I'm back. I'm a little bit under the weather.
I was about to say with a bit of enthusiasm.
Yeah, a little bit cold, a little bit dizzy.
Apologies for my last three weeks.
I'll give you a brief rundown.
Last week, my wife was in hospital.
A week before, Reece was running late at work.
And the week before that was my daughter's birthday.
So I'm not taking responsibility for any of them.
And you're just gonna have to deal with it.
But here I am.
Here you are.
We're here to talk about wonderful computer games again.
Where do you want to start?
Black Miff Wukong has won Golden Joystick Game of the Year Award.
Has it won that, yeah?
Yeah, and obviously that's not the big game award thing, I don't think.
What was the ones that was announced, the nominations?
Was that the joystick one?
No, that was actual Game of the Year awards.
Yeah, they... quite surprisingly, they had Balotaro in there,
which is a poker roguelike game.
Yeah, this is the fucking list that I'd say, you know?
Yeah, so it's Astro Bot.
Yep.
Balotaro, or Balotro, if you will.
Black Miff Wukong, Elden Ring Shadow of the Earth Tree,
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Metaphor Riefantazio.
So was that...
Oh, that's my bad then, because I've really...
I thought that that was the actual Game of the Year awards,
the big, big one.
Yeah, that is.
Oh, that is the big one.
They had the nominees.
For that one, right, OK.
For the Game of the Year.
Yeah, fair enough.
So...
Well, the Balotaro one, which is why I run it by...
I was really, really confused by that,
because I'd never seen anything of it.
It's basically made by one person, much like Vampire Survivors.
And I haven't played it.
I've looked at a fair amount of shit for it.
I know that Steam has something crazy,
like 40,000 overwhelmingly positive reviews for it.
And my mate at work, Jay, I was talking to him about it,
because obviously it's about deck builders and shit like that.
And he gets a hard on for that kind of stuff.
He's absolutely addicted to it.
He absolutely loves it.
I understand.
It's my favourite genre, one of them, the roguelike genre,
which is what the Binding of Isaac is,
and Into the Guns and all them other weird little games
that I've played.
Brotato, being a little bit of a...
But yeah, whenever I've looked at it,
because I've been aware of it since it came out,
but it just looks like poker.
So I don't really see...
And I've watched videos and it still just looks like poker.
So as far as I'm aware,
because I've got Jay to explain it to me,
it's you have your levels,
and then you have your deck that you're able to build.
And you basically have to...
I think it's you have to reach a certain amount of points
that you get by using your deck,
but there's also jokers which enhance the deck
and give you different abilities and shit like that.
And yeah, when you lose, you lose everything.
You lose the deck and you start all over again.
That's a really, really fucking torn down, basic bitch...
review of it.
Yeah.
I'm kidding.
There must be some secret sauce in there.
Just making people...
Poker-themed, roguelike deck-building video game
developed by Local Thunk and published by Playstack.
It was blah, blah, blah.
Let me have a look.
Because it is difficult to actually...
Because when you look at the reviews,
most of them are like, game is good.
So that's not helpful.
If you need a reason to stay up late
while continually challenging yourself to do better in a game
than developer, Local Thunk has a card game for you called Bellatro,
taking the simple concept of poker
and turning it right on its frigging head.
Local Thunk has put together a ridiculously addictive
gaming experience that I literally had to pull away from
to get this review done.
I can't say that about a lot of games across my desk.
Blah, blah, blah.
If you can't tell what it is, let me break it down in a simple way.
Bellatro is a card game that relies on buffs, upgrades
and a simple backend system
to drive an otherwise pedestrian poker game.
I never knew this could be a thing with poker.
Card games like poker are timeless,
but now I must rethink how I play it.
The base level gameplay design here starts with poker.
You get your cards drawn,
try to find your typical poker combinations,
flushes, straights, pairs, etc.
and go on from there.
The on from their part is driven by upgrades, buffs
and luck of the draw card multipliers.
It's also the reason you'll be hooked to Bellatro.
I could continue reading, but it's quite a long.
It seems to go through the entire fucking.
It's just an interesting poker game, and let's be honest,
an interesting poker game that where the jokers are all different
and there's different buffs and shit that you can you can do.
I'm not. It's not my cup of tea.
Well, I've got I've got a doubt work tomorrow
where I hope to do very little because it's basically for the wins.
So I'll be taking my steam deck with me.
Maybe I'll grab it and have a little look and see what it's all about.
Well, it's 12 quid, I think peanuts to big bowlers like us.
So it is cheap, cheapo.
But yeah, I plan on playing other things.
But yeah, obviously, you don't need to ask my game of the year
because I told you fucking months ago before this list came out.
What? Fantasio?
No, Black Miff Wukong was my game of the year.
Was it? Yeah, yes.
You think he's going to get it?
No, I don't think it will win because we know what's going to win.
Final Fantasy is going to win. Oh, really?
I think the Final Fantasy fans are going to vote.
I was going to say Shadow of the Oatree.
Yeah, no, it's between them, too.
But Final Fantasy fans, there's billions of them.
Thing is, is that I feel like Shadow of the Oatree was an absolutely incredible.
I would go further and say that it isn't a DLC because of how fucking large it was.
But technically it is a DLC.
And I kind of sit in the in the in the party of people
saying it shouldn't be up for game of the year.
It should be in the DLC category or the ongoing game category.
In a sense.
The trouble is with the ongoing game category is they're all multiplayer games.
Like, yeah, it's just just a flat out multiplayer, proper multiplayer as well.
Which again, with the ongoing fucking game category, you've got Destiny 2
that's in there, which I feel like should be swapped out with World of Warcraft.
But World of Warcraft is too old.
I think I think there's an argument for both because it's it's
it's it's better than most triple A games in its own riot.
What? Shadow of the Oatree? DLC is better than most.
Oh, yeah. But then you can't play it without owning Elden Ring.
So it is still a DLC.
It's like it's like it's like a song winning album of the year.
It doesn't really make sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because it's part of an album. This is part of a game.
Yeah, yeah. This is I think they should just make an entirely new category
for best expansion slash best DLC.
Well, I think they do. I swear they do have a category.
I don't think they do.
And then the thing is, this is only been this is the first time it's ever happened.
So where was Phantom Liberty last year?
Because that should have won.
Yeah. Should have been nominated because that game is now like
people now consider that a masterpiece.
Well, I don't understand is why Space Marine two
hasn't got a fucking nomination there.
That's another one, isn't it?
It's very difficult to
to speak on lists like this, because unless you've played
every game that's on the list and then the games that you would like to be
on the list is very difficult to read, because I could sit here and go,
why the fuck is Astro Bots on there?
I don't play it and I haven't played this one either.
So it might be fucking one of the best games I'll ever play.
Well, they were comparing it to like peak Mario.
So it's going to be up there like with one of the best platform. Yeah.
I've played four of these of the six nominees.
Is Black Miff Wukong the best?
Technically, no.
But is it the best game this year?
I think so, just because they come out of nowhere.
This game just never ends.
This got unlimited fucking like the endings, the secrets, the discovery.
There's just absolute fucking masterpiece of a game.
And oh, my God, one of my favorite games all the time.
It's in my it'd be in my top 10 if I did it again.
Metal 4, Ree Fantasio, I'm about 25, 30 hours in.
I love the bones of it, but other things have grabbed me.
So I'll have to go back to that at some point.
But yeah, absolutely fantastic game.
Final Fantasy Rebirth.
I tried to get into it.
It's just not for me.
I smashed the Final Fantasy 7 remake out before this came out to try and,
you know, lead into it.
It just I don't know. I just burn out of it.
I'll probably smash this out before the next one fucking comes out.
But Final Fantasy, I say, I'll just be a vote of popularity
and they'll probably win because it'll have more fans.
But yeah, then you're left with the card game,
Ballotaro and Shadow of the Oatree.
So I think Final Fantasy 7 will win.
I want Black Miff Wukong to win.
And then if they don't win, then I'd like Ballotaro to win
just because it's a brand new company.
And imagine that winning game of the year will be pretty mind blowing.
I'd like them to win just because it's one person that's made it.
Shakes up the apple tree, doesn't it?
Yeah, a little bit, especially when you've got other AAA developers
that haven't even got a sniff at fucking nominations.
You've got you've got one man, one band type shit.
It's always good to see.
Yeah, it's this.
We'll see December 12th.
It is so we will see in a couple of weeks.
And we'll go from there.
So what's the fucking difference between the Joycon and the joystick?
Sorry, just a different show, I guess.
Just because I saw nothing on that golden joysticks.
Normally that pops up for me fucking around this time, but I saw nothing.
1983, Helldivers won four awards.
Final Fantasy wins four, Helldivers won three,
Balotro and BlackWrath Wukong claim two each.
So, yeah, I don't I don't actually know all the ins and outs of it.
It just popped up.
I've been really busy, so I haven't actually had the chance to check all this stuff.
Bro, have you got to pull that mic closer to the camera?
I was just losing my voice.
Yeah, I've been really busy, so I know the chance to check all this stuff.
But we'll have a look at some point.
What have you been playing?
I guess just World of Warcraft.
Yeah. Yep. Fuck all.
What happened to everybody on thing?
Everyone's just just dead.
Yeah, because of wow.
The especially now because they've done a classic refresh.
So they've they brought out classic again, but with they've refreshed the servers.
So everyone's all back to fucking square one.
They've done like a hard reset pretty much and then added a couple of other
quality of life improvements to it.
So everyone's just smack bang on that.
I'm not particularly interested in it.
I might give it a go, but I'm not massively into it.
Obviously, I bought the Division two again the other day.
So I'm yeah, I want to I've got a weird hankering to fucking jump into some horror games.
You know, I mean, you know, when you get that we're on the same wavelength, that weird feeling.
I am currently in my zombie apocalypse state.
Yeah, I've transitioned.
Have you looked at Stalker two?
Yeah, I looked at that as Xbox only and PC only.
Oh, is it? I didn't even know that I can play on Xbox.
Right. It's on Game Pass.
Yeah. But I think it's a timed exclusive.
I think it comes out.
I think it comes out. Well, it's three months exclusive and then it'll be on PlayStation.
I think it's it's got a huge fan base stalker.
It looks fantastic, but apparently it's going through a bit of that cyberpunk treatment.
Yeah, it's got the mixed reviews and shit.
So I might wait a bit and then hopefully if it comes out on PlayStation by then it will be
the good version.
Yeah.
But if any any developer deserves a bit of time to sort it out, it's them.
Because they were creating that game when all this because they're from Ukraine.
Yeah, they've been dealing with all that shit that's happening over there.
I think they even lost their studio and all sorts of stuff.
I can't that's just guess.
I'm sure I heard something like that, but they've been proper through the mill.
So if anyone deserves a bit of time to try and sort their game out, it'll be there.
But yeah, what I've seen and from stalker fans, they're gassed for it.
I think it's like a it's like it's like fallout, but dark fallout and very hardcore.
So I think in terms of like your first foray into Dark Souls or Eldoran Ring, just been like,
well, this is hard.
It's going to be like that.
You're getting hit and thinking, fuck, like this is this is.
Is it survival?
I think not.
Not in that respect is survival.
But I don't think you have to like drink or do any of that sort of shit.
It's just it's just like a I think it's open world.
Go here and find stuff and shoot shit and let's do a quick little Google of that
because I've seen a couple of kids.
But yeah, for some reason, I hate horror games.
I hate them.
I detest them.
I really don't like them, but I want to play them at the same time.
I think if you're in that sort of zone, you should maybe pick up something cheaper,
which is also fantastic.
And I believe Connor, Connor is a huge fan of the series
because I remember talking to him about it.
Metro Exodus.
Yeah, I've got Metro Exodus.
You reckon I'll stick with that?
Well, yeah, it's free quit.
I know you've got it.
It's fucking free quit on the board.
I've got it played it for about half an hour and then put it down.
It's just going to be another one of them.
Stick to it type things in your defense.
I guess I also done the same.
I played it.
I got I got through the first card game.
A podcast I got through the first chapter.
I think I did because it's open world, but in chapters,
you get one open world and then another open world.
But yeah, the actual game is this got a huge following as well.
And that's all based around apocalyptic Russia or Ukraine.
And they're all living in the metro tunnels and stuff like that.
Yeah, horror elements to it.
I might give that a download then.
So you see what the correct.
So right now, back to stalker two, we've got very positive
is what the steam reviews on the last time I looked, they were mixed.
And that's out of just shy of twenty thousand reviews, which is which is good.
Discover the vast Chernobyl exclusion zone full of dangerous enemies,
deadly anomalies and powerful artifacts.
Unveil your own epic story as you make your way to the heart of Chernobyl.
Make your choices wisely as they will determine your fate in the end.
Spooky, very spooky.
It also fucking some of these some of these reviews have a little look.
Number one, atmosphere and sound amazing.
A hundred out of ten bugs didn't find anything critical.
Optimization. It's just bad.
Waiting for patches.
A life. There's no a life.
I don't know what that is.
Game just spawns enemies within 50 to 100 meters.
Hope patches will make it work like in previous games,
because without it, it's not stalker and the world is empty and lifeless.
Without it, enemies are just sponges for bullets.
Need rebalance for mags to kill a bloodsucker.
Really. Other things to mention that I would like the devs to change.
Night cycle is too short.
No sleeping bags.
It costs a fortune to repair weapons and suits.
No dynamic shadows from the flashlight.
Enemies just spam you with grenades all the time.
Would be cool to have more food, less drink options and cook monster parts like in Gamma.
Gamma is the mod.
The mod that everyone's banging on about,
because when I've seen anything about stalker 2, people have said Gamma is better, blah, blah, blah.
And it's just a mod.
Weapons slash suits condition goes down way too fast.
When you sit at the campfire, you cannot eat, drink, open PDA slash inventory, etc.
You get hungry every five to ten minutes.
Obviously, do you have to?
I hate that shit.
I hate it.
You see, I quite like that stresses me out, but I like it.
It gives me a good stress.
It says for now, the game is medium, medium rare,
waiting for the devs to cook it properly.
And then it will be the game of the year for sure.
Good game.
My CPU is glowing in the dark now.
Call itself Chernobyl's chosen one.
I think when I was looking into this week, a lot of the old stalker games,
they're like kind of got that Bethesda vibe where like Skyrim, it just lives through its mods.
That's the stalker thing.
And they've said that stalker 2 is going to have mods as well and on console.
So what level of mods that will be, I imagine it'll be pretty impressive,
considering what I'm looking at for Baldur's Gate mods.
I was about to say Baldur's Gate's got fucking mods now.
Yeah, even for the console, they're very impressive.
Xbox are a lot better for mods in all these games because,
as I said before, Sony don't allow for asset changes because it gives people like,
gives like a leak in their security kind of thing.
They can get into different files and stuff if they do that.
So it's more like altering a chair into a tank or something.
You can't really do that on PlayStation.
Whereas on Xbox, they're a lot more lenient.
So maybe I will look at it.
It's going to game pass.
If I sub for a month and play it for a month, then I'll just see what it's like.
So maybe I'll do that.
But at the moment, you know where I am.
I'm in DayZ, baby.
Of course you are.
There's a new map out which I purchased.
The first new map in like 10 years or something crazy.
It's called Sakal.
And you would hate it.
It's deadly.
It's dangerous.
It's scary.
It's snowy.
I've seen clips of it, yeah.
Polar bears and shit.
It's just, you're just cold, man.
This is the cold that kills you.
So you're constantly making fires and stuff.
But to make a fire, you know, you need all these bits and bobs.
But at the moment, me and Clarkie are running together.
We've been running pretty much all week, the same characters.
We've made it to like the island across a land bridge, which is dangerous.
We've made it there and we're currently looting up military gear.
We've come through some serious trials and tribulations.
Clarkie almost died yesterday because we run out of bandages.
Because this is the problem.
You go to these high-end military areas to get the good guns and shit, right?
But what you're not getting is the normal shit that you also need.
So you need knives.
Like to cut shit up, you need bandages and stuff like that.
So we're running out of supplies, basically.
And Clarkie got whacked by a zombie and he started bleeding.
And we had nothing to stop the bleeding.
So he had to take his trousers off and cut them up into rags.
Yeah.
Because the rugs are not disinfected, that gave him a blood infection,
which then I had to cure with almost all my medicine.
So now we're kind of at a position where we're having to use all our blood.
We're having to use all our bullets on the zombies because if we get tagged,
we're fucked basically because we've got no medicine, no rags, no bandages,
no disinfectant.
We're kind of just bollocksed.
But yeah, that's the story that you tell.
I managed to do something which Daisy tells you quite often in the loading screen that
the most powerful weapon in Daisy is your voice.
I was in a building.
Clarkie was in another building and he screamed,
I'm being chased by another human.
He said, I said, come in here, sir.
So he ran upstairs.
Obviously, this geezer didn't know I was there.
Clarkie ran in and quickly I had a lockpick.
So I locked the door.
Just as I locked the door, the geezer tried the door, couldn't get in.
And then he pretended that he's gone.
So he's like ran down the stairs.
But I know he sneaked back up because I can hear him shivering on the other side of the door.
And then I'm going, ooh, so I said to Clarkie,
should I just shoot through the door with a shotgun to see if I can blow him up?
He's like, no, because you've only got one shot.
And if you miss, then you're fucked.
Then there's going to be problems.
So I will play you the clip that ensued.
Just have a shot.
I'll skip to the good bit.
This is how it goes.
You're cold.
You're outside the door shivering, bro.
I know you're there.
He's just how you keep it.
A stack of you, boss.
I just need you to kill me.
I don't want to be here.
Well, you can kill yourself, bruv.
Yeah, I can.
But wouldn't it be more exciting to kill someone, I suppose?
You killed me.
It'd be more exciting if you just killed yourself, bruv.
That's not exciting.
It's exciting for me.
It gets my pickle tickled.
I'll do it outside the door.
You listen.
I'm listening, bro.
I want to hear that blood gurgle.
Yeah, yeah, of course.
What the fuck?
All right, one sec.
All right, you ready?
I love you, man.
Love you too.
One sec.
I've done this in ages.
All right, ready?
Ready?
Peace and love.
No hard feelings.
No hard feelings, bro.
Oh, no.
Is that him actually killing himself?
Yeah, he just stabbed himself in the throat.
And then I opened the door.
He had nothing.
He was just a freshie.
But you don't know.
And that's the thing.
I didn't know you could just stab yourself in the throat.
Yeah, you could suicide with any item.
Oh, is that how you do it?
Yeah.
Yeah, and with this map, you start with a steak knife.
So you can, if you don't like where you've started, you can just...
But yeah, none of me or Clarky both didn't know that he was a freshie.
And also, I knew he was outside.
And then you're like, why don't you just kill me?
One, why are you hiding then?
Because you don't know that we know you're there.
Two, you don't know there's two of us in here.
Three, I know what will normally happen.
I'll open that door.
And then you shoot me.
Yeah, either that or there'll be another one of you at the end of the hallway.
So you just can't take risks in Daisy.
And I used my voice and got rid of the problem.
There's a guy I follow on TikTok and he plays a lot of Daisy
and obviously sticks with that rule of you can't trust anyone.
And he makes a living just getting people to trust him
and going on these crazy adventures and all this mental shit.
And then at random points, he'll just turn around and fucking shoot people in the face.
Like there was one, I think it was a group of like four people.
And it was that map because they were being attacked by a polar bear.
So there's like, there's four of them in a cluster.
This polar bear comes out of nowhere and starts attacking them all.
So obviously everyone's screaming, right?
This geezer runs to the side, turns around,
and there's three of them being mauled by a polar bear,
pulls out a gun and shoots one of them in the head, right?
And then goes back to fucking, oh my God, there's a fucking polar bear here.
All crazy.
They all blast the shit out of this polar bear, kill that.
And then turn around, they're like, oh my God.
And then he says, he's like, I don't know what his name was,
name was like Darren or something.
He's like, the polar bear got Darren.
And then they all fucking, they all believe it.
And then one by one, he just starts fucking popping them off as well.
I was like, what the fuck?
So you're so crazy.
That's the stories you get to tell in Daisy, man.
That's the beauty of it.
The amount of effort you go through to get yourself fully, fully geared up,
and then to even find a big group of people who are also geared up
and to build that trust, to then just turn around
and shoot someone in the face for no reason
and then probably kill yourself and then do it all over again.
I know that is true, but that's what makes the stakes so high.
And there's no other game that does it like that.
Because when you die, unless you've made a base
and you've got stuff stashed, you essentially lose everything.
So there's nothing else that has the stakes that high.
Like a rogue-like.
Yeah, kind of, yeah.
Back to square one.
Yesterday, just before we logged off, me and Clark, we found a base, someone's base.
And for the first time, I put landmines down and grenades.
So I put two landmines down, two grenades on the floor.
Then I un-pinned a grenade, put that on the floor
and then sprinted away and blew up half of the barrier.
And then we just had enough bullets to just shoot the rest of the base out.
And we managed to break in.
So we did our first ever raid on a base, got in there.
It was fuck all in there.
There was a couple of boxes with some fuel and some axes and stuff.
He's obviously just getting that base sorted, got that up
and then he's got some base supplies he's going to continue to build.
But we've raided now.
So I was going to log out in his base, but then Clark, he advised me
that if I do that and he comes back and builds it again,
I'm stuck in there, which is true.
You would be stuck in there, yeah.
I watched the Geezy on YouTube yesterday.
He built like a wooden door that opens and closes in this barracks.
And he's obviously got a combination lock on it and he's left it open.
And then he's like waited in this fucking little room next to the door.
Geezy's come in, gone straight upstairs.
He's just gone out, locked the door.
He's just like, you're my prisoner now.
There's literally nothing he can do.
You literally can't get out.
Unless you've got like eight grenades on you and 400 bullets.
Suppose you can't just punch the door, can you?
Because you'll do your wrists in.
You'll make your hands bleed.
Like there's literally nothing you can do.
So he was like, he was just asking questions and he said,
if you can sing like Kermit the Frog, I'll let you out.
And he sang a whole song in the voice of Kermit the Frog.
And then he let him out and then they had a firefight and then he lost anyways.
And he lost.
Down in.
Good fun, man.
And they're the stories that you get to tell and it's great fun.
Psychopathic.
Yeah, but that's what an apocalypse would do to a man.
Yeah.
I suppose if you're eating human flesh and fucking chicken breasts.
And that's the last thing that happened to Clarky before this life.
He for some reason, thought it was okay to eat human fat.
And there's a lot of humans about at the moment because people are chopping them up
and using their bones to make knives.
So Clarky was finding these bits of human fat and eating them.
And thinking that was okay.
And what just eating them raw?
No, he's cooking them cooking them up until he developed a little.
Oh, the laughs.
Yeah, a little giggle.
And he wondered why.
So he blew his own head off.
What happens if you continue with that?
It's just a brain disease.
I think it just gives away your position.
I don't know if it kills you over time or probably does.
He just put a bullet in his head.
No, no, no, he did.
He pointed a gun at his head and then made me kill him.
He was even more sick.
It was just disappointing because then when I killed him, I'd ruined all his clothes
because I'd stabbed them.
I couldn't even take them.
But yeah, that's just the fun the funsies of Daisy.
So I'm on my zombie, my zombie hype at the moment.
I'm currently reading World War Z, which is a very, very good book.
I must add.
I'm only about 50 pages in.
Have you ever seen the movie?
I haven't.
It's a good movie.
Yeah, I'm going to watch it this weekend.
It's got nothing to do with the book.
The movie is based on the book, but it's like not.
It's not nothing to do with it kind of thing.
I think it's, you know, takes inspiration from it.
But I know that Jem's watched it like 40 times.
It's one of her favorite films.
So I've caught bits of it like hundreds of times.
So I feel like I've seen it, but I know nothing about it.
But I'll be watching that this weekend.
So I'm looking forward to that.
And yeah, that's about all I've been playing, really.
I've maxed out my Rangor New World, got to level 65, done a few extra bits,
done this, got the horse speed maxed out.
And then, you know, I'm just waiting for the road map to see if.
They announced their road map.
No, have they?
I swear I saw a thing where it said that they'd.
Well, I've got tweet notifications on for them.
And they.
Oh, no, sorry.
They announced fucking a round of upcoming server merges.
Oh, yeah, I see that.
So, yeah, I'm waiting for I'm waiting to see if they're supporting it for the long term.
And if they are, then I will support it for the long term because I do really like it.
And if they're not going to support it for long term, then I'll just fuck it off.
You know what I did see the.
PlayStation portal beta announcement.
Did you see that?
I know a geyser at work was telling me today that it's got some steam capabilities,
streaming capability now.
If you if you have the.
I think it's the top tier of PlayStation plus whatever,
whatever fucking one is PlayStation plus premium.
Some bollocks you basically gain access to the beta of being able to stream.
It's like one hundred and twenty hundred and fifty something games from the cloud
without your PlayStation even being switched on.
And the likes of things like Ghost Tsushima, Horizon.
I've got the fucking I think some of the big.
Some of the big lists.
PlayStation.
Here we go.
The portal up portal update.
It is just over a year ago.
Blah, blah, blah.
Today we're pleased to announce a new system software update for PlayStation portal that
will begin releasing.
Starting later today, that it and it said, that's random.
This update will also include a beta version of a new feature that many fans have been
asking for support for cloud streaming on PlayStation portal.
When the update is live, PlayStation plus premium members will be able to participate
in a beta for cloud streaming on the portal, allowing select PS5 games in the PlayStation
plus game catalog to be streamed on the PlayStation.
And select PS5 games in the PlayStation plus game catalog to be streamed directly from
our servers, even without a PS5 console or even without a PS5 console.
I didn't read that bit.
So you won't even fucking if you really didn't want to, you don't even need a console
anymore.
Since cloud streaming is beta on PlayStation portal, the features available during the
beta period may change over time and may not reflect the final experience over one hundred
and twenty PS5 games from the PlayStation plus game catalog, including Dave the Diver.
I'm not about to read all hundred and fifty, but including David Diver, Ghost Tsushima,
Marvel, Spider-Man, Morales, Monster Hunter Rise and Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart.
And streaming up to 1080p 60 frames per second.
And I believe was it say their save data and game progress can be stored up to 100 gigabytes
and will be automatically synced with your PS5 console, making it easy to switch seamlessly
between local and streaming gameplay and between multiple devices.
So it would also carry the saves over, which is quite cool.
And where was it?
It did have the so to stream at 720p, it requires seven megabits per second worth of a connection.
And then to stream at 1080p, it requires 13 megabits per second.
I don't know what the average 5G hotspot is.
I'm sure I can Google that average.
Average 5G.
Hotspot speed.
So it says the average 5G hotspot speed depends on the network provider and location, but it can
be around 150 to 200 megabits per second. Really? Yeah, fucking hell.
Average download speeds, 70 to 205 megabits per second.
And then the peak download speeds, 853.4 megabits per second plus.
So what that means is if you're on 5G and you've got the portal and you hotspot
and you're in a half decent area, you'll be able to stream to its absolute capability.
That's a step in the right direction, isn't it? But it's still streaming, isn't it?
I want one.
It's still going to be input lag, left, right and centre. I want one.
I want one.
But I also am waiting because I only would want, that was nice.
I'd only want one for the, to be able to play New World on the go, or games of that ilk.
But it all depends on input lag because whilst it doesn't matter too, too much if you're playing
single player games and you can play New World without fighting anyone, so that's fine.
But it's just very jarring if the input lag is obvious. I find it very unconsolable.
Depends how big the input lag is because I haven't actually seen much on the PlayStation
portal talking about fucking input lag, if I'm honest.
Well, I've played the PlayStation portal, but this was obviously before this became a thing.
So it was essentially streaming from Matey Bob's PlayStation, which is on now at home.
And he's at work playing it, his PlayStation's at home. I tried playing,
he just booted up any old game, like Mortal Kombat as it was.
And the screen tear, like it was just, you know, it just, the pixels just disappear.
It's just a fucking mess. And I'm pressing X and he's just like not doing anything for a second,
which don't sound like a lot. That's a fucking lot when you press the button and nothing happens.
But as I say, that's streaming from his PlayStation. This is streaming from the cloud.
So theoretically, this would be a lot better, but until you actually try it, it's hard to talk.
But it's a step in the right direction. Nevertheless,
in reality, what you want is the PlayStation portal to be able to access your library of games,
much like the Steam Deck. So I've got God of War Ragnarok on the PlayStation 5,
we've got PlayStation portal. I can stream it through the cloud or the PlayStation,
or I can just download it onto my portal and play it natively on there.
Yeah. But then you're not going to have the fucking,
you'd have to completely redesign the portal.
Well, this is what I mean, but that is how they should have designed it in the first place.
They should have made the Steam Deck, but in the PlayStation portal aspect. So you can access
your library and download the games onto it or stream them.
Yeah. But then you'd probably be throwing on another 100, 150 quid minimum onto that price.
In reality, it's not that expensive anyway. If I could have a PlayStation that I could download
my games onto and play on the go or at home while Jim's watching a film, I would buy it. 100%.
But at the same time, if you eliminated the input lag aspect of it, you wouldn't need that full stop
because you just fucking stream it. That's true. But then if you're not in a place of good internet,
it's useless. Useless bit of kit. If I took that to Ireland with me, it's no good to me.
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's good. It's definitely a step in the right direction. I just wish they'd
done what I'd say. I can see what they're doing, but at the same time, there has to be a point
where you go, right, OK, well, you're in 2024. Realistically, most of the world has decent
internet. I don't know if that's a fucking blasé statement or not, but you have to assume that
most people have access to decent internet to then almost come up with a product that
compensates for the people that don't have internet. At some point, you have to go with the masses.
And I feel like streaming is just that easier. Yeah, but it's not even that. It's like,
things like portals are for people that are going on trains or they're going on journeys,
like you're traveling, you're going on a plane journey. You want to take your portal with you.
It's useless. You can't get no fucking internet in the air. But the portal was never designed
for that though. This is a portable PlayStation. So the whole thing. Yeah, but that's not what it
was meant for. You remember when we did the first episode about it and we were like, what the fuck
is this? Why was no one asked for this? And we really fucking slated out. I've sort of had not
a 180 change, but a definite... He's had a 90. He's had a 90 degrees.
Yeah, only because there's been times where... Because a mate at work, Dean, he's got a portal.
And when we were on nights for a week, he had that with him every day and he was playing The
Last of Us on it and FIFA and other games and it was playing perfectly fine. And I know Mark's got
one, Darrell's got one. And when I was talking to Darrell about his, he was saying how nice it is to,
even when he's at home, if it's just pure laziness of, he don't want to fucking get up out of bed.
He can play his portal there as long as the PlayStation's in rest mode. What would be great
is if you could turn the PlayStation... If you needed to have the PlayStation turned on to be
able to play the portal, which I believe you do, come up with something where I can turn the fucking
thing on when it's turned off. You know what I mean? On an app that's connected or whatever.
But there's been a couple of times when Steph's got back into Fortnite and obviously she plays
it on the Switch, but she plays it on the telly. And even then, if I'm not really feeling playing
anything on PC, I don't want to take Steph away from doing what she's doing. But if I had another
console there where I could play the things that I want to play, you start to see more and more
the idea of, oh shit, it actually does have a purpose. And when it first come out, that was
its purpose, much like the Wii U. It was never framed as an addition to take out and about.
It was always, and I think that's why we got so fucking weirded out by it, because we were like,
what the fuck is the point? It was not even meant to be taken on the road with you. That's just for
fucking, you can sit upstairs watching telly and I can sit downstairs playing fucking God of War.
I still think... I mean, yeah, that's fine. If that's the model that they've gone with and that's
what they're aiming for, I just think they're leaving so much money on the table. People are
always asking for like a new PSP or Vita or whatever they were called. So why would you not
just essentially just do that, but without the... Because you don't need to have discs anymore. You
don't need the little disc used to put in your Vitas and PlayStation portals and stuff. But to
be able to download it onto your system, all you need is memory on that. That's all you need is
something to store it in. I don't know. I'm guessing the port doesn't have any memory.
It is just a streaming device. Yeah, there's nothing in it. It will have like very basics.
Oh, it will soon because you know what they'll do. They'll announce little
hard drive attachments to the fucking thing. 100%.
Well, I feel like the streaming side of it is... For me, I feel like that's the right direction to
go in just because it keeps the cost at it. I would imagine it would keep the cost down of it. And
you're talking as if you don't have internet access to your phone 99% of the time.
I don't even have internet access here unless I'm on the Wi-Fi.
Yeah, but that's because you're here though. You're in a field.
Yeah, but it doesn't matter. There's places in London I go where I don't get internet on my phone.
And the place I'm at tomorrow, I couldn't play the portal because I don't get internet.
I literally can't get internet on my phone. It's just nothing. I don't even get 3G or nothing.
And that's London. So, you know, that's very niche, but I guess I'm old school. I don't want
physical stuff to disappear. And I've also been burnt by streaming stuff. Quite recently, I was
playing Star Wars Force Unleashed on PlayStation 5 on that PlayStation Now thing. I was playing it
at home on my PlayStation Now shit. Yes, exactly. But I'm playing it at home.
Yeah. On my Wi-Fi. Yeah. On my PlayStation 5. And it's fucking terrible.
Yeah, there's a reason why PlayStation Now never, they tried so hard to make that take off and it
just didn't. But then that is, that will be their PlayStation cloud. That will be where their games
are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then why is the portal going to be an improvement on that after I've just
tried to play a PS3 game on a PS5? Probably because that's the market for it. Your PS5
sitting there is not designed to be for games to be streamed on it. Your PlayStation is there
because you can physically put games onto it and then play them from that. Yeah, I'm with you. The
streaming should fucking work. But I'd have to imagine that if there's a dedicated separate
console for that, that you're going to plumb more money into making it work on that before you're
going to worry about making it work on your console. Because that's what the whole thing's
for. No one's bought a PS5 because they're just going to play PlayStation Now. If it works and
it works like 99% of the time, then yeah, I'm with you. Well, that'll be the proofs in the pudding.
Because if there is input lag or it keeps dropping, then it's just trash. At least they're beta testing
that to users. Do I think it's right to be beta testing that to people that are paying the fucking
top tier of PlayStation Plus? Bit weird because what's that going to do? Anyone that's got a
portal is now going to go, oh, fucking hell, let me pay the extra money and then I'll fucking
roll in this. But from a business idea, very, very smart. Because if I had a portal, I'd want to be
in on that. I would want to be able to stream those games, especially coming from a gaming podcast
point. It would be great to have one to be able to do that so that you could give an in-depth
review on it. But I would just hope that if you're going to have it like that, that you would listen
to what the people are saying and what should be done. And input lag will have to be priority
number one. Input lag and fucking buffering. If I'm streaming a game, I don't want it to buffer.
Well, that's essentially what it was doing to me. It was just all the pixels were just dying.
Shit. Really shit.
And then slowly like, you know when you're watching YouTube and your internet's terrible
and then it drops down to 480p. You can't see nothing.
Yeah. That's exactly what happened when I played it all years ago. I think it was on PS4 is when
I first tried PlayStation now and it was terrible. You get enticed in by seeing that massive catalog
of games and all the old school games and shit. And you think, oh, fucking hell, this is sick.
I was just playing one of the Ratchet and Clank's and it was terrible. Really, really, really,
really bad. That's what I mean. When you get burnt by that, you're just put off by it. So
all these streaming services, because you can just play Xbox games for your telly. You don't
even need a fucking Xbox, but I'm burnt on the stream. So I'm thinking, you know, if you're
desperate and you don't have an Xbox and you want to play Starfield, then there's an option for you.
Whether it's good or not, I don't know.
Bro, you can play a game like so many games now through Netflix.
Yeah. GTA 7 and JAS.
And it always pops up.
That in itself is fucking wild. Just download them quick and fucking playing with your
controller like it. Let's have a look. I just Googled input lag on the PlayStation portal.
And I just want to see. In my opinion, the PlayStation port is a wonderful tool for
streaming games from the PS5 and it should work perfectly on a local network and acceptably
wherever we are within the range of a low and stable latency. However, the portal fails to
meet acceptable input lag standards on a local network. I'm talking about an input lag of at
least 50 to 60 milliseconds in the in the best case scenario, which as we both agree is noticeable.
Very noticeable when Lou first started playing games on Amazon Luna.
When you don't have the Amazon Luna controller to pair up with it and you're using a standard
Xbox controller, whatever the input lag is crazy because not only are you fucking streaming that
you're now on a wireless controller not specifically designed for those servers.
And then, you know, there's a problem because they came out with a controller dedicated for
those servers that had its own dedicated servers that it would link up to to reduce the input lag
that was still there. That is to be fair. I feel like if you can crack being able to stream a game
with next to no input lag whatsoever or barely noticeable input lag, then that opens up a whole
load of shit because even down to little things like watching live television and shit like that,
there's always a gap. There's input lag on everything.
For PlayStation 5, there's input lag on the control, but you don't notice it. It's impossible
to notice because it's minimal. But that's what they need to get it to. For it to be successful,
they need no input lag. They need PS5 level of input lag and they need the buffering to happen
once a year and be like, oh, this is fucking shit. But then never happen again for the year.
That can't be consistent because your games are fucked. And, you know, let's get it right. Not
everyone wants to, but some people will want to play fucking Mortal Kombat online and stuff.
There'll be a lot of your library that's useless. If you want to play online gaming,
it's impossible with input lag. It's a very difficult thing to get right
because I know myself that if I were to get a PlayStation portal and there be that initial
stuttering, the input lag and things like that, or it just not connecting to the PlayStation and all
of the above, it's going to switch me off relatively quick. And I feel like that is the most dangerous
thing for something like the portal and it going in the streaming direction is I think you're of
a day and age now where most people aren't just going to turn around and go, oh, well, you're
streaming it is what it is. Like what you just said, if I'm putting the money into it, albeit
200 quid, still 200 quid for a fucking console that's cost me however much money they cost.
I can't remember how much PS5 is. Then I want the fucking thing to work as it should.
Yeah. Or, you know, you got to be realistic and be a human about it and be like, all right,
I can accept issues, but they have to be once in a while. It can't be fucking every other day.
This game's just fucked. It's jittering. It's fucking the button input isn't working. Like
you know, it can't just be falling apart on the screen. It has to be working. And that's
where Steam Deck just does everything so well. Obviously I know you're downloading stuff onto it,
but when I connect it to the dock and then I press one button on my PlayStation,
my PlayStation controller is connected to the Steam Deck and there's no input lag.
And that's two completely different systems all working wirelessly. Fantastic. Yeah. So yeah,
it is possible when you are right. It's just old my, my old head with the streaming, but much like
I've always been, I'll only ever buy physical media. I haven't bought a fucking game in,
I don't know how long now, just for ease. And I would never ever bought a Steam Deck in the past
because I'll be like, I can't keep my games. But now I'm just like, I just love having it there.
And just, if I want it like tomorrow, I'm going to use it. So I will go on it. I'll look at my
library. I've obviously got everything I want on there now anyway. But if there's any new games,
I want like that, Baltaro, whatever, I'll download it tonight and it will be running fine tomorrow
because it doesn't need internet. It's just gone. Where you run into a problem is if you're,
if you're only access to games on the portal is through streaming and through what you've
already got on your PlayStation. If I'm not, I'm not paying for a game that I have to stream,
or I'm definitely not paying fucking full price for one. No, exactly that. If you're, if you're
going to throw, I don't know, let's for argument's sake, because you're talking about earlier,
stalker too, when that finally comes out on PlayStation, if you're then going to throw
60 quid at me to be able to play it and stream it, it entirely depends on like you said, what,
what it should be is okay, 60 quid for stalker. You buy this, it's now in your library. You can
download this on your PlayStation five, but you can now also stream it on your portal. That's how
it should be. It should be, if I purchase it, that's the direction I'd want to see it in. If
you're going to stick with the streaming side of things, let me buy the game, but then let me
simultaneously. Well, I suppose no, cause you already do because it has to be downloaded on
your, sorry, what the fuck am I saying? That is what it does now. You buy the game and so on.
You were just saying there that you don't need a PlayStation five console and you can just play the
games. So yeah. So that's where that would come into play. Yeah. You're right. Right. And what
you're saying, but it'd either have to be a huge cut price and just not a portal version, but a
streaming version. Well, I don't even know how you, how do you get around it? Exactly. Stalker two,
physical, digital stream only. How does that one work? Yeah. You're right. You know, you know,
what it'll be, it'll just be a subservice. It'll just be a subscription. It will be a subscription.
Yeah. Well, I can see this being, um, or games pass being Sony's way into game pass is, is by,
by implementing something like that. They've already got something like that. The highest
tier of PlayStation plus, which is, might be why they're leaning into that with the beta
might be a reason because that is what you're going to need to stream these games. It gives you
access. Are you going to be able to stream the new games that you want to play without buying them?
That's an interesting question. I have to wait and see on that. It is because that's a big outlay
to be able to do something like that. I'm not buying 60 quid if I can only stream a game.
And if I want to play on PS5, I've got to buy it. No, no chance. No chance.
What's the, there we go. There's a piss. See you later everyone.