Star Wars Outlaws Review - Fun Over Substance

Star Wars Outlaws review that Kirk did for Pure dead gaming his name should be clickable in the link below if you in the description below of this video if you want to check out his review or if you want to go read the written one uh we will provide a link to that as well if you're watching this later make sure and hit the like button make sure and hit subscribe I did a whole review Roundup before this if you want to kind of see what a 9 out of 10 8 out of 10 7 654 that's the gamut of score and we read through a pretty significant ific portion of Kirk's review in that rundown and coincidentally and probably accidentally I left out a part that he wants to talk about in this segment now about why he feels like it's such a good and lived in world now I'm going to end that rundown uh stream and bring you guys over with redirect thank you so much for all the support lately whenever we did this we did this with black myth Wukong and people tended to like it so Kirk I just want to kind of start with you and I were discussing thumbnail this morning so people clicked on this and they saw a thumbnail in a stream it said fun over substance and the general Vibe I got from my review rundown was that people are having fun with this game those that were being more critical really kind of agreed with you maybe they just weren't maybe you weren't as severe as them like the repetition or the lack of substance you put in roughly 40 hours a lot of these folks seem to put in about half that amount of time which is probably indicative of maybe you were enjoying it more than them so you played more so explain to me just just to start things off why are we going with fun over substance like what really made you want to push for that title today I think that people should be aware of the fact that I I guess just like with this game in particular and I talked about this primarily in my in my video review on my channel not in the written review but I think that this is yet another game where people have just a lot of expectations not even necessarily like high expectations just a a a lot of them about like what this game should be given that it's Star Wars uh given that it's coming from Ubisoft and it reminds me a lot of the skull and bone situation where people had an idea of like what is a pirate's life going to be like like what type of Swatch buckling Adventures am I going to get to experience what is the gameplay Loop going to feel like people had certain ideas in their minds going into that experience and so like with this game it was very intimidating with the Embargo like not knowing what anybody felt about it like this isn't a situation where like I've sat down with beta and can kind of like gauge what the public temperature is you know before I kind of collect my thoughts and do my own review piece on it I'm totally in the dark like it's just me in my apartment playing 30 plus hours of this game trying to flesh out like what are my thoughts on this and what are people are going to think and how do I communicate how I feel about this and so like fun over substance basically goes toward the fact of like I don't know if this is going to be your Star Wars Uncharted that you might think that it's going to be I don't know that this is going to be an amazing third person action adventure like shooter with like very good combat and shooting mechanics what I do know is that if you're a Star Wars fan I think it would be very difficult for you to not have a lot of fun with this with some minor frustrations and hiccups along the way and also like there are very engaging systems and like a lot of distractions diversions and sign activities to engage with like I talked about my written review like I just spent half a dozen hours just like playing saach because it's like it's it's you start to really feel like you're participating in this world this underbelly that they' created in Star Wars Outlaws and like that's where the fun is but there might be a lot of people that are like no that's like not what I wanted out of a video game or this particular video game I wanted shooty shoot and and jump puzzles and whatever that like were really going to engage and Captivate me I don't really care about doing mini mini games or like little side missions and whatever and so like I don't really know what audience I'm speaking to necessarily when when I'm like doing a review like this so I try to cover all bases and so like with this one it's like I think this is one where depending on what your expectations are your experience definitely may vary and I think different people are going to fall in different places on it which you yourself covered in the review Roundup earlier this morning like there's a kind of wide gap of there's a there's a lot of space of people being like on the on the end of like it being a nine on the end of it being what what you say even like a somebody's like a five or lower so like there's definitely some difference of opinion some variance here on like how people are going to feel about it yeah Euro gamer gave it a four uh one of the outlets gave it a five like so that's like a 40 and a 50% and my argument wasn't that they're not allowed to do that like they can score whatever they want Euro gamer was the only review that I read that felt critical and scathing enough to justify such a low score most of the reviews I read They're criticisms were Fair they were measured but I didn't feel like I was reading a disaster of a game like a 50% or a 60% that's a that's a pretty bad game I mean we went and looked and saw that like you know Gollum has a 40% on Steam I mean that's you're you're putting it down in that hemisphere when the game's landing at you know 40 to 60% that's that's pretty poor and so the thing that I did pick up in a lot of the reviews though is they were they were picking up on some of the exact same things that you did with respect to repetition lack of substance and the like I wanted to point out though I wanted I wanted to point out that I really liked how your review opened by saying hey I review this on PS5 this does not look like I I I if you did that for me I love you for that because that's always one of the things I want to know I go to these reviews and they're like it's fun I had a fun time I'm like did it run like crap cuz Jedi Survivor kind of ran like crap need to know yeah yeah it's like that that's you know okay this speeder not great but like does it look like smudged Vaseline when I'm moving around and so I felt like that was really helpful you were like I played it on PS5 this does not look like a PS5 game you know there are sections that that you said really feel like Star Wars but that performance-wise you were kind of like eh on and you even said you have an untrained eye on frames per second I said that you and I differed a little bit on Ronin I was like he's not as sensitive to frame rate issues I say that makes me a little worried maybe there are some the one review said they were having crashing issues and bugs and even soft locks on missions on their PS5 like stuff wasn't working things were disappearing so hopefully that stuff can you know maybe be patched out day one but I I appreciate that you said that overall with performance though with your 40 hours did you encounter any of the bugs we read about in some of the reviews I had like one really bad bug that ended up being like more amusing than anything where basically um when you get when you raise your wanted level enough with the empire like GTA star rating style um they'll send a Death Trooper Squad which I I never actually found out if like if I just ignore them I probably should have done this for the review to like experiment but I had a limited amount of time to engage with the game but I don't know if you ignore them they'll just like come find you and like hunt you down ostensibly they would but the way the game frames it is they there's like an imperial ship that comes down like onto the open world and they kind of like set up camp and it's like there's a literal tent and it's like that's their base of operations to like come find you and so the idea is that you just go there and take them out like before they can even like hunt you down that's kind of what the game wants you to do so I did that and the like the ship it's like one of those I don't know what it's called but it's like a triangle on the top and it's like it's like the one that like the emperor arrives in and or whatever um and and the death troopers were like stuck in it like it's not something that you can like go on like you can't like walk up into the ship like it's just like it just exists like I guess for Scenic value or whatever like it's just there to like let you know like that's how they got there but the enemies like will spawn in like just into the world I don't think they're actually like walking down off the ship you know but like the death troopers were like up in the ship you know like a space that like NPCs like weren't actually supposed to be in so they're just shooting at me like out of the ship and I see like one of them's foot or whatever and then like slowly they just start to like like displace onto the Horizon and now they're just like floating in in the middle of like thin air and like shooting yeah like what is going on so that was like kind of wild and wacky and and and definitely was immersion breaking but like that was the only major bug that I experienced it kind of similar to that one that you saw earlier where like the guy he like stealth took down somebody and it's like who we're going to move all the way over here now whatever but I I didn't have any like gamebreaking bugs or anything like that really detracted from my experience and I didn't have a lot of bugs just in general um so yeah I I was surprised to hear that that people were experiencing a lot of bugs with the PS5 version cuz that was a version that I had one of the things a lot of folks are saying is there's way more stealth than they expected and you had some issues with stealth can kind of go belly up really fast and then you know the ensuing chaos is not that enjoyable talk a little bit about that like is that sort of a a halting element of the gaml is that is that an unenjoyable thing the one the one review acted like the stealth isn't even that hard they were running through sections so it sounds like maybe maybe you were trying too hard to be stealthy or something cuz it sounded like one of the reviewers at least was like I I was just running through areas that got so easy um yeah I I didn't understand that that particular review comment I don't know if there's like a like a you know game hack type of Elder ring type Strat or Dark Souls type Strat where you just run past all the enemies and go to the objective you'll be fine I don't know if that's like what they're talking about but um no I I actually I I think when it comes to a Ubisoft game like a lot of people kind of want to know like but is this one like actually like in terms of like Ubisoft vernacular like a lot of people were saying that that Avatar frontiers of pendor was basically like a a far cry style of game this one is actually not really like any other Ubisoft game in particular like they are straying away from that formula a lot and it's it's kind of commendable that that they are trying to like get outside of their their their comfort zone and their wheelhouse but if I had to like create a one toone comparison with something it's actually like kind of similar to Ghost Rec on wildlands and that's in like a variety of factors primarily the fact that like you have like this open world or open Zone that you're kind of just like roaming around on your vehicle and then you like rock up to like various like bases and outposts and stuff that you can infiltrate get loot out of there and like the ideas that you would be stealthy about it you can even like use binoculars and like tag people but also it reminds me of wildlands in the sense of like I've seen like Tik talks of that game and breakpoint right where like people are being super stealthy and they're going in like Commando and it just looks awesome like when they when all everybody just drops and and nobody ever saw them nobody knew that they were there and it's like a super stealthy like highlight clip that they've gotten and like you can have those type of moments in wildlands you can have those type of moments in Outlaws but there's also the moments where it's like all right I'm going to shoot that guy and I'm going to run in and have Nicks grab onto him and I'm going to stealth T take him down and then I'm going to punch him in the face and it's going to clear the room and it does not go according to plan like at all then all of a sudden the you know like the the alarms going off everything you just totally lost control of the entire situation and you still got a mission to finish like the idea was you're going to get into this base and you know steal some type of data or something that you need to retrieve for a Syndicate or something well you still got to do that so unless you want to restart it um you got to run and Gun it now so it it can be very inconsistent in that way of like it's clearly designed so that you're supposed to approach like the majority of situations stealthily but you don't really feel like you have enough resources and that the stealth is designed in such a way to be reliable enough like a Hitman game or something where you can really tackle any scenario stealthily and like get get away with it without anybody noticing you like you're kind of just left to like you know coin flip type situations where it's like did anybody see that oh they did oh well you know that sucks rest ofm Mission I guess I'm not going to be Incognito anymore and other times you feel like a total badass because you know nobody ever saw you and you took out you know you stealth took down seven enemies in a row and you took out three at one time in a room like you definitely have those moments it's just it just can it can totally vary it's inconsistent well and so there's some people in in chat sort of taking you know issue with why did it take you 40 hours I mean someone in chat is saying you know Maddy play says he did everything in 15 which I don't know if that's possible cuz even the director said the game take about 30 hours to complete yeah I I don't I I mean I can't speculate whe whether other people are being accurate or truthful I'm just I'm just going by like the the Playstation clock thing or like whatever you know that tracks um I will say like I mentioned this in my review like I had to replay a lot of sections like there there were especially in the opening like onboarding period which like I mentioned it lasts like somewhere between 8 and 10 hours until you actually meet nd5 and you get on a ship that can actually warp to other planets and systems like you were on Tara for the majority of time and something I didn't didn't get into a ton of death with just because I didn't want to be unfair in that like I spent the majority of the time that I had with the game on Tashara and then the Tashara system like flying around in space I didn't experience as much of the other um planets and moons so like I can't say without a shadow of the doubt of a doubt that the other areas are more shallow but it feels like they put a lot of emphasis into those opening hours on in that opening are area and like that's the most dense one and then maybe the other ones are kind of like you know not as much not quite as much emphasis not quite as much density density not quite as much attention to detail in every single aspect of fleshing out that world in terms of the game design and the world design um but I don't know because I definitely spent like 50% of my time or more in that one system so that's just kind of how it feels but also feels like maybe I spent 50% of that time in that system by Design you know like maybe it's like that's where I am going to spend the majority of my time so all of the effort and attention went into that particular place that's not to say like Tatooine isn't like superbly fleshed out too like tattooine is very realized like I would say this is the most realized Tatooine that I've ever experienced in a video game so like that's definitely to the game's credit but yeah there's a lot of attention in detail that goes into chachara and it feels like you know for for someone like me and I I would think anybody else coming into this game right like you're thinking oh this is like a an adventure that's going to span you know the whole galaxy and I'm going to go to all these different planets and systems and stuff and then it's like I've been on this one place for like eight freaking hours now like what's going on or I guess you start in kantos so that's like 2 hours it would be more like 5 to 6 I guess in in tashar before you're a like actually able to leave and there was a lot of replaying stuff because it's like there's non skip like main missions where you have to go into an area they take your gun away like you have no combat abilities and you just like can't get spotted like you have to do a stealth sequence and not get spotted or you just cannot progress the game and like some of that stuff like I was just beginning to feel out the games like I didn't really understand the stealth like one weird component of the stealth in this game for those type of sequences is like it's actually beneficial to allow the enemies to like spot you but not spot you if that makes sense like basically get alerted to you know in Assassin's Creed games there's like the first meter where it's like they're like oh what's what's EPO doing over there like what's going on I I better go look and then there's the one where like they actually are like oh he's over there like there's two different levels of like the them detecting you the first one in this game is like actually kind of helpful because I don't know it's not design super great in the in the areas that you have to get into in these in these stealth uh sequences because they'll just be like a checkpoint that you have to get behind and there's just like two two guards standing there and like you don't have any way of like getting around them or anything like you don't have any tools or resources to be able to do that so you kind of just like need them to move so it can actually be effective to be like like stick out from behind cover like all right look at me look at and then they're like oh there's something over there I should go check that out and you just take the long way around and you just go through like where they were standing cuz they've gone over to like where you were to be like is there a guy over here I thought I swear I saw something so like it took me a while to like figure that out that like that was the best way to approach that so I just ke kept having to restart restart restart so like my actual I I'll I'll say this like to people like pointing out like what Manny play said and like what other people play said like my actual game save file says I think like 22 hours or something or 24 or something like that but like my PlayStation thing says like 39 so like there's a discrepancy like I'm replaying a lot of stuff apparently like I'm I'm going back and like there's a lot of retreading so like I don't know how that like works out but like it that definitely happened like there was a lot of like stealth stuff and stuff where like I would have like a fun shootout right like I'd go into a base I'm supposed to sneak in there and like get something and then like I'd have a fun shootout that lasts maybe I don't know 10 15 minutes against like 8 STS and like every Imperial Trooper like in that freaking base and then I end up dying or like you know it's basically like this is unsavable and so like I had fun for that 15 minutes but I didn't progress the story at all and like I feel like that happened a lot where it's like you're having fun but like there's a lot of times where it's like you're not actually able to progress the story because the the the game sequences in terms of the main missions aren't actually set up that well well I wonder if that's what Maddie did then if he used the internal save of the game 15 hours just seems really low I saw other reviewers saying it took him roughly 8 to 10 hours for that opening section that you were talking about as well so I don't 15 hours to do and again we're just going off what someone in chat said right they basically are saying that he said he did everything in 15 I don't know if he actually said that he may have said I played for 15 hours or whatever so we are getting secondhand information I feel like Maddie is usually very thorough and usually very thoughtful so if 15 hours seems low considering what the Crave director said so we might want to get more concrete information before we you know we we say that it's oh it's 15 hours to do everything the game I based on what you said and what multiple reviews I read today I think you'd be hard pressed to do everything in this game in 15 hours I think that'd be very difficult yeah that's impossible it would you'd be hard pressed to beat the game in 15 hours but I you could probably do it like I do know that a lot of reviewers like they have it down to a science of like they got to be they got to see the they got to roll credits right like I wasn't able to do that like full disclosure I have not beaten the campaign of Star Wars Outlaws and the primary reason for that was I just wasn't having a lot of fun like I got like 2/3 into it if not more and I was like you know what it would be a disservice to this game to me reviewing this game to keep forcing myself to do the aspects of the game that I'm not having fun with like let me go engage with saach let me go engage with the side missions and improving my Syndicate reput reputations like I maxed out my reputation in two different syndicates because that was fun to me like I wanted to experience the aspects of the game that were fun and engaging I didn't want to force myself to go through the main campaign all the way if that if I wasn't enjoying it like I have the ability of player choice any player that sits down with this has the ability of player choice and will be able to do the things that they want to do I felt the same way about Starfield like I didn't think that the main story of Starfield was very compelling but it has a lot of great interesting and compelling side content and Mission structures so like this game is is similar in that regard and so that's why I engage with all those side systems more because it's like I wanted to explore all the Avenues of this game and see like is the fun there and like the thumbnail say it's fun over substance there's a lot of fun there but some people are maybe going to find that it lacks some substance yeah yeah we're getting we're getting conflicting reports about what exactly he said that it's a 20 hour plus adventure and it took him 15 hours again I there's there's plenty of conflicting reports from other review Outlets so I wouldn't I somebody's just trying to you know jate me into a gotcha moment probably where how did Kirk do this if he did if he did this like whatever well and it's clear too that maybe the internal save file is tracking differently than the actual time that the game is open cuz if you're saying you got 40 and then it says 22 I don't think you sat on you didn't sit on a pause screen for 20 hours right I mean you were you were actively playing and and uh and recording footage and trying to you know gather information for the review in in light of how long it took you do you think that if somebody does just want that 15 to 20 hour stint cuz you know creative director is saying 30 hours to complete I I don't know when he says that does he mean everything or what I I tend to get past the 25th hour in a game like this and I want things to start wrapping up um would do you think I would be able to achieve that or do you think as you said in your review you felt like a lot of the side content is where the good stuff was is where the magic happens you know am I going to miss out on that if I try to keep my completion time lower now if I'm loving a game I don't care I'll just keep playing like ghost of tsushima I don't even know how many hours I have in that game um I don't think this game's going to hit that level of love for me but if I'm enjoying my time in it I don't think with Jedi Survivor or fall in order I was in any rush to be done uh some of that was because the story was so excellent so do you think somebody looking to have only roughly that you know that 25h hour experience or so would they be able to do that and and and not miss out too much on what you feel like are the are the Diamonds in the Rough um well yeah let me incorporate what chat's saying with that question also I I seem to have confused them I so and I was very clear about this in my written review too that L went over earlier uh in the in the first show in his live I was not having fun with the main campaign at a certain point like I was to a certain extent and then it just kind of lost me because I had been able to engage with the other stuff in the game at that point and I was just like like it just it just it was so evident to me what I wanted to do and what I didn't want to do and so people are like I don't know if you guys are like in your brain you're like well the game is the story like the game is the campaign that's the game so if you didn't enjoy that you didn't enjoy the game no I spent like 20 hours with not doing that and really really had fun like I really enjoyed playing the game like I understand if you guys are like coming into this wanting like a great Star Wars story a great Star Wars campaign that's what I said about expectations right guys I think a lot of people have expectations with this game what they want it to be for them specifically how what experience they want to get out of it if you're looking for a fantastic campaign I wouldn't really recommend this game to you if you want like I don't know a $70 version of like you know the whatever the Galaxy's Edge thing is at Disney World or something like if you want to go live in Star Wars land and play and Gamble and play saach you know like like Lando and and if you want to like you know uh cozy up to these factions and become highly regarded with the huts and like have Jaba like you um I don't I don't know if this is a spoiler I don't think it is um Amelia Clark's character Kira is in this game as one of the faction leaders like you can cozy out to her you can do jobs for her like uh there's a lot of like cool stuff like that that you can engage with that is very far off of like what the the golden path like main story missions are uh Tristan ogi uh did a mission that he talked about in IGN's in his IGN review that I didn't even experience where he went into the sarlac pick that's sounds awesome I'm going to go do that tonight like that sounds amazing that's not a main campaign mission so like I'm trying to paint you guys a picture like this game is really really fun that doesn't mean that I thought that the the the main campaign was really really fun I liked a lot of the other stuff I liked playing saach I liked going and doing these these little like foras into side adventures and like that's also like something that Ubisoft was able to do very very well in this game that they haven't done well previously like if you think about like uh the more recent Assassin's Creed games and I can't think of another example like without slowing down the show but like Ubisoft is kind of notorious for just adding in all these fluff and filler side quests right Lona where it's like oh go you know go deliver this thing again or you know oh go take out all these Bandits or whatever and like this game actually has like actual like side missions and stuff that have like stories have Stakes have characters and they're actually interesting in that way and so like engaging with those feels a lot more gratifying than you might expect out of a Ubisoft game so they really tried to like deliver on the premise of like you're interacting with a Star Wars world you're having Swatch buckling Adventures you're encountering hij Jinks as an outlaw and like that's what I found fun I did not care about like the investment in K story and how apparently she's got to like Rob this guy you know this really rich guy from Kanto again to be able to like earn her Freedom or something it just didn't really like mesh well for me it didn't line up and So eventually I was like you know what I'm out on this like I'm enjoying the other stuff too much to force myself through this when I could just be playing all the other stuff and enjoying that and evaluating that cuz that's that's part of the game like you can't like Overlook that and say it's not part of the game when it absolutely is and like for me it made the game for me like it is the reason why the game is an eight because Ubisoft more than any other more than any other Star Wars game like I can't really think of of an example like sure like I love Jedi Knight 2 dark Forces no dark force is 2 God what is that game called whatever the dark force is 2 Jedi Knight um I love uh the Jedi Outcast and and Jedi Academy games I love shadows of the Empire like great memories of of Dash rindar great memories of of rogu of the Rogue Squadron games that I've got behind me like I love all those games but they didn't let me like interact with that seedy underbelly or like live in the world of Scar Star Wars they might have let me role play as like a fighter pilot or role play as a Jedi or go to some very interesting Star Wars places and have some interesting Star Wars experiences but I didn't get to actually like live and interact in that world and Star Wars Outlaws actually gives you the opportunity to do that in a variety of ways that's what's very interesting and compelling about the game and what's really fun it's not that this is like an amazing like Star Wars themed Uncharted adjacent experience I I am not professing that in any regard I think that's what they were going for and they kind of missed the mark like they come up short on that a little bit but what they have done either as a byproduct or uh more likely with a lot of intentionality and and effort on their part they've created this living world to interact with that Star Wars themed and like I just can't imagine any Star Wars fan playing this game being like yo this is boring I don't like no they're going to be like oh my gosh it's the it's a Jaa or like oh my gosh I get to do this I want to ask a qualifying question because you know hil's like okay so the side missions are better than the campaign missions is that what you're saying I mean I want to rephrase it did make the main campaign more enjoyable because you felt like you got more immersed and connected more with the world or did the did the main campaign always feel kind of weak it didn't feel weak until I realized it was weak if that makes sense like I played it for like 15 of the hours that I played the game and then I was like this hasn't like ramped up in a way that's like gripping me like I was just like I just kind of want to do what I want to do like I was basically using the main campaign as a vehicle to get me into other scenarios like I was using the M main campaign to go to tne and to go to AKA and then the main campaign kind of onboards you with every planet like oh this is jaa's planet and this is how this works and whatever and I'm like all right let me go let like Let Me Off The Leaf let me go do my okay great now I can go do you know this with Tuscan Raiders now I can go do this uh you know for job or whatever like I can go interact with the the merchants in the market figure out what they're about run errands for them do contracts for the syndicates like I just wanted the game to let me go and it doesn't once you get past those like initial 8 to 12 hours it's not really bad about restricting you very much um so like that was fine like I I liked the fact that that it was this game actually I didn't want to make this comparison in the review but it actually like reminds me a lot of like Western RPGs and like Bethesda type games like I was reticent to make that comparison in print because I feel like a lot of people if I couldn't explain it a lot of people might get like certain ideas that I didn't want to convey but it has like that sense of like go anywhere do anything which might be a little bit like deceptive given that it is Ubisoft like it's not exactly like Bethesda I don't think that it has like the pitfalls that like a Bethesda framework and system does um but like it is interesting in that way of like you're going to have a lot of fun the more that you go off the beaten path like I truly believe that with this game and it kind of like makes those those excursions like a little bit more interesting than just kind of sticking with the main story in the way that I feel like uh a Bethesda game does feel like with Skyrim and like with Starfield like Skyrim like the main quest is good like don't get me wrong it's very good but like there's some really cool stuff you can do in Skyrim like if you explore if you engage with the the various question and and side content and like I feel like this game is similar in that way of like the best experiences to be had probably aren't a part of the main story well do you think that this game is protect by the Star Wars world and skin because like if this was not a Star Wars game would you be like would you have checked out earlier you know stop playing yeah I mean totally I mean I don't I don't think you can divorce that from it the whole the whole premise for us is that it's Star Wars the whole reason that it was made is that it's Star Wars um it would be like a you know it would be like we have Uncharted at home basically if it wasn't you know we have like Uncharted what metal gear like metal Gear Solid 5 like that style of like open desert gameplay like with some with stealth elements like or wildlands you know like it would be like that type of deal with like Uncharted type of uh Mission structure and like uh storytelling attempts I don't know that a lot of people want to play that like Star Wars totally makes the game like it it totally makes or breaks it and I think it makes it like if you're a Star Wars fan like I said like I think that this is just like an undeniably enjoyable time despite some of the frustrations with like the stealth and the weird like you know Mission stuff where it's like oh you strayed too far from this NPC or you like went outside this area that you're not supposed to we're going to set you back a little ways um despite like that stuff like it really was a fun time but yeah absolutely like for a comparison I think like with hogwart's Legacy that game was so good last year I I think it like should have been nominated for Game of the Year absolutely and it was so good that like I told people to ask me about it you know they might have said like I grew up with har Potter like I've seen some of the movies I never read the books like I'm not a a Harry Potter Super Fan like should I play this game like would would would there be enough substance in this game for me to like engage with it and enjoy it despite the fact that I'm not like overwhelmingly fond of Harry Potter like I'm fine with Harry Potter it's cool and and my response to that was like yeah honestly you could play this game and have an engaging and enjoyable time and it might actually make you fall in love with the IP more like it might make you more of a Harry Potter fan to play uh Hogwart Legacy I don't know that star warss Outlaws is doing that like I think if you're if if you're coming into it as a Star Wars fan which there's a lot of Star Wars fans out there and for good reason if you're coming into it as a Star Wars fan you're going to enjoy yourself like it's going to be impossible not to crack a smile every so often with this game with the experiences that it that it makes you have with the attention to detail with the reverence that's clearly there you're just going to smile you're going to have a sense of wonder wash over you in certain parts like you're going to enjoy it outside of that like it's not like the game is like it's like it can stand on its own in isolation independent of that and be like this is a marvelous game outside of like the Star Wars thing like I don't think it it if we use Hogwarts Legacy as a benchmark I don't think it rises to that standard and I think that's okay like I would have given like Hogwarts like a nine or a 9.5 I think that game is excellent I give this a game an eight so like that's where the eight is coming from like it's great if you like Star Wars if you don't like Star Wars probably don't mess around with this one like it's probably not for you yeah yeah I think I you know chat's chat's taking issue with the score they're like it doesn't sound like you're describing an a it sounds like you're describing a mediocre game but I think that's where you're coming from is like yeah I'm a fan of Star Wars and that padded the score I think that's at least a trans why would you play this if you weren't I don't know well Jedi Survivor and Jedi fall in order I actually feel that there were people that were probably not enormous Star Wars fans that could enjoy them especially once the performance issues were resolved not on PC obviously I I still am very angry with how that property has been treated because it's not just you know good because it's Star Wars it's like it's excellent Star Wars storytelling like if you turn those games into a TV show it would kick the living snot out of virtually all the shows they've made save maybe Andor um it would probably be better than Mando um given the given the ties to order 66 and just you know mahan's such a great actor but I I actually think that you could enjoy those games even if you're not a huge Star Wars fan and maybe take an interest in Star Wars Universe this game sounds like you're saying probably that that that won't happen you're saying it could you're saying it's could but you seem to think it's unlikely um because what I've gathered from the review scores and even from you is and this was my concern from the very beginning when we were getting the previews and I was kind of analyzing it was we ended up with maybe just a mile wide and an inch deep like the space combat not great speed or combat not great combat in general not great stealth not great everything's sort of serviceable nothing is nothing is excellent nothing is achieving anything you know beyond that which I think is fine it's like okay you made a big game you know and it serviceable it's Fe it's seemingly feature complete it doesn't have egregious problems it does sound like there are some issues so for me it sounds like even with your eight you're kind of confirming a lot of my concerns that we ended up with a game that maybe should have trimmed some of that fat and focused more on you know especially combat I I want you to talk about combat like okay it seems before before we transition interact interact with what I said maybe before we shift just talking about combat because I am more interested in because the combat looks again in the vein of what we're saying just like ah it just doesn't look that great I was thinking about that in deep mile wide analysis because you would use that uh in a speculative way uh on on on the P dead gaming podcast with with our friend of the show Donnie um I was trying to think like do I agree with that do I not agree with that I I don't think I agree with that particular assessment because of what that like literally means I think it's more like um I guess I I I was trying to find a counter analogy of like you know this this hole is deeper than that hole or something like you know like this one has a has has a a reservoir of gold in it and then this one's you know only 2 in deep or something like like the variance there but I don't really I don't think interacting with that analogy is going to be prudent to me articulating when I want to it's more like I don't want to make this a Ubisoft thing either but I guess like a game can only be as good as it's capable of being or it's capable of being made like we know that naughty dog just makes bangers like they just make bangers time and time again like they're very good at storytelling um and so like we expect a quality product from them not everybody can measure up to that standard right but there that doesn't mean that there aren't a a bevy of wonderful fantastic games out there that are worth playing in spite of that fact and so like a game can only be as good as a game can be that being said like from a video game fundamental level there's a there's a ceiling there like there there's a there's there's a peak where it just it it can't go above that and that being said like there's so much areas to flesh out around that especially if you've got like a highly beloved IP like we're seeing that maybe is going to be the case with like Marvel Rivals right like Marvel Rivals is at its core an OverWatch clone there's not a lot of like that can only be as good as it can be right like an OverWatch clone can only there's a ceiling there for how quality that game can be but the amount of reverence and attention that they put into glorifying that Marvel IP in interesting and unique and and innovative ways can drastically add to the quality of playing that game and like what the overall experience of that game is and how quality it is and so like with Star Wars Outlaws a a game like Outlaws that is like an Uncharted SL uh open Zone stealth game copy uh that's kind of like a little bit like Hitman a little bit like metal gear the new metal gear can only be so good it can only be so good on a fundamental video game level but there's so much room for all this attention to Star Wars like there's so much room for all this attention to all this different side content to all the all these different NPCs all these different areas what places look like what places feel like the buzz the Ambiance of like different NPCs talking to each other what merchants will will will sell you or like what quests they'll give you what uh mini games and and interactions you can engage with what side missions you can go on The Syndicate system of like leveling up your reputation with those various different factions like all that stuff elevates the entire quality of the game in significant ways and so like that's why it's a it's an eight if we were just talking about the fundamental game If You Were Somehow G to cut all that out like that's the heart and soul of the game like you can't cut that out if you just want to talk about like all that stuff divorced from the fundamental gameplay Loop of like I go here I shoot guy or like I sneak until guys see me and I shoot that's not as compelling you know like that game can only be as good as it can be but with all those other elements that's what brings it up that's what makes it interesting from a Star Wars game standpoint of like this game is doing things that no other Star Wars game has done before and that's what makes it like a must play at some point maybe you buy it on sale but like it's a must play at some point I think for any Star Wars fan yeah I I think maybe the the audience and maybe I even kind of feel this way as well we were saying earlier that and and hilly put this in the Discord that some of the reviews I read they they felt like they were you know fair and well written and then they gave the game a 50% I'm like holy moly like that seems so low and it seems like maybe your review and as you're describing it the game's like a seven but you gave it a bit of a bump cuz the star war Wars aspects you know really really Amplified it for you like like you kind of said like if this wasn't a Star Wars game it would just sort of be like an adjacent game to other games in the genre it wouldn't feel like anything particularly special and I I'm not it's hard to fault them for that cuz I I I feel where you're coming from if you're going to make a game like this I do think there's a ceiling on what they can do I think the ceiling goes up and gets a little bit higher when you don't go too broad I feel like from what you're saying and what I'm seeing even in this game play which is from Ruben 925 we'll provide a link below um for the game playay here the thanks Reuben yeah thank you Reuben the the the the issue I have from what I'm seeing is is they just went so broad they lowered the ceiling it's like well the yes the game could only be so good because there's just so much in the game that quantity I think pulled down uh some of the quality um and which is unfortunate because it's almost like I don't think anybody would have been that upset if there wasn't space combat in this no one would have thought oh I can't believe they didn't put space combat because I mean Jedi fall in order and Jedi Survivor you get in your ship and it's mainly sort of your Hub and your travel and they could have done something similar here and maybe that would have netted them more time to work on combat which is which is where I want to go next we we've got some combat footage rolling here she's shoo shooting some guys she's kind of using um just the natural landscape for cover talk to me about the combat cuz some of the reviews I'm reading I'm I'm a little concerned that that's going to be a pretty big turnoff that stealth's heavily emphasized and combat's not that enjoyable so what was your experience with how those two systems kind of have interplay I would say in any regard that like combat wasn't enjoyable um I said in my video review that like if you played star like the new Star Wars battlefronts especially if you played that campaign with like the Iden Verio character that's kind of what combat feels like here like I haven't played that game in a while um but like just from what I recall from it what it felt like like using the blasters and the pistols and stuff like especially in third person like that's kind of what we're doing here there's a little more control over the aim like with the reticle and stuff uh and The Recoil is not that bad visually it actually looks worse like I'm noticing this now that I'm not playing the game cuz there hasn't been footage you know for me to look at until now cuz inv vargo's up but I'm looking at footage and like there's like this weird kind of like jump every time that like she like shoots the gun it looks really disorienting it's not actually really that bad when your hands are on the controller and you're playing it like cuz the the reticle just kind of goes back to where it's supposed to go so I didn't even notice that until I was like watching people play but like I I wouldn't say that it's not fun again it's hard not to enjoy like shooting at Storm Troopers like I don't know when that's not fun basically you know and then she's over there Blaster like you know like it just like has like a certain Aura to it and so like I said in my written review I Chuck that difficulty down baby because you know with the stealth like there were so many times where oh man dude I'm such a fan of Hitman and I just I wish this game was Hitman so bad and that's kind of how I felt about the ghost those Ghost Recon games but it's just like sometimes you can have the just the most phenomenal moments where you feel so good uh I I had this this one moment where there was like an imperial officer across the room like looking dead at the vent that I was about to come out of and I like popped him with a with a stun bolt that's another thing too is like I think something they could do that would improve the game is like it it's a game that emphasizes stealth so much and then like you don't have like basically the equivalent of like a silent pistol option like you have like this like stun thing like it's just like a stun shock and it doesn't make any noise but then after you use it there's like a minute it's got to be like a minute to 90 second cool down like it's agonizingly long to get that one shot back and I wonder if they just gave you like three like three in the chamber and they like reload like you know at their own in their own interval and like you kind of have to like use them valuable as like uh use them wisely as like a valuable resource maybe that would be better like if they made that change or something because like I I'll pop like one guy with like the the thing that doesn't make any sound and then that's it that's all I've got so I've got to go send Nicks at one guy and I've got to go run up and and try to punch and take down the other guy and then I got to whale at the other the second guy and hopefully nobody sees anything or hopefully you know hopefully I get lucky and the timing of like Nick's you know jumping on his face and he's like you know what is this thing on me hopefully the timing of like when that animation ends and when I start beating up on him you know Last of Us Ellie style kind of uh there's not an interval in between there where he's like she's over here guys like get her like you can get unlucky in that like in that is that space of time going to work out for you or is it not and it feel like it could fall you know not in my favor a few too many times and then it's just like the alarm's going off everybody knows I'm here now and I just got to shoot everything you know and like that can be frustrating it's not that the actual combat is not fun just having a blaster she's even got like some cool like she'll like you know twirl it and stuff and put it back in her holster or whatever and she like she just looks cool like wielding it shoot shooting at the guy like feels fun but like I think it's like how did we get here is the part that can feel frustrating like the actual shooting and Gunplay it's serviceable it's functionable uh it's functional I don't think it ever feels like tedious or unfun to get into shootouts but it's like why did I get into this shootout and is there a world where I wouldn't have had to if the game had been more responsive or if it felt like it had actually given me the opportunity to get through this sequence in the way that I had intended I I think that can that'll kind of like put players off the actual Gunplay is is fine like I I don't think anybody's going to be like this sucks like as they're like shooting at St Troopers you know like it's just fun you know like it's just fun it seemed like the lack of depth lack of Weaponry is what maybe was frustrating people like you get to the 15th hour and it's like okay I've I've kind of done this 85 times before I mean Jedi Survivor and fall in order was melee based but by the time you got that late in the game you had really changed a lot of what you could do and you different stances to try and experiment with so I actually am a little frustrated that you're constantly picking up weapons and can't keep them I think it would have been cool for her as a scoundrel similar to what they did with Cal where he's a Jedi but he starts using a blaster like hey you know she could say listen we we got to do what it's required out here and then you could have had like a gunsmith that she could take the weapons too to make them better to be like I'm she's not a weapon expert you know that could have been a gap in her in her vision and her abilities that could have led to some some requirement of like expert missions and the like so I actually that I I kind of resonate with that like I'm watching this gameplay in these shootouts and thinking yeah that looks like looks kind of fun there's a you know mechanics here and there but it's like I I could see that after a while being like man I wish you could get some other weapons that don't have to be picked up which I guess that's a question I have I do too how often are they dropping weapons like are you do you feel like you could create enough variety by picking up weapons or did that did that not flow well with with how combat typically played out well if you're like in the middle of like a base which I do want to say the design of these bases like these uh there's like there's like Outpost and there's like fortresses and like the design of like you know like that gray kind of uh digital technical architecture you know that's like signature Empire uh is just spot on like they make every base you're in like you're like I'm I'm infiltrating like a stormtrooper base right now like this is awesome and there's like a there's like an atst patrolling and stuff but like at that point when the alarm goes off which to be clear I've gotten through entire fortresses before only a couple like probably only two where nobody saw me ever or they did see me you know but like the alarm never went off and and I got through every encounter you know by dispatching people before the alarm could sound or anything uh ju just fine and like it worked and it felt really good and that's fun like this game is a stealth game kind of in sheep's clothing and uh you know so when when when you can pull off stealth it feels really good but when it would go just awall um there would be like I would be dispatching so many Troopers that there would just be like their blasters would just be littered all over the ground like they're just everywhere so I'm just picking one out and and the other thing too is like they have limited ammo so like what like once you use up the ammo like that one's done so I just be like all right shoot you shoot you shoot you shoot that big guy over there oh this one's done all right we uh pick that one up all right shoot that guy [ __ ] like they just keep coming you know and another thing too is like the sense of uh of Oppression once you once you Chuck that difficulty down or if you're just like a cracked gamer and like you you know you just can't be stopped which you know if you don't have any skill issues like me over here like that that may be not won't be an issue for you but um when I Chuck the difficulty down and didn't feel like oh my God if I don't get out of this I'm going to have to restart this whole mission sequence and that's just going to suck uh and I was just kind of like you know felt like I could get out of any situation when that wanted meter like starts to rise up and and like you can they have like the radio like they have like the the like British lady that's like a a a a detachments being sent to your location she was last seen at like the water that's cool and they're like death truers have been deployed on site like you know all this stuff and it's just ratcheting up and the alarms you know like like from Rogue one and like you're like dude I they're after my ass right now like and you're just like killing dudes and like that can feel really good and yeah when you're in that situation and it feels like they're bearing down on you like they're like we need reinforcements at at this location like we have a uh an intruder on base you know and like there's all these weapons on the ground you're just picking up uh uh uh High powerered snipers and and and grenade launchers and stuff yeah yeah that can get really really fun but there can be some variants there where you're like well there's no weapons around I guess I'm stuck with my stupid pistol you know what like it just this game is the poster child of experience may vary like you just never know when you get into a particular situation a particular encounter you could have the most fun you've had in the last you know 10 hours of playing the game and you could also just have a tremendously frustrating experience it it's such a a flip of a coin basically and you know you know your verdict is this is this is a fun game that lacks substance right fun over substance is the name of this review and and the name of this segment that we're doing given that video game substance there's a lot of reverence and attention to detail for the for Star Wars but like if people want like a fleshed Out video game like video game functionality and systems and like the game play is really engaging the story is really engaging like it's kind of like no you just got to be like oh man this is Tatooine like that's so cool I wonder if I can go do this you probably can't but like in terms of like a video game it's lacking a lot of substance yeah so I wanted to make that clarification well and in light of that with with their planned DLC I want to ask you about that but we did have a super chat from Street Shadow who said I appreciate your review Kirk for me I'll wait for it to come to ps+ drop an open time in my schedule I don't have time for outlaws and astrobot with two weeks away um I don't know if this one's coming to ps+ in any short order but um well there conveying obviously they would wait they will wait for a sale or something and I mean they're appreciating your your feedback it seems that people feel like your feedback and your your your responses are honest I think maybe people are like this doesn't seem like an eight which I think it's fine I think you know I said that about some of the low scores I said I don't I didn't feel like I read a four out a 40% or a 50% I feel like I read a lot of reviews that were around 7 um which it's kind of Landing there right it's like upper 70s on uh on Metacritic I'll be interested to see where the user score lands but I wanted to ask you about DLC you know you had fun you put in a lot of time you seem to think that as a Star Wars fan there's there's a lot to be enjoyed here do you see yourself like oh I got to dive back in whenever they do DLC because I was loving Avatar and then that repetitious formula hit for me and I'm not a huge Avatar fan so there was no cartilage to keep me going there was no Catalyst of like oh I love Avatar going to keep playing so when they dropped DLC I felt like I was kind of missing out cuz it's just such a gorgeous game and yet I just I couldn't continue with the the for the Far Cry formula so given that reality do you think this is a game DLC drops you're like dude I got to get back in there I gotta I got to be playing more Outlaws oh yeah like when you couch it like that with DLC specifically it may just be because they've already advertised what's coming down the line and because of what resonated with me so much in the game like I said I've played a lot of saach I I really like kessle saach um and it it just it just feels like like it just feels like Star Wars like when you're when you're in these in these Cantinas and you're like you know I call or like what like you know it just feels cool and um the the DL the first major DLC is going to is going to involve Lando um and it's apparently you know who knows what if their execution of this is going to be good or not or whatever I have no idea but the premise is that it's going to be Casino Royale uh essentially and that sounds a whole lot better to me than Oceans 11 I tell you what like the idea of going and doing like a high stakes Casino saach tournament to like infiltrate an organizations that sounds so cool to me like I cannot wait for that so I'm absolutely going to be jumping in on that in that DLC but also it's unfortunate that that's locked behind a pay wall you know for people that that will Pony up $70 but no more um you know like somebody said earlier they're going to wait for the ultimate edition to to drop down to $50 or $40 or whatever that might not be a a bad move like honestly because you this is probably a game where you want all the extra content you want all the side content because of how good th those excursions can be in this game as opposed to like just the main golden path so like I do think that that's unfortunate that's kind of locked away um you do get to like engage with like Jaba a bunch uh normally I know there was like some contention about that very early on right people be like what you got to pre-order or buy the season pass to interact with Jaba no Jaba is in like the main story and he's one of the main uh Syndicate heads so you can do like a bunch of side content involving that but I do want to say like I think this will probably better answer what your question is actually trying to get at as excited as I am for that particular DLC if you told me right now um or I guess if if if for some reason the the game got taken away from me like it just I it was rescinded Ubisoft rescinded the game I don't have a license for the game anymore can't play it anymore and I don't have it anymore I'd be sad but if you told me um two weeks like let's say this was like a beta period that I just played it and like it's coming out in two weeks and I'm like this is I I played the the closed test this is what it is and like the game wasn't coming out for two weeks I'd be fine I'd be totally fine like this game is not like gnawing at me to the extent that like you know later this evening I've got to get back in there I've got to play it like that's how much it has me you know in a vice in a grip um it's not like that like it's just a fun good time but if you told me I had to wait 2 weeks to get back into it and play it I'd probably be eagerly awaiting the chance to get back in and play it but like I wouldn't be incredibly bothered by that and the other thing too is like if they had not given me a copy of this game and I hadn't had the chance to review it I think I would have picked this up on Black Friday I really do I don't think this would be a day one purchase for me um and yeah I mean like if you you guys don't think that that coincides with an eight I do I mean I'm pretty miserly in terms of like what my purchase is I don't just go out and buy every single eight let me tell you that'd be I'd be in financial trouble if I did that uh but yeah like I that that's kind of how I feel about it where I grade it as far as like how how compelling is it as an offering like how how badly do I feel uh that I that I have to play it how invested am I in it uh but that may also be like I kind of talked about this in my review you know after 40 hours the systems are starting to starting to get a little repetitive starting to get a little shallower in terms of like what they are like there was a lot of Engagement for me in the first 30 or or or 25 hours and I was able to max out those reputations with uh with the Pikes and the and the Crimson Dawn and I still want to max out the Huts but like I really wanted to get the the uniforms with like the gear sets uh that I talked about where like one of them is is like an imperial uniform so like they they don't detect you as easily and it's much easier to to get rid of your wanted wanted status cuz your wanted status stays with you actually like even if you jump to different areas or whatever like you're still wanted by the Empire so like you need to take care of that which is an interesting mechanic you can go to like you know uh Brokers to you can pay them off or you can hunt down the death Troopers like however you want to deal with that you can literally hack in and like clear your you know wipe your your arrest order you can actually give yourself the Bounty like the the credits like you can claim the Bounty for yourself like by hacking in that's kind of cool there's all sorts of little like details like that they're really neat and interesting but yeah like this this game isn't like a must playay right now like it's more of a like if you like Star Wars yeah you got to play this at some point like you totally got to play this at some point if you like Star Wars It's the game that I would most like to play as a Star Wars fan like I I would rather be playing this than uh Lego Star Wars the Skywalker Saga or one of the Jedi games like this is the game that i' most like to play because of that interactivity because of that living world because can just kind of turn it on and exist and go play a few games of saach and go wander around mosy and be like I wonder if there's an NPC I haven't run into with like a weird backstory request or whatever there was a guy there was a random NPC that was like down on his luck there was like I lost everything I bet it all and and and K's like boy don't I know that coming from a gambling Planet he's like well if you'll back me uh I promise I'll split the winnings with you and like I got a prompt of like do I tell him to piss off do I give him a little bit of money or do I give him like you know half of what I have and I gave him like a thousand credits right I come back he's like strutting around he's got like a new outfit on you know and he's like I told you I'd do it and he gives me like double what I gave him and stuff like stuff like that is like really neat to engage with like I'm so glad that this game doesn't feel hollow and soulless they injected a lot of that personality and that Star Wars flare into the game and like that's what I love interacting with and I feel like this game has more of that than any other Star Wars game I've played that is due to like technical limitations you know like there's a lot of those beloved games from the early 2000s and stuff that just like couldn't do all that stuff that this game can do um but yeah it's great that we at the point with technology and with game design that like you can interact with all those things and like Ubisoft have created this awesome Star Wars world to play in yeah it sounds like and in everything we've looked at today and everything I read and then even your own feedback man I really have a hard time getting over her punching Stormtroopers in the helmet um it just looks so bad uh I think this game is going to probably land as a really solid seven for me um I don't know if I'll be as generous based off everything we we've talked about I'll be interested to see if I'm persuaded by any of the stuff that kind of persuaded you to say well man I I I liked it I put in 40 hours the side content was so cool and it was you know you had these experiences you feel like you were kind of in the Star Wars Universe I saw other people when they're being more favorable to the game they're saying similar things it's almost like the the the the Star Wars um serenade kept them sort of in this state of like I'm having a good time this is a good game I think I'll have a harder time being serated by that because of how much I enjoyed fall in order and Survivor and this looks like it's going to fall below those cuz I put fall in order and Survivor is like eight and a half close to nine honestly I think Survivor would have been a nine for me if it didn't have the performance issues at launch it's just such a great story Great Character arcs and development and such a good conclusion uh and just an amazing fight any game that lets you fight Darth Vader and makes it actually believable I think that's that's a huge challenge I think they did such a good job with that um so yeah I think I'll probably I'm I'm just predicting that I'm probably going to land lower than you on this one which means I this might be one of those ones that I get a few hours in I'm just like yeah I don't know if I even want to complete this you know I with Blackmouth Wukong if it didn't have performance issues it would be calling my name stronger than this the only reason I'm not playing blackm Wukong is cuz it runs so poorly on the PS5 performance mode I think me too um but but to to that end of what you're saying about you being lower isn't that kind of like with everything like we were talking about that the pre-show a little bit like you know I think I think I just like am generally higher on games like just in general and so like I mean I gave I gave bishers a nine like that was what like an eight for you I mean I I I gave first ascended an eight that's probably a seven for you like a little bit of a consistent theme here you know going on so uh you know viewers can just attribute that like I I just love video games man so like if a video game gives shows me a good time for for 25 plus hours yeah that's an eight to me I was having fun like the whole time as long as I avoided the stuff that I didn't want to do you know like I mean I think there's a lot there's a lot of games out there that have sequences and parts and game design hiccups where it's like I didn't like that very much you know like unless it's like people are talking about Red Dead Redemption in chat this doesn't get anywhere close to Red Dead Redemption makes make no mistake about that any comparisons that people are making uh to Red Dead Redemption is just because like wandering around as an outlaw person like that's basically it like this game has no no similarities to Red Dead whatsoever like I said I would compare it most directly to Ghost Recon wildlands in terms of the structur so and I liked that game that's probably a 72 and I liked that game so you know I don't know I and the fact that it's got the Star Wars veneer a veneer is probably a good word to use this game has an excellently polished Star Wars verer over it with maybe some some fairly simple elements and they have just polished off that verer so much they made that look so good they put so much effort and reverence and attention to detail into that of making this feel like a realized Star Wars World more so than any other game before this I I firmly believe and that has substantial value to me I mean there's so many things I think out there that people are like I really really love this IP I wish they'd make a living breathing world for me to go interact with with this IP and a video game that would be so cool and we never get to see that and like we finally got that with Hogwarts last year and that was so awesome that was an amazing experience and this is like not quite to that level because the video game video game from a fundamental level is not quite reaching the highs of of hogwart's legacy um but it's it's still delivering on that premise of like I want to be a Star Wars Outlaw I want to live in this base I want to interact with this IP in a more granular Hands-On and and direct way than I ever had before actually experience it in a visceral way and this game allows you to do that at least to a further extent than anything has before and that has substantial value to me and I cannot divorce that from from you know evaluating the game and I cannot underrate that to the extent that I would go any lower on on the score well I mean I think that's fine I think you know people in chat need to you know sometimes it's okay to untwist your underwear a little bit you I told them to be nice today and they were not some you guys some of you guys need to untwist your panties it's okay for somebody to say I had a good time I'm giving it an eight while also giving you really honest feedback about where the game has rough edges like to insinuate he's being a shill or that he's not being honest I think is is your own I'll say it I think that's a form of stupidity to call somebody a shill who's being honest with you like I didn't say any of the reviews I read were dishonest I just felt like the scores were dislodged from the review if Kirk's score is somewhat dislodged from what he's saying I think that's helpful it's like okay he had a good time he enjoyed it he's giving it an eight while also telling you here are the issues in the game you know to assume malice or to accuse someone of malice I think is stupid I think that's an ignorant way to interact with everything he said um you're well informed about the game you know the pieces and parts that are are good mediocre or needing some Polish you know you know well an ample amount of information right now uh to to to accuse malice or or dishonesty because of a score I just think some of you guys need to like I said uh don't get so twisted up over something like that even I didn't get that twisted up over four and sixes and fives I was like those seem really low and yet I I understand probably why it seems like a game that's going to get very mixed response from people uh as evidenced by the scores we're seeing nines eights and all the way down to fours and fives that's a pretty broad spectrum of score that we're seeing I think I think I can explain why people are having a discrepancy between the score and the and the narrative of the actual review substance and it's actually like kind of intentional so like what I'm trying to do is make an assessment of what my experience was with the game while also articulating to everybody out there like in good faith here's everything that you maybe need to know and so in doing that and saying here's everything that you maybe need to know I'm trying to be like like I'm like pretty critical of the game in in certain places and so like people are like reading into that and they're like this does not sound like an eight and it's like that's for you that's for you guys like I'm doing that for you I'm trying to say hey this was not good you're probably not going to like this this isn't on par with like other other stuff that that you guys have probably played um this could have been a little better like Etc and like I'm doing all that I'm putting all that in there so that like you have all that to like paint a picture for you but like that being said if I have to put a number on like how I feel about this game how much fun I had how much I enjoyed it how much I wanted to engage with it it's it's an eight like I it just is like that's how much fun it was that's how much I enjoyed it I didn't let that stuff get in the way I wanted to experience Star Wars I wanted to experience everything that this world had to offer I went and found the fun I didn't let the obstructiveness of the game design get in my way because I have player choice and the ability to enjoy a game in the capacity that like I want to go about it so long as the game allows me to and the game did allow me to you know in most in most extents so like the reason I'm being critical is because I want to cover every base I'm evaluating the game the point of a review is to articulate for an audience that has not had the the privilege or proximity of like the game like they don't know anything about the game they haven't touched it they haven't seen it there's been an embargo all youve got is previews that's why from out of the gate I'm like visuals not so great like you need to be aware of this also here's a bunch of things that are wrong with it now let me talk talk to you about like what did it feel like for me me to play this game how I really really enjoyed it that's kind of the structure of that review and so like that's for other people that's for you to read that review and and quite literally like the the reaction that you guys are having of like this sounds like a seven to me that's why I did it so that you can read it and be like this is my seven you can read that and be like this is a seven game to me that's why I wrote it that way so that you don't just look at the score read the review if it's a seven to you that's what it is you're probably right that means I have conveyed to you what this game is like what it's like to play this game sufficiently enough that you can generate your own kind of provisional score for it and that means I've informed you to the extent that I was hoping to and like so that's a success in my eyes and if that creates a disparity in terms of like how much I liked it versus how much you would it's totally reasonable like everything's subjective right so like for me how much I enjoyed it uh how much I will enjoy like having this game in my collection going forward something I can go back to something I can show um people that maybe you know friends of mine or or maybe somebody I date later down the line is like really going to be interested in Star Wars I'm going to be like oh do I have an experience for you to check out like this is that game like this is cool like this is a cool Star Wars experience that like I don't think will soon be forgotten I really don't um but at the same time it has some serious like video game design pitfalls and for people that that matters a lot to and they can't look past it it might undermine the experience but it didn't undermine it so much for me that I didn't have have a fantastic time with it well and people taking issue with you giving it maybe a higher score cuz it's Star Wars I guarantee you most people did that with Jedi fall in order in Jedi Survivor like if those were just basic science fiction or Fantasy games you know with melee based combat and Magic instead of the force I I think it would have scored those games would have scored lower to pretend that like to pretend Star Wars bias isn't going to affect some review scores is I think a little ludicrous I mean I I I do think that that's going you know to play a role and I know not all of you were giving Kirk grief I saw some people accusing him of being a shill or they were insinuating like that he wasn't being honest or something people been giving me love too so shout out like I we don't want to like act like you're not there like people have been cordial yeah and and there were also people that were being more respectful about the score thing not everybody was being disrespectful that's what I was saying like some people just need to relax a little bit like it's okay if if somebody's review doesn't quite land where you think it should land the the point is is I I feel like I get more annoyed with reviews that gloss over problems or don't mention problems or basically just put out what feels like a PR puff piece for the game I don't feel he's done that at all I feel like I've got a very firm grasp on what to expect where I'm going to probably you know buck up against rough edges or things that might annoy me I feel very adequately informed uh based off of not just his but all the other reviews we read to today the numbers become I think sometimes a little bit Superfluous because I think one of my frustrations with review scores in general is there's no hard and fast rule like when someone gives a game a three and a half out of five stars they might think that's a pretty good score but that gets translated into a 70 or a three out of five stars they might think that's not a terrible score but it gets translated into a 60% on Metacritic which is actually pretty bad so I I think that's one of my frustrations with review scores in general is just that we don't have a universal system so people getting frustrated with your eight might be seeing your eight higher than you even view it yourself right like not sure yeah hard I do want to um I want to answer a while back a while back in chat I think it was crowded house maybe if I don't have that right sorry asked um he basically said or he or she I shouldn't misgender them uh they basically said uh it's great and all that it like it it really captures Star Wars and and like looking forward to that but like what if I'm sort of like a disenfranchised disgruntled Star Wars fan that like doesn't like all the new content and shows and stuff how am I going to feel about this which I think is an excellent question actually um I will say this game feels more pulled from solo a Star Wars story than any other movie or piece it has elements of like Empire and Return of the Jedi and even some new hope and it like a little bit of the new Trilogy also um but like soach like playing so like Han versus uh Lando like those scenes they're pulling directly from that the Pikes and the Crimson Dawn uh unless I'm just like a Star Wars you know I'm not in into Star Wars enough I don't think there's been in any major film that had those syndicates and they're like they're they're laid out completely basically in so solo Star Wars story like the game is pulling those syndicates directly from that movie their design directly from that movie Amelia Clark's character Kira that uh takes over that Syndicate basically and cozies up the well I should I shouldn't say that maybe the movie's old but whatever she takes over she takes over that Syndicate and now she's the head of the Syndicate you know that's spoiled by the game Sorry if you haven't seen that movie but so she's at the head of that Syndicate she's from that movie so like there's a lot of solo a Star Wars story in this probably they've underplayed that a little bit cuz like that probably doesn't play Super well but that's like I think Solo's kind of like once removed right like I wonder if L would agree with this but like it's kind of once removed from like the or the original trilogy and like what feels like classic Star Wars it's not like this new Disney plus stuff that's like three or four times removed kind of feeling like solo is still kind of like authentically Star Wars with like a little bit of a derivative kind of let's explore like outside the bounds of that a little bit get a little weird with it this game kind of of feels exactly right that like that and it's pulled directly from solo and it uses a lot of that movie's lore and setup it almost kind of made me feel like it was set during the time period that that solo set in like before Empire and stuff but they say it's after Empire so that's what it is but yeah it it this this game pulls a lot from solo a Star Wars story right right and you know somebody saying that you're not taking enough points off for graphics and stuff and you gave too much points for fun again I think that's just a subjectivity PC too though that's a subjectivity but that's a subjectivity thing like some people are going to give more points for a game being fun they're going to overlook graphical problems like a bunch of you guys just got up my nose in chat saying that black myth Wukong runs fine on PlayStation 5 which has been objectively proven to be false uh that that that's a matter of like actual science of like how that game runs on PlayStation 5 is actually not good but you're having such a good time and you don't notice those issues that you're willing to overlook it you've you've quite literally demonstrated why his his score is fine it's like he had fun and gives it a better score and and the fact that people are like oh yeah black myth runs fine it's like at a technical level at an objective level no it doesn't but you can still enjoy it and Overlook those things so in a similar fashion like he takes off two points for you it's an eight so righty's like H missions can get a little repetitive and the graphics aren't that great like I think that's fair I think that you know I think I'm probably going to land on a seven and I think a lot of you are probably going to land on sixes or sevens and that's fine I think that's the point is that you got an accurate representation but you also got his personal feelings which you don't get that a lot from reviews like you a lot of reviews don't create that good dividing line you end up with like a well man they gave it an eight I mean look at how many people with Jedi Survivor made zero mention of all those performance issues and gave it eight and nines and no one knew that it was going to run the way that it ran right so you know being critical of somebody who is who's having the transparency to say their personal bias or their personal enjoyment of the game raised the score I actually think he's doing a better service to you than a lot of review Outlets do is the performance and the footage that we're using like not good or something I mean I it's PS5 gameplay so it's not going to look that great espe right visuals but the perform like is it is it is it stuttery is it frames or bad or uh I didn't see anything but uh Paul sent me a video apparently the game's performance does dip into the 40s I'm not sure how often or when I didn't get a chance to watch it cuz we're obviously sitting here doing this so but that's that's what he said he said it can dip into the 40s on perform like I said it seemed like it kind of stayed between 50 and 60 the entire time I wouldn't be surprised if it gets down to like 45 at certain points but like it's it's relatively reliable um regarding the graphics like I think this game looks as good as Assassin's Creed Odyssey does and like that's still a a good-looking game on the PS4 Pro like uh it's not it's not up to standard like now in 2024 but like that's still a pretty game to look at like if you pop Assassin's Creed Odyssey into your console right now it's not ugly you know so like I think this game is on on the same in the same ballpark I don't know if you know YouTube's not doing it in any favors or whatever oh another thing that's important that I didn't even talk about my review they've got like a day night cycle thing and I think it's screwing them up I really do they should have just made it daytime cuz remember you and Mike were having that Lighting on the Porsche discussion about like how sometimes scenes look really good and the lighting looks really good and other times it doesn't that's like a real thing like I think that's attributed to the day night cycle like when it's nighttime or when it's like dusk it looks terrible like the lighting is just like bad but when it's like midday like noon and the Sun is just beaming down and you get like those like rays of sunlight and stuff the lighting's great it looks good like in the outdoors and then like certain indoor things like look different I think maybe depending on like what time of day it is like so they should have just thrown that out they should just made it daytime all the time or they should have just made it like whatever time it needed to be for the game to look good I think they went for like some realism there like I've got a cool shot in my video review of like the sunset on Tatooine like that looks good but then it still looks like there's just like reddish orange Haze like over everything that just looks blurry and weird like it looks cool aesthetically but it also doesn't look like like high image quality you know so like I think they're like losing a bit in that regard so like maybe they should patch it or let people turn that feature off or something cuz yeah the lighting can vary a lot depending on when in game TimeWise you're playing the game like when it is morning uh midday or or evening time game can look drastically different so uh there were I I was literally looking at my own footage and I was like is this the same game like what's going on like yeah I I do think that that's an engine level thing that's a lighting level thing and I think a lot of games are running into that now we're noticing lighting decisions are having a huge impact on performance it happened with Gotham Knights uh it's happening we we we're we're speculating that that's what's happened with Wukong they switched to u5 they want to turn on all the pretty lighting and then they're using frame gen to double the frames which is an abuse of what that technology is supposed to do like digital Foundry broke that down this game could very similarly be saying oh we want all that pretty lighting we everything look really good and then it's like yeah does that really matter if it makes the game look like a PS3 game like you know what I'm saying it's like it's like whenever somebody's like oh there's Ray tracing in Minecraft now I'm like that's cool but it's still going to look like Minecraft like and I think that's that that's neat that they did that but if you're going to be adding these lighting effects that essentially take your game back in time I I don't really care it's like what what did you actually achieve there so I in in at the end of the day we I we need to wrap we we've gone a little long I I think you guys have been well informed I'm going to be checking out the game tomorrow right here live for you guys you guys know you know I'm I'm probably a little bit more harsh and a little bit more critical than Kirk is especially when it comes to Performance issues and especially when it comes to Star Wars like I am uh I'm picky when it comes to Star Wars and how the uh the property's been treated as of late so I am going to let say they they don't they don't overstep that much in that regard like you're not going to be feeling like oh my God like with what they do with Star Wars like they're pretty reverent so that's like a big Plus in an age where like the Star Wars IP just gets trotted out there to do like all sorts of stuff right like there's clearly a reverence and adoration for Star Wars and they take some Liberties cuz they kind of have to like it feels like they don't want to overutilize any like main core characters here I don't know if that's like a Disney thing where they kind of have to create their own story with their own characters maybe but like they want it to be grounded they want it to be grounded in Star Wars like I said it kind of feels like solo like it's like Star Wars once removed like it's a good adaptation of that license yeah yeah yeah and I we'll we'll see we'll see where I land with it I was I was going to go to the backlog if this game doesn't hit there are some other games coming out there are some smaller games coming out that I could end up playing um and we'll we'll see we'll see if this one doesn't Captivate me I'm kind of hoping it does Captivate me because you know that be once they fix performance mode and survivor man I couldn't put it down I had such a good time with that game and I thoroughly uh thoroughly enjoyed it so guys every day uh we end and go to writers room this is a behind the scenes thing go ahead and smash the like button for me let's try to get 200 likes on this video we had a really good turnout these streams with Kirk are a little bit shorter and that can help out the video later more people will find this hear his input uh and hear his his uh his thoughts on it and what he uh what he thinks and uh we are going to head over to the writer room just in one brief moment I'll redirect you I'll also provide you uh with a link and let me do that right now uh after it gets scheduled it puts me on the dashboard so I don't have the link just yet there it is all right there is the link to the writer room you can click that uh and thank you so much to everybody who has done that thanks so much for being a member to this channel maybe you got a gifted member today or even last week we went a little crazy last week a ton of people are now members to this channel consider upgrading to member plus if you're paying for your own membership and you're still at the $5 tier or if you've been getting a gifted membership and you're like hey I could I could afford my own membership we're going for a new Milestone of 600 people at member plus and above I did an IRL stream this last weekend sat in my backyard I just hung out with member plus and above it was a really fun time and we did that to celebrate a milestone so let's go for the next one thank you so much for everybody that's been doing that I'm going to end the previous stream where we sat down we talked with Kirk about Star Wars Outlaws and why it is fun but it lacks substance and I'm going to redirect folks over that can come here and then I'll make sure and change that thumbnail so it no longer has us listed as live