill, which is
all the fucking time. So
you are using it very
consistently. Those free
things were probably the
only good things about this game.
It sounds like
most of the game was good though, with them
three things being the best things. No, no,
no. Keep going. Absolutely
not. The free running is probably
the worst free running I've ever experienced
in any single game in my life.
It made me want to put the controller
through the telly and I had Steph
play it and she hated it as well.
You said last week the free running felt good.
It did. And then it went to absolute shit.
What happened? I've determined that two hours is not
enough time to understand
how a game's feeling. It's not enough.
The nostalgia was high on then.
I've finished it now. I've completed it.
The nostalgia is at an all time zero.
The free running is
so janky
and you'll experience
it if you ever play it. Your character feels so
so fucking slow.
So slow. What they've done
is they've changed the button layout as well. Where it used
to be you hold down X to engage sprint
and that was also your free running
to engage it. They changed
it. Now you click in the left stick.
Very fucking annoying.
They've also changed the way you do combat.
So rather than it being the typical like square
triangles and circles,
no. It's
R1 is your main attack
and then your heavy attack is to hold down
R1 and then L1 is your parry.
Right. And then you can dodge with circle.
Obviously if you're on Xbox or whatever is different.
But they
that the free running
felt stupid.
It felt dumb. Imagine a set of
stairs with pillars next to it.
And then I don't know a fucking
rooftop. If you're
aiming to climb up those pillars
and go to the rooftop.
Your geezer will try and jump up the stairs.
You know what I mean? There's so many different
things where you think why can't you just grab onto that? Why can't
you do that? Or because
of the running, because you feel so
slow, it completely
ruins the flow of anything.
And it's not like
you have to toggle the sprint.
Yeah. And then every time you free run
and then you say you climb up a
building and then carry on.
You're no longer sprinting. I've got to toggle sprint
again. And then I jump off a ledge. I've got
to toggle sprint again. And then when you hang off
a ledge and then press circle to go
to like progressively go down. Half
the time it doesn't work. Or you just hold down
circle and you drop off a ledge. When you do
any of that, it immediately puts
you in crouch the minute you touch the ground.
Which means when you then go to sprint, sprint
it doesn't take you out of crouch because crouch
you can sprint in crouch but a lot slower than
a normal sprint. So you have to take yourself out of
crouch to then sprint. And then you hit some
free running again and then you're not sprinting again. And then you've got to sprint.
It's just so... It didn't feel
good at all.
It was more annoying than it was.
I found myself purposely skipping
bits of free running. Like running through
running upstairs and
running in between buildings and
stuff like that on the floor. As opposed
to climbing the fucking things. Because it was
just doing my heading with the fucking climbing.
Especially when you find yourself in
combat or you're trying to stay hidden.
The amount of times you would accidentally go
up a ledge. Or
imagine you have a squared
off area with a foot worth of a fucking
ledge. Your normal mind
would think you can either step onto that
ledge and then just simply step off without having to do
anything. The game would know that
that's not for fucking free running.
I just want to get over it. But
you would have to engage a climb
to step up onto the
ledge. And then you can't just walk off the
fucking thing. You then got to engage
a disengage off a ledge
to get off the fucking thing. Which sounds
doesn't sound that bad. But when you're trying to stay
hidden and not get into
combat. It's a fucking nightmare.
And I think a lot of people will have the
same thoughts and feelings
with that one. Free running just isn't good.
Hand to hand combat shit.
It's the worst hand
to hand combat.
The melee is awful.
Absolutely
awful. It is extremely boring.
Every single enemy has the same
fucking moveset. It's the same patterns.
It's have an ability
where they shine red. And that's one you have
to dodge. Otherwise it does a lot of damage.
They have an ability that shines bronze
or orange or something like that. That's
the ability that you can parry. And then
it'll pop up and it'll say that you can kill them. R1
kill them. Rinse and repeat.
You got a shitty stamina bar
that after about three or four hits is depleted.
So you then got to wait for that to recharge.
And it's
just very boring. It's very boring.
You know how
Shadow of War
those types of games where it is very
simple combat but the hordes
of enemies it makes you feel like
everything's linked up. How you can parry one then
boom kill. But it's the same recipe
but it just doesn't feel
anywhere near.
That's good.
The animations is the key
there isn't it. Every time
you're in the combat and someone tries to hit you from
behind in Batman
or Shadow of War and you
counter it. Your character
will turn and block and frame over your shoulder
and block you'll counter something else
and you'll move in another way. That's
why you might just be pressing the same
two buttons. But you're doing
those different things. Yeah the animations are different.
Assassin's Creed you haven't got that. There's an ability
right at the end of one of the talent trees
that you can get where basically that red
attack that comes up that you need to dodge
you can forward roll into it
and then you'll roll over their back and then you're
behind them and you can start attacking.
Again
you're putting that right at the end of a fucking skill tree
that's the final product of one
of those skill trees. So
by the time you've reached the end of that
unless you've piled all of your skills into that
specific tree of which
there's only three and there's only about nine
fucking things in each tree. So it's
not massive. But by the time
you've got there you're at the end of the game
anyway. Unless you've done
all of the side stuff and none of the main story.
So
it just from a
combat point of view they also
the armour and the
weapons are useless.
There is absolutely no rhyme
or reason to them whatsoever.
So you don't
you know how in
old Assassin's Creed you kill someone they drop their
weapon you used to be able to pick up their weapon for a little bit.
Stuff like that. You can't do
any of that shit. Alright.
So let me explain. You have a sword and you have a dagger.
Those are your
two weapons and they're your only weapons. There's no
maces, there's no axes, there's no spears
there's no long swords. There's nothing like that.
You have this scimitar
or skimitar. Is it how you say it?
Scimitar?
We'll go
skimitar.
And a
dagger
of which I got a
a cool sword and
a cool dagger for having the collector's edition
and every weapon
and every bit of armour
has a unique like ability.
So for example
my final armour
it had 5%
increase like focus regain
on assassination kills.
And every single bit of armour and every single gear
you can level up three times.
So the armour is actually an outfit so it's not like
you got your helmet, your shoulders,
your chest. It's all just one
piece of gear. They're all fucking
useless. Right?
None of them make any sort of difference.
You know how cyberpunk was with all of their armour
at the beginning?
It's basically like that. They've got
little tiny little bits that make
no fucking... 0.1
health regeneration. Literally. Yeah. You're talking
5% which you can upgrade
so it goes up in like 5%
this focus one for example.
But again, it's not
a necessity. One that I was using for most
of the game just makes you quieter
while you're sneaking around. And I
upgraded it to max
almost instantly.
Basically from what I gathered
in my playthrough is
you can't
go and buy gear
and weapons off of
vendors or anything. You can
only really upgrade them.
The gear itself you find
randomly in chests
which is quite rare.
Instead you find schematics
which allows you to upgrade
those bits of gear and those weapons.
But like I say, they don't actually
make any form of difference
whatsoever. Especially with the weapons.
They've got a damage level and a parry level.
There's very very little differentiation
between any of the weapons.
Which means they're redundant.
You can very very
comfortably have the exact same
gear and the exact same weapons that you start the
game with. Don't upgrade them and you'll be absolutely
fine. Which to me
means it's a pointless system. If I can
use the default and not have to do
anything with it, it's pointless.
What's the
fucking point?
It makes the combat even more boring
because there's nothing new
for you to try out with it.
There's some weapons
on there that you can buy from the Ubisoft store
that will
set enemies on fire
or poison them. Which I'm sure you can
find things like that in game. I didn't actually
find any because I
just didn't come across any. There's like loot
chests knocking around where sometimes
you have to solve a little puzzle or you have to try and break down
a door and stuff like that. After doing about 10
of them they become so fucking tedious
that you just can't be bothered. Especially when
the current shit that you're using is
doing its job as it is. There's no
necessity to
do anything. Like how when you
play Elden Ring for the first time you're getting
fucking slaughtered to the point where it's like
I invest time in getting better gear
and leveling up. Get good. Yeah.
I either get good or
put my fist through the wall. I have
raw. So it forces
you to go out, explore the world,
get better gear, level yourself up,
hone your skills and then come back and
try again. Assassin's Creed Mirrors
is by no way anything
fucking Soulsborne. I'm not liking
in the two. But
just having something
to make it
worth my time doing
anything with my gear and
my fucking weapons of which it didn't.
It just didn't fucking do anything.
Another thing
that I didn't like, the story was shit
until the very end, which I find
that annoying. It was very
I wasn't attached to anything
at all. The voice acting was shit.
The face animations were shit. The
graphics were shit. It just
didn't feel good. And this is coming from
someone who fucking loves Assassin's Creed. It's
tattooed on my arm. I've got three Assassin's Creed
tattoos. I fucking love the series.
No Bassim going on. It's everywhere.
I like Bassim as a character.
That's the annoying thing. The characters themselves
I like them.
There's a lot of potential there. They're really fucking cool.
However,
the execution of it
it just wasn't
it didn't feel good. The voice
acting was good, but it wasn't at the same time
because it didn't fit with the characters
nor the facial animations
which made the voice acting bad.
It weren't enjoyable.
You found yourself reading
the subtitles quicker
than they're saying them and then skipping through
because it just wasn't engaging
whatsoever.
And then you have
things like the quest logs
themselves.
Very plain, boring quests.
Very plain and boring.
Again, there's nothing
that's keeping you. Basically
you end up with this
map with your main
target is in the middle and it's
surrounded by other targets
and each target is obviously the people
that you kill in every Assassin's
Creed game.
You have to find clues in order to
find out where these people are.
They're all
just the same shit.
It's the same shit over and over again
and the bosses
within those levels
we call them don't feel like
bosses at all. Me and Mark were saying this
morning there was one of the ones
he did. He didn't even realise he killed the boss.
It just popped up
saying on his quest log that he had killed
him. There was another time and
me and him both had the same thing. You can hire
rebels to help you attack
mercenaries and shit like that.
They're fucking killing the boss.
Well that's not normal.
That's not fun. And you can also
I know it's Assassin's Creed
but you can also assassinate the bosses
with no prior requirements
whatsoever. So all of them
as long as you're in the right position you can
get on a ledge, you can get in a bush whatever and you can
just kill them one hit. That's a boss.
That's the main boss. But if you do end up in
combat with them they're no
different to a normal enemy whatsoever.
They're no different. There's no challenge
there which
I think in a lot of cases is okay
as long as the story is good.
But when the story's not fucking holding you
and the boss is in that story of shit
it makes it even worse.
So I feel like for me
when you said last week it was originally
meant to be a DLC which was then
turned into a game it should have been made a DLC.
It should have stayed as a DLC because
I wouldn't put it
I was saying it's
okay it's so short because it's only a 45
quid game. I wouldn't have been happy paying
45 quid for that. I would
have 25, 30 quid.
If the people
listening, if you're wanting to get
Assassin's Creed Mirage get it on discount
because it just isn't worth it. It's not
worth it. And if you haven't played Valhalla
either the ending of
Mirage makes no sense
whatsoever.
Makes none. Because you
don't know the lore. You don't know the
lore of Basim. Because obviously
Basim's introduced in Valhalla.
Of which
I had to, the ending's very good
but I had to Google what it
meant because it does not make any sense.
Because you haven't finished Valhalla either. No and I'm not
going to because it's too long. I can't bother.
But when you Google it and you
you find out the history
of Basim and someone's explained
it. That's when you go oh shit yeah
that makes sense and you look, you think back to
what you've just seen and you go yeah that makes sense
that makes sense that's cool that's cool.
But unless you do that it's
like well I ain't got a fucking clue what's
going on here.
Okay so I feel like
after all that, Five
and a half's quite generous.
Building blocks wise
it's a good game man.
When they said they were going back to their roots it definitely
felt like they had gone back to their roots.
It felt a lot more
Assassin's Creed 2, Black Flag
Brotherhood style. It was
it wasn't anything like the last
three. It was a lot
more toned down. Which I
enjoyed. I much preferred
playing Mirage as I did
Valhalla and
Origins. Obviously I skipped Odyssey.
But they
just
it was just so boring.
It was so boring. There's
no attachment there whatsoever
and the best part about it was just doing
assassination kills. But it didn't
matter who you was killing. It was
pointless.
Well it's sitting at a 77
on PS5, 78 on Xbox,
77 on PC on MetaCreek.
It's mediocre. They're a lot more generous
than yourself. It's average.
It's not fantastic.
You know what I mean?
It's not
awful, but in my opinion
out of all the Assassin's Creed games that I have
played,
that's either the worst
or Valhalla.
You know what I mean? The last
three Assassin's Creed games that I've played
have been the worst Assassin's Creed
games that I have played. And I would probably
say that Mirage is more or less the worst
one because
that was supposed to be taking it back to its
roots and giving you that nostalgic how it
used to be feel when it just wasn't
it didn't deliver.
This reviewer gave it a 4.
And this is what
he said.
Yeah.
Obviously, I'm happy that I got
the collector's edition because I think everything I got
in that, the steelbook, the statue of Basim,
the map of Baghdad, the broach, all of
that stuff, the art book. I'm very
happy with that. I don't feel bad
that I bought the game. I don't regret anything
and I'm happy that I've played it and completed it.
But
it's just not
it's just not good, man.
It's just not a good game.
Simple as, I agree with everything
that that reviewer just said. It's so
bland, so bland. I
have never
looked through my phone more whilst
playing a game. And this
is a series that I love.
I cherish this. This is my favourite. This is
hands down my favourite. Next to the last of us,
this is my
penultimate gaming franchise.
And it was just
fucking awful.
Absolutely awful. The only thing that I'm
interested in is that weird remaster
remake thing they're supposedly
doing a black flag. But in terms
of new
iterations of Assassin's
Creed, I don't think I'll bother
if it's going to be anything like that because
it just wasn't
this isn't a small time developer
either. I mean, they know
what they're fucking doing. And it was
just waft. It feels very much like
well, you
want us to make a cheap game, you'll
get cheap quality. Simple.
So that, that, it's
yeah, it's a let down.
I'll sympathise with you.
It's just boring, man.
Very boring. Sam,
get it. But you've
been warned, man. Don't expect to have a real
fucking fantastic time.
What I can imagine it's like is, you know, when we
were playing Final Fantasy and we eventually settled on the fact
that it's shit. And Sam
and Sam was like, yes, a bit
waft, but I've got that nostalgic
attachment to it. So it's decent for me.
That's how I feel. If I
didn't love Assassin's Creed, I would have been
sitting there going, what the fuck is this? Mark
sold this game and the steelbook. He made
80 quid back.
Sold them for like 40 quid each.
So he's, he's, he's all right.
I won't sell anything because I like
to keep the addition together.
But yeah, it's just
disappointing to say the least.
Um,
yeah, I'm disappointed for you.
Yeah, the Final Fantasy thing, I think
I don't,
I don't really think it was a bad
game. I think I just put too much in too quick
and it just, it was just a bit
dull after a while. But I do
see why people love it because people do
fucking love that shit.
Um,
you'll be surprised to know
I haven't played Baldur's Gate.
I'm not surprised whatsoever.
It's not over. I might be at the reason
why. It's not over. It's just
I feel like I needed
a break. I'd put like
over 60 hours in probably
65 hours worth of life.
Yep. So, I
just needed a break and I
hit a bit of a brick wall where I was
just banging my head against this geezer or
this boss fight.
This is a couple of levels
higher than me and
in Baldur's Gate a couple of levels higher is dangerous.
So,
I feel like I need to back out of that and
come back to that.
And it was just eating away at me that
Cyberpunk was just sitting there.
So, yeah, I jumped into
Cyberpunk and I've been playing
that all week. Um,
I finally made it
to DLC.
I just bum rushed the story
really. Uh, I was just
skipping dialogue of all sorts.
I don't know, I couldn't,
I didn't know when the DLC was going to
kick in because you have to get to a certain point.
Um, so you have to get to
Pacifica and do a mission there. And then
Mr. Hands bells you up. He's like
what you saying, geez? And I was like what you
saying? And then we said what you saying to each other
for 10 minutes. And then
I headed off to Dogtown.
It's fucking very interesting.
I'm enjoying it.
Um, I love it.
I think it's great.
It's not Baldur's Gate.
And Baldur, this is what I said
would happen. Fucking shocker.
This is what's happening already.
First game I've played. Since
Baldur's Gate and I'm just seeing that it's not
Baldur's Gate. Oh yeah, they're two completely
different fucking games. I am aware of
this. Massively different. Um,
Baldur's Gate doesn't have Idrisil sitting in
the middle of Dogtown though.
What? Who's got Idrisil
in the middle of Dogtown?
Dogtown? Who's got Idrisil? You don't see the
massive fucking tree that's in the middle of Dogtown?
No, I haven't.
How? Cause I haven't seen it.
Have you been in Dogtown? Of course I have.
You would have seen it? I haven't. Definitely have.
I haven't seen it. I've seen a big pyramid.
Um. Haven't seen that.
What?
Well exactly. So we're at a crossroads here.
It's impossible not to cause you see it as soon as you come out of the
garbage chute the pyramid's there. And it's impossible to
not see the tree because you literally, one of the first
missions you do in Dogtown, is
next to the fucking tree. Well how do you know
I've done the missions in Dogtown? Because you
just told me that you've been in Dogtown. I've been in Dogtown.
So you would have seen the tree. Because it's
in the centre of it. It's literally there. No I haven't seen it.
Nevertheless. No, you're talking shit.
It's not Baldur's Gate. It doesn't
feel like Baldur's Gate and
it's not Baldur's Gate. So that's
the only thing letting it down. Did you see what Sam said
about Baldur's Gate? Yeah I read all that
and I just dismissed it and thought what I'd
tried. Of course you did. I stand with Sam.
I know you would. 100%.
You're just a fucking
wimp. But uh.
No it's just.
It's what? It's not everyone's
cup of tea is it? I know it's not everyone's cup of tea.
I don't want it to be. Is it?
People like you scum need to stay out.
You only drag it down anyway.
I bought it before you did.
Yeah because you had a PC.
Yeah and I played it before you did.
And I've never said a bad thing about it.
You just did. I stand with Sam. Yeah let's not
say a bad thing about it. Just shut up.
Even he said he couldn't. It's just not our cup of tea.
Sam doesn't like it. That's fine.
Um. I get his reasons.
I would rather not have a turn based combat
style game. But there we are.
It's still my favourite game of all time. I don't even really like
turn based combat games.
Um. Yeah so the problem
with Phantom Liberty and Slugpoint is it's not
Baldur's Gate and that's the only bad thing I can say
about it. Other than that it's been
pretty good. How far into it are you?
Barely anything. I have
met Idris.
Took him to
the place where he needed to go to see
the person that he needed to see. Okay so you've definitely
been near the tree. He took her off
and I left Dogtown and went back to Night City.
I think we're, what and you haven't gone any further
than that. We're at the same point
then because I haven't picked up
Squirrel. It's cool.
Because I haven't picked up Phantom
Liberty since then.
Not because I don't want to play it. Just because I've
been doing other things.
Yeah he uh, because it says
uh he fucks off and then it says give him
two days and then he'll bail you.
Yeah I just skipped those two days.
Yeah I didn't so I just went out.
I like to let things play as if it was actually
real life playing. Yep.
So I went out and uh I done a gig.
I went and saved someone from
some fucking clinic or something.
And then I found
a car. And I
stole that. And then someone said
bring it here. So I drove out
of Dogtown being chased.
Shooting out of the car.
And then I
locked dropped that off. And then I carried on the main
story in Phantom Liberty.
Because, excuse me, they kind of coincide
really well. Where it starts you off
in Dogtown
plays into like the overall
narrative as it's like the whole package
now. Um
it plays into the overall narrative.
So it doesn't feel like JAR and jumping from
Phantom Liberty back to
Night City to go and carry on with the main
missions with like uh Takamura.
If that is his name. I think it is.
Um about to do the mission where
you have to do the big, you know the big parade
in Japantown with the float. Yep.
About to do that. Um
and then obviously you've got
matey Bob ringing you up.
It's quite amusing. I was out having dinner with
Takamura. Nice.
It was like a cut scene as
well. And then it just popped up that fucking
Reid was ringing me.
And I was like that's weird. And then he answered
and uh Reid just went
I'm a bit busy right now.
That's cool that the interaction
has played out. Yeah that's a nice little
ringing during a cut scene because they're kind
of still connected. It's cool. Um
so yeah I've had a great time.
I found uh
Terminator Easter egg which was pretty cool.
It was uh, decent. Have you seen
Terminator 2?
I think so. I think I have.
Probably. Yeah Terminator 2
Easter egg and that was in Night City.
Um but
overall yeah it's just more cyberpunk
at the moment. And I'm all
for more cyberpunk.
Uh go and play still feels great.
The
I was confused. I
installed a
Sand Vest
Dine or whatever it's called.
Sand Devaston. Yeah that's the one. Slow down
time. Uh but by
doing that it takes away your ability to hack people.
Because it takes up your hacking slot.
Takes away your cyberware slot.
So I don't know
I don't think that was the way it used to be. So that's
an interesting change. So you can't have
both of them. So I went back to hacking
because I like hacking people. It's fun.
Um. See I never hack anyone.
What? So I probably need to go for that.
Oh no always. I'm fucking
guns blazing. I mean
You can guns blaze and hack
when you. Yeah I know I know.
I'd start set one on fire
and then shoot the other one or reboot his
optics and he's like I can't fucking see man.
I know I just don't. I'm just going with the
shotguns. Nah yeah. I mean. Blowing eggs off.
That's fine. Play it how you like.
It's the beauty of the game. But yeah at the moment
Sand Devaston though. I think it's uh
I mean it's fucking really good.
I like all the changes.
I like cars. I like guns.
One thing that's always bothered me
about cyberpunk and it still bothers me.
And I can't believe it's not in it.
Right on earth you can't do wheelies on motorbikes.
Yeah it's stupid isn't it. It pisses me off
more than it should.
I don't know why it annoys me. And I don't understand
why there isn't a hand brake button.
There isn't.
I use it every time. What is it?
X. No? Yes.
I promise you.
I even wheel spin.
I hold down accelerate.
I hold down X and it goes
and then I let off X and it goes
I promise you.
It doesn't come up on the side of the screen.
No that's why I won't fucking
You can press square to beep your horn as well.
Did you know that? No I knew about square
But that doesn't come up on the side of the screen.
No but all the times I pressed X it's never done anything for me.
I promise you. Hand brake turn. Oh my god.
I was about to say I was like I thought
it was one of those where L2 is obviously
brake and I thought that was the hand brake that they're
thrown in as well. Like the same button.
I was like I hate it when people do that.
Oh shit no wonder the fucking
I do UIs all the time. I just
hold press X and then just do a Ui
in the road. Yeah I need
to fucking. Oh right fair play.
Fair play. But yeah wheelies on
bikes man. Don't understand it.
It pisses me off a lot more than it should. I don't
know why it annoys me. I like the jumping off the
bike so. Yeah I didn't get that tree.
That's fun now.
I've mainly gone for the swords.
I pretty much maxed that out. Got all the finishers
and shit. Still
pretty low level
in comparison to what I was.
But yeah I'm having a lot of fun
with it but I'm still still
itching and thinking about
Bouldersgate. It's just
constantly in my mind and now I'm having
the same feeling I had when I
was playing Bouldersgate about Cyberpunk.
I'm having the same feeling about Bouldersgate while
I'm playing Cyberpunk. I want to go
and play Bouldersgate now. I feel like I'm missing out.
So yeah.
How near are you to the end?
Of Bouldersgate?
Well I'm in the final act.
I'm in act 3.
And I think
the level cap is level 12
and I'm like 9 or 10. So you're near there?
I'm 9, I'm level 10. So yeah I'm near.
But this act 3
is huge. Like the amount of
stuff you can do in act 3 and
the places and it's mad.
So yeah
I'm having a great time
but I will get
back to Bouldersgate 3.
Excuse me I'm tired
of today very soon
and I'm looking forward to it.
Don't be telling me how long is act 3
if that's what you're fucking Googling.
I wasn't going to. I wasn't going to.
I was going to simply say I was going to talk about the beef.
Talk about the beef then.
The beef. Um
Sorry.
So I put a comment
on TikTok.
No that beef.
I put a comment on TikTok and it got
small fry, a little 423
likes now.
Rather quickly.
And 73 comments
underneath it of people
having a full blown argument
kicking off in the
comment section which I've very much
enjoyed reading.
And it's basically I commented on
the new PS5 slip
and I said nobody asked for this
why do we want a removable
disk drive? Which I think
was valid.
I feel like
that was a valid statement.
I felt that was a valid statement
to make. Of which a lot of people
agreed with me and a lot of
people didn't agree with me.
So I want to talk about the
PS5 slip please.
If you'll have me.
Right.
Ok.
Let me block that. Um
I've got a little article here
that tells you the differences
in the PS5 slip
and the normal
PS5 slip.
So
basically as far as I am
aware the
PS5 slip
the original PS5 has 825
gigabytes of storage.
Yeah that's the
that's the standard edition.
Right. And then you can
expand that storage.
The PS5 slip has
1 terabyte
of storage. So that's 825
before the system software goes on.
So I think you're left with like 600
something. So I'm going to imagine
1 terabyte is probably
around 800 odd.
Maybe. After the system
takes a fucking portion of it.
Alright. And it says
just like at the PS5's launch in
late 2020 there are two PS5
slim models. One of them has a built in
disk drive and the other one is digital
only.
Those are the only
differences and obviously the size.
The price itself
the slim with a disk drive is
$500 and the slim
without a disk drive is $450.
And then you can buy
the disk drive
for $80.
So translate into pounds however
you will.
I don't understand it.
I don't get it.
So it's a PlayStation 5
that's digital but you can pop on
a disk drive if
you want to and you can take it
off at the same time.
For
for what?
Is it better?
Is it a PS4 Pro?
No, no, no. It's not a hardware change.
Literally storage. Storage, size.
It's got 4 panels now as opposed to
2 which is supposed to help with cooling
a bit better.
And the price.
That's all that's different.
I think it looks way uglier than
the PS5. The PS5 is not a very
pretty looking machine as it is.
But I think the slim does
look worse. I can't work
out what this detachable
disk drive is.
I don't understand
how
or why
what's the
I don't get it. I don't
understand it.
I mean
it's a weird one isn't it? If you want
a digital, get a digital. If you want a disc, get the disc
version. I don't know why you would want to buy the
digital one and then buy a disc.
So I was reading that apparently what it is
is
from a manufacturing
point of view it makes it easier
to manufacture
said PlayStation
because you're not having to do 2 different iterations.
So whereas now you've got the disc
version and the digital version
obviously the digital version now you've got
no way of ever running a disc ever.
As far as I'm aware the new PS5
slim, they're both digital
but one of them you can fucking pop on a
detachable disk drive if you want to and the other one
you can't. That makes it
a lot more easier to manufacture
because there's no difference in
the two or if there is it's very very little.
I did read
that what Sony's
doing is the PS5
slim is coming
to America first and then
to the rest of the world later on
and they won't
begin to sell it to
the rest of the world until the
current stock of PS5s
has gone or is near to the end.
But if there's people waiting, if everyone's waiting for the PS5
slim because it's a little bit cheaper
and smaller no one's going to be
buying the current
PS5. So that stock's going to take
fucking forever to go down.
Surely.
You see what I mean?
Well I don't know, there'll be a lot of people
at Christmas getting it won't there?
I don't really
get it to be honest with you. I think
I just
don't understand why would you want a
disk drive just by the normal
old one? It's not
it should make more sense to just buy storage
than a whole new PlayStation.
Sony officially announced a new PS5 model
with a detachable disk drive and 1TB
of internal storage. Often
referred to as the PS5 Slim. This new
model is slightly slimmer and shorter than the existing one
but will crucially replace both the PS5 and
PS5 Digital Edition. In the US
the new model will cost $500
with the drive
while the PS5 Digital Edition is $450.
The new PS5 has
a significant overall reduction in volume
by more than 30%.
My PS5 is not loud.
I've never heard my PlayStation.
And up to 24%
reduction in weight.
Well I'm not carrying the fucking thing around everywhere
so I've never understood why that's a problem.
Sony has
now has a bulge
at the side of the PS5 for the
disk drive which can be removed and replaced
with a side panel thus making it
fully digital. It looks
horrible by the way that. Have you
seen the pictures of it? It doesn't look nice.
There are
four separate cover panels with the top
portion in a glossy look while the bottom
remains in matte.
If you purchase the base
PS5 Digital Edition you can add
the Blu-ray disk drive at a later
date as Sony is selling it separately
for $80.
Which, selling it separately
for $80 or 120
Euros or 100 quid.
100 quid!
If you want that. Right?
That $80
doesn't make £100.
$80 is about
65-70 quid. I know. So how are we getting
a one-oh out of that? Fuck knows. It's cheaper in America
than it is everywhere else. It's bollocks.
There are now two slits on each side
and dual
USB-C ports at the front instead
of the single USB-C and USB-A
ports that are available on the current
PS5. Look at this.
A horizontal stand will be included
with the PS5 model.
And a new vertical one that works on all PS5
models will be sold separately.
For £25.
Hahahaha
25 quid. The current
fucking stand on your PS5
lets you do both.
This is mental. So for
25 quid you can have your fucking
PlayStation standing
vertical. So
so the cheaper
digital PS5
slim
is now almost as
expensive as the normal PS5 because
if you want it to stand vertically
you're going to have to spend an extra 25
quid in order for that to happen.
So why
are we, are they getting rid
of all the old PS5? Yes it's not, it won't
be made anymore. So they'll just disappear it?
Yes, replacing it. So we're going to
have relics of the past? Yes,
as far as I'm aware
the
new PS5 model will be released in November in the US
at select retails, blah blah blah.
It will continue to
roll out globally in the following months.
Once inventory of the current PS5 model
has sold out the new PS5 will
become the only model available.
In Europe
it will be priced at
here we go
in the UK it's £480
with the drive
or £390
for the, without the drive.
It's more expensive than it is now.
The, I've got
Well they hiked the prices up didn't they?
They had a £30
price increase since we got out.
£450
The official announcement of this
PS5 model comes months after the device
leaked and after reports
last year suggested Sony was working on a
PS5 with a detachable drive. Remember
ages ago I was talking about it on one
of our episodes. I said that there was
rumours of a PlayStation
having a detachable disc drive.
You're talking maybe like
40 something episodes, something around there.
Sony also
It's almost like we're a gaming podcast
that knows what we're on about isn't it?
Sony also just wrapped up
its first PS5 sale with steep price drops
in the UK, Germany, India
and elsewhere.
So what I don't know
is the detachable disc drive
where it mentions the
Blu-ray disc drive.
I don't know if that is
the same disc drive as
what you can buy with it or if
that's another one that enables you to
play Blu-ray discs.
Because obviously our PS5s you can't play
Blu-ray on them.
I didn't know that. They're not Blu-ray compatible.
Who watches DVDs now?
The fuck knows.
£100
These aren't the same shape then?
They're not the same size or nothing are they?
They are
The point being that
they look similar
They're similar
shape but slightly different.
I'd imagine
they're different dimensions surely.
Yeah they are.
All these fucking faceplates
they've sold for PS5 are just going to be pointless.
The faceplates that they've got
for PS5 now won't work because
the faceplates on the new one are split into four.
It's pointless then.
All these people that are fucking
like they might have loads of them.
But then when their PS5 dies they can't get a PS5 that fits them.
So we
obviously we spoke about it before
when the other week when I said
I'd clean my PlayStation.
One of the main issues with the PS5 is the cooling.
In terms of not that they're fucking
overheat all the time but
the fans
are on the sides which are covered
by the faceplates and you'll notice that when
you buy second hand or third party
faceplates they
have holes where the fans are.
Because someone at some point
has obviously gone well that's fucking stupid
we'll just put some holes there to give it some more
breathing room. So 90%
of the third party
faceplates that you can buy on Amazon and shit
have those cutouts in them.
Well they've done that
because it helps with the cooling.
Rather than just put holes in the cunt
and say here you go
it's very
I think it's a bold one
to completely discontinue
the current PS5
and then have a digital only.
But again that feeds into what I've been saying
for such a long time
gaming wants to go digital.
It wants to do that.
So the new PS5 will be digital only
unless you buy the disc drive
which you can still detach
and make it digital only.
So number one I want to
know how iffy is that going to be?
If that breaks that's going
to be fun. What's the connections like
on that? How easy is that to replace?
How easy is it to put on and take off?
I feel like this is
a slight look
into what it will be
like to just not have
discs.
While I was talking to Mark about it
what scares me the most about it
is that
currently if you're
on PC or
you're on Xbox and you want
to buy a game you can load up a nice little
website called CD Keys
where you can get stuff considerably cheaper
most of the time than
anywhere else and what they do is you buy
a little game they send you a little code and boom
you can go in whatever store you want
and download the game with that
code. Sony obviously don't allow
that. If you want to buy a digital game
you can only do it through the PlayStation
store which is notorious
and so notorious to the fact that they're actually
in the middle of being sued
over how extortionate their digital prices
are. To me
them making their
next consoles digital
only is terrifying
because that puts the entire
monopoly of whatever they want to
fucking charge for their digital games
in their hands and not
anyone else's.
So you've got a PlayStation store that can only
you can only access PlayStation games
through. You can never
buy the codes and redeem them through the store
unless you bought them through say like
Amazon which is never
going to be something like CD
Keys. It's never going to be considerably
cheaper and
they're
at free reign to do
whatever they want and if
that's a peek into the future
and then eventually I reckon you'll end up
with no disc drive because it's cheaper
to manufacture games with no fucking
physical presence.
You know what I mean? You see what
I'm saying? Oh yeah. You end up
with games that are just extortionate and it's like
I can't do anything about this.
They've already
hyped up the fucking price of PlayStation Plus.
The other day they announced that
they're bringing out a new streaming
service for games for their
mate like their big
PlayStation Plus
like the premium one the
top tier. They announced that there's
a streaming service coming out for games
almost like PlayStation Now was.
So
they are
eager to go digital only
and streaming.
So I feel like the necessity
for a disc is slowly being
filtered out at which point I feel
you'd have to think are
you with the right console?
If that is
the future.
I mean Microsoft have got their
digital only console. Of course they do.
But Microsoft also allow you
to buy cheaper games elsewhere and use them.
Not on Xbox I wouldn't imagine.
Yeah.
You can buy, yeah. You can get
codes for Microsoft Store
off of that CD case. Yeah, yeah.
Okay. I didn't know that. Yeah. Right.
But then like I say this has been on
the horizon for fucking a millennium.
People wanting digital only.
And then, cause originally
the Xbox, was it
Xbox? I think it was just Next Gen in general.
PS5, Xbox.
Before they came out they got major pushback
because they come out saying one of them
if not both of them said that
you couldn't buy pre-owned games anymore.
Once you put
that disc in your console, it was registered
to that console, you couldn't lend it
to your power. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.
And they got major pushback for that.
And then they reverted that decision.
Be that Sony, be that Microsoft. I can't remember.
And
you know, there's a lot of people
my age that
prefer disc. Now, I
have transitioned to digital only
in the last couple of years.
I have a disc
PS5, but I think
I only own like one,
maximum two PS5 games.
Everything else is digital. Just for the ease
of it. Because I don't need
to go and buy the physical
copy, I don't need to go out my way.
I live a fairly busy life nowadays.
So just to download the game,
it'll download before it's even release
date and then I can come home that evening and
it was ready to go.
And you haven't got to put the disc in, let it install,
update, all that bollocks.
So I have transitioned, but
there's always a
part of me that's been
fearful of the digital age
completely swallowing
up physical. Because
once it's digital only,
you won't own nothing.
You've bought the right to play the game.
But God forbid
one day Sony just goes, you know what?
We're going to go and make cars instead.
Fuck this shit.
Eventually they'll shut the stores down
and you won't be able to access anything
with the thousands of pounds you would have spent
on games over the years. Gone.
You can't access them.
And that's always been my fear with things like Steam and stuff
like that. You've got a massive catalog
of games that one day might just cease
to exist. And
there's not really a great deal you can do
about it. I mean, look at the debacle with
Nintendo shutting down certain
stores in the past. And people are like,
but I've bought loads of games.
And Nintendo are notorious for
letting you or wanting you to just keep
buying rehashes of the same
game over and over again with
no enhancements. They'll just be, this
is the port of this game on this
console because
Nintendo now
are the only
company that won't allow you to play older
games on your new system. So you can
play old PS4 games on PS5.
You can play old Xbox games
on your Xbox but you can't play old
Nintendo games on your Switch.
Unless you've re-bought them.
So, you know what I mean?
It's a scary way of doing shit.
But I do think we're destined for that.
And I don't think there's any way to avoid it.
But yeah, you're right. I think once
let's have it
right.
Given the choice,
two PS5s come out,
they're new, they're both slim. My PS5
breaks. There's a digital and there's a physical.
I'm buying the physical. Now,
my PS5
breaks, two PS5s,
one digital,
or both digital, one comes with a
disk drive. I'm going to buy a cheaper one.
Because I don't want a little poxy disk drive. I want
it embedded. I want it to just be, do you know
what I mean?
I would just naturally transition
for the price range,
for the price of it. And because
it doesn't feel natural to just have a
disk drive sitting about.
There has been a little bit of misinformation.
So I am wrong with the CD keys
thing. You can use CD keys for
PlayStation.
I think
there was a thing where they were, I think
I've got it wrong here, where I believe
they were trying to ban
that from you being able to do
that. I don't think they actually went through
and was, I don't think they was allowed to do it.
But I think that's where I've, where I
fucked up. I think it was Sony wanted
to stop things
like CD keys being able to be used
on the PlayStation
platform. Which ironically probably
made the spotlight turn to them
and go, well why do you want that to be banned?
Oh, look at the prices. So if you've
been listening, if you listen to that and were screaming, going, no
you're fucking wrong. I apologise. I was wrong.
I've now rectified it. You can go
on CD keys to buy stuff. I'm just flicking
through it now. Admittedly,
most of the games on here, they don't have
them in stock. And I'm not
seeing any like new games
that are on here. It all seems to be
old, old stuff like fucking
Star Wars, Squadrons or Ghost of Tsushima.
How much are they just for
I've never even known this was
a thing. What, CD keys?
Well you didn't know what CD keys was?
No, never heard of it. Really? Well I've heard of it
but I've never done it. But you've never done it? I've never known what it was.
It's just, it's just that they send you a code
it's for cheap games. What would you want me to look up?
Anything. Throw a game. Right,
okay. So let's go back onto
page three.
You know.
See something. Something
that resembles any game that we fucking
played. Horizon Forbidden
West.
37 quid.
Not bad. Assassin's Creed
Valhalla, Dawn of Ragnarok.
8 quid.
Is on here.
And then they've also got things like
FIFA points and Fortnite
shit and
PlayStation credit
PlayStation gift
card. So there's a 20
pound gift card here for 18 quid.
I don't really know how that
works but there you go.
Spider-Man
Remastered is
34 quid on here.
Yeah, it's just
the cheap.
I used to remember how they
do it but I can't now.
But yeah, I agree.
That digital age
is being frosted upon
you. Very much so.
And I can't help but feel that
the new streaming service that
they've announced for their games ties in very fucking
well with the PlayStation portal.
Very fucking well.
Because they advertise that it's
seamless. Like
60 frames, 4K,
blah blah blah blah blah. It all fucking
relies on your internet connection and
how many people you're utilizing that internet
at the same time. You can't
bullshit like that on a streaming service.
Especially with games when you're fucking
streaming them because it entirely relies
on the user.
Not the company that's allowing
you to stream. That's another problem
with digital only is
whilst
there's a small market, there will be
a market of people that don't have internet.
So they'll buy a game out of the box and they won't
get no updates. They'll just be like, this is the game
I've bought and that's that.
Of course they will.
I don't know.
It's just an odd one.
It's really really strange.
I would love to know exactly how the digital
shit works.
I fucking can't understand how you can run
out of stock of digital games.
How does that happen?
Just make another fucking code.
I don't get it. I do not understand
it. But like you say, you're not buying
you don't own the game. You're just buying the right
to fucking use the game.
And that's it. Which is no
different to your social media.
You don't own it.
You own the pictures that you put on
it but the platform itself, you don't
own any of that shit. You've just
been given permission to
access it and use it.
And yeah, I don't want my fucking
PlayStation to not be mine.
Plus Sony are greedy
cunts. They're fucking greedy.
That PlayStation store is grim.
This is where we are. I need a piss
in a shit. And that
was the conclusion of this
episode.
I hope you got Boggboll in there. I do.
See you later. Uro. Uro.