It's a perfect Friday on... It's nearly March.
Nearly March. The fucking year is disappeared.
We're nearly into the third month of this year.
I know. That was weird. Sorry, it's WhatsApp.
Go on. Yeah, we are. What was you about to show
me? You were about to show me a photo. Oh, yeah.
You went, have you seen this? This is official
image of... The new God of War. Hmm. Hmm. What?
Is that fucking... Is that... Well, you know
who it is. They've announced who it is, but...
Floki the Bud Builder. No, it's not him. It looks
like him, though, doesn't it? It does. It's Thingamabob,
isn't it? Who? Geyser out of Sons of Anarchy.
Opie. Oh, it is. Oh, it is. Yeah. Oh, that's
the series. That really threw me because I thought
that was a game announcement. I was like, why
is Atreus so fucking young? That is going to
look really cool. He plays a good Kratos by the
look of him. You don't like that? You don't think
he's muscly enough? You're just putting thoughts
in my head now. I just looked at it and was taken
back because I thought, oh, that's not real.
It's real. Game wards have tweeted it out. IGN
have put it and said, Brian's video is God of
War first look. So it must be real. I'm interested
to hear the voice. Yeah, it's hard to get a...
You can't really make a judgment on one still
image. You need to see him in fluid movement.
Is he just walking slowly or is he jogging through
the woods? How is he going to play that character?
Especially in that time period as well. That
section of Kratos' life is a very, very weathered,
weathered god. And, yeah. It's kind of like you,
really. He's just done. He's just done. He's
just mentally checked out. He can still crack
it out, but just done. It's fair enough. Yeah,
I'm looking forward to that. I suppose there's
not a date or anything, is there? I don't think
so. No. That will probably lead quite a nice
segue into the next thing that I would like to
talk about because obviously it's been two weeks
and I would like to get your thoughts, please,
because I'm sure we'll have different viewpoints
or maybe even the same, which might be interesting,
on God of War, Sons of Sparta. So I played it
for about an hour. Yeah. I haven't played it
since. That's not because I didn't like it. You
play Saturn because you're forcing yourself to.
I just wasn't in the mood. I was tired. Couldn't
be bothered. I had no interest in gaming, but
I felt like I had to play it. So I forced myself
to play it, and I was just clicking buttons and
shit. But it's all right. It's one of them games
where it's going to start off shit, because they
always do. That's how Metroidvanias play. They
start off shit, and then they get really good
because you get all new abilities and weapons.
All sorts of crazy shit. I'm assuming that's
going to be the case with that. But I just haven't
got round back to playing it, to be honest with
you. Yeah. But I know you... I tried to refund
it the same day I fucking played it. I put about
an hour, an hour and a half into it. And to be
fair, it felt exactly the same way as you. I
felt like I was playing it because I had to play
it because it was God of War. And then I realised...
just before I switched it off, which was the
reason why I switched it off, I was like, I'm
not interested in anything that's going on here.
I was like, I know what's happening so far, but
I was like, I am not into it. I was like, I'm
so bored. And I don't think that's a reflection
on the game itself. I think it's just, number
one, I don't know, Metroidvania is just not for
me. Not for me. And then number two, yeah, just
the mindset of it. Because I feel like it was
so... Like, unexpected. You go, ah, he's got
a War Thunder's bar. It's in Metroidvania. See
you later. And everyone was like, oh, what? So
buy it and then, yeah. Yeah, it's not like Steam,
man, because I played an hour and a half and
they refused to refund me. Well, you clicked
that download button, didn't you? I know. Well,
no, it starts downloading fucking automatically
for me. But yeah, it is what it is. You know
what I mean? Chalk it off as a lost. Fucking
just pull the 35 quid out of the patron. It's
only score, isn't it? No, I'm pretty sure it
was... No, it was. 25. Was it 25? I think it
was 25 then. At least, yeah, at least 25. Yeah.
Fuck it. Here's what it is. Are you going to
Google it? I have to. I swear it was 25 quid.
You might be right. I'm just going to have a
little look. I feel like they want that little
extra fiver on top to smooth it out. I wonder,
because obviously I know you'll end up playing
it properly. I'm going to look at how long it
takes. Well, no, I've seen a lot of people put
a lot of hours into it. A surprising amount.
Thank you for your purchase. It was, you were
right, £24 .99. £24 .99? £4 .17 tax. There we
go. Okay. Yeah, because I know it had some controversy,
didn't it? Because the mode to be able to play
it online, split screen, co -op, was locked behind.
You had to finish the game first. Why are you
frowning? No, I'm listening. You've not heard
that? No. So to play it co -op. you had to finish
the game and then it unlocked the mode that allowed
you to play a co -op. Fucking shit, innit? That's
exactly what everyone said. So everyone kicked
off about it and then they've reverted it and
now you can play it with your mate. from the
get -go. Makes zero sense. Makes no sense. Who
decided that? Makes no sense, because I saw someone
say, and it was a very good point, they were
like, I wanted to play this with my wife. I was
like, now I have to complete the game on my own
to then play the game again immediately after
with my wife. It was like, it's not going to
have the same effect as if I'm playing it for
the first time. Takes away all the fun moments,
doesn't it? Of course it does, because you already
know what's going to happen. Finger me. That's
a very, very stupid thing to do, but they reverted
it. But whoever's idea it was, whoever sat in
a boardroom and thought, let's make people play
it first, and then they can play it again with
their mate, needs a bullet in the head. That's
just so dumb. It's such a dumb thing to do. But
there you go. You got Crimson Desert. I'm actually
really, really aroused for that now. I knew you
would be. And I watched an hour -long video of
someone saying how much this game is saying they're
going to put out and whether or not they'll be
able to keep up with it. But then they also made
a cool contrast of it's not a GTA 6 in that it
doesn't have the same... you must be this good.
Like with GTA 6, every single person in the world
that is interested in that game has an expectation
from Rockstar and it is perfection. You either
give me perfect or you fuck off. That's just
expected because of previous games. Whereas Crimson
Desert, obviously you've got Black Desert Online,
which is a massive MMO, but also monetary wise,
a bit of a pay to win. But they don't have the
same standard as, the likes of GTA 6 but there's
just so much shit you can do in that game by
the looks of it so much shit and that mech suit
that you hated apparently you don't even use
it for like it's only for specific aspects of
the game you're not using it all the time that's
what aroused me about it I thought it was just
going to be constantly jumping in and out of
that and I was like this just doesn't make sense
so I'm just going to ignore it entirely if I
can as long as I haven't got enemies fighting
me and shit like that it's not going to put me
off yeah I'm pretty sure Yeah, from what they
said. Even if they made it more like, I don't
know, a bit steampunk or something. It's fucking
bright blue like it came out of Cyberpunk. It's
stupid. Yeah, and I think you can change the
colour of it. Same with the mechanical dragon.
I think you can ride real dragons as well. Yeah,
you can, yeah. You can have a dragon mount that
you can ride. Yeah, cool. Whenever you want.
The Battle Robot is a pilotable late -game mechanical
mount engineered by dwarves that allows for high
-destruction combat. It features a machine gun,
lock -on missiles, jump jets, and an EMP blast,
functioning similarly to the rideable dragon
as a powerful, limited -time tool for traversal
and combat. I think that's what it was. It's
like a super ability. Yeah, it's very limited,
but it's not a super ability that you're allowed
to pull out whenever you want. I think that's
what they said. They were like, you're not going
to be able to use this whenever you want. It's
for very specific aspects of the game, which,
fair enough, because if there was anything that
I was going to pull out of that game, I like
the mech, but I don't think the mech fits in.
Do you not think it's stupid, though? You know
the bit that I don't like about the game? From
everything that I've seen... And you will probably
not agree, I don't like the fucking glide mechanic
they have, where you turn into that weird black
cloud. I like that. I don't like it. You look
like a raven. Yeah, for me, I think that doesn't
suit, but I don't know the law of the game. But
it suits more than a bright blue mech, surely.
I don't know, though, because, yeah, the bright
blue, yeah, make it rust colour or gold or silver
or something like that. Make it look like the
dwarves built it underground. But you can. Out
of pipes and shit. But you can. I think the blue
is just where they... It's still got machine
guns on it. Well, yeah. But you've got a big
mechanical dragon flying around. Yeah, drop me
out of that as well. Give me the real dragon.
I don't need any mechanical shit. You know, you've
got fucking people carrying buckets around and
milking cows and farming. And then here we go.
It's just like Pokemon with guns. It's a very
weird... Oh, it's Pokemon Day, by the way, as
well. Pokemon's 30th anniversary. Anyway, I think
I just don't know what you're supposed to be
doing. No, to be honest, I've watched a few clips
of it. I haven't watched too much of it because
I just want to just go in and play it. I don't
want to know all the mechanics. I just want to
go in and see what it does. It just looks good.
It looks like it's got Game of Thrones art. It
feels very Game of Thrones -y. And I'm into Game
of Thrones at the moment. I think the video that
I watched, for the life of me, I cannot remember
who it was. But they were obviously paid to do
this video because they didn't say a single negative
thing about any of it. They were just fucking
choking on the cock of Crimson Desert. It's amazing.
even things like saying how this is the best
-looking game that's ever been made. I was like,
well, that's wrong for a start. I can see with
my own eyes that it's great. Visually, it looks
fantastic, but let's not be calling it the goat
of fucking visuals. They were just saying all
manner of positive things, which not everything's
perfect. There's going to be some things wrong
with it, and it really bothers me that we...
the thing that me and Mark spoke about with them
saying that there's going to be no microtransactions
on launch. Oh, God. Because that was it. It was
when Mark come round for the pod, me and him
watched this video. And then I was like, good,
now we can fucking talk about it. And yeah, the
geezer that did the video actually interviewed
the... the creative director the director someone
that was at the fucking pinnacle of the creation
of crimson desert and there was like a panel
on this podcast and they were asking those questions
and then obviously they've said that this is
a 70 quid game whatever you buy the game You
own the game, you play the game. That's it. There
is nothing else. So obviously, as a result of
that, they've run away with that. Oh, they've
said there's no microtransactions, there'll be
no shop, blah, blah, blah. And then once it was
posted, the same person they'd interviewed went
on to X and said underneath this, I said at launch.
You think, right, well, launch is only one fucking
day. So what, day two you're going to release
the shop, a month later? But then... Are they
not Japanese or Chinese developers? And a lot
of this stuff gets lost in translation, so they
very well could mean... No, this was an English...
Not English, but this was an American. This wasn't
an Asian person. Even then, that could very well
just mean in terms of expansions, which is a
different microtransaction. Yeah, Pearl Abyss
is the... Is that a macro transaction? Pearl
Abyss is the developer and the publisher of it.
Yeah, Black Desert Online. um black desert mobile
that's what they've made um doki v no i know
i dear but obviously black desert online is very
pay to win i've heard so that's the that's the
difficult one is when you've already got a model
like that and crimson desert is Not very similar
to Black Desert, but obviously there's heavy,
heavy inspiration there. There's a lot of eyes
on it, which means a lot of wallets. There is
a lot of eyes on it. But this is a fully offline
game. Yes, that's what I mean. So in terms of
microtransactions, other than cosmetics, I don't
really see how you're going to be able to really
fuck that up. The thing is, microtransactions
are just like... I feel like I'm so in the middle
with them because some of them I just think,
whatever. And then say if they want to put loads
of cosmetics in that game, who cares? Yeah. Unless
they're like, buy this to get five plus speed
or something. Unless adding things like that
is shit. But if it's just like clothes, who cares?
If people want to buy it, they buy it. If they
don't, they don't. No one's forcing you. It doesn't
change the game. It's solely to make your experience.
more tailored to you if you want these things
but yeah I don't know man I think people cry
about microtransactions a lot when in reality
they don't really matter too too much like Dragon's
Dogma they got dragged over the coals for having
them fucking them port crystals and stuff in
there but you get abundance of them like if you're
buying them you're a sucker the only time you
would ever buy them is if you've just booted
up the game and gone oh I'll buy loads of these
you don't fucking need to buy them they're for
people that have got Like, far too much money
and just want, yeah, I'm just going to buy 1
,000 of them. That's me sorted. But fine, let
them. That'll fund the next game. I don't care.
It's a whale, isn't it? Let them do what they
want to do. But like you say, when they have
microtransactions in that change the game, then
that's different gravy. And I'm fine with expansions.
Like, bring them on, all games. I love expansions.
Yeah, expansions deals, yeah. Never, never. I
mean, I'm in the same category as you in... As
long as it doesn't provide a combat effect. But
even then, in a single player game that's offline,
who gives a fuck? Again, talking to Mark, him
playing Resident Evil, you can buy a pack that
gives you an unlimited rocket launcher and that's
how he's platinum the fucking game because you've
got to do multiple playthroughs. It's like two
quid. That's funny. You know what I mean? That
completely breaks the game. However... It's not
harming anyone. Who gives a fuck? If that was
then, I don't know, if that was Outlast Trials
or Dead by Daylight and now I'm running around
as a killer with a fucking rocket launcher, yeah,
we've got a problem because it's not fair. Yeah,
well, you've paid to win and that's the problem.
Paid to win is shit, but anything else, whatever,
man, who cares? I feel like that kind of stuff
in an offline game is no different to old school
games when you'd get cheats. when you could manually
input the cheats or like Ratchet and Clank when
it would have the cheats in the settings and
you could unlock them doing certain things and
then you can play the game however you want and
most of the time like unlimited health or unlimited
ammo you go right well I've ruined the game that's
fun for five minutes but you've ruined your game
you know what I mean you haven't you haven't
fucked anything else up I feel like there is
a line though like Assassin's Creed they started
adding like XP boosters and shit like that once
again I know it's a single -player game, but
then it really felt like they'd really made the
levelling up so slow. Yeah, to force you. To
make you go, oh, I could just buy that. That's
the difference. But even though it's a single
-player game, you're just like, you've deliberately
made a problem and selling me the solution. Yeah,
you want to put cosmetics in, that's sweet. You
crack on, but yeah, don't force me into, oh,
look. This boss is too hard. And conveniently,
there's a deal on the shop at the moment for
fucking 95 % off on your first purchase. And
you go, all right, yeah, of course there is.
This deal is for the people that work full -time
jobs. So 99 % of people then that have been able
to pay you off a £70 game. Yeah, them tired people
that get home and don't want to grind out because
you've made the levelling so slow. Yeah, those
kinds of people. That's a curated thing that
they've made. That's not a... That's not a friendly
microtransaction. There's a difference. I've
always wondered, especially now that we talk
about it, if there's any law surrounding that.
Obviously, there's certain laws when it comes
to gambling and stuff, where things like loot
boxes... And stuff like that can be banned because
they're seen as a version of gambling, which
essentially they are. I mean, fucking opening
Pokemon packs is a version of gambling, especially
if you're looking to trade and sell. And I've
always wondered if... For what we've just said,
if there's any sort of restriction around that,
because realistically, in a single -player game
or even an online game, you can restrict to whatever
the fuck you want. The ultimate downfall of it
is that people refuse to play your game anymore,
so you lose your player base. Thus, no point
in having the game. But is it illegal? Is that
an illegal thing to do? Like you just said, let
me bring in a load of XP boosters and then completely
obliterate the XP gain without those boosters.
It feels legal. It feels like it should be. It
feels like it should be, but isn't. I feel like
that isn't an illegal thing. EA have been arrested
over. I feel like that. Well, that's why they
got forced to do the pack probabilities on FIFA
and that, wasn't it? Because it was just like,
they're so heavily weighted. into the negative
is that why that's done yeah yeah they had to
they never used to because a lot of gacha games
do that now as well the destiny um rising does
that i think i think they all have to do it because
you're not you're not telling people the chance
to win so people haven't actually got a percentage
there's no percentile chance you're just throwing
money at it yeah i suppose by law gambling law
they have to honour that percentage if there's
no percentage to honour they can do whatever
the fuck they want I guess yeah if you put out
a box or you put out a pack or something and
you go right there's a 0 .00001 % chance that
you'll pack whatever but you go but there's a
chance yeah and you can say on the cover yeah
yeah it's very very lucrative very lucrative
I feel like it's a I feel like it's a great way
to create additional revenue for a game. But
at the same time, it's a very dangerous way to
create additional revenue because you get to
the point where, like with Call of Duty, where
you think, right, your values and artistic direction
have gone skew because you're seeing the money.
That's why you end up with Nicki Minaj and Beavers
and Butthead and all this fucking family guy,
all this weird shit in a game that at its roots
is nothing like this. We speak about it all the
time. Fortnite does it really well because that's
that type of game to do that weird shit. Even
then, I feel like it's gone too, too, too far.
Because obviously back in the day, back in my
day, you'd buy an expansion. That's how games
made additional money is you'd bring out a game
and then in, well, COD, zombies and zombie maps.
That was the big thing when I was in secondary
school, playing COD. Oh, have you got the latest
map? Have you got fucking such and such? And
that's how you'd go home and you'd fucking spend
five quid, whatever it was, for an additional
map. And then that's how they'd make their dough.
And then you had skins come in for guns. And
then, yeah, that's how... People are suckers
for it. I was a sucker for it. I used to play
COD with Royce and Clarky and that. Mate, we'd
get so excited when the store updated. What's
in there? What's in there? Oh, I'm buying that.
And we'd just get like, look at this. Look what
this gun does. It's just stupid. It's like, that
cost me 18 quid. Just stop thinking about, oh,
it's just a score. It's only a score. It's fucking
20 quid. It's a lot of money for fuck all that
I don't own no more. It doesn't even exist. Oh,
yeah. Shit, yeah. I find that mad. That's crazy.
That has to be illegal. That is what I hope is
illegal. You've taken away something that I own.
They'll get you in the fine print though, don't
they? It'll be like, oh, you're only lending
you this. This is still our property. You can't
fuck with it. That's why a lot of people want
to go, they only want physical games, but even
then they got you on the physical game because
you go, that disc is just a key. Yeah, you have
to download the thing still, yeah. That's just
a CD key that you've got there, mate. Yeah. yeah
market transactions I think they can work but
they have to be very specific for example is
it Elite Dangerous you're playing yes you bought
yourself a ship for your birthday yes cool man
yeah Are you angry about that? No. No, exactly.
It's not inherently a bad thing. I bought a ship
that's fully kitted out. But also, you can buy
that specific ship in -game with in -game money
that you can earn pretty fucking rapidly. It's
just the difference is I've got mine a lot sooner
and it's fully kitted out. So it's whatever you
want. But once again, though, that's a choice,
isn't it? You didn't have to do that. No. Like
the option, that's another thing. If the option's
there to get the thing that's in the shop, but
you've got to spend time doing it, then that's
a choice. Same as the World of Warcraft stuff.
I mean, it's probably a bit far -fetched, but
didn't you say to me before, there's people that
used to just grind out subscriptions. Yeah, people
still do. So, you know, it's earnable. Yeah,
yeah. Like Fortnite, I think they had a very
good thing. I don't know if they still do it.
I imagine they do. What, with the Battle Pass?
Yeah, you can earn a new Battle Pass just by
levelling up the Battle Pass that you own. So
you can buy one if you wanted to and never buy
nothing else. Just always have the Battle Pass.
That's a fair thing to do. Fucking Steph with
something like Dreamlight, their premium currency
is Moonstones. And obviously they've got a season
pass and shit like that. We worked it out the
other day. She's got something ridiculous like
130 -odd quids worth of Moonstones. Like, it's
crazy how much currency, premium currency is
there. But yeah, what Fortnite did with that.
And then, sure enough, most people, most games
that had a Battle Pass followed the same suit.
Some were quite fucking sneaky where it was like,
we'll only give you enough to buy the pass again.
But if you buy something else, then you can't,
you ain't going to have enough. We'll just leave
you like 100 coins short. And then the cheapest
packs are Fiverr. Or yeah, exactly like... Steph
spoke about it quite a lot because I think it
was Dreamlight or it was Palia that got done
over for it or people were kicking off about
it. And it happens a lot in stores where they'll
put something up for a certain price, but then
the currency that it requires... For you to buy
the currency, there is no exact. It's either
you buy the lesser or you have to buy the fucking
bigger one and then be left over. One times out
of ten, you have to buy the £15 .99 one and the
£7 .99 one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's how it goes.
Yeah, that's, yeah. And that's why they do it.
That's exactly why they do it. It's the same
as barbers, man. That's why they always want
you to pay cash because if you pay card, you're
not tipping. If you pay by cash, they're like,
keep the quid, mate. Keep the couple of quid,
whatever. Yeah. That's why they do it. It was
smart business, but you're dickheads. I need
to go to the barber's and get my hair done. Yeah,
I don't. Yeah, I know you don't. I've done mine
last night. I found that out when they did my
beard once, and I'm not going to let them do
my beard anymore because I don't like it, but
it added on like an extra 12 quid. Oh, yeah,
mate. Fuck that. And I was like, where the fuck's
that come from? You haven't done anything. You've
just shortened it. I'm bold as my ass. And I
fucking went into the barber's when I first shaved
my head, and I was like, can you trim my beard?
He was like, yeah, it's 15 quid. I was like,
pfft. fuck off mate I was like that's three quid
less than my haircut yeah yeah you can get fucked
that's just for my beard man no chance yeah and
the worst thing is is that when it's your hair
if they fuck it up bang a hat on it's sweet mine
my hair's a mess at the moment because I ain't
got it cut so I'm just wearing a hat everywhere
sweet don't matter I'm in a job where I can do
that but you fuck the beard up what am I gonna
do you have to shave it off and a lot of twat
yes Yes, yes, yes. Look at all my chins. Yeah.
To be fair, I haven't shaved since I lost the
weight. So I'd be, because last time I did it
was when we went to a wedding and I had like
four chins and I hadn't shaved for a long time.
I was like, where the fuck has that come from?
I was like, that's horrible. I was like, I don't
like that. I don't like that at all. Whereas
now it's different. Yeah. Microtransactions,
good, bad. That's that question solved and abolished.
I haven't really played any games, man. I've
played Mugenics for about 30 hours now. I finished
Act 1, so I've unlocked Act 2. That's far too
hard for me. I might give up. No, I won't. I've
got some frustrating mechanics behind it. There
was people in the Discord that were talking about
Mugenics. There was a guy in here called Flade.
He was a really cool guy. Miles, I think it was
Miles, he was like, is anyone playing Mugenics?
And I wanted to jump in and say, I'm not but
fucking ashes. And then, yeah, Flay jumped in
and then was saying a couple of things that he
wasn't particularly happy with. I wonder if I
just type in... Meow. Mugen. It must fucking...
Here we go. yeah he said uh anyone else enjoying
eugenics uh flade said yeah i really like the
strategy game part but the meta progression got
a bit annoying good game but i'm annoyed or maybe
i'm just a bit peeved about it being like an
extraction game or whatever you would call it
uh miles said i'd definitely call it a roguelite
i think what i've learned is as far as the breeding
part of the meta progression is not make it or
break it like it feels like it should be but
i'm an absolute shill for the dev so i'll love
it regardless and then he said uh yeah but what
really annoys me about about other than the breeding
being a bit mid is the fact that the gold uh
gold in runs is the same currency you use for
furniture i would much rather the money was just
in the runs and you get a currency for the house
um when you killed a kill bosses or something.
I have no idea what any of this means. Does this
make sense to you? Yeah, yeah. I know exactly
what they're talking about. Is this a gripe at
all? No? Well, yeah, it can be. It's not a gripe
I'd have. Miles said, there's a few other dumb
things I hope they balance out, like the items
it auto -trashes when you don't have room is
really annoying. That is annoying. I feel like
it always seems to bin the best items if you
aren't careful. Well, yeah, but you just have
to transfer them out of the bin. I see. So what's
Miles Winding about? Because when you do a run,
you come back with loads of items and you've
got your item storage. And then whatever's left
in your items from the run you just did will
go in the bin unless you transfer what ones you
want. So transfer the ones you want and then
you won't lose any of the ones you want. Dickhead.
I mean, but no, it's a really good game. Obviously,
one of the guys there, being a shill for the
dev, probably knows a lot about the binding of
Isaac. But the meta progression and all that,
it's good. I don't really like the cat breeding
because it just gets a bit busy in there. There's
too many fucking cats and I'm trying to pick
poo up and I can't because I'm throwing cats
around. Tommy was laughing his head off yesterday
because I was throwing cats out. They all make
noises. There's a button on the main menu that
just says meow and you can click it. It's like
start, options, meow, exit game. You just click
meow, it just meows. I like that. Yeah, it's
quirky. You'd like the comedy of it because it's
stupid. What's it like in comparison to something
like Cult of the Lamb? Nothing like Cult of the
Lamb. I liked Cult of the Lamb. Yeah, a couple
of them's good. It's nothing like that. It's
turn -based and you have to... Basically, if
I put it in layman's terms, you get cats, you
look at their stats, you go, well, that cat's
got really good stats for fighting. So let's
get a female cat and a male cat that have both
got really good fighting stats. Then we get a
good fighting kitten. Then we get a good fighting
kitten. So then when we go on the run, we'll
make that one the fucking melee character. And
then we go, oh, that one's really good at manner.
That one's good at range. But it's all luck -based
because you can't force them to fuck. You have
to put them in that when you rest at the end
of the day, some cats fuck, some cats fight,
some cats die, all sorts of crazy shit goes on.
And then you take them kittens, or they have
to get a bit older first, but then you take them
out and then you fight with them. And then you
pick up items and then you bring the items home
and then you take some items out on your next
run and then you just go and go and go. What
I don't like about it is every time you finish
a run, instead of just letting you play to the
end of the game, it's like, oh no, you've now
unlocked the next level, so then you have to
go back and then do it all again to get to the
next level until you've unlocked the entire game
and then you'll be able to go through the whole
thing in one seamless hit. So when you've got
really good cats, because you can only use them
once on one run, once that run's gone, they're
retired. Right. So they can still fuck. So you've
got really powerful cats that can fuck that make
even more powerful kittens. Yeah. so yeah that's
basically the the game um but yeah then it's
really frustrating when you've got like because
the game's like deliberately balanced poorly
so you can just be like stupidly overpowered
the best one i ever had i had basically a cat
almost with infinite range that had an ability
that used mana that basically covered the entire
map with like arrows every time it killed a cat
every time it killed an enemy, it gave me all
my mana back. So I could almost infinitely just
shoot everyone on the map over and over again
until it missed and just not do anything. And
I was like, I could just win. But, you know,
I wasn't allowed to. Because I finished and it
was like, I have to start again until we've won
the whole game. But the game's great. Clever
mechanic. The game's fantastic. But it's just,
I've got a real low. I put the PlayStation on
yesterday and I was like... I can't bother to
play anything. I put Steam Deck on, played Eugenics
for a bit. I was like, I can't bother to play
this either. I can't be bothered. I did start
Baldur's Gate though. One. On the PC. I knew
I wasn't ready for it. But I just started, I
just finished fucking Divinity Original. Too
much brain power. Yeah, it was like a hundred
odd hours that. Yeah. And I'm going on to fucking
Baldur's Gate one. And obviously that game came
out in like 98 or something stupid. Yeah. So
it's like, it's. punishingly hard which is fine
but it's like you have to fucking know what you're
doing and I was just like I'm not it's not the
type of game to have a rough day and then come
home and go let me sit down and fucking switch
my brain back on not just that it's because I'm
not used to sitting in a chair playing computer
so that's also like I'd rather just sit on the
sofa and eat crisps but I'm sitting in a chair
using a mouse. Obviously, this is why I love
the fucking rest that I've got for the laptop,
because I can now just sit on the sofa and be
no different to how I'm sat now. Where did you
put the mouse, though? I'll show you when we're
done. So the laptop sits on it, and it literally,
it will take up. probably this section and then
where the mug is so the mouse sits here it's
got space and then it's even got a holder for
your phone to sit like that um and then yeah
and it's got um cushions either side of it so
it's not like horrible it's like beanbag cushions
and yeah you can just sit there just it's the
best thing i fucking ever bought because it means
that i don't have to sit here while steph's in
there i can just go and join her and just crack
on it's it's great it's like probably for as
long as we've been together one of the main things
i've wanted to do and that's be able to like
she can play her games and i can play mine but
we can be in the same room but not me fucking
facing the back of her or just be in separate
rooms it's it's comfortably yeah that's the big
one i love it because i was looking for ages
i was like i need a desk i need something that
i work and sit on the sofa and then it fucking
sit over me and then i was like Maybe a tray.
I was like, surely, surely they do a fucking
laptop tray. And then it was like, I think it
was like 20 quid off of Amazon. It's the best
fucking 20 quid I've ever spent. I like this,
this laptop. Once this pod is done, we'll be
unplugged and we'll be fucking straight back
over there. And that is when it will stay until
next Friday. Yeah, that makes sense. It's perfect.
Obviously, you can't do it with a PC. When I
was doing it, yeah. Yeah, but I've got a laptop,
haven't I? When I was using the laptop, I was
like sitting on the sofa and then using the small
little armrests. It just hurts my shoulder. It's
just fucking crap. I'll send you the link and
I'll show you. Yeah, I'll check it out, man.
It's just so comfy. I can use the laptop because
it's all cross -safe, all that Steam shit. So
if I can just jump on Baldur's Gate on the laptop
as opposed to sitting at the computer, I'd much
prefer that. Honestly, it's so nice. Last time
I spoke to you about Elite Dangerous, I was on
my way to the California Nebula, which was a
long, long, long way away. Deep, deep space.
And what I'm doing... So I managed to wrangle
Leon into playing it. His ADHD just needed a
slight tickle, and then sure enough, he was fucking
all over it. He's now got the early access for
the midnight expansion for WoW, so he's firmly
on that, which I will be today as well. Is that
out today, is it? Yeah, so early access came
out 11 o 'clock last night. So he stayed up with
John playing that until whenever. college today
he's not a child alright he's a fully grown adult
but he's becoming a plumber so there's a bit
of college involved I don't know what excuse
he gave but he got out of college early and then
he was logged back on this cracking on but yeah
I got him into Elite Dangerous John tried it
Ahmed tried it from the guild and me and Leon
are the only people that managed to stay John
had a fucking meltdown Trying to play it. I was
like he is not going to enjoy this. Because it's
just so. Keybind heavy man. There's a million
different things. That you can do in this shit.
That I don't even know how you can do yet. Like
if you're dogfighting. You can target specific
areas of the ship. Like the thrusters or the
guns. And shit like that. I have no idea how
to do that. Even when you're assigning weapons.
And all that bullshit. So yeah, me and Leon are
the only people that have managed to stay with
it. But Leon has a completely different play
style to me. He's big into mining. And I thought
I was balling with the exploration because you
can go and get all the data and then sell it
on and blah, blah, blah, like scan planets and
shit. That motherfucker starts mining and then
he's sending me pictures through where he's like,
oh yeah, look, I just made 53 million. I go,
what? I'm getting gassed if I get 200 grand off
of selling a fucking planet. This cunt's making
53 million. And then he sent me a picture. What
did you say? Selling a planet? Yeah. What do
you mean selling a planet? So it's a one of one
of our own Milky Way galaxy, right? Yeah. And
that means that it's something ridiculous like
0 .00 % of it has been discovered, much like
No Man's Sky. So obviously a lot of it's procedurally
generated, but it is a one -of -one of our currently
known galaxy. So as someone who's maining exploration,
you go and you fly through the galaxy and you
go to different systems and you can discover
brand new planets. And when you discover these
planets, you can scan them. And what it means
is you basically fly close enough to them. And
then if you have the right scanner equipped,
you go into almost like this overhead drone view
where you shoot probes at the planet. And when
it hits the planet, it sends out a ring and covers
a certain area of the planet. And each planet
you do, it tells you the amount of probes you
can send for it to 100 % cover this planet. And
if you get it in that amount or less, you get
more. um data for it that you can sell you can
go over it's infinite um and that's how you sell
the data you can also land on some of these planets
and then get out and scan like the fauna um and
shit like that and see what's going on like no
man's sky just a lot more sim um that looks so
cool yeah that's part of the dlc which i've got
you've got it now yeah yeah yeah so you can you
can go out and look at that yeah you can dogfight
in the canyons in the planets and shit like that
there was a guy that yeah yeah and I know everything
I know exactly what that is you look at that
image and you go I don't know what the fuck that
is but I know what that is yeah mate if you was
in your space era and you had the patience to
actually learn it you'd be all over it I guarantee
you you'd be fucking all over it the problem
with it is that it doesn't hold your hand And
there is so much stuff. I have barely scratched
the surface on that game. But it's very, very
chilled out. If you want to be chilled out playing
it. What the fuck is that? I've no idea. I've
no idea. I think maybe that's called like a Fargoid
or something. There's like alien life form. Alright.
What's that smell? Smells like my space is coming
back. This looks sick. I got it for four quid
off of... It's called Loaded now, isn't it, with
that formerly known as CD keys. It looks so good.
Yeah, it is. It's really good. But I wouldn't
have been interested if you couldn't get out
of the ship, but that's like a newish thing.
Yeah, I picked up the DLC for, I think it was
a Fiverr. And yeah, you can get out of the ship.
There's whole missions and shit that you can
do. You can make it so that you're... predominantly
your whole thing is jumping to different planets
and getting off the ships. Even something as
simple as docking at a station, you can do it
automatically and that's always nice. I used
to always like doing that in No Man's Sky, just
fucking full boring to a spaceport and then it
catching you and then automatically landing you.
On this, you can't do that. You have to be at
a certain speed and shit and you have to... even
something as simple as if i'm going to a space
spaceport you have to be within 7 .5 kilometers
of the spaceport and then you have to manually
request docking with the controllers in the spaceport
and then if they give you access you can then
fucking land and shit like that uh but yeah so
so leon's earning a shit ton of money with his
mate he's got a friend that plays it You know
what I mean? He's got a friend that's in the
know. Kind of like when you jumped on WOW, you've
already got a mate that knows what he's doing.
It's the same with Leon. So he's got a mate who
knows how to make a shit ton of money. So that's
what they've been doing. Whereas me, I've been
floating around space. I don't have the same
issue that I first had with the fuel rats where
I run out of fuel because I now have a fuel scoop.
Fuel rats. So I suck fuel off of stars. And my
old ship... That's a funny sentence. My old ship,
it took quite a while to do it because I couldn't
get a decent fuel scoop on it. So every ship
has a certain class limit. And this was quite
a low -grade ship. This one I've got now... Oh,
boy. Boy, boy, boy, I've gone from like it taking
me a solid five minutes to fuel up to 30 seconds.
And what I didn't realise, I've been flying around
the sun like a dickhead trying to stay at a certain
level so I don't burn up but I'm still sucking
fuel. Didn't realise you can just turn your thrusters
off and then just hover at a certain fucking
distance away. So I can just sit there like an
alien life form, just go whoop, give me that
and off I'll go. So I've been traversing. Like
I say, I made it to the California nebula because
on the overall map, it looked fucking sick. It's
just this big red nebula thing. I got there.
Leon was like, oh shit, what does it look like?
It looks exactly the same as anywhere else because
I didn't realise that when you're actually in
the nebula, you don't see all that red shit because
obviously the nebula's fucking huge. So if you
zoom out, it looks all dusty and cool, but when
you're actually in it, you don't see that because
you're in it. Well, it's like a fucking... It's
like fog, isn't it? Yeah. You can't really see
fog or clouds. That's exactly what it's fucking
like. So now I am making my way to the centre
of the galaxy, which is fucking miles away. So
from where I was to the California nebula, when
I plotted my route, it was like 68 jumps that
I had to make, which took me a while because
when I was jumping, I was also scanning planets
while I was doing it. This one now to the centre
of the galaxy with... my uprated ship and it
can jump like five times as far. 660 jumps I
have to make is what I need to do. Yeah, that's
a bit mental. It's mad, but I'm self -sufficient.
I can keep myself fueled up. I can keep going.
I'm sweet. The problem that I've got is with
the data, not everywhere will buy it off of me,
which is what I discovered. So it's something
like 95 % of the spaceports that you go to will
be able to buy the data. Fucking ask me how long
it took me to find a place, because when you're
in deep space, half of them don't want it. So
I was sat there with all this gear, and if you
die, if someone blows you up, because I'm playing
in open play as well, you can play in a closed
server and shit like that, but I want the danger.
I want someone to be able to blow me up. If you
get blown up before you've sold your data, you
lose all of it. So I was very conscious that
I was sitting on a lot of money. And yeah, I
eventually sold it. And now I'm heading to the
center of the galaxy because it's just this big,
that's where Earth is pretty much. So I want
to maybe get there. Well, here's a review from
the 4th of February. I'm roughly a thousand hours
into it. Elite Dangerous now and look forward
to a thousand more. That's what they're all like.
A friend got me to try this game years ago and
I had nothing good to say at first. The menus
and controls were so complicated. I crashed into
many stations and planets. It was a horrible,
frustrating experience. There was a steep, complex
learning curve for just about every activity.
I struggled picking up the game even with a veteran
teaching me the ropes. I would have uninstalled
it and asked for a refund if it wasn't for my
friend. I always remember being a crew member
in his Anaconda, brackets, big spaceship, and
using his turrets to shoot NPC pirates or using
his fighter for the first time. Seeing my first
jump, first landing on a planet, first Thargoid.
Thargoid. Thargoid. Alien Xeno with amazing audio
giving me chills. Being part of the AX, or A10,
I guess that is, or 11, or 9. What's X1? Nine,
isn't it? I don't know. I think, yeah, that's
nine. It's because of the wrong person on numerals.
A9 killing several titans and taking weeks to
explore the black. The most fun I ever had in
this game was probably upgrading from my sidewinder
to a fully equipped vulture. That's when I truly
got into Elite Dangerous. The engines, acceleration
audio, new cockpit and big large gun hardpoint
all felt very epic. Cons. Game is very hard to
pick up as a new player, especially if you're
learning everything by yourself. You'll need
to watch hours of guides on YouTube and read
forums and Reddit. Engineering, enhance your
ships. It's extremely grindy. It's much better
now than it used to be, but still pretty bad,
time -consuming and boring. It's not something
you can skip if you want to do any kind of in
-game combat or exploration. Have to use a lot
of third -party websites to find current or live
information out of the game. Example, if you
have a ship full of cargo to sell, you need to
go on a website and find the closest location
that pays the most for your cargo to be efficient.
Don't have to, but you seriously handicap yourself
if you don't. On -foot combat is not well done
and bots are bad. I haven't tried it since the
latest AI bot update, though. One of the biggest
downsides when I picked up the game was the disappointment
of not being able to have ship interiors or to
walk around the cockpit. I don't want to see
fuel tank cargo and get lost in my ship, but
at least being able to walk in and out of ship
versus loading screen from circle on the ground,
teleporting to my seat, it's immersion breaking
in a game that is incredibly immersive. Pros,
communities such as the fuel rats. fleet com
a9 etc the players getting together making massive
efforts and game changing communities is one
of the best part of the game as of this review
i'm very very far in the black with roughly 10
000 other commanders exploring as part of distant
world dw3 it's a live sandbox game every single
little thing you do affects and changes the galaxy
example if you help pirates enough they can take
over a federation system if you trade with a
small and broke faction enough they grow an economy
and so on another one is if we didn't get together
to push back the Thargoil Titans a lot more,
NPCs would have died, et cetera, and humanity
would have had to come to an end. Unlike FDev
had let this happen. I imagine that's the developers.
Yeah, yeah. Thankfully, we defeated them and
pushed them out of the bubble where humans mostly
are. Game's absolutely gorgeous. Graphics are
amazing. Ships, guns, Xenos, stars, galaxy, everything
is highly detailed and so nice, especially for
a game that's 10 years old. endless activities
you can play for thousands of hours just trading
and mining if you want you can do ship combat
on foot combat x biology land on planets scan
life forms scan planets explore the galaxy find
never explored systems by other players and have
your name marked on the systems as first discovered
slv racing and so much more one of the funniest
things when i started was to fly a dolphin ship
and transport npcs around the galaxy may it be
as the transportation like a bus or taxi or sightseeing
like a cruise ship and don't forget this liner
is in the top one percent of all liners out there
big selection of ships and freedom tuning game
i'll just just screw over the end game is 10
years old still getting updates no subscription
to play You can play solo in private groups or
in the open online, basically your own solo instance,
but with bots. One server, the whole player base
is connected to only one galaxy. The galaxy is
extremely large and somewhat tries to replicate
reality. Pick any direction and travel for weeks
in real life and you'd have discovered 0 .00001
% of the map, if not less. Too long, didn't read.
I wish I'd seen that at the beginning. It's an
epic game if you love space sci -fi games, but
there's a steep learning curve. You can play
for over 10 ,000 hours and still have things
to do and discover. Hope this was a helpful review.
It's like... There's people on here with a stupid
amount of hours, like 3 ,500. Because it's very
addictive. It's like DayZ, but space. But you're
not fucking dying all the time and then respawning
with absolutely nothing. But I like DayZ. Yeah.
It's... It doesn't hold your hand. The audio
is great. Yeah, there are things that I would
like, like I would like a 3D, I would like a
third -person view, which you don't have unless
you're in photography mode, which is no good
for fucking actual gameplay. But there's very
few, like fucking, I'm currently, one of the
things, I'm currently trying to learn is how
to use a collapsed neutron star to fucking send
me over space. To send me to different areas
of space. And only specific ships can do that.
And my one can. Also, I've gone from a sidewinder
is the free ship that you get at the very beginning.
It's WAF, but it's free. I've gone from that
to I can't even remember the ship that I bought
to the ship that I now have. The ship I now have,
right? It has a fucking rover on it and another
thing. So if I land on a planet, I've got two
vehicles that I can fucking go out in. I've got
my own fighter ship. tucked away on the underbelly
of the ship so if i start getting attacked i've
also hired a crew member that's ai so i've got
a pilot on that so if i start getting attacked
i can just look down and fucking send out this
fighter pilot that will fight for me and stay
within range and i can give it commands and shit
like that i don't know what the commands are
i don't know what they're macro to i'd have to
have a look and then i've gone from having the
ship that i was using that had two laser cannons,
gimbaled laser cannons, so you didn't really
have to aim, and then two multi -cannons for
once you take down the shield, you can then blow
them up. Again, they were gimbaled, so I didn't
have to do a lot. I've now got seven of those.
So I've got two lasers, and then I've got five
hard, I've got five cannons now. And I haven't
killed a single thing because I haven't encountered
anyone yet. But I'm an exploration geezer. You
don't know how to fire them, do you? No, I do.
I've set them all up. I've set them all up, but
I haven't used them yet. Because I'm pure exploration.
But I was like, I've got the hard points. I was
like, I need to defend myself if something happens.
And so fuck it. Let's fully kid it out. And it's
just, it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. I'll
send the two little lasers out. Because obviously
you can just fire willy -nilly. And then I was
like, let's see what five cannons look like.
It's fucking D -Day. I'm sure there's some other
mad shit there. This is just scratching the surface.
But the fact that this is an exploration ship
and I'm just sending fucking hell out into space.
I'm like, I want to see what that does to a ship.
I want to see what happens with that. But there's
all sorts of shit, man. It's so incredibly in
-depth. It's mental. It really is that make or
break. If you like space and have the time to
work out what it is the fuck that you're doing,
then it's really, really good. It sounds very
much like a grown -up No Man's Sky. That's exactly
what it is. Because No Man's Sky, as I said before,
the biggest thing that lets it down for me is
just I want to be able to actually shoot things
and raid planet... settlements and stuff but
you can't you just shoot something and then fucking
robots come out yeah that's a bit well there's
entire missions that are that there's entire
missions of go and breach this settlement go
and retrieve such and such like on foot and then
like they said in that review there's fucking
missions where you're transporting NPCs I saw
a vendor where you could buy slaves don't know
what that is but I'm sure there's something to
do with slavery there's there's shit where they'd
like go and get me such and such and you'll have
to go and find a system that sells whatever it
is the story is completely community driven like
they said in that review the entire thing and
when I first looked at it years ago I was like
I have no idea what this is this was back when
I was still on Facebook and I remember joining
a load of things with it and every now and then
I'd see it pop up where it'd be like an event
And it's like, oh, 10 ,000 people have been fighting
for such and such. And I'd think, what the fuck
are they on about? Now that I play the game,
it genuinely is. It's 10 ,000 people in a system,
obviously trying to take a faction back or something.
And they're just fighting. It's bonkers. I haven't,
other than the Fuel Rats, I haven't encountered
a single other player, which is fine because
I'm in deep space in the Milky Way galaxy. That's
the whole point. It'd be terrifying if you did
that. Yeah, because I don't know if they're going
to try and kill me or what. I have no idea. Obviously,
if you die, you just get to respawn in another
system and buy back your ship. Again, the ship
that I bought, because I bought it, it doesn't
cost me anything to bring it back. But all the
hard points and everything I've added onto it,
it does, blah, blah, blah. Very fun. It's cost
me fucking four quid. It's the best four quid
I've spent for a sim. It's mad. It's mad, mad,
mad. Just be aware, if you're listening to this
thinking, I'll give it a go, it's a fucking sim,
all right? I've seen people play it with flight
controls and all that shit, and it looks incredible,
but it is a steep, steep, steep learning curve.
It's like Gran Turismo for driving games. Yeah,
it needs a lot of, I've looked at a lot of guides,
and, well, not so much guides, more... I've come
across something, have no idea what I'm doing,
so I've Googled it to work it out and typically
gone to Reddit or a forum. I like doing that.
I like games where you have to look stuff up.
I don't know why, I just always have. I like
looking things up because then you just, I don't
know, it gives you something to do when you're
having a poo. Yeah, literally that, yeah. Rather
than fucking watch a YouTube video, I'll read
this guide. And there's something, I've got it.
key bound to x if you press x it kills all your
thrusters so and then if i if you press the mouse
wheel in it changes you so you've got your view
your camera view like if i'm in the cockpit where
i'm controlling the ship and move it around if
i press the scroll wheel in it stops me from
moving the ship around and i can look around
my own cockpit and there's something very cool
about if you push it over to the right I'm suddenly
yawing and I'm just fucking spinning around.
If I click that in, it immediately stops it because
I've locked the controls. And there's just something
satisfying about being able to do that. Yeah,
very... A game that I didn't think that I would
enjoy, but very much enjoy it. Have you seen
anything on Marathon? The server slam this weekend.
Who gives a fuck? I've watched a lot of stuff
on it. Who gives a fuck? I'm just like, what
do you do this for, man? I don't even like the
art style. Everything's square. It's like Minecraft.
Yeah, the art style's horrible. It's bright colours.
It looks stupid. The name's stupid. Everything's
fucking square. Yeah. And it's just, oh, I don't
know, man. The cinematics and everything, fantastic.
But the game itself... Just doesn't look... Should
have just made Destiny 3, man. Yep. Or just abolish
Destiny 2 and just make Destiny and just have
it like the World of Warcraft of space FPS loot.
Or like what they've done with fucking Overwatch.
It isn't Overwatch 2 anymore. It's just Overwatch.
Which is how they should do it. Just combine
it. If they want to have a continuation of the
product and then you can just reiterate it. You
can rebrand it again in 10 years and just be
like... This is like the next gen of it, but
it's still Destiny. It's just the upgraded version.
Do you know what I mean? I don't. Fair enough
for going in a different direction. Nah, man.
Fuck them. They had the world in their fucking
hand. They had the market cornered of space fucking
looter shooters. Nothing's getting close to it.
They could have expanded on it. They could have
let you fly your ships instead of just loading
screen. Even if you just got to fly a ship in
the loading screen. They could have made things
much better. Much more quality of life stuff
because that game came out fucking years ago.
I don't think it was time to turn your back on
Destiny. I think it was time to have a drastic
shake -up of how the game played or go in a different
direction with the game itself rather than creating...
Because it feels like so much resources have
gone into Marathon as well. Well, it has, yeah.
And I just don't believe that it's going to get
the anticipated... No, it's not, mate. People
are fuming about it still. I think you're going
to get a lot of people playing it on release.
I don't think it's going to last. Well, we'll
find out this weekend because it's Serviceland
this weekend and people will... I've already
just seen someone say I've uninstalled it. You
see what I mean? People that want to play Destiny
want to play more Destiny. I had a friend on
my friend list that had like 15 ,000 hours on
it. Yeah. That's all he played. He had a PS5
just to play Destiny. That's all he fucking played.
We've all been there. Like you with World of
Warcraft, obviously you move away now, but there's
people that only ever play World of Warcraft.
They'll buy a whole PC, best PC in the world,
just to play World of Warcraft. There's people
like that for Destiny, and they're the ones that...
There's a reason Sony bought them. We were both
there. Steph made me dinner and brought it to
me like a scene out of South Park because I refused
to get up and move because I was playing Destiny.
It was like a 16 -hour non -stop play. That game
had me. And it was a great game. And the best
thing about it is that it felt and feels so good.
It still does feel amazing. The gunplay of it.
And it's the same feelings that I have towards
The Division. The Division still feels and is
an amazing game and has a very, very dedicated
player base. When The Division 3 comes out, that's
going to be great because it's just such a fucking
cool game. And if I was still with The Curve,
I'd probably still be playing it. But I'm too
behind. There's other things like WoW that take
up my time. But something like Marathon, it's
just... I remember when I first see the announcement
trailer for it and I was like, this game looks
sick. Like, what is this? And then you see the
gameplay and then it fucking comes up on screen
where it's like an extraction fucking shooter,
whatever the fuck it is. Battle Royale. What
even the fuck is it? Extraction shooter. That's
exactly what it is. Extraction shooter. It's
just... They obviously started making this when
Tarkov blew up in the stratosphere. It was like,
Tarkov is the next big thing. Everyone was talking
about Tarkov. Let's make an extraction shooter.
And now extraction shooters are big, but they're
not the battle royale. No, they're not. Unfortunately
as well, if you're going into the extraction
shooters, you've got to now compete with Ark
Raiders. Yeah. A very, very difficult game to
compete with. I don't know if Ark Raiders is
still as popular as it... It's still very popular,
yeah. Obviously, well, I'm not... I'm not linked
into the zeitgeist of that world. Zeitgeist?
What the fuck does that mean? You pulled that
out of the fucking bag, didn't you? What does
that mean? Zeitgeist. It's like the general...
I like those two words. Zeitgeist. German for
spirit of the times. dominant cultural intellectual
ethical and political climate of a specific era
the defining spirit collective mindset i see
what you're saying collective mindset so it's
like a hive mind in it zeitgeist yeah right i
called it zeitgeist but zeitgeist yeah nabbed
it yeah it's the the yeah the the hive mind the
the current consensus of the of the general public
some might say the zeitgeist the zeitgeist yeah
so there's the general zeitgeist of is that marathon
is going to be shit. We got there in the end.
It's shit. It already is shit. It's going to
be shit. It was shit when they fucking nicked
the art and it was dead and buried from then,
really. There was no coming back from it. And
then they delayed it for... It's going to be
another Concord. Yeah, it is, mate. And the newest
Concord that just came out and fucking died,
whatever that one was called. Yeah. What was
that one? It was a new Concord that had done
even worse, wasn't there? What was that called?
Was it? It was like, we only need a really small
player base to keep us going. And then they were
like, oh, yeah, this ain't working. Pulled a
plug. What fucking one was that? I know because
you had the one that was 2024 that absolutely
flopped. What one are you on about? Sony's Concord
is playable again thanks to fan -made custom
servers. Is that what you're talking about? No,
no, no, no. There was another game that came
out recently and it just went... I don't know
what one you're on about, mate. Oh, it was the
one that fucking... Geoff Keighley kept fucking
bigging up on the Game Awards. And he was like,
you're not going to believe this. What was the
game that Geoff Keighley bigged up at the Game
Awards and then died? What a thing to say to
Google. What? I'm trying to... High guard. Oh,
high guard. Yeah, that's dead. Yes, yes. High
guard. Yeah, yeah. Because he had that as the
final announcement. You're not going to believe
your mind. Yeah. And then it's dead. And they
were like, yeah, yeah, we don't need a massive
player count to be successful. And then they
had like 10, 15 ,000 players and they were like,
yeah. Yeah, I saw High Guard pop up on Steam
and I thought, what is that? I was like, I haven't
seen anything to do with that. And then, yeah,
I know exactly what you're talking about. Not
good. It is, yeah. There's less than 20 staff
remaining at the studio now. Oh, that's nice.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's dead. But
not nice for them people and anyone related to
Concord or any of that stuff. But there is a
positive to take from it. And it's, look at these
games that are literally dying on release because
you're not fucking putting the time and effort
in. Not the developers, so to speak, the people
that release the game before it's ready, it's
not finished. Yeah, but also you're not listening
to, you're not reading what the current player
base wants. Customer's always right. Yeah, I
was talking to fucking Armit about this the other
day in the office. He was talking about Star
Wars. And I was like, they just refused to make...
I was like, fucking pod racers. Who wants...
Yes, it looks cool, but who the fuck wants that?
Who's asking for that? No one wants that. I said,
out of the entire universe of Star Wars, I said,
all the shit that you could do. I was like, bring
fucking Battlefront back. Because he was saying
how fun that was. I was like, just fucking bring
that back. Like, you had it. You had the fucking
world in the palm of your hands and you fucked
it with loot boxes. You let your wallets get
in the way. You know what I mean? You couldn't
see the bigger picture of, right, I could have
100 grand now or I could have fucking a million
in five years. I think I'm going to take that.
Like, you couldn't see the overall scope of it.
Yeah, and I feel like that's what happens. Fucking
extraction shooters and battle royales, fuck
them off. Fuck them off. There's already too
many of them. This is exactly what happened with
Battle Royales. Exactly what happened. Every
cunt thought, let me jump on that bandwagon.
No, be unique. Make something fucking cool. Or,
if you're like Bungie, where you already have
something incredible and no competitor, just
go back to your roots and build something special.
Don't do what Assassin's Creed's doing. and doing
all that weird shit. I pray to God that Assassin's
Creed Hex is cool and fucking gritty. But I know
it's not going to be. I know it's not going to
be. You know what I mean? Of course they will.
That franchise is dead in the water, bro. Take
the fucking name away and it'll be like... Yeah,
it's sad when developers put all that time and
effort into a game and then it flops. But at
the same time... That's what happens when you
make... Why am I seeing... I've just clicked
on it. Why am I seeing a geezer fucking run across
the map that looks like it's taken straight out
of fucking Respawn's catalogue on a horse and
then there's a geezer with a fucking alien shotgun?
Oh, no. What's going on? It's just terrible.
It's shit, but it's also positive because people
will be... I suppose it isn't positive, but I
think people will be more sceptical about dumping
unlimited funds into... shit games so i hope
people get better games rather than this fucking
hero shooter slop wait for light no fire yeah
we won't make a segment about it but fucking
wait for that because that's going to be sick
yeah hopefully i hope so fuck off see you later