Nintendo Strategy and Future Releases

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Gambling problem, callall one eight hundred gambler or one eight hundred my reset Welcome el into the Ringer Vverse, your Nexus feed for all things fandom. I am Benlinberg, senior editor of the Ringer and your host here at Batman Mash. Excuse me. Buttonmash. Do I have thoughts on the Mandalorian and Grogu? You know I do, and you can read them right now at the ringer dot com what a great website. But buttonmash is a podcast for conversation about video games And however much the Mando movie might rely on video game logic it is not playable, which frankly is a travesty. Back in my day, we could damn well depend on getting terrible tie in games for mediocre movies Give me a janky jet pack Let me press F to force push Nonetheless, I have lit the podcast cohost signal on the roof of Ringabverse PD and two heroes have answered the call with me is a ringer, senior audio producer who's about to produce some audio from his mouth. The Midnight Boyys own Steve Arkham Alman, Howdy, Steve. I cannot guarantee the quality of said audio from my mouth, but if it were if it were me, it would be all quality. Devin Ronado will be producing your mouth sounds and'll make them sound super professional. Steve is often up and about bright and early, but not our next guest He's a man who, like me lives by Bruce Wayne's words in Batman, the animated series. I chose this life. I use the night I became the knight That's right. He is vengeance. He is the Kight. He is Matman. Matt James, welcome. What up excited to talk about the many games that we're talking about today that I truthfully did play in the late night hours. Of course you did. That's when we get our gaming in. Well Happy Take two Interactive eararnings Report day, everyone We would on a trailer, but'll all we'll settle, get hyped for a Strauss Zeelnich conference call. Fun fact, Matt, Steve, Joie, and Daniel as well as me. We're all on standby Monday morning, just in case this time the rumors were true And we had to hop on the pod for a GTA trailer reaction. And as it turned out, the rumors were not true, shocker. and I didn't have to wake up you West coasters and you guys got to sleep in. So I'm glad you got your beauty sleep while Twitter and Reddit rioted. Me too. Yeah, Glad to happily disappoint Reddit at any time that you did. But I would assume that we'd be left in the dark a little bit longer for DTA six, but it's not like we're needing any more reason to be sold on it. That's the thing, right? And it's also not as if we're needing a big new game to play because the gaming gods take it away Gaming gos give. We were told we'd be playing GTA six at the end of this month. Remember, this was supposed to be when it came out. This was one of the times when it was supposed to come out, but who needs it? Because right now those gaming gods are showering us with enough big games to last the six months until we may play GTA. Next week, we will be discussing zerozero seven first lightight And Mina, the celebrity Jeopardy winner Mina the Hollower, that's the one. But today, we have no fewer than five big games to tell you about, including a few that people were so eager to play that they leaked and pirated them which we don't recommend. We play them weekly, but we will be yapping predominantly about two of those games, Lego Batman, Legacy of the Dark Knight which we have already previewed and now we'll review. And the new metacritic King of twenty twenty six, Fortza Horizon six We will also be bringing you our hot mix tape takes are musings on the early access arrival and lucrative launch of Steam's most wishlisted title, Subnaautica I, and a few observations about a new Nintendo game, featuring a little green guy who's serving as the sidekick in a major motion picture That one. Yoshi and the mysterious book So let's begin And by the way, we will keep this spoiler free throughout because these are all games that are hot off the presses. We're beginning with Batman because I can't imagine many games whose concepts would be more up the alley of the audience for this nerd culture podcast man Legacy of the Dark Knight. was developed by Travelers's Tales, which brought us LeGo Star Wars, the Skywalker saga back in twenty twenty two. And it's out this week from Warner Brrosers Games for Windows, PS five, and Xbox series with a Switch two version d out eventually. So we've been busy all week collecting studs in Gotham City And I see one stud sitting in his room Stublely, Steve Did Lego Batman break you up Oh God. Oh God, I don't know how to answer this. I'm going to say that I like the game a lot and then I'm going to move on. This game' great. This game' so so so good. I was a tiny bit trepidacious because I have been like lightly glazing this for like the better part of a month now having been invited to play it in advance and then getting to talk about it on socials and now this. But what more can I say? It's still great. This is probably the de facto Lego gaming experienced, probably more so than any other Lego game I've played in the most recent memory We've had a lot of comps to like the Skywalker saga that recently came out CT Games has been like really trying to push and hone their formula for what a big bad Lego game is and I don't think that they've made a better effort than this. This is probably closest thing that will get to another Rocksteady Arkham game for probably a very long time. And I couldn't be happier. I think this is a wonderfully charming and often hilarious look at the Lego Batman franchise. And I'm sure Matt James has already one hundred percented it and can tell me exactly how many Lego Batman trophies that I could get in my backcaave Is that the case, Matt? Fty percent. forty percent.. As you said, Ben There are a lot of games going on seriously. There's a lot of games But I do happen to agree that I think that this is the best LeEgo game I've ever played. and I played a lot of them. and I loved Skywalker Sagga. M too, despite how buggy it was when it came out, which definitely impeded my enjoyment of it at the time. I've only run into like one bug during Lego Batman. It seems much more polished and I think that the structure of it is way more appealing than Lego Skywalker saga where you go into just a million different levels the, you know open world of man is really well realized. It feels alive It's a joy to traverse, the traversal And this just feels excellent. the combat is a little shallow, but not not point of being boring It is aego game. is ag quite be. Yes. It can't quite be the you know, we're not going to get Secero here out of a Lego game, but it is very enjoyable. Ething about this feels like they did a great job with it. and I just am enjoying being the Leo Di Gaprio pointing at the screen meme every ten minutes finding the clever ways they work in all of these different elements of Batman that I have, you know in my brain for the past forty years or whatever. It's just joy after joy after joy And it feels excellent. Do you agree, Ben? The only bug I encountered, I think was when my NPC co op sidekick Talia Algul got stuck behind a fence for a while and I could not get her on the other side of the fence and I had to restart that section. But again, we were playing pre release and pre somem patches and for the most part This was a pretty polished and functional experience. and It is expansive It is a big game and not just in terms of the collectibles, although Even having played many LEko games and kind of knowing that that's par for the course, I was constantly even hours in coming across not just new collectibles, but new kinds of collectibles. It's like I'm eight hours into this thing and suddenly I just got number one of fifty of something. It's like, ye, my God, how deep does this go? you know? So there is a ton of stuff if you want to while away the days just tracking down all the stuff that's hidden around Gotham City, then you can do that to your heart's content. And It is genuinely legitimately a pretty open world representation of Gotham City and it's not the first one we've gotten. I guess technically it's not even the first open world in a Lego Batman game and this is something like the fourth Lego Batman game, depending on which ones you count But this is much more fully fleshed out And it's not developed for last gen systems. and you can kind of tell There is a higher level of not just visual fidelity here, maybe because they didn't have to worry about making this thing work on Xbox one or PS four. or the original switch It's also, I think, just the scope of it and how free roaming it is. And Matt, you said it, I mean, this is about as much fun as I haveve had versing an open world environment since the Spider Man games, maybe the most recent but it's quite similar in that respect in that Technically, yes, you can fast travel And I did maybe once And then suddenly way more entertaining ways to travel. opened up and I could drive a batmobile or I can glide And it really was akin to weblinging in the sense that this is fun. And also as you are sliding your way across the city And I'm not sure that the physics totally check out in terms of your rate of descent, but fortunately there are a lot of conveniently located up drafts everywhere, just in case you start to lose some altitude. and you're constantly coming across stuff as you go across the city. And so It helps you sort of discover what you might be missing if you just went from point A to point B. I'm really of the mindset that if you are able to make traversal in an open world game The most fun aspect of that open world, you've won because there's nothing that can bog a game down more than simply walking or appealingly traversing through a world that will constantly try to distract you from how bad that traversal is I'm wildly impressed at the fact that they've made this many concessions and really just riffs on the Rock Stey Arkam formula that's more or less been perfected now by this game. And I think the main reason why this makes it the best Lego game is because They've introduced the idea of a hub world or a home base in your bat cave because collecting things in a game is one thing, but elegantly displaying them like all Lego sets should be is kind of the secret sauce that makes this game something to constantly come back to When I was in my bat cave and there was an option to like you have like little like parts of the bat cave that are yet to be developed and you like go to different excavators that'll like show you what this will build in time with all of the studs that you collect. And it's like once you get to have the massive display case for all of your batsuits, I'm like, let's fucking go. This is where the game has now become everything it needed to be. I can look at all of of the suits that I have collected and have yet to collect And it's so brilliantly displayed that all of these playable characters and all of my suits and all of my cars and all of these things are like wonderfully put out there. That immediately incentivizes me break this game open and find every single thing that I possibly can. Yeah. and the Sing can become compulsive. I had a mini crisis and I slaacked you guys because I was like three hours in or something and I was six percent done with this game or something. However many it was, it was like I was looking at the total playtime and the percentage complete commensurate with that. And I was just doing the math and extrapolating how much time I would be spending in this game. And I was saying I need to stop compulsively collecting every stud. And you guys were like It's a Lego game. Just embrace it. I'll tell you what's worse, Ben. I think that I could have gained like maybe ten more hours of playtime in the time that I spent with this game. if they didn't have the thing where you' you're in like a mission area And it can show you all of the like collectibles that you have to like destroy in order to get a trophy for your bat cave. And when I miss one rubber duck out of the third. Yeah. like it's like, fill that one, Gay spot and then a third one. I'm like, shit now I have ex set. Gott to go back. And now I go right back and start that level over. I' going to go out of the rubuck. Yeah, exactly. And it's very much like it's Donkey Kong Bonanza in the sense that everything is destructible And it is very satisfying to punch stuff. And there's a lot of jingling and shiny stuff and the numbers go up. And so I couldn't help myself. And you don't actually have to punch and break every box That's only if you do actually want to collect every outfit and every batmobile, but you will want to when it's so enticingly laid out like that. And it's very hard for me to progress without destroying everything and just leaving broken boxes in my wake. But that will add a ton of time. But this is not really the kind of game that it's just like I'm gonna just sort of mainline the story here and forget about, you know, not that the story has nothing to offer, but the collecting is part of the fun. Yeah, that's always been at the heart of the Lego games, that collecting, I think. But as far as mainlining the story, I think that if anyone is gonna play this, you should probably actually kind of do that, you're going you're going to be like opened up into Gotham City a few hours into the game where you can fully explore. The first few hours of the game are a few sequential levels to get you accustomed to the controls and then it opens up to the whole city. When that opens up, you're gonna to want to explore, but you should really just keep mainlining the story until you get the ability to glide at the very least because that really opens up the exploration. Yeah. There's going to be a lot of things in Gotham that you can't actually do towards the beginning of the game you'll stumble upon something and get all excited. and And it at least shows you like a little question mark icon things when you don't yet have the ability that you need to interact with something, which I think is very helpful. You're not just standing there trying to figure out a puzzle that you can't solve, which is ye. that was semi frustrating for me just because it was kind of like an extended tutorial. I mean, it took several hours really until The game is no longer gated and you can go everywhere and do everything. N that it wasn't fun to get to that point, but I was thinking I was told, Steve promised me that there would be open world Gotham here and I haven't gotten there yet. and eventually you do, and it's really satisfying because it made you wait for a while. But kind of get your hand held and have to just gradually gain abilities before you can experience the full scope of this thing. And then when you do and you're already several hours in and you think, whoa even understand just how much game there was here. So it's pretty impressive, but it does make you wait a while. so be warned. I wouldn't necessarily have like the biggest complaint that I would find myself in this game being that it tutorializes you too long. I think it's The biggest thing that I've found in the time that I've played is still finding out things that you are discovering in the map. like having put in dozen hours or so, like I was just then introduced to another thing that could be explored in the world and then collected subsequently, knowing that this game is primarily designed to be a C op game Yeah or at least dramatically switched between different characters, but doesn't support online co op, unfortunately. It does not. but What it does support is a very ease like a big ease of use between a single player experience and a multiplayer experience because I have no qualms with doing an entire mission as say Jim Gordon becausecause not only is he fununny and he has an entirely different moveset and he has a different gadget set than Batman. That is also mission critical to exploring these areas He also has like entirely voice lines then if I were to bring somebody on the same mission or across different parts of the map And I think that's kind of incredible. The level of attention to detail that they've had in even these sparse amounts of sections there are the things that I've really kind of glomed on to. I don't think that The hardest thing about this game is kind of knowing when to Fus and get back to the story versus going back to the open world because Like Matt said, like there's still the game still has a lot to show you in that time And it's kind of like a Grand Theft auto where There's going to be a lot that you discover over the course of this campaign that actually doesn't really come through until kind of the end. Yeah, it reminded me that actually we talked about Spider Man and you just dropped the GTA comp, but maybe the combination of those things, it reminded me of Simpsons's hit and run a little bit. Just s sure the classic GTA like. Gotham City looks like Springfield, but it was similar in the sense that it was a fully fleshed out realized version of that virtual world that we know and love and that there was a lot of love and labor put into it Now, I think the downside of that drop in dropout co op, which is fun and easy. is that the story is maybe a little less cohesive as a result because this is just kind of a postmern mashu of decades of Batman stories from many media, and it's sort of conflating all of them to tell an original story very much borrows from and touches on many familiar stories. It's not quite like, say, the Skywalker saga where you are essentially just playing the Skywalker saga, right? And so thing is that you don't know what to expect. There could be some surprises. You're always wondering, okay, which character am I going to encounter next Also because they are trying to tie together so many stories and arcs and characters be a little less cohesive at times Plus they have to justify why you always have a sidekick at all times, right? So you're never solo. there always has to be someone with you And so that's kind of a constraint on the storytelling where There always has to be a team up for some reason, which is perhaps kind of contrived. but If you like Batman, even if you have a passing familiarity with Batman You will just love all the fan service and the easaster eggs, most likely. and couled with classic Lego spoof satire kind of takaking the piss out of the franchises that we love and stillill works, you know, Lego humor hasn't gotten old. Yeah. And you know, Ben, I was I was kind of concerned about that that element that you described about having to have kind of a sidekick at all times as Batman. It seems a little bit counterintuitive. But I do really think it helps the gameplay because every character in this game has two sort of gadgets or abilities that you can use both in combat and environmentally to solve puzzles So toggling between those two characters if you're playing solo is necessary and it adds a lot of depth to the experience to have to more gadgets and the switching and you know, having to be in the same place or having to be in different places, switching back, like it actually adds a good layer of complexity to a pretty simple experience otherwise. So I definitely have enjoyed that sidekick element more than I expected to and being able to in the open world switch between all of those sidekicks that you've unlocked at any time is pretty fun too Yeah. and there are what seven playable characters, which is obviously significantly trimmed down if you're used to skkywalker saga and hundreds. In that case, you have to make the sacrifice that it's essentially a skin and there's nothing below skin level, right? It's the same sort of moveets and abilities Whereas here The trade off is you can play as fewer characters, you still encounter as many as ever. but You can't control as many of them. However, they do have more distinctive capabilities now There are times when that's a little simplistic where it's just, okay, I have to switch from Batman because this thing requires me to hit it with a batterang and this other thing requires me to hit it with Gordon's Goop gun So now I just have to press down on the D pads so that I can switch to Gordon and then shoot this other thing and then switch back to Patman And when you're actually in combat Often the characters are kind of indistinguishable or, you know, everyone's capable of gliding, everyone's capable of the same basic combat abilities, which is like Why can I kick ass as Gordon just as effectively as I can as Batman? But You understands that sacrifices realism must be made for gameplay purposes And there are some characters who have More individualized movevesets and skills. Catwoman, for instance, right? Catwoman has not just the whip, but also you can control a cat, right? And you can sort of be a burglar and you can do lots of things that Batman can't do Once the fighting starts Yes, you're sort of secondary, your ranged attack differs and that has some effect on how you tackle a crowd. but mostostly you can kind of weade into a pack of henchmen as any character and dispatch them just as effectively. Yeah, I think combat is probably the thing where the game gets its most simple aspects down and that's where I kind of have to throw my hands up and be like, well Who is this game really, really for? And this is likely made for kids because this is going to be the most accessible version of these Arkham games and theseese gameplay formulas that we all know and love. and it's as complex as I think it could be. for as skewing towards a younger audience with its own exploits as well. Like, I don't know if you've found this, but The moment that I got the upgrade that I can throw up to three batterings at one time. If I just spam batterings for a while, everybody's days and I just go to everybody. Yeah. and It's made combat very easy, but am I still having fun? Absolutely, I still am because the game is very, very preoccupied with its sense of playfulness and fun. Shout out to the Lego Batman movie because this is like heavily influenced and probably like Almost one for one, like written with the exact same level of tone and comedic timing that those movies had. Be even in its combat There are moments of like cheeky fun where a takedown is just you pulling out an electric guitar and playing a riff in front of them and they just explode. And you can't be mad about that. You simply can't. And we've been deprived of this for too long because we all were subjected to suuicide Squad killed the Justice League, which was sad to see rocks that he reduced to live service. And you know, I think the tide has turned. I'm sort of I'm taking the temperature and it seems like the industry has realized that everyone can make successful live service games at the same time. And so we have seen some major publishers, Sony, Sega, et ccera have signaled recently that, okay, we are going back to our bread and butter here. We know that we're getting diminishing returns from these games that mostly make gamers mad and disappear instantly. So Rock Stady, for instance, is reportedly working on a new single player Batman game just going back to its strengths. And if this is sort of the stopgap that we get to tide us over until that This is not just inspired by the Arkham games and an homage to them, but it was actually developed in part by Rocksteady N WB Games Montreal The studios that have worked on the Arkham games are credited development help here because they're all part of the Warner Brothers umbrella. so you can actually see that lineage here. And yes It is dramatically simplified. And mostly you're going to be responding to some on screen prompts that tell you when to parry and you're dodging and you're sort of spamming the attack button and every now and then someone has a shield and you have to vault over them and hit them from behind. And you know, it is much more stripped down, obviously, as one would expect in a LeGO game. and It's also extremely easy even on the medium difficulty. Now there is the harder what Dark Knight mode and you might actually want to explore that, Not that you're expecting some from software sort of boss fights here, but even if you're playing on the medium difficulty You will ruin the bosses in about thirty seconds, right? So like, you know, whether you're in this for a challenge or not. But unless you're on the hardest difficulty, it's not going to provide much of one Also, you know, the puzzles are mostly simplistic. And there is a lot of hand holding when it comes to constantly telling you what to do, you know, anytime you're near an objective, Hey, why don't we do this? Yes, I know. I'm just exploring. I'm just Breaking some boxes, Lave me alone. There ares some studs to collect here. Or as you're gliding or riding around the city, you're constantly getting calls from cops who are telling you about crimes in progress and I'm like This is a low level robbery. I've got bigger fish to fry here. I'm Batman, and they will not leave me alone. So there are some slight annoyances like that, but As a dad, I am now more conscious of how kid friendly games are and I'm always approaching them with the mindset of can my daughter play this with me? And yeah, she can. That's the nice thing. And you know, if you kind of calibrate your expectations accordingly and you're not expecting some super challenge here, then you will have fun can't imagine anyone who has any connection to Batman playing this game and just not smiling throughout the entire thing. Mhm. Yeah. Shout out to the grappling hook also, which is an important component of the traversal system because the grappling hook You could just grapple across the city because that thing has some serious range. I mean They almost made a Spider Man game here. like it's kind of nuts. The fact that it's kind of almost faster than the car to get around rling around this thing. It is. It really is And also So there's a stealth system sort of. I mean You can do stealth takedowns if you sneak up on enemies, but it's extremely forgiving. and often I would still have the stealth takedown prompt even though I just walked right up to somebody and punched them, you know, like it was yeah, pretty pretty liberal in when I could trigger that or not. The nice thing about it, even though it's not really delivering satisfying stealth gameplay. And so if you're thinking, ooh, it's Batman. I want to stick to the shadows and swoop down and, you know, it's not really going to give you that. on the plus side you're not getting frustrating stealth experiences like pre patch Star Wars oututlaws or something where, you know, you get spotted and then the stealth sequence ends and you have to restart or something? No The stakes are very low here for one thing You really can just run around like you don't even have to creep earie. you know, no one is going to notice you. And even if they do then okay, you have to punch them instead, which find have no peripheral vision whatsoever. No I mean, they are Legos, so maybe their mobility is somewhat limited, but you know, still Don't expect a fully fleshed out stealth system here either But on the whole, there's just a great commitment to the source material. These are clearly people who have a lot of love for Batman and put a lot of thought into how they could cram in the most possible Batman references into a single game. and they did not neglect the game part And so everything you've ever liked about Lego games, to some extent, you've played one Lego game, you've played them all, but this one does enough to differentiate itself, I think, where You will feel like TT Games kind of leveled up here and found a new gear, which is welcome because there have been a whole lot of LeGO games and even Lego Batman games. So you gott to bring something new to the table. Yeah, I would say TT Games stick with Unreal Engine five. Yes. That's been a wild success in my opinion. And second, I'm gonna need you to do the to Lord of the Rings now Because I think an improved formula with this, it's been far too long since we've seen some of my favorite Lego properties come back. I know Indiana Jones is a big ask, but if you if you got it in you I would really appreciate that. Is there anything like Kning that they can do this now. L is there's something else that we really want to see Lego team at TT Games tackle Yeah, what what IP is out there that the Leko games have not already minded that has this sort of Here's the thing is there's safe. like I'm sure that there's a Marvel thing coming out at some point they got to be doing that Unless they unless they can't work with Marvel and DC, they got to pick aside. but yeah, one would think that's pretty ripe for this treatment Yeah It's got to be somewhat kid friendly. You can't really do Game of Thrones have a light over red wedding Oh man. But if we had like a like a telltale gamesesque Renaissance where it's like every property gets a narrative game, everyvery property gets a Lego game. Yes. I would sign up for that. I mean, Game of Thrones would be really pe for satire, I think, because Oh yeah,'s true. The greater the gap between the tone of the original property and the LegO version of that the richer the humor potentially. So Now that you say it, Kight of the Seven Kingdom's Lego version, I think that could work. I actually really think that could work again. All right. That' our that's our wish I was curious right at the jump of this Lego Batman game, like How are they gonna handle like Bruce Wayne's parents getting murdered in a Lo game? And I'm not gonna spoil that But they, you know, they're not around anymore. They don't change the origin story. Yeah. this also gets me into a bit of a like a what canutically happens to these goons that I'm beating up because they explode into a little piece they shatterered. And if I they're still alive after that We can rebuild them. We could just put them back together. I mean, I don It know that the case, then how do you rebuild Bruce Wayne's parents? No, that's true. Just put them back together and he doesn't need to beomeubbad man. That would be simple. Thats whoo cares about carbide Falcody? Just. Just think about it. like yourour narrative consistency is a little off your leeg up Okay, well, that's on our wishlist for future Leko games. Another item on my wish list I wish that I could take the Batmobile from LeGo Batman to the world of Fortza. Because that thing handles like a dream. And if I could take turns in Fza with my batmobile, I think I would be much better at this game. But that is my segue Two, Fortza Horizon six developed by playlayground games and published by Xbox Game Studios for Windows and Xbox series. And remember, that's Xbox in all caps. shout out Asha Sharma. And yes, PlayStation people You can play it too, but not until later this year. You got to wait your turn Ted exclusive people. So Matt, as I drove around Digital Japan, in fors horizon six I saw you everywhere. You going get around man. You clearly do. And the game was taunting me almost, because every time I would discover a road, it would be like, great job. you've now driven on thirty seven roads or something Matt, using your gamer tag has driven on two hundred something, you know? So every time I would unlock everything, I would be taunted by the time that you had sunk into this thing. weirdly though, you would always show up on the leaderboards when I finished a race and usually I beat you which seems inaccurate, I think, probably given our respect. experiences Yeah with this franchise. And so maybe that was just an extra inducement to me. going so as not to discourage me. It was like, yes, you too. can beat Matt James, but That is kind of a clever system where even if you're not actually playing with someone in real time, you see echoes of their experience everywhere and the world feels a little more populated with the pal. But that's Tell me about your experience with Forta Horizon six because I am newer to Fortza. I'm not a big racing games guy and so I played some That's a big driving guy. in real lighter or in video games. And it's specifically Racing, I like driving games, but less Racing no Fortunately, Fza combines both There are many ways to drive and race in Fortza Horizon six, but I really set out to just become a Fza guy. That was my goal. for this game is like, I'm really people love this series. It does so well. It's always so warmly received This isn't really my gaming sweet spot, but this time I'm gonna buckle down and I'm going to become a Fortza Horizon guy And I don't know that that quite happened, but I now appreciate the virtues of the series more so than I did before just because I spent more time with it than I had before. But Matt, you put more time into this thing than I did. So Tell me is the worm reception? Again, this is now the best reviewed critical consensus game of twenty twenty six and there have been plenty of bangers Does that match your experience? To a degree, it does. I mean, I think the thing with Fza Horizon six is that Pled it very safe here They haven't really changed the formula much and with good reason, the last game and the game before that have been absolute bangers and All I even needed out of this game really was for it to be the last game with a new setting and some different cars. And that's exactly what I got. Yeah. congrats So Yeah, it's it's just It's a game that I will play. I will put a lot of hours into and then fall off it and not check in until the next one comes out and then be completely ready for that experience again in a new setting and that's what I got here. There are you know, some improvements to this game. over the previous game. There's not like that kind of weird icky focus on social media that they had in the last one. And there's, you know, a lot of that focus on multiplayer integration that I didn't feel as strongly as you' been, but that's because I think I started playing this before you guys. So I didn't get lying to me about then being passed by anything how much I had accomplished. Yeah. I do welcome those sort of social interactions. I think that's fun. and it keeps you kind of invested in all of the tiny little random races and nooks and crannies of the game. But I just think that they have this formula here where from complete newbies and casuals to driving games to Like real So car guys and racing game fans like The game scales to your interest level in those things so well, whether you're a beginner or a car expert, you don't have to tune your car at all. You don't have to look in there at all. If you just want to drive cars around the world fine. You can do that and it looks gorgeous in this game if you want to get real in the mud and in the to the details of everything, you can be adjusting your tire pressure and you can be you know, doing all that stuff, but there's just something the core level of like what is fun about a video game where It feels good. it looks good You have a lot of freedom There is a lot to explore. There's a lot of cars to find and unlock And and it just as on the base video game level feels great. That has been my experience. Steve, do you concur? I do. Like you Ben, I was relatively new to the world of Forza because I always knew it as oh, it's that racing game that everybody really likes and it's got to be really good, but I don't really know what like it's ote unquote deal is because like the racing games that I fell in love with were mainly ones that I played when I was a teenager and a kid, like I had played Grnd Eismo, a game that began like quite dry in the Yeah, racing Sim era and like needed for speed underground. where it would be incredibly arcady, wildly accessible and all about customization and exploration. and I'm thankful to know that Horizon very much leans in the opposite area where it wants to ride the line between racing Sim And Arcie exploration. And I say that knowing that I raced a mech in the first ten minutes of this game, which was awesome, by the way. there's a level of gaming language that I wasn't quite ready to parse until I was actually told that I was playing the game wrong by certain people online where I was trying to look up like Okay, like what's the best way to play forza? or like what is the real appeal? And then I saw somebody make a comment about it where it's like play this like You're in an open world and you drive from race to race Think of it as an open world exploration game and your body is a car And don't drive on the road feel the need to just go from A to B because the game tells you to do that. The exploration is actually part of the game's appeal and knowing that There are so many things to run into and get experience for, get collectibles for Not unlike this Lego game. There are so many things that this game has to show you and give to you like that are not just cars and that are not just like different ways to fine tune and customize your vehicle. It's very in depth and to know that they've had this formula down for a couple of times now I would also agree that If it ain't broke, don't fix it would be the best philosophy here I wouldn't know or have the way to have it outstay. it's welcome for me. I think The most fun that I would have playing this game is knowing that There's never a car that I would have to feel married to because it really is generous with the amount of cars that it will just cycle you through in the course of a campaign And what I would say if people are not familiar with the Fortza formula, so you take the underpinnings of it, which is A real racing game forort Sport, which has been with us for twenty plus years And Horizon was sort of the spino from Fortza, which has now gone on to dwarf the original franchise and has become a phenomenon because paring the controls, the physics, the graphics with fully fleshed out open world with lots of stuff you can collect. Yes, there are some commonalities here between Fortza and Lego Batman, as strange as that sounds And similarly There's very little friction to Fza, which is not to say that there's no challenge. obbviously certain races are quite challenging. Gim wants you to be having fun all times, right? This game never really wants you to feel frustrated for better or worse And so you are constantly kind of chaining combos as you are driving, which again, if you haven't played it, sounds like how would that work? whatever is happening You are gaining experience, you are unlocking stuff. You're just driving around. And somehow you're leveling up as that happens And it's very generous becausecause often I would wildly lose control and then spin out and drive off into the forest. And the screen would be like ultimate skill chain plus three thousand points or whatever. And I'm like, yeah, I totally meant to do that. That was my ultimate skill on display. Absolutely. It's like No matter what you're doing, the game is really rewarding you just for being in this world So I could imagine Some folks if they come from more of the Grand Rismo background And it's like, I want to work my way up And I want to start at the bottom and I want to customize my car, which of course, as Matt said, you can do but you may not necessarily feel the need to do in Fza because the game really rolls out the red carpet for you. And this one is a little different from some previous entries in that actually start as a celebrated racer which is often the case, you kind of just start you're already on the circuit peopleeople are talking about you in hushed tones Here you are sort of starting from the bottom and now you're here except that It takes like maybe three hours for you to kind of work your way up and, you know start driving supercars and everything. So it doesn't really commit to the bits of Yes, you're just a normy and you're working your way up. And I almost wish that it Did But I understand why it doesn't because it's not about that really. It's just about providing rewards for you at all times and making Forza feel fun. So Matt, you've played more versions of this And I don't know how that aspect of the formula has evolved, but do you find that it almost caters to you too quickly that you want more speed bumps put in your way or you just like now Yeah, let's go. you know, zero to sixty pedal of the metal Extremely let's go. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like We just talked about Lego Batman, like sometimes straining to have its story you know, jail and make sense for minute to minute. And u I feel like it's even less of a concern obviously in Fcea ar where they're just like you know, there's they're saying a bunch of words to get you to the next thing that you're doing. Yeah. And You don't res to nothing for me. It is purely Oh yeah, my buddy Rico has a new Ferrari and hell lets you drive it for this one race. G your bandh? Yeah Yeah. prettyretty much. Yeah. There are some sort of like casual Ecursions almost in this game, which took me by surprise. like 's they're like sightseeing. Yeah. It's just likeassins Creed style. Yeah, it's just like a what's wandnder around this world and take a driving tour of the scenery. You just take a driving tour and then at the end there's a race. but like it's almost confusing to like start an event in Fortza and just like taking in the sites and stuff. thought that was pretty entertaining. The one thing I will say though about this game is that, you know, we've been sort of waiting for them to set a game in Japan for a very long time. and all of All of the locales gorgeous whether you're up in the snowy mountains or you're cutting through alleyways in Tokyo It all looks fantastic, but at the same time I do think that there's an element of it that doesn't really convey that like the setting enough doesn't feel particularly Japanese. I don't know how they could have jected but you don't think blasting baby metal is Japanese enough for you I mean, that's sure. The soundtrack is incredible in this soundtracks also honestly. I beg to differ, but it's not to my taste, but That might be a me problem. but I actually I turned the music off Partly because I couldn't actually hear any of the dialogue, which Frankly might have been better. Oh Ohh boy, are you missing out b? I know, really. yeah. But also I kind of just liked quiet and the driving sounds and the tire squeals and, you know being able to tell that someone is coming up behind me. So the soundtrack wasn't doing it so much for me and I kind of liked stripping down. I just went into the audio menu and I was like, O, slider all the way down, slider all the way down, slider all the way down. They do have like a lot of radio stations about. Yes. Maybe I did not explore a studio space enough that is possible You didn't do Japanese Low fi to race to Yeah, I may not have explored the options sufficiently because the default station was not to my liking, but I'm with you, Matt, because this was probably the most wanted location. It's a little like Assassin's Creed where for years, everyone wanted, when are we getting asssassin's Creed in Japan? And we did. And I actually didn't think that disappointed. And I thought, that was one of my favorite recent open worlds It was similar here where everyone was excited that Fza was going to Japan and Yeah, you know, the landmarks are there Yeah, you're knocking over Edamame and right a Ramen? Yes, you cannot destroy the cherry blossom trees. It's very much like Asassin's Creed where it's like you Let's take down the temples. That would be disre you can go to Shibuya crossing. Yeah, but no one's crossed. There's no people crossing ever You go to Tokyo and okay, it kind of looks like Tokyo. Obviously, it's, you know, not quite to scale. It's a ghost town. You know, like Gotham City Yeah in Lego Batman feels more alive than this representation of Tokyo does. and I don't know if that's a fault of Fortza because This is not the type of game. This is not GTA style where you're running down pedestrians, right? And Probably it's also not the kind of game where pedestrians are programmed to like leap out of the way when you're just screaming down the street at one hundred and forty miles perour. So I don't know that could do that differently, but you really do lose something because it just feels So empty. it's just a world completely populated by cars and no one who's ever outside of their cars, except for some areas where there are barriers and cars can't go in. and that's maybe where all the pedestrians congregate. It's like, this is the only place it's safe for me to stand in this country. So here we all are You don't even really hear people speaking Japanese. Yeah. There are like a few characters you meet who are Japanese. Everybody's spepeaking English, you hear English on the radio, you hear, you know like I think it's just a little bit of a missed opportunity to kind of make you feel more immersed in the setting of the story. It actually is like a massive missed opportunity because of all of the cultural touchstones that we have, like forget like Fast in the Furious Tokyo Drift and all of that, but like there are massive amounts of stories of racing culture, anime, initial D All of these things that you can pull from to even make some semblance of a story that can be compelling and like to know that like all of these racers just get along while they're like racing in the street. like come on, like like put some drama in this Yeah or something. likeike have a wildly charismatic villain that I would love to put in my rear view mirror. like right. Yeah, there's no sense of like icit, hey, we're street racing through Tokyo. I mean, ye, that's not a problem because there aren't actually any people in Tokyo who could be disturbed by our street race. And that's a harken back to a thing that was on the Playsttation too, but Need for spepeed Underground, like those games like really made you like immersed in the culture of street racing because you were like, all right, you got this car and you got to make it look as cool and as fast as you possibly can until you get like rich enough or repp enough to take somebody's car from them. And then you make that and then the cycle goes around and aroundound and around again. Obviously you can't do that with forSa, but to even integrate or bend their gameplay formula even a little bit to experiment in a city that in a setting that is just as exciting as it could be I think it's a big miss opportunity. But again, I mean, it's a wildly impressive package. They're putting this in. They do introduce you at some point to these sort of like I think they're like one on one battles. I think they're called Togue battles or something like that, which is somewhat Japanese in origin up from my understanding. But again, it's like It's all all of all of the the sort of culture is at a very like cursory level, whether it's car culture of the area or the actual culture of Japan, there's just not up to that. But again you know, at the end of the day, this is still like a really G feeling racing game and I'm sort of nitpicking because because it could have like elevated itself, I think to to feel more unique and distinct. but you know, I also didn't feel like The last game really hammered home the feel of Mexico either. and it's just not really these games are I guess trying to do, but I certainly would appreciate it if they made a greater effort than that. I think part of the problem and this is why I was thinking, well, maybe it's not really a flaw or Fz's fault is that even though exxploration is emphasized and you're encouraged to go off road and you can have these breakable mascots that are scattered around the city or you can find these boards that give you bonus points dririving so fast that you can't really see your surroundings much of the time. You know, You're not stopping to smell the roses here. And I felt almost bad for the des because I can't imagine the amount of work that went into ing real life Tokyo into this digital recreation. And you know, if you stop and slow down Everything is built out. It's not like some old school racing game where you'd stop and then everything would be like a sprite, you know, because like everything is fully fleshed out. detailed And yet most of the time it's just going by in a blur And so it's almost like the location is interchangeable. It could be anywhere because I'm driving one hundred and twenty miles per hour. I can't even take my eyes off the road, really. So yes, maybe I can see Mount Fuji in the background, but anything that's in close proximity to me I just I've got to focus on not wiping out when I take the next turn, which I did all too often. So I think that's part of it. It's like the open world is a feature, but bug in that sense because it does, you know, just the pure racing and speed, which is one of the selling points of the game makes it a little bit hard to appreciate The scenery There's a ton of variety here and what I appreciate as someone who likes driving games, but not racing games really is that there's a lot of other driving to do and things to collect and things to find. there's a great variety in the races. And so The game loop is sort of rinse and repeat where you just kind of you earn your wristband and then that unlocks a new circuit or a new set of races and then you do all of those and then you unlock more stuff and there are tons of icons on the map You really do have a lot of different races and even if there are no actual people populating the city, you know, it's different to drive through a city versus driving through the countryside versus some sort of dirt rally, like the cars handled differently. It feels different. There's different strategies. So I appreciated that and also just sort of you know Fing ramps, just tooling around and taking sweet jumps and just like Tracking stuff down. I liked it. There's a lot of other stuff here You can just turn on auto dririve if you want, which I think kind of defeats the purpose of Fortza, in my mind. It's a driving game, but if you want to just automatically proceed, take a Wo to the next race starting point, you can do that There's also a lot of extras like The estate you know, kind of like build your own, you know, become a real estate mogul. like there's a lot of customization that' I wasn't really that into, but I imagine abolutely many people are, know you can construct your own race courses and everything, but it's kind of You know, thats that's not what I'm coming to fora for, but it's there if you're building out your garage with right randomate objects. likeike right Yeah I don't really have time for that But that's the thing. like that sounds appealing on paper, but I don't think that makes any level of intuitive sets for the game that they're looking to make, like other than like occasionally just generically upgrading your garage. Like if you started in like steel shack, and then upgraded it So like I don't know, like a an apple an Apple store storefront. L that was a that would be a pretty cool meaningful visual representation of your progression And I think that might be my biggest pushback in the game so far is that I can really only measure My progression as my car collection improves. and like getting more outfits for my driver that I'll never see unless I podium. And the Like when the story is nonsense and when I think the exploration when dedicated to certain cars to handle certain places better, gets a bit off the rails I can still have a lot of fun with it, but unless they make those things more accessible Like I I constantly wanted to whenever I was like going off road to like want to like just deeply explore, like go into the forest or like Do this like off off the beaten path type of trail, which you can do. I wanted to have something like the crew or some of these other like bigger exploration games where like I could just hit a button on the DPad and then I switch to like my off roading car or that I could switch to my street car or my rally car or something like that to think about like having to go through with the menus and then constantly change cars and they constantly like have to retool and rechange everything because I'm getting cars so often feels a little Overwhelming A best, even though the racing is so, so fun. It would be nice if you could switch between them somewhere quickly. I it't take I set a loaded car in, Yeahes Yeah, I was somewhat surprised by how high the review scores were just because Often critics do tend to ding a series when it doesn't dramatically innovate, even if it's perfected a formula, if it just gives you more of the same however excellent that same is Sometimes the scores will decline just because people value novelty and want to see a serious push in a new direction. Forte is just so perfected that I guess no one wants to hold that against this franchise because really works and it just feels great And and I made a good faith forortza effort here. I think I really tried And I don't know that I can become a it's a guy because it's, you know, it's like When Jerry's considering the Menag Atois and Seinfeld, and he says, you know, don't you know what it means to become an orgy guy? It changes everything to dress different, I'd have to act different. I'd have to grow a mustache and get all kinds of robes and lotions. and I'd have to get new friends, I'd have to get orgie friends. I'd have to get forortza friends And I don't know that I'm ready for it unless you two can be my forts of friends, maybe. but ultimately it does come down to Racing just not being my favorite gaming genre because ultimately these two things are pretty much the same. Yeah, it's just like I see what you're saying For sure. It's a lifestyle At the same time though, like that's what people like about the Horizon games that you don't have to become that car guy. you really caname casual in the basic, but still it can feel like that, I'm sure. Yeah to have the option of adjusting your tire pressure And you have to love racing games, which Ultimately, I mean, it sounds simplistic, but it just race for a while. and I think, well, that was good fun Now what? Oh, the next race. So you mean that I gonna clip this and we're going to bring it back up when Galactic Racer comes out Well that's I say how much get Star Wars. That's completely different. Slap some Star Wars on it. suuddenly I'm in. but no it's is that I will have more fun with with Star Wars racers than this. Yeah, the M school show Probably yes. but, you know, I just no matter how fun the racing is, it's like Okay, so I just do another lap now. That's so I to the starting point. so now I do that again, you're saying, and I do that three or four or five times and then I just keep doing it and then I do another race on a different course and I go around and around and that's the whole game, huh? M Maybe there's a subway game Yeah you ride the subway. Yes There has to be like a commuting simulator, right? There's every other sort of simulator for every other possible mundane activity that we love to do in gaming, but not in real life. But yeah, can you make your connection Where do you transfer? That's what I'm into. Maybe it's my lack of real world driving or maybe My lack of real word driving just stems from the same lack of interest in driving. but I don't know. I just I need to put more. I can't keep going around in circles people. I need a new direction. So I did my best and I enjoyed my time with Fortza even if I can't fully get into it the way that many do, but If you have before, then do again because you will find in Fortza what you have found before, which might be exactly what you wanted if you were like Matt James This episode is brought to you by Accenture When your advertising operations fall out of sync, campaigns slow down, insightes get buried, and opportunities get missed. That's why Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result, less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most To learn more, check out accccenture dot com slash Spotify. This summer, Fan dool is the best place to bet on goals. Including equalizers. Uh Vo? Y headters. Every goal is worth more on fan dool. So let there be goals. New customers get three hundred fiftyteen bonus bets guaranteed when you bet five dollars five for seven days. twenty one plus in present and select states. First online real money wager only minimum five dollar wager required for seven consecutive days, five dollars first deposit required bonus issued as done withdrawable bonus bets, which expires seven days after receipt restrictions applly simple terms at fanool d. com slashortsbook. Gambling problem call one eight hundred gambler or one eight hundred My reset This episode is brought to by Netflix. The T mobile homeome run derbyies right around the corner. might be one of the best showcases of pure power and all sports baseballs. Biggest slugggers. some legendary Announcers, Puhos, Rizzo, Bonds, Sabbathia L Duncin Yeah Hunter Pence, Matt Fastkirzian, a whole bunch of people. And it's the one night where you don't swing to make contact He swings. History. I'm interested this is who Bon says about this actually. Anyway, it is all live from Citizens Bank Park In Philly, watch the T mobile Home rununs every live on Netflix Monday, july thirteenth at eight PM Eastern five PM Pacific So Those are our headliners here We will go more quickly and just touch on a trio of other recent fairly high profile games and talk first, I think, about one of this month's most discussed titles because Gosh, if we didn't talk about mix tape, who would It might just go undiscussed on the internet If you have somehow missed the mixtape discourse, this is an adventure game developed by Beethoven and Dinosaur published by storied indie publisher And I know even invoking the term indie in connection with this game or Anaperna is fraught territory, but Anapperna interactive for All current gen platforms It's short, it's sweet, it's cheap It's on sale for twenty bucks or available via Game passass. and Matt for a solid week or so in mid May Whenever I made the mistake of looking at Twitter's for You tab, which is on me. I was served some viral Flaming hot mix tape takedown And The tweets were not in fact for me, but the game is, and I know it's for you too, and it was not your ten out of ten review that made everyone lose their minds Can you explain why this game is a ten for you why IGN's perfect score seemingly The brains of the internet or at least the loudest proportive voices they're in. This game and the feedback to it has made me kind of think that if I were in a position where I had to give scored reviews for everything. Yeah, I think at this point I would start giving everything two scores. I would give it like an objective score and I would give it a score for myself. R. And I think that this is a game that could really use that because I think that at its core level, like objectively would I would say that this is at least an eight point five, but for me I found it to be a ten And I I kind of hate most of the discourse around this game, I think What we have here is a game without a lot of gameplay which I certainly don't have a lot of problems with as someone who loves visual novels. You know, like a thousand Xists is one of my favorite games of the past few years like Emmyo the Smiling manan. like I play games without a ton of gameplay game has gameplay that is not challenging and it's not meant to be challenging Thats it's not about success versus failure in this game. It's about how it feels. It's about Letting you feel lived in this setting. And I understand that This is a setting that is Well covered. I mean, you couldn't be a person over a certain age. who isn't who hasn't been just kind of like exposed to this sort of like nineties white suburbia culture just like excessively hammered home and and that's not everyone's experience. And I get that if there's anything you can be sick of It's that. But I just think that from an immersion standpoint to me, this is right there with some of my favorite games placing you in a setting of the past few years like Despolote. like south of midnight. I think it's just really successful at capturing a vibe and making you feel Like you're living in that time in place. and I I think the soundtrack is great And even if I didn't, I think I would still you feel connected to the main character's relationship to this music and I understand if the tone of this revbs people the wrong way and the setting is overdone I just think it's a really successful video game that I I really found the relationships be successful. I mean, teenagers are perfect people. And if you're someone who likes music and has an appreciation for art and creativity, like high school is just tryrying to define yourself by the things you like because you don't know anything else about who you are yet. And I just really connected a lot of this in ways that I don't expect everyone else to Yes, Stacy, the protagonist can be obnoxious, but so can actual teenagers, right? And so I guess some of the characters can be written obnoxiously. Yes. and some of the grand pronouncements that she makes and her music snobbery and defining herself solely by her musical taste and dismissing everyone else's Yes, I think You might not love spending time with her in every scene, but I think that is somewhat true to, as you said, you know, we define ourselves in these narrow ways and we're in these certain clickes And then hopefully as you age you realize that other people have interesting taste too, right? And maybe you brought in your own interests. But for anyone who has successfully avoided the discourse surrounding this game, congratulations, first of all. But mixtape is It's an adventure game. It's a lightly interactive movie, essentially a movie that you play You follow Stacy Rockford and her friends Van and Cass who are these northern California teiens And it's they' end of their high school experience. And you know, as you said, we've seen this sort of story before. John Hughes esque though, this is less eighties situated than it is sort of an amorphous eighties, nineties mash upp. We've all seen this kind of coming of age life transition, We're going to a big party. We want it to be everything that we have built it up to be. And Stacey, who is an aspiring music supervisor curated a mixtape for this final night that she is spending in her hometown with her friends and she wants everything to go perfectly. And so you're following the friends as things runun off the rails and also flashbacks to their entire high school experience and their origin story as friends And much of that can be quite affecting. And you know, look, the white aspect of this, the nineties aspect of this Check, check The suburban aspect, not so much for me, but two out of three ain't bad, I guess. And we've all seen this sort of story before. Now, you know, we've been subjected to so much eighties nostalgia that The nineties have their turn for a while, but the nineties have their day before we move on to the two thousands, right? But you know I've seen many people say that this is millennial nostalgia and maybe to an extent reallyally more G nostalgia, right? I mean, you know, I guess I would qualify as an elder millennial and these characters are several years older than I was. And so even some of these touchstones are slightly before my time, even if I was around, I just wasn't quite at that age. But yeah, obviously it's going to resonate with different people to different degrees Of course, this is from Beethoven and Dinosaur. This is an Australian studio, right? know, mayaybe not perfectly channeling the American teen experience from the nineties And I've seen Well, so many different criticisms, but one of them is that when is this supposed to be said? It's all over the place. This song is from this era and that song is from that era. And how would Stacy even know about this song? It wasn't like she could just look it up on Spotify. And also some of the lingo, hey, Stacy said something was cinema. This is anachronistic, this is not era appropriate I think to a large extent, a lot of that is intentional This is supposed to resonate. B Hopefully who can see something of themselves and their own high school or teenage experience, even if it doesn't perfectly mirror theirs. but broadening the umbrella and the tent a little bit here to encompass more and to make it a little more relatable to te who are playing today, for instance, right? And so I don't know that it's so much that we have to kind of play continuity police here. And say like there's no way that Stacy would even know about this song. How would she even acquire that and be able to burn it on her mixtape or something? we just got to go with it, right? She has a very refined musical taste. That's why she is aspiring to be a musical supervisor. Eactly.. So I'm fine with going along with all of that. Now the actual gameplay Sure, it's a legitimate critique It's lightly interactive that it's not challenging If you thought that Batman was easy, Well, play mixtape. you know, as many people were saying, there's no fail state. as if this was some sort of sin, right too me, I think it just boils down to Was this experience enhanced because of its medium. Was this better? Did this story affect me more because it was a video game than if it had been a movie, and I honestly think it did. even though this was not some sort of mechanically complex coordination requiring game It's essentially Edith Finch esque, right? You know, it reminded me of what remains of Edith Finch, another Anaperna published classic where you have a lot of little vignettes and almost mini games And through these mini games, you learn more about your and you flesh out their history. And a lot of them, I thought were charming and actually re pretty impressive in their interactivity justust the variety of the interactivity, peopleople have probably seen one of the viral scenes, which is that you get to simulate Stacy's first kiss And it's gross as many hersel as are. It was control the tongues, you know? I was like sap me up. Right. But there's a lot of that where it's just very inventive where Okay, even if this is not challenging, I have not quite played anything like this before. And also, sometimes it is deceptively deep. There is a stone skipping sequence. Which I spent At least twenty minutes on, which you did not have to do the stone skipping, the skipping physics were pretty fleshed out And theyre' do satisfyingly was and I was we need a stone skipping simulator. forget about commute and transit simulator. I want to just skip stones, but it was like Wildly satisfying to actually skip these stones and you know, there's like a softball experience where you're swinging and you're trying to hit homers and there's just like such a wide range of ways to interact with this world. and even if each individual one pretty abbreviated Sometimes they really impressed me with just how novel they were. So I thought this worked better as a video game. We've all seen plenty of shows and movies that similar territory, and I thought the fact that this was a game and that I could control these people in these worlds, even if I didn't get a game over So what? I still felt like I was embodying these characters And there were times where, okay, it's not like you have a certain number of lives, you have an allotment of lives and then you have to reset or something. the game will halt your forward progress, right? You're skateboarding and if you run right into a car thenen it will rewind, much like Fz Horizon six, Well, not much like, but a little like. But that's the key. You just want this story to keep unspooling. And so even if you're doing essentially a quick timee event You're just trying to facilitate the storytelling. And so if you run right into a car, well, suddenly we have to rewind and back up. And is that really so different from getting a game over and having to restart that sequence? I don't think so. No. And I totally agree with what you're saying about you know, was this better as a video game? and you know, you hammered home the reasons why all of these sort of like min game segments have have, you know, make you they feel good and they add something. But there's also the experience of walking through bedrooms of these characters and there's something really powerful about like bedroom in high school, How did you decorate it? What is the layout? like There's a lot to learn about people by walking through their bedrooms as a teenager. and bit of just walking around and like looking at what's on the shelves and interacting with it and like all of these little things like really kind of added to this like sent like you were discovering these people were by walking through their bedrooms in a way that that experience it's not something you can have in a movie where you feel like you've decided to discover this part of them just I just think like This game knows every way in which a video game can add something to the experience in ways that movies don't, notot to say that they're better or anything, but it can and should be different. And I think they're very successful in the ways that they make you feel like this is your lived experience. Yeah, ye. And there's a moment where you know, Stacy is talking about DeVorjacqu, the composer, and she says Vorak And I wasn't sure whether That was a mistake the people making the game made or whether that was a mistake that Stacy might have made, which I think kind of rings true. And yes, Stacy's musical taste is actually the director of the game, Johnny Galvatron's musical taste, and he constructed this game around his personal mixstatement and his favorite song. So I get it if you think that this doesn't really authentically capture Stacy the fictional characters lived experience here, but as Cast says people who have passions are hot. This is Johnny Galatron's passion is making games out of music. And the previous game by Galvatron and Beethoven and Dinosaur, the Artfulull Escape which was also published by Annaerna. Now Matt, you love that game. and I was much more lukewarm on it because that to me did not clear the bar of be a video game or is this better as a video game? Because in that case the controls were so simplistic. And that was more about being a musical artist, as Galvatron has been. as opposed to Stacey being a musical enthusiast and appreciator And that was about the act of creating The actual act of playing the game was even less a directive. It was really just sort of running from place to place place and occasionally pressing one button. you know, there wasn't that much to it. It was all about feel. Yeah and not much beyond that, there were very well crafted, beautiful Yes settings to go through and it felt good to play. But yeah, there wasn't you know, tremendous amount of story or yeah behind that or anything. I would have been just dissatisfied playing The arrtful escape as an animated movie, but Not mixed tape, mixed tape, I think the gamey aspects of it actually do improve the experience. Another one, in addition to the stone skipping, there is slushy making, right? You go to a sort of seven hundred eleven knockoff and you can construct a slushy with your own personal mix of ingredients and it's like impressively simulated the colors and the mixing of the slushies L like this is what I'm talking about, you know? Maybe that doesn't do it for you, but it did it for me and there's a real stylishness in the way the story is told, just like the use of B roll and photos to kind of just flesh out this era. and You know, there's the distinction between nostalgia, which is sort of, you know, you're looking back and missing something you personally experienced versus animoyia, which is sort of a, you know stolen valor nostalgia where you feel nostalgic for a period that you didn't actually experience And maybe this is more of an Animoyia game than it is a nostalgic game I like it, and I like that the music isn't all from O period because whoever listens to music from one period. You know, when I was a teenager, I was listening to music from decades before that time period That's unusual Be streaming services, I had to buy a Jimy Hendrix greatest hit CD Yeah to hear Jim Jimy Hendrix. I couldn't afford to buy all his albums, right We had it hard back in our day. Yeah. Her mix tape is so impressive for the time. Like you're into like early like probably Napster era if she's like burning I was gonna say this is easy line Rure it's still like really difficult to have kind of depth of music. but I think people would be criticizing this game even more if the soundtrack were almost like appeasingly right, you know, nineties centric. Yeah I think it's more some spe punkins in there, you know, like, but It spans eras and decades because it's Stacacey's tast, or Johnny Calv Tres. At what point were you only into the music that happened that decade Once again the internet and much so like the video game internet is impervious to having a nuanced conversation about any game that even remotely challenges the idea of what gaming can be. Yes. And I found that frustrating because I thought we had already litigated some of these debates. And I guess we are endlessly Re didnt dispatch last year dispatch, didn't we all just talk about walking simulators and sort of hash out whether they were real games and whether they were artistically satisfying? And you know, we've all been in these trenches before. And maybe it's just that a new generation came along. I mean, it's been almost a decade since Edith Finch, right? So it's, you know, there's not a lot of institutional memory here And that ten out of ten just broke people's brains And I get it because if you're not used to playing this type of game and it's two or three hours and you're thinking, oh, it's even at twenty bucks, mayaybe it's not the best bang for my buck. I understand that. But Games can be so many things, you know? And I love a story about platonic love, you know friendriendship, which is what this game is about. and it can be cringe But so can teenage rebellion, you know? And the only part that maybe strrain Credulility a bit for me, I guess is the the self mythologizing that goes on in this friend group where they're highly conscious, I guess of like you know, this is a transformational moment, notot that you don't know when you're at the end of high school and you're about to get a job, go into the real world, go to college, whatever. you're obviously conscious of that in the moment. But there was kind of a self mythologizing among the friend group where they're documenting, this is our last night. I don't know. I don't know that all teens have that experience. They're maybe kind of going with the flow, but you know, these are aypical teens. I mean, I definitely think that when you're in high school everythingthing feels like the biggest thing ever. Yes. And it's not until you know, a few years later maybe a decade even people start to kind of realize like Hey, you know, like if this relationship doesn't work out or if like, you know, this plan doesn't happen the way it supposed to likeike I've had this happen enough times that I can adapt. And I think when you're in high school, you You haven't learned that yet. And so that's doesn't feel out of place to me for everyone to be treating everything like the stakes are so high, while to us the player, it doesn't seem that way certainly. right. And I think know some of the other critiques, the idea that this is somehow an industry plant of some sort because They got the rights for all this music. How could an indie developer and publisher afford this? Look, obviously Anaperna is one of the bigger and better financed indie publishers. and Do we have to have the debate about what qualifies as indie? I guess we do every time a technically indie game succeeds and achieves some prominence and is potentially up for awards. And yes, there are varying definitions of indie and that is a broad term that applies to a lot of different games of different sizes and budgets It seems like people are just discovering that Anaperna exists. This is not new, you know? I understand You may not be fans of the Ellison Kan given the political leanings and alignment with the current administration, att least some of the Ellisons. Hey, sure, I'm sympathetic to that. but You know, suddenly everyone's like, a, billionaires, Nppo babies funding games and getting music licenses. I mean, if that's the worst that the Ellisons were doing I think that we would all be better off ay better place I mean they're the publisher, not the developer. Right. That too. Yes, Lair. Yes, exactly. And so, you know, I think yes, this is well made and polished, but it's not the first game for this studio and the Artfullow Escape was somewhat successful. and Annaerna has has pulled this off before. I think the entire like talk about like, is this an indie game? Is this obnoxious like Like it's like in anticipation of this game getting like nominated for something game It's like, yeah, yeah so down the road. Its it's not even about the game itself, you know? Yes. Yes, you're right. It's it's pre narrative. It's anticipating the narrative that is to come Storm Clouds looming. It's actually it's it's nice to have and Anapna Banger being back because, you know, it has been a bit because there's been a ton of turnover there, right? And turmoil. And so it's nice to know that they still have a game like this in their quiver. And I was also pretty impressed. this is a small thing, But even though obviously they had a music budget here, it was not an unlimited one. And there is a finite number of songs. And it's pretty impressive how they figured out how to seamlessly loop the songs Because you're in a particular scene and one song will play continuously And you'd think that that would be jarring because you'd get to the end of the song and wait, does it just start over again? And won't you hear when it just skips to the start of the track? And somehow you don't They managed to make that seamless so that the song just keeps playing endlessly and it sounds somehow natural. So That's a small little technological feat that I was pretty impressed by. And there's an artistry to this, whether the Motion design of the characters in a nonstop motion world, you know, different frame rates might potentially give you some sort of seizure, but I got used to it. and I think there's a lot to love here. So It's, you know, people are well within their rights not to like this game and to be as vocal about that as people were about loving it but we are very much in the camp of this is an artistic achievement and it's one that we quite enjoyed and would recommend All right, Matt I want to te you up to say a few words about Subnaautica too. the latest steam sensation. This is, of course An action adventure, survival game developed by Unknown Worlds Entertainment and published by Unknown Worlds and reluctantly, Krafton. it has now entered early acccess on steam and the early access equivalent on Xbox game preview. So it's on Game passass. you can Check it out. it is a pretty polished early access experience and the original sububnutica was similar. It was in early access. It was refined over the course of years. This is a long way away from the one point zero release but it is fairly finished by early access standards And if you have not tracked All of the legal trouble that preceded this early access release, it's worth digging into, but the very quick summary is that Krafton, the Korean publisher of Snaotica Dmissed, replaced, fired The CEO and the founders of Unknown World Entertainment was later alleged, reported. A lawsuit was filed Crafton comeome up with a chat GPT inspired plan to try to cheat unknown worlds out of a two hundred fifty million dollars bonus that would be due to the studio if it hit certain revenue benchmarks, which would be easier to accomplish if it did launch in early acccess when the studio wanted it to, Ultimately The judge ruled in favor of the developer Unknown Worlds against Krafton. here it was quite embarrassing for the publisher, the CEO, the founders were reinstated They had not been neglectful, seemingly, as Krafton had alleged. And if this was all a scheme to snooker the studio out of that bonus, I don't think it's gonna work because This game is a hit, and it sold a couple million copies in about twelve hours. and to almost half a million people playing concurrently on Steam. immediately after launch You are one of the people who have been playing Subnnautica I. What are your early impressions? I think that there's a lot of sububnaica one in this. you know, talking about the sort of trend of sequels not you know, changing too much about the formula. I think that this change is enough for me to fall in love with with Snautica all over again. It's a new setting. It's all oceans still. Let me tell you that, but it's a different world different there's more of an emphasis here on the alien technology versus just man madeade technology in the last one I think it's doing some interesting things I'm not typically big on survival games. I feel offtentimes, you know, stressed by survival games like you do have to you know, enough food and water in your body to survive in this game. And to some that's an instant notope And if you feel that way, then you're right. don't even bother. Yeah I do think that as far as survival games go, there's a reason why the first one was a hit There's a reason why the second one is going to be a hit. It rides this line of not holding your hand the entire time while also not being so obtuse that you you just kind of give up like this sense of discovery in Snautica two is excellent. You can figure out a lot of stuff on your own. they put you in scenarios to kind of find those things out on your own and the crafting feels you know pretty manageable. Your inventory is super manageable. This is one of those games where if you build a bunch of storage in your base and then you go to the crafting machine All of that stuff is considered to be in your inventory. You're not having to through all these boxes to find the thing like it's all very Like out and honed for the genre. And I just I'm having a great time with it. I think that if you've never tried Snnautica I would recommend you just hit the first one up and then wait until this one fully releases because there is some stuff that is not totally done. But as as a early access title, it feels very polished. I haven't encountered anything aside from like a literal barrier being like, this part's not done yet. make me think that it's in early access. I kind of expected to come to this and be like, oh more subnutica. Yeah I kind of already did this, but Instead, my reaction has been like I loveo this all over again and the new elements of it are enough of a twist more so than Fz being in Japan. Yeah, to really get me back into this. Yeah. And for those who don't know, Subnnauticas, it's mostly a nonviolent game. It's not a game with guns that is kind of central to its DNA However, The fish sometimes attack you So are you pleased? are you satisfied with your options for fending off the fish? ' I've seen some discussion about both your AI companion who is kind of constantly nattering on, which is maybe commentary on what we are all subjected to these days. And then also the range of tools available to you and the way that the game is gated early on as far as like the the fish attacking you and stuff. can there' flares you can throw to distract them. you can hit them with your multi tool. I got to say I have somewhere near ten hours, now, not ten, eight hours in this game. and I haven't died yet, but I have felt like veryer close at certain points. So I don't think it's like wildly challenging as a survival game as long as you're someone who can, you know, who's who's going to cheheck your inventory before you head out the door on an excursion, right? But I'm pretty satisfied with like the tools set that you have and and I think that, you know, despite the fact that I haven't died, like There's certainly lots of tension in like encounters and the deep with the unknown. It's very successful at making you feel kind of terrified to explore certain locales. Yeah and enthralled to explore others. I'd almost rather die violently in a game than be short on resources, you know? I'd rather be disemboweled than asphyxiated. And so Subdatica is tough for me. but I like the mystery and the intrigue and there is a real and you do want to keep diving deeper, both into the story and literally into the ocean. And I'm constitutionally disinclined to really get invested in early access experiences in general which is difficult when you host a video game podcast and Subnutica two comes out or Slay Aspire two, or Hades two, or some other sort of early access sensation that everyone is playing and perhaps people expect you to talk about. But the way that I'm wired I will wait, you know I can I can hold out until the thing is done. But this is more done than most early access games. It's just that presumably it will be perfected and refined and the inventory will be a bit bigger and you won't suddenly reach the end And so if that takes two or three years, then I'm hesitant to really see it all now because And will I be more reluctant to see it all then? or will it not have the same impact on me because I played it in a be perfected state So I mean, to be honest, if it weren't for this podcast, I would have waited for the actual release instead of checking it out in early access. Yes. But the consensus is It's worth not waiting will also be worth waiting for Okay And finally, a few words on Yoshi and the mysterious book which was developed by Goodfeel and published by Nintendo for an about to be pricier. swwitch to, get your switch twos now before you got to pay fifty more bucks to get that things. Guys, I've been on An extended Yoshi hiatus, I would say And I have missed many of the modern day successors to SNES cllassic Yoshi's Island This is technically the ninth main line entry in the Yoshi series following Yoshi's crafted world in twenty nineteen, which was also made by Goodfeel Have you guys Dabbled in recent Yoshi entries? or have you been out on Yoshi for a while I have not taken a dip into any Yoshi fair lately. neeither have I. Yeah, I think it's been since Yoshis story on N sixty four for me. Okay. well, that's been a while. I think though. This might be the time Dip your toe back into Yoshi's story. and by that, I mean Yoshi in the mysterious book because I actually quite like this game. Now, this is made by Goodfeel, which also made Princess Peach showhowtime. Kirby's extra epic yarn and Yoshi's woolly world This is So these trend towards the younger demographics Nintendos. Right. Yeah. This is sort of a second already young Yeah, exactly. like if Nintendo proper wasn't family friendly enough thenen we call in good feele for the extra family friendliness, cater to it even younger audience offten sort of starring secondary characters to Yoshi, my apologies, but Even though this has kind of a kitty veneer I was pretty impressed by it. Now It is a lot like mix tape in that there's no fail state. So if you need your games to be grueling, I need Yoshi to die. Yes. if you need him to plummet to his deathatedly and bleed out then Yoshi in the mysterious book is not the game for you B This is sort of a super Mario wonder like game that to me, you know, there's sort of a stop motion Mixtape, storybook aspect to it. The gimmick here is that there is a literal encyclopedia and you were diving into the pages of this book as Yoshis of various colors and you are fleshing out this world and discovering of the story that are on the page. and so You know, you put your magnifying glass over some sort of creature on one page and then acts as a portal. into a platforming level that is centered on that creature. And you know, I use the term platformer advisedly. It's as much a puzzle game as it is a platformer. It's about exploration But it's really incredibly clever where you are sort of It's interesting because you're trying to just like trigger various things and make various things in this world And so you're just sort of wandering around and yeah, there's some jumping and everything, but it's, you know, pretty light forming but you're really just trying to interact with the world in as many ways as possible. And it's really inventive in that Super Mario Wonder way where it's just like, We have a whole lot of ideas and we're just going to throw them all at you and it is aesthetically pleasing and it doesn't overstay, it's welcome. It's know, maybe a an hour game. you can an unlocked bore, but It really does kind of you think in that you're kind of scouring this world to figure out what else can I see here that I haven't seen, and often the ways that you interact with it, again, in kind of a mixtape esque way, will thrill and delight and charm you. So I was pleasantly surprised by Yoshi in the mysterious book. And it's not the Nintendo game that everyone is waiting for. It's not going to appease people who are saying, give me my three D Mario and give me my next Zelda game I think It is worth checking out and it's something that you can play with your kids if you have kids, but I think it is kind of satisfying for all ages despite the lack of a true challenge here. So I was pretty impressed. and you know to put this into the context of Nintendo's upcoming releases, later this month, Nintendo is releasing a new mobile game calleds Pkonico Damifies the photos in your camera roll. which actually sounds sort of funny and potentially dangerous, depending on what is on your camera roll. There's also the Star Fox sixty four remake coming in June as between Yoshi and Starfox and Nintendo continues to capitalize on characters featured in the Super Mario Galaxy movie, which is approaching a billion bucks at the box office. Then you've got Splatoon Raiders in July followed at some point by Fire Emblem Fortunes's We'ave And all of these games and characters, they have their constituencies, they have their core fanbases But everyone's waiting for the heavy hitters B Nintendo flagship series and the Dusk Bloods from fromr software because The Switch two is going up to five hundred dollars in the US in September. So we've now completed the set, every possible platform or console that could have had its price raised now I guess, officially has even the next playground So you know, the rpocalypse is upon us given the price hike and the lack of those real headline games, Nintendo's stock price has been suffering whichich you know, is not my problem. But clearly they're feeling the pressure here. And Nintendo President Shintaro Facabro said recently on an investor call We are preparing a variety of new titles for Nintendo Switch two, regardless of whether they are so called major titles or not. In addition, we have new titles prepared for the second half of this fiscal year, in addition to those already announced, and we will provide details at the appropriate time. Oh good. Yes. very Nintendo veryer cryptic playing it close to the vest. And for most people, the appropriate time would be now or months or years ago And you always have to wonder why doesn't Nintendo the easy way, just give the people what they want, not necessarily rushing games out, A lot of companies, I think subject to these pressures would just confirm Yeah, we're making a Mario game. you know, or yeah, we're making a Zelda game. And then the investors would be reassured, which is silly because it's not as if there's any uncertainty surrounding whether Nintendo is in fact making a sequel in the age old forty year old Mario O Zelda series, But I think if they were to come out and confirm, yeah, it's in the pipeline. It's in the warp pipe. We're working on it then probably people would be temporarily appeased. And in a way, you know, as inrutable as Nintendo can be, I almost respect They absolutely won't do that. I mean, they have done that at times and maybe it's backfired. And so never change Yeah, like they' te in no th' becoming like Ubisoft, like like putting out like a like not as if like a h there, you know, it's it's not as if they're not shipping anything It's, you know, it's an impressive commitment to the bit and message discipline of And they've strayed from this at times, but no, we're not going to even tell you what we're working on. You all know, but we're not even going to confirm it for you, even though this would probably produce a temporary stock bump. So I think people are kind of Tired of Nintendo sort of messing with the JV squad you know, I mean, apologies to Kart and bonanza and, you know, games that have been quite successful. And obviously Pokemon Pkopia has been a big hit. And you know, it's not a switch to Tomodachci life. Exactly. Tomadachci life, you know, it's a cross gen title. it's not necessarily a reason to purchase a switch too, but that game has been a huge hit, a social media sensation So Nintendo kind of knows what it's doing. and there's a lot of hand wringing about the rollout of the first party titles. And I get it, I'm impatient to play those titles too But I think a big part of it is just that Switch two just came out so hot and sold at such a historic, unprecedented pace and even now remains ahead of the pace of the original Sitch, which is one of the more successful platforms and consoles of all time. And yet because there was that initial rush, And then things have pulled back and swooned somewhat. Everyone's wondering is the switch to in trouble think so. I think the switch two is going to be perfectly fine But I understand the frustration because you know, give the people what we want and what we want is not necessarily Yoshi and the mysterious book, or at least that's not quite at the top of the list. but see, you should want it, you know, if you have also checked out of the Yoshi series for decades. Maybe it is this at all with your daughter? Yeah. and she's into it. It does require some reading and puzzle solving that is maybe a bit beyond a four year old. but She had a good time with it and certainly enjoyed watching me play, you know, because I just I grabb the controller. My turn, sorry Sloan. Daddy's playing No, I don't do that. I share even though I'm an only child and I'm not accustomed to it. But yeah, there's a lot to like here. and there's going to be a lot to like. And if Nintendo does unveil at some surprise director summer director, whatever it is, hey, here's what you've been waiting for the holiday season. I don't know. I don't know whether Nintendo will try to get through the latter half of this year without the true Heavy hitters or whether they do have some surprise up their sleeve that will actually satisfy everyone. either way I think Nintendo will probably survive Well Apologies to Zero Parades for Dead Skies and Bubsy four D and the Thickest Thieves and all the other new releases that we haven't had a chance to try yet because somehow, even though we just talked about a whole lot of games There are even more where those came from for D really did come out. I know. everything, everything is coming out all at once And next week They keep coming because zero seven firstirst Light and Nina the Hollower, and we will be back to Budmash about those. So Matt, Steve, always a pleasure. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Thank you, Ben. Thank you, Ben Thanks to Debvin Ronaldo for producing this supperersize episode and to our junior Ramo Pal for his senior podcast management Mesh, willll be back next week Until then, you can contact us and I hope you will at ringerverse gaming at gmail. com.