Go, go, go, go.
Let's go.
It's me.
Not Ashley.
He's away again.
It's not Steph either.
It's fucking Connor.
Oh, hello.
Oh, here I am.
What's the buttons?
It's really warm and sweaty.
Fucking awful.
It's really warm and sweaty.
Ah, mate, if you're listening to this, hello.
Hello, mate.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
That was bizarre, but yeah.
We have a...
Special request.
Yeah.
I mean, it's more or less,
it's just someone else has done the legwork for us.
Big daddy, Sam Parks.
On conversation with one of the patrons
has given us a little list that they would like to
hear us talk about.
So we're gonna go through the list,
considering, like he said, it's halfway through the year.
So...
Which is mental.
What have we got?
We've got best soundtrack, best DLC, best hidden gem,
best lead character, best antagonist,
best performance slash quality, best gameplay slash combat,
biggest letdown and then most anticipated
for the second half of 2024.
What are you saying then?
Well...
I know you're gonna say best DLC is gonna be
Shadow of the Erdry,
because that's probably the biggest DLC that's been released
this year. Yeah.
Well, okay.
So I would say best soundtrack and best DLC
will be Shadow of the Erdry,
because the soundtrack that goes along with
the boss fights in Eldenby are just incredible in the DLC.
There's nothing quite like a Souls game
or Bloodborne soundtrack when it comes to fighting bosses.
It's just so...
But also the soundtrack from when you're fighting
Radahn console,
it's just so...
I love it so much, but at the same time,
I fucking hate it.
I was gonna say, you must hate it, considering.
The amount of times I heard that fucking soundtrack.
From the top.
But it's just...
Oh, it's so good.
The effort that they go in with their soundtrack,
I would say the same with The Last of Us.
Very, very, very good soundtrack.
Games like Hi-Fi Rush and...
It's difficult to say sometimes,
because you can't...
I often don't think about the soundtrack sometimes.
I know it is very important.
I think we've spoke about it before,
and you and Steph have spoke about it before,
that sometimes I don't even think about it till afterwards.
Well, me, yeah.
You're in it, and you're like...
You know you're feeling it,
but you don't think about it till afterwards.
Well, me and Steph did a whole episode
talking about soundtracks,
because like you just said,
I think they are so underlooked,
because when a soundtrack is spot on,
the beauty and the curse of it being so good
is that you do not notice it.
Yeah, you're too far in the moment.
When a soundtrack is so good,
it becomes part of that moment,
and therefore you forget about the soundtrack.
When you come back to it,
it's on a video on the TikTok or an Instagram,
and you're like,
oh, it's from that, is it?
Yeah.
And you're like,
oh, let me just throw on the soundtrack.
Because you think like,
if you had something like Lord of the Rings,
and you took the fucking soundtrack out of that,
you've taken away half of the magic.
It's pretty much.
And it's the same with a lot of games.
When we jumped in the van,
and all of a sudden the Shire was playing on the old blutom.
He's just love it.
Love it.
What's going on there?
We need to do that at some point though.
We need to do that fucking.
Sit down for the extended edition.
Yeah, 100%.
It's just trying to decipher a good soundtrack
to a bad soundtrack.
I just find it so difficult.
Yeah, it's tough.
I remember like,
everyone puts effort into soundtracks.
It's the element of picking the best,
what the best soundtrack is of this year,
when this list isn't the best for me,
because I haven't really played a lot of games
that have come out this year, to be honest.
And I can't think of anything
that's necessarily come out this year
that I'm specifically would say about soundtracks.
For me at least.
Apart from, yeah, you've lifted off
good and gone, you know, Eldering Ertree.
Well, I mean, like you said,
well, I said before we hit record.
I mean, if you really,
if you wanted to just make it easy,
you can go with the last part to Remastered.
Yeah, true.
Because that come out fucking in,
what do you say, January.
So that technically counts as fucking this year.
That's good enough.
Ridiculous, Remastered, yeah,
the game that just came out.
We were flicking through the PlayStation Store
the other day, me and Steph trying to find some,
just looking at the deals and shit.
And yeah, part two Remastered was on there.
And Steph was like, they remastered that.
Already.
And I was like, yeah.
I said, fuck knows what they did.
When you do the side.
But that's about 45 quid still.
I think it was a tenner because I've got a PS5
and I already have the game and blah, blah, blah, blah.
I'm still not paying that to fucking play it again.
Ridiculous.
So Elder Ring DLC wins that one for me anyway.
And then what we got, we got.
Best game so far this year.
Oh shit, yeah, we fucking skipped two.
Skipped that one.
It's because he had a big best console paragraph.
Yeah, apologies.
Best console so far.
So we got best game.
Best game of this year so far?
Well, that's, again, depends.
Is that the best game this year?
Which I don't feel like there's been so many drops thus far.
Best game this year.
I have a list here of all the games that did release.
I've already flicked through it,
but I just want to flick through it again
to see if there's anything that sparked.
I don't even remember what's dropped so far this year.
Quite a lot to be fair, but it's.
Like brand new, not like, oh, you go to Elder Ring.
Dragon's Dogma 2 was a big one.
Biggest let down.
Grand Blue Fantasy, Rielink, that was very good.
Suicide Squad, again, Helldivers 2.
Yeah, but I very much enjoyed Helldivers 2,
but then it dropped off.
And then it's got the resurgence again.
Yeah, but does that diminish it from being the best game?
But then is it the best game for you,
or is it the best game of this year?
Because it's definitely not going to be the best game of this year,
but of the games that I've played this year that came out this year,
it's probably one of the ones that I've enjoyed the most thus far.
I would.
Get these fucking cables off me.
The.
Aren't you playing the Formatode?
Yes.
See, that'll come out fucking March.
Yes, but that's coming up later.
Oh, sorry.
I do apologize.
The Outlast Trials and all.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, OK.
So.
That's a that's such a subjective question.
Criteria.
What's your best game?
Is it going to be your best single player game of this year?
And I would probably say that my best single player game of current years
so far is probably the Thaumatode as I'm playing it now.
I haven't put too much time into it because I'm doing other bits
and pieces, but at the same time, that would probably
be my best single player game so far.
Yeah.
In terms of co-op experience, I would definitely say Helldivers 2
is has been my favorite game for co-operative play this year.
But the only problem with that is it's a heavy grind.
See, now I would offer a spin on it of.
Oh, fucking hell.
What's the game of the year expectation for 2024?
Well, when did when did Enshrow did come out in early access and all?
Was that this year?
Was that that was February, January, February time.
Somewhere around there.
But again, again, that was another co-op experience game, not.
But I wouldn't say this.
This is where this is where it's going to get interesting because
the waters are going to be very muddy this year.
I'm I'm getting old, getting old and crusty.
Twenty seven and old.
And you haven't got crazy.
You're all right.
I feel like where.
I'm still able to sinking a lot of time into gaming
and addiction, if you will, and very grateful for the ability to be able to do that.
Very much fucking helps where Steph is like a massive gamer.
So to her before, arguably, she's probably more of a gamer than I am in terms of
games played and interest because she absorbs a lot of information like a fucking sponge.
Whereas I don't character names and things like that.
I'm very difficult.
Complete. I'm done.
Yeah.
Whereas where was Steph?
But that's just that's just how we're different gamers.
Steph can't finish a game.
So no, but I can't finish a game either.
Really tough.
It depends on the game.
True.
And it's.
When I was younger, you were you were able to play any sort of game you wanted.
You had all the time in the world.
Wasn't an issue.
And gaming was also a lot cheaper.
Whereas now, but at the same time, you're but you think you've got a house.
I'm very, very nearly finished buying my house.
Mark's in the same position as me.
Fucking Ash has got his own place.
Darrell's got his own place.
Darrell's got his own place and like people have their own families and shit.
And we're busy with work.
So when it comes to gaming, you almost have to start cherry picking what you're jumping into.
Because your time is very limited.
I'd say there's a difference because when you're a kid and like you're asking mom or dad or whoever
to get you a game is that you feel like you need to commit to that.
Yeah.
If you pick up like that's someone else's money versus now,
you know, we're adults and we have adult money to buy.
Yeah.
To buy adult things.
The point that I'm trying to make is that when I was younger, gaming was...
You could just do it all night and in summer.
It was very exciting because you played with a shit load of people.
All your friends.
It was an absolute laugh.
Blah, blah, blah.
Best time of your life.
And then you grow older and then those moments start to slowly slip away
because everyone's just getting on with their life and that they happen less frequently.
So I would probably say that the likes of Outlast Trials is probably the best game
that I have played this year for the pure and simple fact that it is an absolutely terrifying,
hilarious game.
But me and Mark had...
We haven't played it for ages, but the time that we were sinking in and the same with you and me
with Entrouded was incredible because it gave you...
The commitment.
Yeah, and it gave you that hint of when you was younger and you were able to play with
your mates and just have a fucking laugh.
Looking at the time ago, it's 11 o'clock.
Are we staying on?
Yeah, we went back to...
What was it?
Like two, three in the morning one hour?
Just stayed up and then straight back on it in the morning at like fucking nine o'clock.
It was a Friday night.
We went and we stayed on for a bit and it was like, yeah.
And then looked at times at half three and went, okay, let's crack on.
So Entrouded, it's still in early access.
Very good game.
Haven't played it for a while and kind of waiting for it to come out on full release.
Let it develop itself a little bit more and then...
Because by that point, it'd be like a brand new game when you jump in.
And Outlast Trials, just because me and Mark had so much fun on that game and it is such a
fun game, but scary at the same time.
And the clips that I've got saved, I haven't experienced shit like that.
They're all quite funny.
Horror games, especially co-op horror games.
Yeah, man.
Because what else was it?
What was that fucking...
You did Escape the Backrooms when you came round to mine.
Yeah, but the one before that, what was the other one?
What was it called?
Everyone was fucking playing it.
I can't remember the fucking name of it.
Fuck, yeah.
Lethal Company.
Games like...
I am completely wrapped up in the MMO aspect of where I'm playing the game.
I want there to be a durable end game and I want there to be a goal for me to achieve.
That is a constant.
So once I feel like I'm getting right to the end, they throw something else in that just
fucking moves the goalpost.
I hate it, but I love it at the same time.
And games like Lethal Company and Outlast Trials, Dead by Daylight, games like that,
they don't necessarily have that aspect to them.
So therefore, most of the time, I don't find them fun, but they're not on your own.
But when you're playing with people, they're fucking brilliant.
Someone that you can't...
There is no end game because you know you're going to fuck...
Like Lethal Company, you'll know you're going to fuck up before you get too deep,
which for a lot of the other games, everything else that seems to be popping up is fucking
building games that your survival builders...
Like, what was it?
Once Human.
I'm so fucking sick of survival builders.
I'd rather just...
Yeah, but remove the building.
I'll tell you what I want.
I just have...
You give me a survival builder that is absolutely fine.
They have their place and I can understand, much like Battle Royale,
where every cunt is trying to fucking make one.
I get it.
However, what I want is give me the ability to turn off the fucking survival aspect of it
in terms of I need to eat food and drink water, otherwise I'm going to die.
And then with the building, for fuck's sake,
if you want me to put up a shed and a kiln and all of that shit, let me just have a preset.
Yeah.
You must have a house with a bed in it.
Okay, but don't make me put up all of the walls and the roof and then place the bed.
Just give me a...
Give me a prefab that I just need to click a button to say...
Yeah, give me a prefab of a house.
Place that house there, much like how No Man's Sky does it when you're making your own camp,
like your own settlement, where it's just like...
It doesn't give you the option on where to place it or anything.
It just says you need the materials to make this to increase it, go and do it.
Give me something like that because I don't want to, but then also give me the option
to be able to edit those buildings so that if I want to change things, I can.
Yeah.
But for fuck's sake, stop making great games that could be fantastic and then...
Great games that are all building games.
It's like...
It just seems soppy.
What can we do to make this game attractive?
Oh, here's an easy one.
Building.
What is it?
Seven Days to Die went to its full release finally, recently.
Yeah.
But again, that's another one that has building mechanics.
It's zombie survival, but then has building mechanics.
I don't want it.
And it's just like that's kind of the base building aspect is kind of a huge part of it
because you're meant to build a base that you can defend.
Yeah, straight away I'm switched off.
It looks good.
It looks a lot better because I remember playing it when it was alphas, betas,
whatever fucking pre-release.
Now they finally made it a full thing and I'm just like, I can't,
I don't want to go back to it because I can't be asked.
I don't want to do base building.
But that's where it sort of like worked with you and me on enshrouded where.
I don't mind.
I come from a Minecraft background as a, as a teen.
Yeah.
I'm not interested in the building.
So you do the building.
I can build stuff, but I don't mind doing it.
And I come from a grinding background.
So I will go and do that and you fucking build.
Then you come back and go, what's this mansion?
What's yours?
You said the, the formative.
Oh, um,
Farmatage.
Formatose.
I don't know if that's probably my best single player game so far this year.
Um, I was also going to probably dash it slightly into hidden gem of this year,
but I would probably.
Yeah.
Equally do.
Um, a little cutesy hidden gem was that big kitty little city game.
I was like, yeah.
That I quite enjoy it as, as off the back of like playing something like, um,
Untitled Goose game.
And it was just, it was like a chill little thing that I could just go home and
dick about with.
And even like, even Alicia's playing it and she finds it quite cute.
See, and it's, you know, it was only like, I caught it on sale for like less than 10
pound or whatever it was, like very, very cheap sort of game.
That's probably what eight hours sort of playtime.
Yep.
And it was very, not very, um, it was advertised, but it never really was a big deal.
And I can't really think of anything else hugely.
That's been out.
But formatose was one of the ones I didn't really know anything about till I saw
steam sales on it.
And I thought, oh, that looks all right.
And clicked on it.
Click through it.
And went, oh, it's turn, but like combat's turn-based.
But then the actual gameplay of it's kind of like telltale games where it's like
every choice you make matters.
Yeah.
Everyone will remember this and all that stuff.
And if you pick certain options, you can't follow through with it.
And I need to, I probably should look who makes it because it's very similar to a game
came out or not similar, but it's got the same sort of vein as Vampyr.
If you ever remember that came out quite a few years back.
And instead of it obviously being a vampire, you're essentially a magician.
You can essentially read emotions and things like that.
You can touch objects and you can read information about people from them.
And you determine people's secrets and flaws.
Double dagger studio is who made little kitty big city.
And it is overwhelmingly positive reviews on steam.
95% overwhelmingly positive.
It's currently 20 pounds.
That's not so good.
20 pounds on there.
Little kitty big city is an adorable entertaining journey
for a delightful world that's just the right size.
Yeah.
Almost like, yeah, well, yeah, like you say, untitled.
It's got the same sort of vein, but it's a cat and it's, you know,
it's a different sort of style, but it's chaos and just exploration as a cat.
And doing some pieces is not necessarily as in-depth as like stray, but,
you know, I love straight man.
Just want a little chill, straight with some chill game to play then.
You know, it was quite pleasant for an easy little thing to do in a few hours
or, you know, on a steam deck or anything.
That's again, kind of one of the reasons I picked up film attached.
So I looked at it and thought that might be playable on a steam deck.
Yeah.
I have played it on the steam deck.
Yeah.
Because I've managed to put a few hours on it on the PC, but it was more up my street.
Because I like, I like turn-based combat games and some that I have to think a little bit about
because then I've got, you know, it's peaceful.
It's calm.
It's not no high stress bollocks going on.
And at the same time, you've got the RPG element of, you know, you build your,
your stats out and you collect, um, saluters, they call them.
It basically means, um,
um, uh, it's like a guest or like invader almost.
And they're like, um, these weird demon type creatures that you,
you as a Thorna-Turge have a connection to, and you can start picking up more and more
as, as your story goes through and it's your, you've got the, the floor of pride and you're,
you know, essentially leaning into that thinking that you're this very powerful magician and you're
just building up through your everything that's going on.
You, what is it?
It's in, um, set in 1905 in Warsaw.
So you play as Victor Schulsky.
Victor Schulsky.
The only thing I say bad about is the fucking, the voice acting is a bit like,
you know, when someone's putting on an accent, like Eastern European accent,
and there's a few that are like blatantly American.
You think, oh,
the American, the fucking Eastern European accent.
You know, you meant to be Polish or Russian and you've got some American going.
That, um, my, my hidden gem would be Grand Blue Fantasy Relink.
That long title.
Yeah.
Just a fun, just a fun game, the fucking, um, with that, uh, anime style, um,
uh, artwork, which isn't, isn't really something that I go for,
but the lovely colors and the fucking, the, the, the numbers and the killing things.
The things that make ADHD feel good.
Yeah.
But it, it, it was a fun game.
Um, and there weren't really much said about it.
Um, it was actually Sam, um, that, that put me onto it.
Yeah.
I was going to say without that bit, Sam having mentioned it, I don't think any of us would have
No.
had any, any idea of it.
Got your own fucking team that you get to swap in and out with different characters that all
do their own different things.
Um, and you just fucking shit up.
It's just great fun.
The only bit that I didn't like about it was it was so fucking, oh, it was so anime.
Oh, I hated it.
I hate Japanese anime.
It was just so cringy.
It was so fucking cringy.
Let's go team.
We can do this together.
Oh, fuck off.
The very, very Asian inspired.
Yeah.
No, I like, yeah.
It's like, oh, fuck you.
Like, come on team.
Let's go.
Throwing the peace sign up into the fucking camera after you've just beheaded someone
like weird shit like that.
Nice.
Yeah.
I was like, no, that's not that it's pissing me off.
Stop doing that.
It's annoying.
Nice cock, bro.
Nice cock.
I just, I just don't want to.
That was the only bit that fucking made me nearly go like, I can't be asked for this
because it was just every cut cut scene, like the game plan and everything was great.
Very fun.
Very, very, um, very fluid.
Um, anyone that's that's interested by that or wants to have a quick Google.
I recommend looking into it because it is, it is a fun game, but the,
God, it's almost American without digging out America.
Yeah.
It's too positive.
That's the problem.
It's too positive.
I don't like it.
Everything's positive.
We're killing things for very little reason.
Reality of the situation is murderers.
We're murderers.
Murderers with fucking sparkly swords.
There's no need for us to be so positive.
I hate it.
But other than that, it was right.
So there's your fucking hidden gems.
Pricks.
He doesn't like it.
Best lead character.
I haven't got a clue, you know.
Um, I really don't know.
For this year, I can't think of anything.
I can't think of a heavily, you know, dedicated lead character in any of the games that come out this year.
I'd probably, I'd probably again, throw another spin on it of the best lead character.
Spin around.
You're going to throw back to the old remaster, Last of Us Remaster.
No, I ain't going to the remaster.
I was going to, I was going to say something like Helldivers 2.
It's me because I'm going to say something like Helldivers 2.
Because I'm the lead character.
Yeah.
Because Helldivers 2 is, there is no lead character.
It puts you in that position where, which is very alien to most gamers in that the person
that you are playing is nothing.
They're all porn.
You're expendable.
You're meat for the grinder.
You are, you are just part of an army and you're on the front lines.
And it took a while for people to realize that the character that you're actually playing,
every time they die, they die.
You're not you.
You're just a faceless.
I know that you're coming back in the same gear and everything, but look past that.
The person that you're coming back as isn't, isn't your character.
Isn't you.
Yeah.
They are, they are a different person.
And I find that-
You are a drone in the system.
I find that interesting in, in terms of like lead character.
Because it is you.
And when you really get into the role play of it, which so many people did.
Yeah.
Absolutely fantastic.
We saw a few at Comic-Con, didn't we?
Yeah.
Dressed up as Helldivers.
Yeah.
It is its own little like-
Well, just seeing the clips of people like becoming the best voice actors in the world
because their character is going to die and stuff.
Like, and it means nothing because you do just respawn, but it's not called respawning.
No, it's reinforcements.
Reinforcements.
And it's, it's, it's just seeing people evolve into,
into these amazing actors because they've suddenly fucking-
Commitment to the bit.
Yeah.
They got on attachment to their fucking, to their character.
And if it dies, it's like, no, you're going to fucking die.
Yeah.
I, I, I like that shit.
Um, and Helldivers 2 definitely made everyone do that, but I can only speak so much on that
sort of category of best lead because I just haven't played that much this year.
I can't think again, I can't think of a lot that's come out this year.
That's come out this year.
That's been dedicated to having like individual lead characters.
Like I'd say playing Thorne, but I look at the character and go,
no, he's pretty throwaway.
Generic white male with, you know, powers.
Superpowers.
Like, yeah, you know, he's got personality and he's got backstory and trauma and everything,
but it ultimately hits that, oh, you know, generic white male in media, you know,
dark background and all that bollocks that it's not, you know, it's not like, I dunno,
Arthur Morgan from Red Dead 2 was a good character with, you know, fleshed out and,
or, you know, obviously,
Joel and Ellie.
Joel and Ellie and like Geralt or, you know, you look back to older, older, um,
games that have been out and trying to think of a few.
Snake.
Yes.
Snake.
And, um, like even like Commander Shepard or from Mass Effect or
Desmond Miles.
Master Chief from like Halo, Desmond Miles, you know,
There's loads.
Their list is absolutely endless of characters.
There's so many, but again, this year so far, I don't feel like there's,
you know, maybe when, um, AC Shadows comes out that, you know,
they might be interesting lead characters, but I know it's meant to be like the duo rather than.
Yeah, Suki and Naoe.
That, you know, is that going to be one of them is going to be better than the other?
Because even, even like in the last couple of Assassin's Creed games where they say like,
you know, pick between, um, Cassandra or Alexios and, or pick the gender of Aval, like, you know,
you know, even though I wouldn't say they're fantastic lead characters.
No, no.
Yeah, agreed.
I mean, Assassin's Creed Mirage was fucking, or Basim.
Basim.
Wasn't a bad, um, a bad lead character.
Was it this year?
Basim, yeah.
Was it?
Yeah.
I just fucking.
Non-believer.
Don't believe me.
No, I believe you.
I just, the way I didn't play it and it didn't really appeal to me.
It didn't appeal to many people because it was shit.
So, you know, it just fucking came and went.
Like a lot of games that just come and go and it's like, oh, there was an Assassin's
Creed release this year and there's going to be another one.
Much like with best lead character, best antagonist.
I ain't got a fucking clue.
Yeah, I haven't got the scoop here.
Who's.
Best antagonist.
Fucking hell.
I can't even think, like even.
Best antagonist.
Who would be a best antagonist in any game currently or in recent time?
I can't even think because even though like, is it is that a collective group?
Because it's like going back to like Mass Effect, you could turn around and say the
Reapers or the elusive man, you know, they're antagonists, but are they the best?
You know, they're definitely up there.
Yeah.
Because I don't feel like I've known in a long time, you know, maybe say technically.
Abby is an antagonist, but also a lot of people are antagonists.
Abby is an antagonist, but also a lead.
Yeah.
Because she's an antagonist for the first half and then so it changes.
But then even in games like that, like the original last of us, was there a true antagonist?
I know there was like that David guy who.
Not really.
Tries to get hold of Ellie and.
Yeah.
No.
And you know, yeah, it's good emphasis on an evil character, but sometimes antagonists
in games are very sort of quite two dimensional that, you know, you know, they're the big bad
and they're, they're meant to be expendable.
They're there to serve a purpose.
They're not there.
Like I'm trying to think of someone.
I think.
Almost like Hatham from AC3.
Yeah.
Where technically he's a good guy.
Well, you start, he's a lead and then he turns into a villain and then, you know,
you see both sides of it because I feel like the best thing for antagonists is seeing the
reality of their decisions and understanding why they're a villain.
You know, maybe for other games like Dutch.
Far Cry.
Five.
Which one was five?
The one with, I had to Google it, Joseph Seed.
That was the one where.
Was that the American one?
The American one in like.
I feel like Far Cry does it.
I feel like Far Cry does villains well, to be fair.
Far Cry does do villains very well.
Three.
Joseph Seed was like the crazy preacher man that fucking wanted everyone to go to Rapture.
Yeah.
Because then you had the guy, the one that Troy Baker voiced, the one that was in like Asia.
I feel like he was a decent villain.
Yeah.
I didn't play the game, but I feel like he was a decent villain.
And then the one before that, that was on the island, like with the Hispanic or whichever it was.
I forget his name, but he was a good villain.
But then it all, the game got a bit weird at that point anyway.
Far Cry five was, oh, that was so good.
But then maybe you could say also like God of War Ragnarok.
But again, it's not this year.
So like Odin and Thor.
But again, I'm still waiting for that game to come out on PC so I can bloody play it.
Yeah.
But even then you query on Thor.
Odin, yes.
It's hard to say.
I feel like certain game media on villains is a lot more difficult than sort of films and movies.
Because if you want to talk about a good antagonist, you go like Negan from Walking Dead.
100%.
But even then he turned antagonist into fucking good character.
Yeah.
So can you think of someone who's actually just a genuinely good antagonist and stays the Joker?
Yeah.
A very good antagonist.
Done very well.
But someone that is just straight up a dick, but a very good dick.
The best dick.
Oh, the best dick.
Big, tasty, slender dick.
Who's...
Save that for the Patreon.
Who's taking that old fucking big wombo?
Mumbo number five.
Yeah, it's hard to say for, especially for this year as well,
because I can't feel like there's that many games that have come out with good villains.
I think the best antagonist has got to be someone who makes you genuinely hate them as well.
Yeah.
Not like how Ash would be like, oh, I love them because he wants to be the bad guy and
fucking everything with them.
No, someone where they genuinely make you seethe at the telly or PC or whatever.
Like, I fucking hate you.
Yeah, like what they do with...
That's what I kind of lent with when they did Abby, because in those moments you're like,
I fucking hate this person because of what they've done.
And then it flipped.
Like if you didn't switch to her perspective, you would always hate her.
Okay, so she's the best antagonist then.
Or no, Naughty Dog are the best antagonist there because they made us hate her for no reason.
There was no need for us to hate her.
It was Ellie all along.
Joel's the best antagonist.
Joel.
The best.
The dead antagonist.
He's a villain.
Spoilers for what the gang's been out for.
Technically is, to be fair.
What else have we got?
What was the fucking...
I can't think for this year so far of what's come out.
I can't feel of anything that's an decent antagonist.
Best performance and quality is Elden Ring, hands down.
Shadow of the Urch.
Long enough making it.
Yeah, hands down.
It's going to go for the best combat and gameplay as well because...
Yeah, there's nothing...
I say combat, Dragon's Dogma did combat good, but the climbing and scaling and jumping around and
the team cohesion thing where all your pawns can do different things was very good.
But you're probably on par with Elden Ring.
So it's got the secret sauce in terms of fucking...
Elden Ring is a absolute powerhouse in any category.
Or Soulsborne from Soft.
They've got that special sauce in terms of that.
It's that hip-boxes man.
You're tired, mate.
Your eyes are watering.
I just had a little yawn.
Crying.
You're looking at me and you're crying.
I just want to get this shit over with.
All right, all right.
Fucking...
Their gameplay and combat mechanics and the very unique ways that you can engage
in the game are what make it fantastic.
The only bit that I don't massively like about it is that you don't necessarily have
the freedom to just chop and change.
You have to think about what you're doing.
I mean, you can change your point system around and redelegate everything,
but only a limited number of times.
You can't keep doing it, which I find somewhat annoying.
Your answer for that is to just max yourself out
and then you can just level everything up and then you can use whatever you want.
But then that just takes all of the fun out of the game.
It's just long.
It's just a grind for something to then realise that I'm bored now.
Yeah, I can't be arsed.
Dragon's Dogma did do that well because you could be whatever vocations class you wanted to be.
The only problem is you had to level them up.
So if you were a really good fighter and then you all of a sudden want to be the wizard,
or the sword, whatever it is, you had to level that up.
So if you were in a tough area, you were just going to get stomped.
But ultimately you had that freedom to chop and change.
So I appreciate when games allow that, that you can go,
well, you can re-spec for free or if you don't like it, just tab out,
take your points out of it and re-spec them.
I forget what game it was recently that I was playing or a recent release that...
Was it Entralled?
Yeah, Entralled allowed you to go back.
I think that was literally what I was thinking of.
Entralled allowed you to go back and if you didn't like your
layout of your skill tree, you could go back for very minimal and reset it.
I think you had to pace something towards it.
But yeah, you could do it as many times as you wanted.
It wasn't an issue.
It offers up the freedom of choice in playthroughs that means you're not
fucking locked in and don't need to start a new one or load an old save,
which works well for people who don't have a lot of time to focus on video games.
I don't want to have to go back and scrap my level 60, 70 fucking character to
then start fresh because I fucked up the build.
I've had it before in Elden Ring where I decided to change to a Faith and Dex build
and I just didn't like it.
I did not like it.
So I was like, well, I've put in all the effort to change everything and then change the weapons
and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And now I don't like it because I liked what I liked before.
So now I've got to fucking change it all back to what it used to be and fucking 12.
So it's too much of a cost.
It's too much aggro to do that.
But yeah, that Elden Ring takes the fucking...
takes the old slice of cake or that fucking hell.
It's going to be...
I feel like it's going to...
Unless something comes and blows out of the water.
I know it can't necessarily get Game of the Year, but it probably could get Game of the
Year under Shadow of the Erd tree specific.
I don't know.
Can I do...
That's what I mean.
I don't know if they can.
I don't know if they can, but I feel like it would be an easy one to say, well, yeah,
it's probably going to be that.
Can I DLC?
There we go.
Win Game of the Year.
Let's have a look.
Oh, the Elden Ring subreddit.
Yeah, of course.
I could even be nominated for Game of the Year.
Yes, and I believe Shadow of the Erd tree will win it this year.
I'm so hyped.
NAR Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth will win and well deserved.
Let's see.
Yes, they can.
According to the Game Awards FAQ page, the Game Awards recognises that many games are
ongoing services that evolve over time with new content, features and improvements.
Games released in previous years are eligible in all reward categories,
all award categories, sorry.
So long as the jury feels their inclusion is merited due to new content,
improvements or service updates.
In addition, the best ongoing game category specifically recognises titles that continue
to provide value to customers.
Best ongoing game is No Man's Sky, hands down is the best ongoing game.
Yeah, because they haven't stopped since they released.
Haven't stopped and every single update they've done has been free.
However, I do believe that if Elden Ring Shadow of the Erd tree is nominated for Game of the
Year, then it will win Game of the Year.
Much like it did fucking last time it was nominated because the...
I don't feel this year's loadout so far has been enough to top the fact of how huge that came out.
I don't physically see how you can play that DLC and then play anything else and then think
that anything else is going to beat it.
I'm just flicking through now and I'm going back through even games that have dropped,
that have come out so far that I'm looking through and going there's nothing on here that can
stand up to it and there's an assortment on here.
You know, even while I'm in May now, I'm back in June.
I just lost it.
You know, Destiny 2 Final Shape, Star Wars Hunters, but that's again a mobile game.
Crap God.
Crap God. The Elden Ring Shadow of the Erd tree, July, Final Fantasy, blah blah blah.
Even then Once Human, like that wasn't enough.
And then some of it's weird because some of the list is games that have already been out
and they're releasing on certain platforms like it's just said here Darkest Dungeon 2,
PS5, PS4, Switch.
I don't think that I don't know if that counts though if it's just being released on.
Yeah, that's what I mean where it gets a little bit awkward.
Star Wars Bounty Hunter, today.
Star Wars Outlaws, but then it's received a lot of fucking bad, bad, bad criticism from its latest
like gameplay and shit where it just doesn't look what was promised.
Which Ubisoft, that's unlike Ubisoft to do that.
Back at it again, August 30th Star Wars Outlaws currently apparently.
Yeah, it's close.
Even I'm not even that interested.
Not really.
Like I do like Star Wars and I very much enjoyed the Cal Kestis saga so far.
Fallen Order and whatever it is.
Jedi Survivor.
Enjoyed them but I haven't followed Outlaws at all and it's not because it's a woman but just
because you know it's not really appealed.
Yeah, it doesn't interest you.
There's other things that I've known.
I'd wonder if it would be day one on Game Pass because then you just fucking buy Game Pass
and then play that.
Yeah, probably.
Make life a lot easier.
September Space Marine 2.
Yes please.
No knowledge on Space Marine.
It's co-op.
It has a co-op function.
Isn't it, it's quite gory isn't it?
Yes.
I think I saw the trailer for it.
Essentially they released Space Marine 1 was what I played across when I was on holiday.
Is that your most anticipated?
I feel so far I feel like for the rest of this year it probably is my most anticipated because...
When does that come out?
September 9th.
Basically you go around being a big super power human.
You don't have like super powers in terms of you can shoot fucking lightning out your bollocks but
you're...
The best superpower ever lightning out my nutsack.
But you're transhuman so you've been genetically modified to be faster, stronger,
fucking more durable and you're just a super soldier and you go around killing the emperor's enemies.
And this time it's a big Xenos invasion by the Tyranids who are basically like a bug,
insectoid swarmage.
The last game basically you started you were Captain Titus of the Ultramarines, the blue ones.
Then the big blueberry smurfs and you were fighting orcs on whatever planet and then it turns out
there was a chaos invasion then you're fighting chaos space marines which are basically the
inverse of you but they've got like fuckery going on like mystic mind powers and fucking whatever.
Yeah well mystic megs have come down and get fucked up.
Yeah and there was a big chaos plot line so I don't know what the follow-up in this one's
gonna be but there was co-op in the last game and there's gonna be co-op in this game both
as a onslaught style one I think which is a one to three player co-op campaign but also a 6v6.
This is a trailer for one of the weapons.
Yeah so there should be yeah they're doing customization as well so you can make your
little man and I imagine they'll do like loyalists versus traitors so they'll do chaos versus
non-chaos so you'll be able to do customization for each they'll probably have different special
loadouts and everything but looks very gory shoot lots of stuff and kill things basically
basically just looks like like left for dead type shit sort of I feel like um the game didn't
necessarily the first game didn't necessarily play like left for dead but I imagine that the
co-op will probably play fairly similar to something left for dead it's mostly just hoard on
the slot yeah you've got objective you've probably got objectives and mission based things you need
to do but it'll be this is massive speculation because I'm I'm loosey goosey following it but I
know I'm gonna play it because there's no point me being like oh I'm gonna probably will then
I'm gonna learn every trailer and everything but it probably we can probably get a few people
because I imagine my power is gonna want to or might play it Sam if you're wondering why we're
not talking about the best console is because I can't be asked simple as that I can't bother
because the best console who fucking knows it's gonna well it would just be steam fucking you know
but it would be it would be steam deck for it but I can't be bothered to talk about it again again
for the fucking 20th episode a combination has the best exclusives xbox is xbox and has loads of
games on it pc's the best but it's not a console yeah and steam decks the middle ground but fucking
battery shit so yeah you got switch somewhere which is the has its own thing its own little
niche with cutie games and fucking zelda so yeah if that sums it up and then if you're playing on
anything else what the fuck yeah what else would you be playing on I don't know what else would you
be playing on your grow up grow up and fuck your mobile phone your fucking mobile game the switch
doesn't doesn't just do cutesy games but I know I know it's definitely got the now it's improved
because they're actually putting games on it whereas before it's run at 10 frames whereas
before it was all very very specific Nintendo games so you had like animal crossing and yeah
yeah all that you know I'm not looks I'm not that's what you want to say yeah that's what you want to
say is yeah that's what you want that's what you want no I know I know you mean I knew I
well a lot of my friends got switches at one point or another I didn't I didn't have anything that I
wanted to play on it so that was that it has its niche Pokemon for me Pokemon was my go-to for
ever wanting a switch was just be able to play Pokemon on it um here you go here's the big one
for November and it's not Assassin's Creed Shadow farming sim 25 squirrel with a gun
let's go he's around there as well that's it there's literally everything else that's coming out
apart from Mario and Luigi Brothership on Switch November 7th I with the the Mario franchise um
and I I perfectly perfectly perfectly understand why everyone loves Mario now there is maybe one
more I couldn't give a fuck about the Mario wham where you know I don't care it doesn't I don't
know the Mario extended universe I'm just not interested in it whatsoever as a as a as a kid
I very much was I just didn't grow out of it but just my interest in in Mario fucking Yoshi
Donkey Kong it all dissipated I wasn't a mar- a Nintendo kid growing up so that's that's that for
me what were you then I didn't I just didn't I basically a lot of the stuff rocks and sticks
outside yeah fucking lighter well I had a Sega and then hand me down PlayStation 1 and then that was
pretty my that was off you went PlayStation 1 2 and you have a day I didn't have a DS or anything
I think I did I have someone give me one and then didn't have a lot on it and then so I didn't play
it a lot never really had Pokemon the only times I played Pokemon was like my sister's boyfriend at
the time and then yeah he took it back off me like after he let me play the fucking Star Zone
he was like oh yeah all right I'll have that no thanks it's pretty much see you later you got
games on your phone you got games sir yeah the uh the only other option which I only found about
about recently is Stalker 2 Heart of Chernobyl that rings a bell so Stalker came out however
fucking long ago um essentially is a follow-up of what happened in Chernobyl and the the reactor
meltdown and then it's basically post the post-apocalyptic radiation nonsense and yeah yeah I
don't really everyone rants and raves about it and it's like the proto metro games like the ones that
were available before or the one that set the tone for that sort of like Russian-esque oh yeah I'm
looking at it now yeah there's a new one coming out apparently that I saw a thing about and I'm
interested because an upcoming first-person shooter survival horror video game developed and published
by Ukrainian game developer GSC um GSC game world it will be the fourth game released in the Stalker
video game series as well as the first Stalker blah blah blah blah blah blah blah will Stalker
2 ever come out available November 20th but yeah if it plays anything like the metro games which I
massively enjoyed yeah that I'll be up for it so if you let me shoot mutants and fucking
irradiated people with an ak then yeah I'm up for it um final one no building mechanics no
building thank fuck final one most anticipated for the second half of 2024 I think I've covered
that what are you what are you looking for the war within hands down the next dlc the next expansion
for world of warcraft um and it is uh Chris Metzen's it's the Chris Metzen expansion um who
is the law father of world of warcraft who left for a period and that's when everything went to
shit and now he's come back and that is where you have the world saga um the world soul saga uh where
they um uh blizzcon or whatever they announced like the next four expansions which they've never
done and they're running with the idea that they will be a little bit shorter but release quicker
so yeah the first edition of that is the war within um and it just looks very fucking good
man dragonfly it was sick definitely had a resurgence in wow because of that they're doing
us so much with a game with classic um seasons of discovery there's talks of classic plus coming
about and all this all this testing bollocks so they're actively trying to pull more people in by
doing new and unique things and then yeah just with the war within the um the shit that they're
doing for new and returning players is so much better than what they've done previously and the
way that they're making the game is just so much more fun and enjoyable for people who don't have
hours and hours and hours yeah and it's a nice reset from what they're doing because they're
coming away from um from dragonfly there it's the beginning of a new story almost but at the same
time it's harping on from old shit that's happened that even i fucking missed out on because i won't
plan at the time um is it enough to bring me back well it's world of warcraft is actually completely
free all of it including all the expansions until the fourth of august so you've got two days
completely i think i've already got all that bollocks anyway yeah probably probably so it
doesn't help me but for anyone else who wants to come play with race and have them scream at you
no point right towards the end of the expansion with the new one coming out in a fucking month
there's absolutely no point in in trying to jump in or there is but i don't know to be fair maybe
because at least that way that way in terms of dungeons and raids and things like that they're
all completely brand new so you could almost jump back in catch up get your bearings sort of figure
out what's going on and then the next expansion comes out and then you can play that and then you
know what's going on straight away with that expansion there's still lore involved there
that you won't fucking understand in terms of story however the zones and everything else the
the crafting systems and all of that shit would all be brand new to everyone um so yeah i suppose
i suppose i'll take that back it probably is a good time to jump in now because everything you're
doing right now doesn't fucking matter so you don't need to be overwhelmed because it literally
it literally doesn't matter it's not it's not like when we first played it and i said none
none of the old dlc's like expansions matter and you just got to get to the end one dragonfly
well now the end one's fucking over it really doesn't matter they've made it a lot quicker to
level up um and it i feel like it would just give you time to really figure out what is going on
and then not get overwhelmed because like i say if i throw this currency at you this fucking mechanic
this thing and that thing it it doesn't so fast about that it's more like i don't want to go into
raids and shit oh we just did it the wrong way this guy's fucking shit he doesn't know what he's
doing like yeah i don't know what i'm doing we did we did the wrong way we rushed it too much
fucking bum rush through it boys i don't know what i'm doing yeah we did it far we did it far too
quick i've i have since learned um to honor a different way of leveling up and that is just
through leveling up through different zones rather than just spam in dungeons because you learn your
class so much better um and you get to actually enjoy a lot of the zones which is what i'm
currently doing um and i feel like if you were to come back that's exactly what we would do we would
make different characters i wouldn't recommend that you make a tank class either because of just
how much responsibility there is involved on that same with a healer be a fucking dps and then just
roll through but yeah now would probably be a decent time to jump back in just because of that
reason that it's not so overwhelming but that is the that is the thing that i'm anticipating
because you won't stop fucking talking about it he's so excited i'm just ready for it he's ready
for it he's just ready for it because also the guild comes back because everyone's on hiatus
everyone's doing other things yeah because they don't need to be playing because there's no
they already finished all the content in one month there's no goal to achieve here no one's
interested i mean unless you're like proper hardcore for it no one's no one's wanting it so
now is is just alt testing let me make a character i've never played before it doesn't matter and
that's exactly what i'm doing i'm just trying to find what i want to main for for this expansion um
and yeah that's that that's that biggest letdown for you so far this year oh shit yeah on a on an
end note because mine was probably dragon's dogma i enjoyed it but it took a very it took a lot of
effort for me to get out of that like initial fucking walking sim stage where biggest letdown
and yeah and then obviously i was like oh i realized now that i'm hitting end game and i need a lot
more shit and i can't be asked and i haven't gone back since and i've since bought a lot of older
games on steam sale and wanted to play them instead you know i really don't know what the biggest
letdown is i really don't know the last of us part two remastered because it just wasn't required
it just taking the wasn't needed it's just a fucking money grab that was pointless what a
fucking waste of time there was absolutely no need for that ever there you go there's your biggest
fucking shitter there's your biggest shitter right well thanks sam for the suggestions thank you it's
very good mate you've got a whole episode out of it love that dedicated to you big boy thanks see
you later