Star Wars Outlaws Gets a Date & Metacritic Draft 2024! | Triangle Squared Ep. 335

What We've Been Playing Metacritic draft [Music] 2024 hello and welcome to Triangle Square to PlayStation podcast I'm your host Brett Beck and alongside me as always is one senior Chris figs Chris how you doing today bud Chris if you muted yourself already how how on this green earth this Blue Marble I'm contradicting myself TT dog is just over there like this mother I had to give him an Easter egg at the beginning of the show but it was actually because my uh my furnace was going off so I just muted while you doing the intro it is cold season you know it is kind of yeah both the sickness and the temperature you know so or at least it is over here I'm sure in Australia it's probably Midsummer right now and not the horror movie all right guys if this is your first time tun tuning into the podcast we are of course a podcast that talks about gaming through the lens of being PlayStation fans primarily but we talk about all consoles as we see fit from what we like about what they're doing what we don't like about what they're doing what games we may or may not be excited to play on those systems uh be it Xbox Nintendo PC wherever we see fit um but of course we primarily play on playstation as if you look at anything that we play throughout the year and what we talk about that tends to line up so hopefully that's the kind of conversation you're looking for uh we are going to talk a little bit about today with the uh the PlayStation plus games for January we're going to talk about uh some weird rumors that were going on revolving god of war and uh kind of giving a public service announcement there as well as Star Wars Outlaws getting a little bit more information but before we do all that we're going to start this show off in a Time honor tradition of checking in on what I and Chris here have been playing so that we can either give you something new to potentially put on your list give you thoughts on something that you may have had on your list but had your own doubts and give you hopefully one way or another get you off that fence or just outright entertain you with dumb ramblings about what we're talking about so Chris what have you been playing this week and would you like to Regal everyone about the tail of you burning your arm and if it had any kind of impact on your uh gaming ability um yeah I mean I spilled uh boiling water and chicken grease all over my arm the other day and that was not fun I had to go to the hospital I've been out of work for a couple days not by my own decision actually that was just work had to do that but yeah so that was uh that was fun um in terms of my gaming it did not hamper me at all I had a wrap all over the whole thing so that was a little annoying but I had full finger access uh so it was totally fine um how mangled does your arm look um I don't know if you'll be able to see it let's see it's oh you literally cannot tell it's a different col tell at all yeah it's it's it's like purple purple strong it's more like like a magent like a dark red you know oh okay like rare your arms cooked rare yeah exactly some parts are a little more medium than rare So I gotta all right so with h your full finger access what did you play um so I play I've still been working uh investigating my way through LA Noir um that's a game I've never played I know we didn't talk about that last week but yeah I've never got around to it I'm very familiar with the game but I never played it you should you should look at it it's fun um I don't know I had this weird moment today where I'm gonna be honest I'm like kind of replaying it just because I want to get the trophies and I did a case and I got four stars instead of five stars and I was kind of like I don't want to play this anymore oh is is five stars everything part of the trophies yeah you have to Five Star every case it's like I I've gotten five stars all the way up to this point but now it's like the cases start getting really long and I was like I don't want to do this so I just took it out and I put in Tales of zilia so that's another game I've been playing as I've been getting into Tales of zilia but I don't really have any takes on that I just walked into the hospital at the beginning of the game so doesn't Chris Talks Persona 5 Tactica really count um but then it's been uh Persona 5 tactica is my big game of the week um I'm really enjoying that it's a tactics game obviously just about about the more stories of the Phantom thieves which I'm never going to turn away from uh it's good though that's that's why I told you you should play it because I started playing it and I downloaded the PS5 version of Persona 5 and I downloaded uh Persona 5 Strikers so so most tactics games as with all games right there's always a mechanic Twist on any main genre to give you the oh this is what this game does a little different so if you had to like quickly pitch um how tactica tries to switch up the tactics genre and give it you know some of its own flavor tied back into Persona um what is that and and do you think that will draw people potentially in who aren't necessarily as much of existing fans of uh of tactics as a genre no no no no I think if you don't like tactics I don't know why you'd play this um unless you really not tactics it's tactica right exactly and it would be a tactical mistake to play this game before Persona 5 and if you like Persona 5 before Persona 5 yes it would be a tactical mistake to play it before Persona 5 because you have the full set of phantom thieves and like the last Phantom theve you meet in um vanilla Persona is like 80 hours into the game so oh God just play the goddamn game BR um so yeah these days Chris he's [ __ ] lying um anyway yeah so I wouldn't play it before then so it's it's a game where I think if you like tactics and Persona you'll love it if you like Persona and are okay with tactics you'll love it if you like Persona and you don't like tactics you shouldn't play it like you might be able to force your way through it but you're not going to enjoy it yeah and that's the thing and if you hate Persona and you hate tactics why' you even buy it right and especially if you don't like the Phantom thieves um because that's the thing you could like Persona 4 but you don't like five because you don't like the characters which would be batch should insane but that's a possibility I guess um then yeah I don't I don't recommend it then either but right now is like I love the Fantom thieves and I like tactics so it's really fun I think the big change it makes is it incorporates like persona in a way like you're still locked to arson but you can fuse and match the other personas to give him some different attacks um which is something from Persona 5 but the thing that I really like is that if you in Persona 5 they have this thing called All Out attacks and that's normally if you knock someone down if you knock someone I haven't played in a while but I think if it's you knock someone down and they're the only ones on the battlefield you can do an allout attack which all the fans phant thieves get involved in and in tactica if you position your characters in a triangle around an enemy then you can do an allout attack and it's a big damage move and I really like that because it gives you more sense of oh I need to place these guys here but I will say I'm playing it on merciless and it's not hard so like I don't know if that's I don't know if that's really a big thing but it will definitely speed up battles and then it's cool because it gives you like these Awards for like you beat it in seven turns nobody got knocked down and then there's one other one I don't remember exactly what it is but sure it changes it rotates around so that's cool I think what's neat is because there's so many personas and there's a mechanic in Persona 5 of baton passing which is like I I think again long time since I played Persona 5 I think that was 2019 or 2020 but I think with baton passing the way it works is you can you do a special move and then you can have somebody else join right in and so in this one if one of your characters gets knocked down you can Baton Pass to one of the other personas and they jump or one of the other Phantom thieves and they Jump Right In that's a really cool mechanic that I really like and makes getting knocked down it's one of those things right it's a give and take because getting knocked down isn't as scary at that point because you can replace them twice at least in merciless I think it's actually once you can replace them but I like the fact that you can do that it kind of fits with the theme um but then the other thing I think is cool and this may be something in other tactics games but I'm it's it's a big thing here if you don't attack with your turn your next your character gets like a charge up and their next attacks are more powerful oh yeah nice yeah I think delayed gratification also real quick I notic I forgot to mention that we will be doing our 2024 of course the cold open mentioned it but we'll be doing the 2024 medic critic draft to end the episode out so if that's something you're interested in stick around until the end of the episode uh we'll go into deep detail about why we're choosing what we're choosing of course what we're choosing uh and then kind of do like we did last year if that was a conversation you enjoyed and if you're newer than that then hopefully stick around see what you think of it uh and we'd love to hear what picks you would have picked that we missed out on But continuing with what you've been playing um the reason I wanted to ask about tactica there is because you were saying that you didn't know for sure if I was a fan of tactics because I don't really talk about them often and I do like the genre or at least I have a good history with the genre but I found as I get older it's harder for me to want to syn the the time into them part of it's because they're also very long games and they're quite drawn out a lot of the time uh which is not really a problem it's just I normally fall off of them a little too quick um for what the time investment demands or really I think a lot of the times it's just something else comes out that takes my attention off of it and I never return uh that's what happened with disia 6 last time I was trying to play it um but yeah I thought about the difference in mechanics because one of the fun things about disia is like you know stacking all the characters on top of each other to do crazy big damage uh and so I always like seeing how tactics games are going to shake up the genre and you know most any game that's out there really trying to do anything worthwhile is usually trying to do something that's new in some capacity even if it's a Twist on something that you experience so uh that's cool I think there's one thing I want to complain about okay and it's super dumb and it's all me right but if you saw the name m a r i e how would you pronounce that m a r i e Marie right that's that's how you would pronounce that name right that's just totally normal this game is pronounced Maria nah [ __ ] that it's I hate it it's so dumb cuz like I tend to read a lot of this because I read faster than the vo and it's like Mar Mar it's Marie Marie Marie and then they'll talk and like Maria and I'm like that's that's [ __ ] that's like calling Mario Mario it doesn't make any sense um so yeah I don't have you can tell you're from the north everyone else was like yeah it's Mario you [ __ ] no it's [ __ ] Mario that's how it's pronounced um so then in your case it'd be Mary yeah exactly right instead of Marie yeah I mean I would say Marie but uhhuh so you I'd say Mario it's wrong um at the very least Mario I could see Mario yeah okay there you go um but yeah there's but also it helps that he goes it's a me a Mario yeah well maybe he doesn't know how to pronounce his own name look here's the thing all this to say that the problem with language is that it's all just what we agree on to some degree but no one can actually tell you that something's wrong if you invent a a word and you say no this is how it's pronounced you kind of have the right to do that if you name someone you're like no bro this is how it's pronounced yes you kind of have Persona team did not make up the name m a r i e but they they made up that pronunciation but there's not enough letters for that pronunciation Brett that's the problem there's not enough letters also pronunciation I said pronunciation we both did but youir you tricked me um but yeah no tactica is really good um it ignited me uh fire in me to play persona but like we talked about I think Chris Vents About Destiny 2 I'm going to save Persona 5 for uh Platinum 150 cuz regular Persona 5 Royal was uh 50 so I think it'll be a pretty cool yeah I think I think that' be a real cool one but I noticed that our weekly Destiny 2 talk is coming up because apparently you decided to play Destiny 2 yeah I I have a confession I don't think my friends listen to the show I don't think I regret anything more downloading Destiny again then why do you keep playing it just to play with Sean yeah but it's like I don't know like I've been very clear like I don't want to do raids every time I've done a raid it's been awful it's been toxic it has not been fun and it's like he's like oh let's run a bunch of raids I'm just like no but it's it's one of those things where it's like like they're very it's not even just him it's all of my friends who play it they're like oh you should do this and I'm like I don't want to do PVE they're like yeah but the dungeons only take a half an hour and I'm like I would rather kill myself and then I'm going to end up doing a dungeon or two to just get them to leave me alone which again I'm playing because I want to play with my friends but I only want to play Gambit it's like well it's also the general problem with those types of games right is that you kind of are wanting to you need to like the majority of the game content style because if you don't you're going to have a real big problem because a lot of the PVP if that's what you want to play even Gambit there are a lot of weapons that are ideal Gambit that you can only get by doing PVE content if you hate dungeons some of the best some of the best gear is in dungeons if you hate raids some of the best gear is in raids you know and that really is unfortunate here's my problem with that okay you're saying that Sean has said that Ben has said that so I've basically streamlined my destiny process to I make I just share play with him and make him do all the hard work um seriously last night I was like it's time for for you to clean my inventory and My Vault and he was like okay so he did it but he built me this this like top top Titan solar Titan top I didn't notice a [ __ ] difference dude I did not notice a single difference so what do i run7 d right you don't engage in the game in that capacity so you would never feel that difference regardless why do I have to run a dungeon with you 87 times so that I can get a god roll of the swizzled dick rocket launcher to do 6% more damage to the boss [ __ ] that that's not fun and I don't want to do it so it just means that's not the type of game for you which it's not for me either it's why I tend not to play them most of the time but I like it more than you do clearly because I I've had fun with Destiny I've had fun Gambit is fun oh Gambit's a ton of fun I'm sorry mindlessly killing enemies for 15 hours again to get a roll of a [ __ ] stupid rocket launcher that I don't even want to use but he's telling me I have to use it because it does 17 millimeters of damage to the enemy and there's like a healing well that does I don't give a [ __ ] about any of it not a single solitary [ __ ] could I give about any of that [ __ ] okay so that's why when I'm when he's like oh he just he messaged me before the show and again I love Sean this one of my best friends yeah sure but he messaged me like I want if you want to run a dungeon and I'm like you know that I don't want to run a dungeon you know for a fact that I have zero interest in running a dungeon and I'm I'm putting myself through it because again this is one of my best friends all of my best friends play this game like all of my close friends so I like I'm willing to sacrifice my time and my sanity to play Gambit with with you to play Crucible with you but I'm not running a dungeon for your 87,000 time just so I can get a role that's not even right so we have to run the dungeon again I would rather die yeah here's the thing that they're gonna if you mess up at all because they're so into it right this is the reason yeah it's going to be my fault yeah and then and then it's going to be not only is it your fault they're going to have a a doubt in the back of their head that it's your fault because you just didn't have the right gear when and it could just be your fault because maybe you're not as good at the game as them because you don't live breathe eat and [ __ ] it you know well that's the problem and I'm just which is what that game demands of you like that's the thing about MMOs in general they demand you to be a constant player who cares about the minutia it's also part of why I like RuneScape so much because there's an entire side of RuneScape that doesn't give a [ __ ] about that yeah it's like do you just want to log in and Quest completely by yourself and never play with another player ever yes okay cool here you go yeah and that's the thing like I've reset my Gambit rank twice already because I like Gambit like I'll play that [ __ ] alone but it's not I don't know I just it's hard because like there are time he'll message me and I'll be like I would genuinely rather be following a walkthrough for LA Noir or playing an old PS3 game than hopping on Destiny like I just would rather do any of that stuff like they get it to a point because there was one time he invited me to play and I was like no I've got a I've got a boosting session for GTA 4 and he was like that tracks with you and I'm like then why do you then why do you keep [ __ ] asking me to do dungeons like I don't want to I don't want to okay I don't put pressure on anyone to get trophies I don't do that he's one trophy away from [ __ ] stranger of paradise he's like I don't feel like it I'm like that's [ __ ] weird but do you I'd get that Chris Tries Tales of Xillia trophy there you go just there we'll calm you down with some talks about the fact that you've been continuing your dive into PS3 with one of my all-time favorite RPGs Tales of zilia yeah yeah I so what drove you into that um I I don't know I well because I good answer I was looking at my shelf and um important distinction it's tell zilia one not two right yes it's ta zilia one I own two I'll play that eventually but um oh I wanted to like it well there's a really stupid mechanic where the game will completely stop you from gressing until you repay part of this loan that it demands that you get yeah it's too much to get into but you will actively have to stop it's exactly the problem I talk about with Spider-Man's pacing but worse the story will be picking up and you'll be like oh hell yeah I can't wait to figure this out and it's like haha [ __ ] you've not been actively working on repaying this loan so now you're going have to grind out for six hours while you earn 10,000 gold to pay back this portion of the loan so that you can continue on the story it's oh man it is it is rough a game design it is very rough yeah no then maybe I won't play it but um but zilia is an excellent game and I love it very much and also there are things I say to this day that are an exact they just come off of my time with that game there's these uh monsters that you can run around and like you'll just be running around you can hear them making their noises and I don't know I I changed what I think he says a million times but this little it's like Kevin Kevin what cabbage I don't know what he's saying but me and my wife just have a running joke because she watched me play that way back in 2011 to 2013 actually um whenever it was and I just remembered Kevin kin does this say uh yellow and gold dress all over again he probably I should take a recording of that monster sound and just go to people like what do you think he's saying um yeah so no Zila was just I haven't been interested in playing much on PS5 so I've been trying to find something on PS3 and like I said earlier we talking about LA Noir I got four stars on that mission instead of five and I was like I I'm taking a break off this um and then I just was looking at my shelf and you I have this paral paralysis right where I look at games and I'm like I don't know you know I've been looking I've seen Dungeon Siege 3 on my shelf for a while and I don't know what that game is and I should give it a shot but I'm like I don't know you know because the last and that's the thing sometimes it works out it's how I got the W Witcher 3 Platinum so I was like [ __ ] it I'm gonna play Witcher 3 and then 120 hours later I was telling stie we're going to sit here for the next two hours until I finish this because I need to see how it ends yeah and we did but I've had bad experiences with that too I put in ryen 2 the other day and I was like this might be the worst game I've ever seen in my life yeah Ren 2 is pretty rough I've played it that was not a good game so I you know there's that that give and take but I remember you had really like zilia and um it's my favorite Tales of game yeah and I was originally gonna continue on Grace's F but I'm like I haven't played this in so long that I need to restart and I don't want to do that so Grace is also an excellent game but I do like zillia more U I'm curious to see if you stick with it I love the game uh but it's also got a general I won't call it a problem because I I was always excited in that game to see what was coming next but it's got like three different moments you're like oh okay this is the end and then it's just like more [ __ ] you're like oh okay yeah let's let's go more [ __ ] I really do just I think I got to get back into Dragoon that might be just where I go because I like Dragon I just never finished it yeah dragon's an awesome game too I I still really think that game could benefit from a remake though um but you know that's where it's at Well mine's quick uh I too was in the ER same day roughly same time as Chris ironically I have a kidney stone that I still yet to pass and I have had a surprisingly good day but I'm distrusting of my own body Brett Eyes Platinum in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora right now because I've had a surprisingly good day after multiple days of just constant hours of abject pain um have a day where it's not makes me think that it's just around the corner waiting to knock you know it's like I'm going to start sleeping and then that Raven's going to start knocking on the door and it's be godd damn it uh so that's where I'm at so I've only been playing Avatar frontiers of Pandora I have beaten it now and I am very close to platinum I'm at 90% trophies um but the last one of the last three trophies I'm a little worried is going to be involved it's for clan contribution and basically there's a bunch of there's like hundreds of camps in the game it's not really it may like 80 camps total including the major camps and you've got to go to each one of them and get a specific item that you put in their Clan contribution basket uh I know that much I I fear there might be more and I hope not so yeah we'll see but that's the last trophy I'm gonna do um so I'm just doing the rest of it enjoying it it's got problems even with its trophy design but I like the game enough to keep going with it got problems in the general way too big of an open world way too much [ __ ] to do and a lot of it is just I I want to rant for a second because there is this thing called memory paintings in the game and thankfully it only makes you do one in the story but you sit and you basically do blue people yoga but with the analog sticks and hands so it it looks like something that was like a motion control we fit uh like pitch that like they did and got turned down so they just shoved it into their avatar game but you just sit and then like these like blue Trails come up and you've got to and it have like an L andr in it you got to use the analog stick to slowly follow this Trail inside of this circle that's moving and if you get out for more than like a second and a half it just restarts and it is so boring and so stupid and I I get what they're going for it's a game about nature it's a lot like when they did the the high cus that you could do in the the rest spots when you were doing the steam spots with jyn and ghost to sushima but those were more fun because they were shorter they didn't last very long and they did not require much from you and they were thematically fitting I think making your character sit and watching him do some hand movements and then having the character reflect on what he's seeing and how it goes into his new understanding of this world that should be his home but it's new to him it's a perfectly fine thing but when I'm sitting there for three minutes doing these [ __ ] slow War it just feels like an eternity and it's bad game design and I don't understand who in a room was like this is fun someone's going to enjoy doing this this is essential to our story yeah it's just a swing in a Miss I I have to imagine that I can't think of a single amount of time that could justify the existence of this mechanic so I don't know why they did it I can only be thankful for that there's no trophy tied to this at all oh really so there's no 100% I do not have to collect them no okay so across the board you you only have to get like 20 of the yeah it's like we can't undo the work because we've already done it but you know we can not tie it to anyone yeah yeah so that's good I think the general problem with massive open worlds is that the first question that comes to mind is well if this if the world's this big we've got to fill it more than just with what what' you say godfather 2's porno mags Mafia 2's porno mags yeah Mafia 2 sorry so you you go there and you and so you go what else can we do we got to make this open world have a bunch of [ __ ] to doing it well sometimes the reality is is that the only thing you can continue to do is just ad menial [ __ ] that you can do that you already do a weird form of in your day-to-day life and go why would I want to do this in a game and so you have to balance wanting to add things for players to do with the fact that some things are just inherently not fun and I'll play a game to have fun just because you gave me one more task to do not mean I'm going to enjoy that the fun if you're one of those weird people that thinks just completing a task is fun fine but the act of completing the task should be fun too and then you get double the fun out of it yeah you know what I mean it's like I don't know anyone who' like I hated doing that but I got something done so I had a great time arguably that person exist yeah I mean I think it goes back to what I was saying last week where they're just game are so refined that they're just adding [ __ ] to extend the time and the [ __ ] they're adding is not fun you could easily and I'm so glad it's not most of it's not in the trophy list there's still questionable things in the trophy list I'm just going to throw it out there this clan contributions one definitely if it's as bad as I think it is I'll report more hopefully when I have the Platinum next week but I think that this could have easily been considerably cut down and just tried because I get it the idea is to like you to interact with certain aspects of the game so that what they're designing has a chance to be played but I don't think that your game should actively Force someone to interact with something they just may not like it's okay if it's there as an option but you should try and be balanced on okay what is the most broad appeal and let's draw most of the people to those but then we can have some small odd things that are for small appeal that some people will really like but most people want and they'll be there but we won't Force the player to have to interact with them like I thought it was really smart to to that memory painting thing they only made you do once in story so to progress you only have to do it once uh it raises some questions of how do you interact with it you know if you have problems moving analog sticks slowly it really could become a filter I don't know if there's a a difficulty setting that allows you to automatically skip them but yeah it's it's an interesting design Choice that's all I'll say yeah when it could have just been a cut scene that doesn't sound even because it had a it had story significance when you do it in story but there's no reason for it outside of the story you know unless you just are really digging the world uh but I won't harp on too long I'm still really enjoyed the game I hope that it has some kind of weird Resurgence and they get a lot out of this because if I'm not mistaken I think this is the same developer not the same team necessarily that's working on the new Star Wars Outlaws yeah I like the team I do too and I I think it sucks to see them kind of take a swing in a completely different direction than what they were known for uh moving to a a firsters open world game when you had a third person MMO basically shooter is a is an interesting change and I think that they mostly pulled it off better than a lot of places a lot of people did um so we'll see maybe they'll strike some kind of gold with Outlaws and do well all over again but it's unfortunate uh but we're going to quickly move into the news before we get into everything else uh first piece of news is quick and simple uh but before we actually talk about it I will remind you that if you're listening on podcast services that allow you to review the show please consider doing so uh lets people know whether or not you think the show is worth your time and we would love it if January 2023 PS+ Essential Games you would share your thoughts on that uh but the first piece of news here is ps+ games for January uh this is for all three tiers is plail plag tail recum evil West and nobody Saves the World and even though I have two of these three games already accessible I think this is a super solid month evil West looks like a great time I haven't actually played it yet but I really want to nobody Saves the World is an incredibly fun game and play tail rum is a sequel to a very solid game that I cannot believe I've not gotten around to but I just haven't um so this is good because we saw Game Pass objectively ruin the value of games with gold to the point where they just did away with Games with Gold because there wasn't enough value to keep it going and I really like to see that even the base tier of PlayStation Plus has continue to try and be a value point in and of itself on top of the fact that you have to have it for online play so I think it's a solid month Chris you have anything you want to add there no I'm looking forward to playing all these games some of them again but oh you you never got around to nobody did you no but I own that so yeah for sure great game though great game yeah probably do plague tail one and two back to back now that they're available for me yeah and that's pretty short that's like the average length of most games now days cuz like the first one's like 12 to 15 hours I assume this one's probably around 15 yeah that's what I'm going to do instead of running a dungeon 87 times just play play tail one and two yeah I'll get around to requim and I hope it's a it's a finds a way to push the first game's mechanics and story forward in a way that feels worth it I'm sure it does um next piece of news we were talking about Star Wars Outlaws and of course here it is it has been given a release window so not a whole lot but of course we got showing it without much to go off of now we at least have an idea that the game is intended whether or not it hits that to be coming out in late 2024 um which does kind of beg the question do you actually think this game will hit that release window Star Wars Outlaws Aims for "Late 2024" Chris yeah I'm willing to put my money on massive I feel like there's a decent chance even though I do think it's interesting that they say late 2024 but I think that be considering the way that this news was given not part of some big thing and big Spiel I think that there was no value in them doing this unless they felt fairly confident that they were going to be able to hit it are so close to it that you wouldn't even care so if this ends up being like a January February 2025 game I don't think anybody's gonna rake them over the coals you know yeah absolutely so I still don't know how I feel about this though I think there's I a lot of it comes down to pedigree of the studio which I think I'm glad I played Avatar because it does show that they can do something outside of their General scope um so I actually think playing Avatar gives me more hope for Star Wars Outlaws than I would have had if I just would have been like I've played the division how the hell does that square up to a Star Wars game so it's cool to see a developer take chances and actually do something with them um but I I'm I'm not still completely sold on this I don't want to Discount anyone else's opinion but I do feel like a large bit of where this game is coming from is strictly the fact that it's Star Wars and it's a game and I guess I'll give it a little more Credence you seemingly can get in your ship and fly around to some degree I want to go ahead and temper everyone's expectations considering that we thought Starfield was gonna be a game where you could get in ship and fly around to let people know that I have a feeling that this game is gonna be much more maybe not Starfield but maybe much more outer worlds than no man's sky and I think as long as you set your expectations right that's fine like that's that's a reasonable position to be in for a Star Wars game I agree with you I'm excited to play it it looks fun I literally struggle to say that because unless I'm forgetting and maybe I am I remember there being a trailer but did they actually show gameplay from this yeah I believe there was gameplay in that trailer I knew that one of them it was like at a later event they decided to show gameplay and I thought it was weird that they broke that off um so they saw the CG trailer and then another trailer down after right yeah yeah that sounds right so since I've not watched the gameplay I won't speak on it uh but hey I enjoyed Avatar they surprise me I'm willing to give this a go I like Star Wars World enough to try this out 10 minut gameplay walk through okay cool I'll watch it after this and then hopefully have a little bit more of an informed opinion um last piece of news here is more of kind of a mix between talking about rumors of uh different rumors that are kind of coming together here um and congealing as well as acting as somewhat of a public service announcement because I noticed sometimes these rumors spread so fast and then even if they get debunked that doesn't really spread or sometimes even information that is accurate turns out to be false because of something Studio closures or whatever and people still seem to think that certain things are coming so a while really throughout this God of War Trilogy Remaster Rumors Seem Fruitless week some rumors have been swirling of a God of War Trilogy remaster or potentially remake as some of the people have been saying and it seems like the Remake remaster rumors are really being formulated off the back of kratos's voice actor Chris judge saying that he was asked to voic match TC Carson who was kratos's voice actor for the original God of War Games prior to the 2018 release so it seems like a lot of people have taken this to be oh someone wanted him to voice match young Kratos who else would do that besides son AO Sony has plans to do something with a young Kratos seemingly makes sense to do a remaster or remake of these games um but Chris judge has come to Twitter to say that the voice match for TC Carson was not from Sony San Diego or Sony Santa Monica or Sony at all and seemingly somebody else who wanted a TC Carson voice match now where I will add in an interesting wrinkle here this is is just showing my own ignorance to it I am not sure what else TC Carson has voiced in that Chris judge would be a sensible voice match to because Kratos is so unlike TC Carson to begin with that Chris judge being able to find something that feels very in line with that Kratos makes sense but if you look at some of the stuff that's happened I think the only thing that really comes to mind would be some of the Justice League stuff he's done because he has done Ral ghoul and a couple of things and he's done some Voice work if I'm not mistaken as mace Wu in um Star Wars oh I bet animated shows looking at his stuff um Tron there's a new Tron game coming out right maybe that could be yeah there's as far as I okay maybe he's uncredited so I don't know seems unlikely then you know yeah star something Star Wars related seems possible instead of getting Samuel Jackson get somebody who people are already familiar of for mace Wu but H who knows because here's the weird thing TC Carson still exists there's no need to have someone voice match him so I get the want to say well you've moved forward to Kratos being Chris judge and gamers are more informed now than they used to be so more Gam are aware because of the game awards and it's ilk that Chris judg is Kratos so you may have a draw as Sony to go back and be like let's remake these games or remaster them and do like Square did and completely revoice a game for no [ __ ] reason um throwing shots at you Crisis Core why do you not have the option to play with the original voice cast if just because why it's there the whole game look that's tangent but point being I think this is an interesting thing the fact him even voice matching turned into this big news thing just as a a credit to show how news uh works in the gaming sphere and how quickly people want to pick something up and make something out of something but an interesting thing is that there was a while back some rumors swirling about PlayStation about Sony working on getting PS2 games to run natively on PS5 uh and then dumping a bunch of PS2 games on PS5 and having them be of course accessible to Modern audiences through that um and if that is the case then it I think it could be I think no matter what clearly these rumors are starting off of unfound non no real reason there's no real good foundation I think it's a bunch of rumors getting kind of lumped together and then Chris judge says something and they take it and run with it even though he later clarified that it wasn't for Kratos and Bam now you have a fresh new rumor that people are going to carry with him and be like oh yeah there's a God of War remake coming at some point or remaster coming and there may not be there may be I actually think it makes a lot of sense to do but that remains to be seen as if it will yeah we'll see I would like to play those remakes if they do ever come do you really think they'd be fullon remakes or do you think it' just be a remaster I I don't know maybe this is naive but I think if you're going to just remaster it don't even do it I think the the problem comes put on classic or something yeah I was about say I think the problem with that comes from the fact that the only one that would stand the test of time as a remaster the only two that would stand a test of time as a remaster at this point um to the level people would want at least I would think would probably be God of War I and God of War ascension God of War I is a great looking game and actually I think it's but God of War I needs a remake more than anything at this particular point I still love the game I don't have any problems with it but it's like why not just benefit from your classic you know catalog and just dump it there instead of putting a lot of work into that and then you just get a value ad to ps+ right I mean that makes sense to me so we'll see but then again God of War as far as we can tell doesn't have an obvious next place to go and if there's money to be made by remaking the first game I would be down to play it but there's a lot of wh ifs about it does it completely drop its action Slasher you know hacken slash Style game play what does it do does it become a God of War 2018 alike and does that game really need that and then how do you expand that game to include that and if you don't do that and you just make a remake of that you know God of War 3 style combat and gameplay do people want that enough to Warrant to remake of that in this particular Market well here's I think the more apt question is would people pay $70 for that in this market and the answer is definitely no I don't want to say definitely no because I think Devil May Cry five prove that there is completely room for that type of game but yeah I think you have to understand your Niche and develop accordingly um and I wouldn't be surprised if Devil May Cry 5 was also partially successful because it was budgeted in correspondence to the size of what they thought the market for that game would be and then I think that got more people to buy into it and it got good word of mouth and it kind of was able to fall fall upward sounds bad but my point being is that by being smart at the initial you can actually overe exceed what you wanted to do because of good word of mouth but if you start at a bad spot by ging haste $70 for a very expensive remake of God of War doesn't really work but if you're keeping it you know structured in a similar way and just updating some of the mechanics a bit and still keeping as top of game maybe maybe there's a way to pull that off so uh either way it'd be interesting to see if we ever end up getting an actual remake of God of War I I've wondered that before after they did the ratchet remake I thought H interesting a remake of a PS2 game then they did the shadow remake and I thought okay another PS2 game maybe a God of War remake isn't so off the off the table but remas it feels a little bit like if we were going to get it we would have gotten it by now but I'm immediately conflicted by the thought that the Resident Evil remakes have been so successful and those games are even older that I could see Sony being like bro there a complete value in just being able to go back and be like yeah we're REM making God of War One in a few years we'll remake God of War two and then a few years we'll make three and eventually we'll remake 2018 even though I think you'd be dumb to do that to be honest in 2023 right this year last year yeah that that'd be the what was it the Horizon remake that was rumored yeah exactly yeah I mean hell we got a Last of Us remake less than 10 years after its original release so all things are possible through Jesus Cristo um president has been set yeah yeah president has been set so all you have to be is at least nine years old right now and you're good right yeah exactly there's a whole world of things that you've never seen yeah so that is really the last piece of news of course we're New Year uh that is kind of how it goes there's not a lot of talk I'm surprised we even got the Star Wars Outlaws news uh but I'm sure they took they saw the opportunity of slow news and thought here's a way to kind of bump the game back into relevancy which kind of makes you ask that's Ubisoft why the [ __ ] didn't Ubisoft do that for Avatar why are they do they realize how much they fumbled with Avatar they're like guys we gotta make sure we talk about Star Wars more yeah right maybe because I didn't realize it was coming out and then it was like oh [ __ ] it's out next week okay yeah for a lot of people was oh I [ __ ] I didn't know that was coming out oh it's been out for three weeks okay it's a it's a delicate balance but it seems kind of crazy that everyone like I already said last week or whatever it was everyone knew that Avatar was hitting theaters but no one knew that the avatar game was hitting consoles yeah exactly you think told them six months ago yeah you got to tell people again close to release like that's how it works where did advertise this game if you told me that there was a true advertising campaign where was it because I didn't see it wouldn't you have wouldn't you advertise this game in movie theaters like they did [ __ ] God of War that's what I was going to say like why weren't there trailers in front of way of the water dude there should have been trailers in front of every movie like that's the movie crowd any big Blockbuster that's come out put it in there you're coming to see Wonka chances are if you're coming to see Wonka you're in the conversation left the you saw Avatar here's an avatar game fair it's they're both musicals so I mean what's the harm dude that that movie I know it's a little bit of a tangent but we're done with the news that movie looks like a [ __ ] fever dream I don't understand what that movie is and I only see like five minute Snippets but every time there's something weird going on I don't know what wonka wonka yeah I'm not seen anything around the movie besides the initial trailer again I work at a movie theater so I will walk in and and to to go get fries or something and then there's Christopher shalam in a in a sewer like dancing and singing It's like what is this movie this isn't what Jee Wilder did well to be fair though if you think about the we watched the Tim Burton one with my daughter not long ago because she wanted to and um it is a much worse movie in my opinion yes than the Gene Wilder one and I think some of it I understand what they're going for but dude like I thought all the songs sucked and it was way more trying to be a musical and a lot of the Whimsical Parts I liked of the original look it's fun I didn't hate that movie I I liked it worse watching it again I liked it more on initial watch but I always thought the original was more interesting um that's just I guess the thing is it's like you try to make Willie Wonka even more Whimsical which I guess in the books he is but I I don't know I've heard great things about the Timothy chall Wonka though so I I don't know I mean I I'm not judging it so much as I'm curious to see if they try and go the Tim Burton route of let's just make it even more kooky like let's make it try and seem like Wonka couldn't even be a normal person ever because at least at least the one with with Jean Wilder is like okay like it's a somewhat you know it's somewhat exotic guy or whatever he's like intricate um and he has these weird ideas but he's a human and then you have the Johnny Depp one where you're just like who the [ __ ] is this [Laughter] person like his dad told him no candy so he just completely went ape [ __ ] exactly which is basically what the movie says like he ran away from his dad so he didn't grow up correctly didn't have a father figure any kind of parents in his life so he was just this weird Ecentric guy yeah which could work but I mean you got to at least kind of try and ground it the way this movie he portrays him I'm fairly sure he's a superhero interesting yeah I'd be for a superhero who makes his own candy that gives him Powers is actually a pretty solid idea dude this unrelated unrelated again but I saw this uh Tik Tok and it I had me dying is this autistic girl she's talking about how people call autism of superpower and she goes yeah I'd walk into that room and talk to Superman who can fly and I'd be like yeah I I really like moths was killing but yeah no it's funny because uh I have some friends are like yeah we all have autism talking about our entire friend group and I just want to be like I I don't think that we do I think that people are very Cavalier with that word these days speaking of theism do we have any wance we do have some rod ends and we completely skipped the community's uh take so uh that's my bad but hey there's Community's Take: 2023 Gaming Regrets? time before we get into the end of the show to pull that up so the community take this week was of course based around joodi MD one of our longtime listener longtime patrons who uh asked us a question last week about a gaming decision we made in 2023 that we regretted and one that we were glad to have made uh so we posed that question back out to you and as I like to do I want to always read the uh response from who asked the question initially so Jud MD came back and said he got a 1080p screen for work then ended up buying a gaming PC so the screen is a bit of a let down for games however the upside of it is that I can crank up the setting on settings on games with no noticeable degradation in quality I'm assuming he also means like stability he gets to have crazy high everything and it runs well both a blessing and a curse I guess depending on how you look at it so his answer is a lot like mine the good and bad are the same thing just based on how you choose to to look at it uh yeah the weird thing about PC gaming is that because PC gaming is so much more um adjustable I should say there is real benefit in making a pretty beefy PC and it's being like well yeah this pretty beefy PC would struggle to be 4K 60 on all games and Max settings but at 1080p 140 frames per second this thing can fly you know it's like and have all games that almost Max settings if not Max settings uh so I guess the upside to PC gaming is that the little bit more freedom that you get generally means that you pick your poison right what do you care about and what do you not care about and if you don't really care about 4K and and if you're not if you're playing on a monitor that's not really that big anyway to where you're not getting the benefit of having uh the pixel density that you would want on a bigger screen then [ __ ] it yeah run 1080p put your games at Max see all the extra detail that you can within that resolution have a good time yeah absolutely yeah that's more or less what I settled on whenever I redid my computer I was looking at monitors and I was like okay I want one with HDR that's kind of the only thing I really want and so I got a 1440p HDR and I just run games at higher settings on 1440p than I would at 4K if I really want to play at 4K I can but I'm G to play at like 30 45 maybe depending on the game 60 frames per second you know yeah I don't know when I when I bought mine it was just H this is 4K and 165 Hertz this is pretty good um yeah oh it's nice but it's like one thing that people don't think about is when you buy something that shoots over what you can actually hit on it you're getting a worse image trying to make a 1440p resolution run at your on your 4k monitor it would look better if you're running 1440p on 1440p monitor but you know it's like people think of it as well I have overhead well no you don't the way your monitor is actually designed is to play the res solution at which you're going for more or less um so it's a weird pick but that's the fun of PC gaming is that you get to pick all the things you want so I wanted more frames per second I wanted to be able to hit 120 where possible so I went down to a 1440p nice but moving on to another answer we've got brr 88 another one of our patrons he says I regret buying the Diablo digital deluxe edition I played it for about 20 hours and haven't gone back since I am glad I went back to cyberpunk with the twoo update though uh 2.0 update I'm about 60 hours in and going for the Platinum which I almost never do close second was buying the PS portal definitely getting good use out of it happy New Years guys Happy New Years to you bod we appreciate you appreciate your patronage if you want to join him head over to patreon.com narch and consider giving as little as a dollar per month like one of our new patrons this month uh Mr duh Overlord so duh Overlord thank you for becoming a patron and supporting the show more than just your time though we are always thankful for that uh moving on we got a couple more we always try and give our patrons preferred reading on any of the community call outs that we asked for so the next one comes from another Patron a one-armed wolf and if you are unfamiliar with him he has acted as basically the accountant for the trophy competition through 2023 and has already taken it upon himself to resume that role for 2024 he also is the the victor of the 2023 trophy contest so everyone round of golf clap for him it wasn't through lack of trying had I been able to platinum Avatar if i' had been able to play it about the 15 to 20 hours I missed because of crazy pain and inability to focus I might have been a contender so it was um one armed wolf Brett Josh SS me TC Zog bring the pain Aztec King big Scantron TK Rams Cipher Primus J Jo jodrell and yaa 4353 again that 2024 has started the engines are revved but please join we have a lot of fun it expanded this year I think we got what five or six more entries so it's a bigger bigger competition so with that in mind I want to be a little more pointed this time around I am working to double check can see for the prize for one armed D want to keep that a little closer in hand but there will be more of a consiliary prize where it's just for the the looks and feel of having something to be like oh look what I did uh but there will be a $100 PSN gift card for the winner this year y this year for sure that is that is the thing so of course you'll spend much more money in your pursuit of platinums but the idea is that after it's all done you get something that you can at least uh pay off your next your next fix with so join the competition as Chris has probably mentioned already at least last week uh if I'm not mistaken you can enter at any point in the year but your starting points will be whatever they are whenever you decide to join so we'll take note of what your points are at time of joining and for what you earn from there because we're using true trophies once more um so basically the idea is to earn more points which of course generally speaking the more trophies you earn the more points you earn if you earn more points than anyone else you do better so go to True trophies log in there get signed into the uh leaderboard add into leaderboard and then you can start looking games figure out how many points they are and kind of chart your planed Victory and hopefully a stone doesn't come in and completely ruin it for you but I still want to give shout out to a one-armed wolf because he he fought a hell of a of a fight and he had the OG classic move of reducing all of his jumping Taco games which is crazy cuz he would have won by like a 100,000 points so many points yes probably more like 150,000 points it was so many to be um just to make sure I'm clear on that there is no ban on any type of games if you would like to play a 100 jumping tacos you could I will say that is not in the spirit of what this competition is so even if you win you'll just be heavily frowned upon yeah like well it'll be that what is it that scene is that scene from uh Game of Thrones where it's like the girl walking through the city with like a bell being like shame yeah exactly Cersei Cersei yeah so yeah I mean you feel free to do that but the only other thing I will say I wanted to do this for this year's competition but I didn't feel great about introducing the concept afterwards so I'm introducing it now I am planning on doing a full list of superlatives that will be voted on by the community probably in DEC December um so if you have any ideas for things you'd like to see there put them in the Discord I'll keep a mind on them right now I'm thinking like best Platinum so like I and I think maybe you nominate one so I was thinking for me I'd nominate my Witcher three Platinum that kind of stuff um yeah you know best list of platinums that kind of stuff like I was saying and making the joke I want to have my Dumbledore moment where I can go oh Slytherin won but Harry Potter got an A on his exam and now Gryffindor wins so I think that kind of stuff will be fun kind of raise the community engagement so any ideas for those you let me know but those will be happening so just to be clear there will be bonus points at the end they are not decided by me they are decided by all of us yeah there we go and of course the monthly games that we all vote on and you get bonus points for being the first to platinum so with that in mind I want to go ahead and give a one-armed Wolf's answer to the community's take prompt he says I feel like mine would be obvious for anyone in the trophy competition see there was a reason we talked about it all the trash games for points so that was his regret on the other hand I'm glad I knocked out a lot of real games for my backlog also as part of the competition so there you have it the competition was a net positive overall for my guy a one-armed wolf even though he sunk there's a whole story as to why he he did so many bad games and why he eventually cut them it's not worth getting into uh but it was a real class move uh so I'm going to do one more and then we're going to go ahead and get moving we got one more from rude cold here actually I'm G do two more I'm G do one from non Patron rude cold is another Patron he says I regret playing Metroid Prime remastered I have no idea why it is so beloved maybe if it maybe if I had played it on initial release I might have had a different view but I found it profoundly dull and the amount of backtracking was ridiculous close second was Assassin's Creed Mirage old style Assassin's Creed is great but it's not aged well Mirage did nothing new at all the story was boring too he was glad on the other hand so I'm glad I played gr triso 7 got it on sale as I hadn't played a Sim racer since maybe gr Turismo 4 absolutely loved gt7 and the cafe menu system got me hooked in easily my most played game of the last year at 125 hours my man look at you uh yeah I haven't played um Forts and Motorsport yet but one of the big complaints I saw from from people who are enjoying it is that they wish that the campaign had been more structured and been something that drove to push you to play it instead it's just kind of a race with a an award and there's not really a pull I think one of the cool things about the cafe system was it acted as a way to get you deeper into cars even if you did even if you came into the game not as into car lore and car history and what the car seems like and it would group car races together so that you're doing similar type of races and you're doing them with that type of car and you're learning about where those cars came from and how they change and how something like maybe hey it's front roll drive or hey the engine sits in the mid in comparison to this placement and how that affects racing and I think it gets you into the zone of the idea of sim racing in a way that fors of Motorsport seemingly from what I've heard did not try to replicate at all and that's unfortunate because I do think the menu system is a little stroke of Genius because they're small they're Compact and what is a campaign in a car game anyway this is a good way to kind of offer a campaign like thing while getting people generally better at the game slowly but surely so that's cool to see got one more over here that comes down to Twitter and it comes from one of our yeah yeah it comes from one of our longtime friends of the show and it is sweet Gran Turismo Jones He says having been playing gr Turismo 7 on a rig and psvr2 I regret not setting it up sooner those who know me know I bought a bunch of equipment and never set it up until recently I advis for that he was like cool I'm buying this and then we played a while back um and he was just kind of like oh I just got it set up which blew my mind because he had his GT Sport setup kind of dialed in uh as for the thing he's happy to have done if not also his rig for psvr2 uh he says I'm glad I went back to Mad Max what a great game I almost missed out on man sometimes people talk about Mad Max and I wonder if I made a mistake by jumping off you know 15 hours in because I just got bored I'm like was it was there about to be a crazy part that just would have pulled me right back in and I would have seen the rest of the game through and been like wow but unfortunately that just was not it meant to be for me not in the cards as they say not in the cars as they say um yeah so that's a good one thank you guys if you want to be part of the community's take always uh check out our social media so if you're on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter now known as X you can find us at triangle sqrd you can find us in Facebook in a group Triangle Square to PlayStation podcast or our favorite way to communicate you can head over uh into the uh description whether you're watching on YouTube or listening on podcast services and you can click the link to our Discord you can join us for day-to-day topics such as just what we're playing what music to what movies we're watching or if you want to push back or add on to anything that we talked about throughout the podcast there's a section for you to do that as well as a nice Community St section for you to give your answers to in recall in return to the call to action so yes we are going to move on from there and go real quick into some of questions that we got um for this week so with that in mind going to head back over to the Discord where we got the bulk of those and knock the first one out so joodi MD comes back around he says what one thing you can do if you were responsible for Playstation Xbox and Nintendo that would tank the hardware experience and know Question: What Decision Could Sink the Console Experience? releasing Bad Games is not one of them okay can you repeat it yeah what is one thing you can do if you're responsible for Playstation Xbox and Nintendo that would tank the hardware experience and know releasing Bad Games is not one of them um I think the wording here is a little interesting because I know what he means uh he's saying like these people's systems their Hardware um but my answer is actually uh of course the real answer is releasing bad games uh but actually the more pressing answer and I think it's been shown uh in a big way from a lot of other Nintendo platforms that have had a hard time um you can make a system that is so different from the rest of the pack that it may be viewed upon as positive by certain people but you will never get the share that you need of the market for people to want to release thirdparty games on your platform therefore killing your platform we saw it with the Wii but the Wii was so success successful in its own stick that it was able to do well enough without it but when they did the exact same thing again with the Wii U we saw what happens when you make a system that no third party developers can make a game that plays on everything for and instead have to make games that only play on your system which does not do enough to bring them in and therefore what will happen it'll ruin the experience because if someone only buys that system they're going to not play it very often because all they're going to play is the games that you're putting out for and even if those are great it's not going to add up to enough people wanting your product and that's why you get a system like the Wii U or the vaita for another instance uh where you only hit you know 12 14 million 15 million if you're lucky units sold mhm but there's another one that I have but I want I want to see what yours is before I go there so are we doing these individually by a publisher no I'm I mean you could if you wanted to but I'm just saying across the board if any of these made a system that was so far out of what the rest of the systems were doing in a way that wasn't strong enough I mean switch has clearly worked switch has worked for them but what's going to happen yeah the cell architecture was a problem and they had to basically get people to go over it could have been the end of things but the switch is a good example of doing the same thing but doing it much better and still finding ways to get third parties to be like okay yeah this is we can get close enough on this so what do you think um I think for me in terms of Nintendo specifically I would not release a switch 2 and that would probably be it um switch would eventually wear on you well no I think the thing is the switch I don't mean to insult it I love a lot of games on there but I think certain games are unplayable like Pokemon scarlet and violet I've seen some images where I'm like I don't know how you play this game uh so that's that um Microsoft and and Sony are a little bit harder but I think I think you're right it's just a matter of you know Xbox goes digital maybe they go physical only and then you lose all those games right an interesting little inverse of it it's like oh you can't get Shovel Knight to because you decided to go physical only kind of thing so yeah I think that would be mine actually is go as making someone specifically use one certain type of uh what's the word for that what's the word word I'm looking for here like format one specific type of format that nobody else uses that's specific to your console I think that would be a pretty big issue for them for someone any yeah I feel you I got you um yeah I mean so if you're going if if you were going to break it up I mean since you're kind of doing that um I I think PlayStation is kind of tored around with this but really I'm GNA instead of breaking it up I'm just G get my other one because I think that really the thing that can drive most things down it's gonna be the same mostly across the board um and that just goes to show you how the market works and I think do you see that because most of the time when someone tries to break off and do something different in the market uh unless it's done at such pristine quality that it adds something new and unique and uh truly interesting like the ability to play games at home or on the go in the same system like the switch de um I think what you get into is just software and I mean that more in the UI than anything because I think as consoles have gotten more complicated the ability to just put a game in turn it on and immediately boots into the game has gone away because consoles are being demanded to be able to do more you need to be able to have a storefront to access to download you need to be able to have multiple games on the console you need be able to switch between those you need to be able to stream movies and and Netflix and shows and all these different things on it uh you need to be able to be online you need to be able to do all these things and so I think what really happens is that if you fail in the UI Department you lose people um and while I don't think there's a good example of that hard and fast I think there are examples that have gotten close uh I think that for a while on the 360 Xbox couldn't figure out what the hell they wanted to do with the UI so they just kept changing it and I think the problem with that is if you feel like you're having to learn this console constantly that you already knew how to use it kind of pushes you're probably going to do it if it's your main console but if it's not your main console you're just going to be like and you're just gonna be like I don't [ __ ] care anymore and you're gonna go on and do your own business um so yeah UI is very important it's a thing that happens to me in games games that have bad UI I often end up finding my way out of because if your game is not intuitive to even navigate I don't really want to engage further and that pull that back a level and go to your system if your system is too complicated to even navigate in a way that feels intuitive or useful I'm likely not going to spend much time on it absolutely true and dude I looking at this and switch to needs to get rid of the [ __ ] friend codes it is it is the worst form I think the switch's UI is actually fine but I think the way in which their UI interacts with multiplayer and the idea of a ecosystem with friends and the ability to play with people is God awful it's so bad it's so hard to add a friend I feel like it there's so many issues with it and and you there's a million things but like if someone ask what my PSN name is I can tell them it's not a problem if someone ask what my friend code is the only solution would be for me to take a picture of it and put it somewhere where I can always access it because I'm not going to remember qr- 3277 you know it's like what the [ __ ] is this yeah and I just I thought it was weird on the 3DS and then they just kept doing it it's got to do with what uh protecting the kids kind of thing right that might be their reason does it really accomplish that goal I'm not so sure yeah I don't know but it is a pretty good Shield to hide behind we're not going to lie it's like Nintendo your online system really is complicated and and obtuse and weird and I hate it oh guys it doesn't matter though any amount of suffering is fine as long as it's for the benefit of of children oh yeah okay [Laughter] cool choosing not to make a church joke um anything else uh yeah we got one more question uh are really we got two more questions I'll go ahead and do both of them um rude days 93 another Patron says for 2023 which company do you think had the best 2023 and the worst 2023 does not have to be just the big three could be any third party developer or publisher as well um well that's the loaded ass question I'm G tell you um can I add one who had the most confusing Question: What Company Had the Best 2023? 2023 because I think that's Xbox yeah so what's the question biggest losers and winners from the year yeah basically what company regardless of whether it's a console manufacturer or not in gaming had the best 2023 um larion yeah that's a good cheat code yeah single game it's a game that's pretty much universally beloved sold better than anything won a bunch of awards lons are really good so who do you who do you think had the worst in Bethesda oh that's an interesting one yeah well how do you how do you quantify that I just want to hear I'm curious because I think I get where you're coming from but it it does feel rather counterintuitive to say that one of the best selling games of the year which Starfield was was also the company behind it go ahead Chris you you may have different information than me but that game sold well from everything I can see yeah sure it didn't sell as well as it would have if it was not on Game Pass day one that's not the point the point is they released red fall they released redfall Oh you mean Bethesda as a parent company to a handful of I got you I thought you meant Bethesda game studios my bad no they released redfall um Pete Hines the guy who was there for 30 years left and I don't actually know how long he was there that was an exaggeration but he was there a long time I think it was like 20 something years AG he left and then Starfield whether it sold well or not is sitting at a mostly negative with 29% of people liking the game on Steam so I don't think you can quantify that as a good year for anybody yeah Bethesda Studios not to mention they won't tell us if blade is exclusive even though it's would make logical sense that it is they won't say it which is concerning well I thought it was interesting that uh they kind of had that extra little bit that came out recently where um blade is intended to come out 2027 at the earliest which kind of begs the question of why would you put a system on it now because the reality is is that by 2027 we might be on the next set of consoles and it may not even be they may put themselves in a cyber Punk situation where now this game's expected to be on a PS5 and and Xbox series and realistically it makes more sense for it to be on the next console because 2027 at the earliest what if it's 2028 what if it's 29 I actually don't agree with that point cuz all they would have had to put was Game Pass exclusive I get what you mean but there is no expectation of console okay but but the flip side of that still does come down to this I talked about how Phil Spencer had mentioned and I don't mean the crazy version that people thought where Xbox is going to completely shut down if they don't have a certain number of subscribers on Game Pass at a certain day but Phil Spencer did mention that if Game Pass does not hit a certain metric internally that they would have to look at how they how they um conduct business and I think what he really means by that is if Game Pass does not show after a certain period of years and by 2027 I think Game Pass hitting what 18 maybe 19 so you're talking like an eight to 10 year window of being able to see how this service can grow and climb and I think realistically speaking what's probably going on is that Marvel Disney whoever maybe even Xbox uh somebody in there doesn't want to commit to it being one thing because Xbox may be saying well this game may be coming out after we have to make a decision that game pass is no longer the market that we're going to use what I mean by that is I don't mean that Xbox is going to go completely out of the console business but there is no reason to think that part of changing their business plan may not include becoming some form of we are a platform but all of our games are also now multiplatform it's possible now is it do I think that that's what's going to happen no but because of the fact that that business model is kind of influx why would you even bring up game pass because Game Pass could very well be dead by 2027 dude I know a bunch of people probably hope not and think not but it possible hope but here's the reality if Game Pass is dead Microsoft is so far gone in the video games industry the only thing they could do is put it on if if Game Pass dies Phil Spencer's G gone and I would not be surprised if Xbox is sold off because they spent what not including everything else just this year alone last year alone they spent 70 what was it like 75 billion dollars to bolster Game Pass and if that doesn't work it's over see now that's where I look at this argument differently I get your point but I think you're going a bit to the world the sky is falling with it all and what I mean by that is that what they've realistically done is that they've spent a ton of money to make sure that they own the IP and Publishing rights to a ton of games that are very valuable so if Game Pass does fail and the market does not really have a way to be workable at scale in that type of industry or in that type of market for this industry then I think Microsoft goes okay Xbox in this capacity I don't think they'd sell Xbox is really what I mean I think maybe severely restructure and say Xbox is a gaming platform you can play it on your phone you can play it everywhere but as part of it being a gaming platform who has access to all these games that we own now we're also look Activision was successful before Microsoft owned it this is this sounds like a crazy thing to say I don't even know if most people know this but Pepsi owns Fredo and that sounds stupid right you'd be like why the [ __ ] did Pepsi a soda company buy Fredo well guess what Fredo makes up 48% of their yearly like their yearly um income and because the profit margins are even better they make so much money off of just having the foresight in like the 70s or whatever the hell it was maybe it's the 80s I can't remember but to be like he we're gonna buy a snack company so my point being is that that company was already successful before they merged with Pepsi Activision was successful before they merged with Microsoft all Microsoft did was take something successful and bring it into their own own plate if they can keep it at that same level of success as a bare minimum or grow it it doesn't matter if it's if games are only coming to Game Pass with it so what I would argue is that they've spent that money to gain access to a bunch of Ip and Publishing rights yeah I agree those IP and Publishing rights can currently be used to bolster game pass but it's not the exclusive benefit of owning them and so to that extent I don't think that it would be that pissed I think it would be okay Game Pass didn't work we spent all this money but we still own some of the most iconic gaming franchises of all time and most successful ones of all time let's keep doing it and let's put everything on everything hold on we're in 100% agreement though like yeah I'm just being more aggressive about it I know they I know you're being more aggressive and you're really being you're playing it up to prove a point and I understand that but there are definitely people who will either take what you said or already think that what really happened is that they spent this money to bolster Game Pass and I think that's just a very narrow-minded view of what mic they spend the money to bolster game pass that is undeniable again I'm not saying you're wrong but the that is just a really great benefit of the aspect of buying a already successful company to bolster your gaming because they also talked about this is clearly the case and I a lot of people tried downplaying this but they also played it because Mobile gaming brings in almost more money than anything and they didn't really have a powerful player in that so buying Activision even if the rest of everything went South they own King and King brings in some of the most money so my point being is there was a lot of moves but Phil Spencer himself said yes of course part of this is to bolster Game Pass and to bolster Microsoft's IP in general the other part of this is to really make big moves in the gaming space on mobile where we don't really have any kind of foot in comparison to anyone else in the market Sony has one of the highest now not PlayStation but Sony have one of the highest yeah has one of the highest grossing mobile games year to year to year for a while now Microsoft does not have that at all so buying King was a way to ensure that and I so all I'm saying is it was a multifaceted purchase with multiple per purposes and one of them was clearly to bolster game pass but if Game Pass does fail I don't think it it means that the entire acquisition was for not and I think they knew that going into I'm not saying that what I'm saying is that not saying you are for anyone that takes it that way if Game Pass fails Microsoft has to become a publisher at that point I actually agree with that that's all I've been saying because yeah I AR I would argue at this point that exclusives for Microsoft is kind of against company policy right the whole point of Windows is to be everywhere they against parent company policy you I mean like it's against Microsoft's general rule right I just I just listened to the Steve Jobs audio book again which by Walter isacson which is a [ __ ] Incredible Book [ __ ] incredible it's the only book I've ever read about a real life person where I'm like am I sure he's gonna die at the end um spoilers I guess but the whole point is that you know gates in that book argues for jobs to open Mac because that that helps Microsoft but that's also the philosophy they make more money with Windows on everything than just only on Dells right so logic this is all Phil Spencer they talked about that where Microsoft was wanting to get out of games and Phil Spencer convinced them and this was one of the things he brought up so my point is more that yes they'll have Activision they'll have Bethesda and they'll just go have fun make your games put them out we'll publish them but we're we're we're gonna let it live and we're not going to [ __ ] with it we're not going to put it make an Xbox cons I truly believe that and I think that's worse for the industry overall but Game Pass I genuinely cannot fathom how Game Pass is profitable doesn't make any sense how you sell you you bought stuff for 77 billion you're incurring all the costs of those games we know that games of higher quality no offense like the last of us two and Spider-Man cost over $200 million or that was forbidden West so how the fck how the [ __ ] are you going to sit here try and convince me that $10 a month from 25 million people is enough to make up for that that's $250 million that doesn't even get you Spider-Man 3 so what are we talking about here that's why they have to get it up that's why they have to get the users up so high because they have to make some kind of money off it there's just no possible way that's why the best course for and why I've always said this I've always thought this about Game Pass is that the point of buying all these things is so that they can go we don't need dra um anything from anyone else Game Pass is entirely funded by us which is a great sentiment but even then you've got 30 Studios all making big budget games other than obsidian who made pent but they're also making a vow right well but yeah I even think it's it's fair to say right there just and I don't want to I don't want to interrupt so much as I want to make sure I think it's fairly obvious at this point that even the Starfield Starfield was made by significantly less people than most people think by the way uh and so is Skyrim Skyrim was made by a very small team and so so on so forth um but point being um no game at least right now that we've seen come out through Game Pass has been of a budget of a single play game I just don't believe that and I don't think the quality of the game reflects that budget and I don't mean that in a bad way I mean that in a I think Microsoft have done a slightly better job at being like we know what game pass is and we've got to budget our games to make sense to some degree on this business model but it still ask a lot of the business right so even if you go okay instead of a $200 million game we're going to make a $75 million game that has some of the value that you expect and it almost makes me wonder was Ninja Theory was the buy of Ninja Theory of hey how can we make our games feel more AAA without having to spend that money and that is exactly what senua sacrifice was right hey how do you make a somewhat AAA feeling and looking game that you make on an indie budget so if they can take that and extrapolate that to most of their Studios and they could start making games like sea of Thieves and that happened before that but it's like okay SE of Thieves it's a rather cheap game to make and it brings in a ton because it's got a store great it's games of service all right we have the game that obsidian also made which was grounded great that's a cheap game to make it's got a store brings in its own money on top of the Game Pass sub great but now we've got to move to a V all right so how do we make an RPG like Skyrim but make it cheap and Skyrim is already a very cheap RPG to make just to throw that out there so if that's your if that's your pitch and you can make a game that's similar in scope and scale to Skyrim with a little bit of the new advance ments and you can make similar and you can bring in a similar amount of players maybe that can be budgeted in a way that makes sense maybe it can't but I think that that's what they're banking on I don't think we're ever going to see unless that Perfect Dark reboot that they kept trying to say was quadruple a uh unless that turns into a $250 million game or something I don't think you're gonna see games at that budget anytime soon from Microsoft I agree I'm curious about something about Skyrim but my my biggest thing the Math's just not mathing this isn't a Game Pass show and to be clear like I love Xbox this is a I know there's a there's a dual Sense on top of it but this is an Xbox baby like I and my I [ __ ] own a series s my girlfriend's got it I have two Xboxes one PlayStation so I'm not sitting here saying that like you know I want Xbox to fail I'm saying that they've trained an audience to expect their games for free it's at the very least first party but nobody can deny that there was a ground swell of people who said it's great Ballers Gates coming wins it on Game Pass I'm not buying it that's that is just accurate to what we've seen online anec of course that's not the full story like we say Twitter's not real life but also something to note in here Phil Spencer has mentioned on numerous occasions that they are going to approach this the same way Netflix did as they continue to build the service up they will adjust the price and soon I wouldn't be surprised if you're spending $25 a month on Game Pass which I'm going to be honest that's still kind of a steal it is if you play one game a month that you would have had to pay $70 for that's a steal the the problem is the cost or is is when you actually think about it right if you get to a point where let's say Game Pass is $50 a month great deal okay yeah I mean fair enough yeah relatively great deal depending on what's on service yeah for sure but Skyrim no I'm sorry not Skyrim Starfield is a a sensibly 100h hour game that you'll probably play over two to three months so at what point do people go why would I pay for Game Pass when I can just buy Starfield yeah I'm gonna play Starfield for three months that's cost me $150 or I can buy it for 70 bucks right now and that's that's the concern right that's when it's going to start getting concerning they can only grow so much because you know you can buy movies out theart but there's not that value proposition of I'm going to be watching [ __ ] up in the air for the next three months of my life there isn't that so you could but it wouldn't be nearly as engaging you could and it's a fantastic movie but it's not made for that right when I I I look at it as I like having a collection so I'll spend $1499 on on on a movie and just have it forever but a lot of people don't do that my brother rents movies I don't get it he does and I know that because he uses my [ __ ] Amazon account to do it so he does that because it's cheaper So eventually people are going to get to that point either way we can move off it it's we've talked about game pass a lot but that's my argument for it anyway yeah I'm curious to see what the price caps out at and I mean of course we'll never see that because I think if you told anyone years ago that Netflix was going to be $25 a month they'd be like no [ __ ] way so who knows uh all right one more question that I am going to be honest I'm having difficulty coming up with something I've been kind of mulling over in the back of my head since I saw it a Question: 3 Predictions for the Year? second ago what are three predictions for the year three predictions for the year I'm gonna shout out PS5 Pro announcement that's an easy one though yeah it's very easy um I'll give you one uh PS portal gets Cloud streaming I was actually that was my second one I was about to say that good great great minds uh because that just feels so obvious to me make your system that can do one thing at least do two things that are very similar but yeah um all right let's see third prediction for the year it don't have to be PlayStation related let's see see PR prediction kind of feels like you think it's really going to happen to some degree I wonder where steam deck is going to continue to play out into the years and see how it actually adjust the market to some degree um make a prediction you think is gonna happen I want to hear that that I think is gonna happen yeah I mean I think in the first three months of this year we're gonna get a switch to reveal okay I don't know if it'll be called switch to but you know you are the most boring [ __ ] I've ever heard you know what I'm thought was going to happen I'm going to predict for 2024 water will continue to be wet well Chris don't tell me to predict something I think is gonna happen because that's uh there you go that's it okay um you know what while I'm going through my last two that I'm making up on the spot for the recers I hadn't seen the question uh I want you to come up with a bold prediction for next year something a little scarier for for this year correct yeah it's the second day of the year here man so my second prediction would be Sony buys someone and we've never heard the name connected to Sony before it's fair uh I got my my last one okay it's it's may not may not be blowing anyone's mind I don't think any of the PlayStation games of the service games are going to release this year that's going to make our draft very interesting yeah I don't think conquered or fair games are going to make it this year and there's more that we haven't heard of that could end up coming but I think the fact that we haven't seen them yet is showing that Sony doesn't feel confident enough to show them off uh I would love to be proven wrong but I don't think either of those games are coming this year okay um for the record uh Bandai Namco is my prediction oh yeah well that's they have relationship with Sony I mean that's I'm more talking about I get your point it's not CD project it's not from software it's not it's not someone that's been yeah I think M on MCO is a great purchase for them I mean that super wholeheartedly it's very synergistic with the fact that they already own so much ability to tap into anime and Bandai Namco makes a ton Namco Bandai whatever it is but um yeah they have a they make a ton of those tie-in games so you got one more in you and then we're gonna move to the draft all right my last prediction oh boy this is little Phil Spencer becomes the new head of PlayStation I'm just gonna give it first of all this is not going to happen this is not my prediction but what I'd like to see for that specific head of PlayStation thing they need to buy take two and Strauss zelck takes over PlayStation that is what I want to happen o you know what' be real interesting I I do not at all think that this what it is but wouldn't it be crazy if Jim Ryan's retirement ended up having him be he retired so that he could go be the head of Xbox they just trade because Xbox was like bro listen you have been killing it with PS5 y y'all's income has been insane in the gaming world we haven't been able to get there come over here show us your ways I'm not saying that that's that anything what it is or even if that would be a good idea just how Wild would that be I just think those guys are too they've been in these companies too long for something like that as soon as they get the offer by no I have to think that Jim Ryan and Phil Spencer genuinely don't like each other and genuinely don't like each other's companies they just have to be nice and public um my last prediction there's I think maybe Phil Spencer but I think Jim Ryan is such a businessman that he would just be like whoever's offering the most money baby I'm a businessman after all he's a business man um okay I'm gonna make my last prediction my bold prediction we will start seeing previously exclusive Microsoft first-party games being announced for PlayStation I think that too but I have a feeling that might be a 2025 thing that's the only reason I didn't bring it up I think that they're giving it one more real year of seeing how Game Pass continues to grow before they start being like all right they'll still be Game Pass exclusive from a service standpoint but you'll be able to buy them out right on Playstation yeah and by that I we'll see I might be wrong fall Falls maybe because as dust Falls coming over I think is very indicative that they're willing at the very least yeah if they if if Jim Ryan was willing to let Game Pass be on Playstation it would be on Playstation All right you ready to you ready to draft let's draft man we got got this it's going to be the end of the show if this is uh if you don't want to hear us talk about a bunch of games then too bad you're here stick around all right so lay out Metacritic Draft Picks: 2024! some ground rules so Chris and I talked a little bit about before the show about what we wanted them to be so we did a draft last year of course we choose a certain number of games we get to do a certain number of additions by some capacity and then whoever at the end of the year has the higher score wins Chris by the way if you remember if I'm not mistaken I think the wager was either a $50 PSN card maybe a $100 one I have to go back and listen we should have uh marked it down in the important locked channel in the Discord with all the other information we'll do that this time um but Chris did win so this year we're doing the Metacritic draft again but we wanted to make some changes uh so we will not be doing a bench this year instead what we'll be doing is a drop and swap system there is still a limit to that drop and swap because of the fact that we want to try and put pressure on us to make good decisions initially Chris and I kind of had to go back and forth on what we thought was a good number so what we've landed on is we're going to choose 18 games per person that way we eventually have to get into some weeds and make some real non-obvious choices and secondarily we are going to not have a bench instead we're going to do drop and swap as I said and we will be doing four games we can drop and swap four games so that we can either drop games that we start feeling more cold on with something that Megan announced that we feel better on and once something is dropped the opponent can pick that game back up if they choose to do so so if you make a drop you have to be really confident that you want to drop that game so we will be able to drop and swap four times one very important rule if a game gets announced to be delayed into the following year 2025 you can no longer drop or swap it you are stuck with that so that you have a risk of getting zeros which makes the game a little more chancy and we have to be really smart at choosing enough games that we don't think are going to be pushed back and so we have to be real uh constructive with our criticism while looking at the developers and everything around these games and How likely we think they are to make it um so with that set and with that lined out the rest of the rules are the same we are using Metacritic whatever the highest score on whatever platform is is the score that we will use and we'll move forward that way whoever wins as a means of average will'll get the prize what do we want the prize to be that's the only thing we didn't discuss beforehand um I made it up last year you can make it up this [Music] year uh how about we get a little Brooklyn 99 infused stuff into here and we'll do something a little more fun so it may not it a what a slap bet that's how I Met Your Mother man we're doing I know but I'm saying hey if you move here I'll slap the [ __ ] out of you if I win you can slap [ __ ] out of me you know vice versa slab BET's not a bad thing but I was thinking something like a plaque or a belt or something of that sort to see what we can reasonably get made maybe even a trophy that just says you know draft winner 2024 we should do it like um like the Stanley Cup and every time we do it we engrave our name the name in the oh when we just Mark the other person's out with like an X you don't even mark it out you don't mark it out it's just on the the thing it says CHR fig W 2023 and then Brett wins 2024 and then Chris wins 2025 Chris died new host wins 2020 35 you know what I mean I gave myself a very short lifespan holy [ __ ] very short okay we're gonna see what we can find in that vein I'm okay with that cool I like that so it's gonna be some kind of commemorative piece of memorabilia that if possible we will pass between the two of us and it will be proudly displayed in our uh our setups yeah cool yeah it'll be my pride and joy all right my daughter comes in crying she goes do you not love me anymore father and I go no I have plaque you you have will have to do where you go uh this is will be a skit for next year when I win again and you have to set up the cold open as this is where I'd have my fantasy draft black if I had one I had one dinkleberg so are we dice rolling again or do I get first pick because I won uh see in in any game like this if you win the other person gets first picked that's just how it works Chris that's not true that that's how every game I'm aware of if the person wins the person who did not win the time before gets to do first pick it's how it works in card games it's how it works in a lot of things but we can dice roll if you want I'm okay let's just let's go with dice rolling that's more fair mostly because both of us have the same first game I'm willing to bet so all right so here we go Chris yep right here is a D20 o does do you want to do this through computer or do you want to do this I don't know where my my dice are and I'm not going to look so I'm doing it on computer if you want to roll it go for it well are we doing D20 or do I need to do a D6 I got D I got a D20 I got a D20 let's do D20 all right you ready yep hit it dude I'm not even joking with you A2 a freaking that 20 I got an 18 so you win man where's that look on Yu-Gi-Oh night I'd be rolling like fours I rolled the one the other day I was like good Lord let me make sure I'm not lying to you but this okay that's what I thought this is the countdown one so I have to double check but yes the one is sometimes they put the symbol for the one instead of 20 but now the symbols for the 20 let's go all right Chris uh I will go first thank you good sir easiest I'm not I'm going to put it in before you even say it um okay clearly it is Final Fantasy 7 rebirth yeah it wasn't even like a shock that was what I was going to pick first but I was only going to pick it first cuz I knew you were going to pick it first I'm like I got to take it that's fair I could see that I actually went through a little bit of that on my list there are games I have listed that I feel very unlikely that I will end up with yeah yeah so we'll see what happens all right final F rebirth I got to take that off my list um well here do we want to talk about why we made the choice that would seems super obvious look Final Fantasy Final Fantasy 7 was incredibly well received there's a lot of hype behind rebirth they're adding a lot of stuff into the game I'm super curious to see how not only the story is going to shake up and change up but how some of the new additions are going to play in because one of the completely reasonable complaints of Final Fantasy 7 is it's a bit too linear it's a linear game that feels linear and I know that sounds crazy but there are a lot of games that are linear and you don't ever feel that in its makeup this is still not a big hit to Final Fantasy 7 rebirth because it told a great story but sometimes you're just like why did you even bother making this explorable area if there wasn't really anything of value to do here so hopefully they change that and fix it that but yeah I think that the game looks incredible and the hype around Final Fantasy 7 as a sub series of Final Fantasy is at an alltime High to the point where they are re-releasing Advent Children in theater and I'm so stoked to get to see it in theater because it never came out in theaters around here it may have hit theaters somewhere originally back in 2005 but not here baby I watched Advent Children on a pspd my guy there you go real dedication all right Chris time for your pick what's pick number one I'm just double cheing something um okay I almost really [ __ ] up so my original first pick was Monster Hunter wild because that was listed as coming out in 2024 and then I double checked and it's definitely not so with that oh my God I'm so much less confident this year but I'm taking a p Persona 3 reload yeah I had a feeling which is why it is much further down in my my list I ain't getting that [ __ ] all right so why why Persona 3 reload this is a game that's uh kind of a re-release of something but persona's got a lot of hype behind it are you kind of just thinking it's going to carry that forward yeah and I think they it looks to be a little bit updated to be closer to Persona 5 than Persona 3 in terms of battle system and that kind of stuff and uh the story is great it's a Persona gameplay it's going to be fun I'm expecting a 90 on this one but we'll see again this is a scarier year than last year last year I had a [ __ ] killer first four and this year I'm gonna have some weird [ __ ] up here all right my my second pick is a bit of a cheat code but we did it last year so we're doing it this year um The Last of Us Part Two remastered that was on my list I was going to take that yeah it's it's a really good choice because if it reviews even the same as it did the first time around which chances are pretty high I just got a 93 you know what I mean yeah so it's it's hard to feel too bad about that choice because I feel like bare minimum if people want to criticize the fact that he has not enough I I I feel like the game is in such a good position that even from a review standpoint people are going to have in their head like well this is just a $10 upgrade for people who already own the game there's enough stuff going towards it where as if it was a brand new $70 and there was no other way to get it there might be a little more negative sentiment so I'm kind of banking on that to be at least a 90 okay so I think I'm taking this game too early but I want it I'm claiming it and I am claiming Dragon's Dogma too smart and it's why I didn't Bank too high on it I will I'll go ahead and tell you Dragon Dogma 2 was my 13th pick I do think it will do well and I do think it's a smart choice but I had a feeling you were going to jump on it quicker than I did and there's other games in my list that I wanted first fair enough fair enough yeah Dragons Dogma 2 um I didn't play a ton of Dragons Dogma one but I know people love that game and I it has like an 83 on Metacritic maybe even like an 80 it's it's high enough that you could see a sequel doing even better and being worth the pick I think it's gonna land around where a lot of I was hoping mine were last year and not all of them did where it's gonna be aids game yeah yeah so if it it hits mid 80s it's a solid Choice yeah and I think look we're in a Renaissance for Capcom a little bit um I the Chan of it being a 90 yeah I believe it looks [ __ ] great and I believe that they're going to hit it out of the park um go ahead oh okay pick number three for me is gonna probably it could surprise you okay but I have very good thought processes behind it okay it is Microsoft flight simulator 2024 wow okay I I don't hate that pick it is kind of like a super good choice and I almost went with it as pick number one but I knew that if I did here's the thing I didn't think I didn't know for sure if you even going to have your eye on this game so I comfortable having it as number three well it's kind of in the title well I got I accidentally searched PS5 at the end so I missed a lot of stuff I got you so Microsoft flight simulator the most recent one from Team aobi or whatever the hell they're called um that it has like a 91 or 90 it's it's in the 90s and if you look at the history of most flight simulator games they're high 80s to low 90s for the most part so if history repeats itself I should have a pretty solid low 80 or high 80s low 90s on my repertoire here okay I don't even think I need to explain my number three it is a sequel to one of the greatest indie games of all time Rel on just PC next year and I taking Hades 2 oh see this was in my list and I'll tell you I was I didn't number it for one reason alone if this is like Hades W it will be in early access potentially for most of the year and it may do exactly what happened with sons of the forest for me last year yeah but I'm betting it'll get reviewed in Early Access I hope so for your sake but sons of the Forest did not fair but but you've chosen devil Devil's Advocate sons of the forest Hades two different levels you may think so but honestly in the PC World the forest was a big hit it has an 88 on Metacritic and it was very well received so I think I still understand your point but I think that you're just you're underselling sons of the forest a bit but that's okay fair enough that's okay all right so that uh that's number three for you I I'm taking a I'm taking a page out of your book to a degree but also out of learning that apparently fighting games do way better than I anticipated and Tekken eight is number four that was that was that was on my list that was one it's funny because when I was going to make my first pick I was checking to be sure that it was coming it hadn't already come out yeah it's February if I remember correctly okay oh I'm ah man this is I say much more than that I was really surprised that both Mortal Kombat 1 and Street Fighter 6 both scored in the 99s I was not surprised about Street Fighter Mortal Kombat I was a little shocked about yeah all right Chris number four I may be the only person not who does is not high on this game but I'm taking it anyway and that game is Rise of the Ronin ah okay it is lower on my list I think this game looks really good but I think that this could very easily be like an 80 which is not a bad choice at all like a a a high 70s to a low 80s um I could also see a mid 70s like a 75 but I also think this game has the potential to do what the occasional team ninja game does and it comes out to like a high 80s yep wouldn't be shocked by either one but just to throw in that was number 15 on my list so I definitely was going to but it seemed less important than a lot of things cuz it's a little too up in the air for me but good I I actually think it's a smart choice thank you I don't know if I would have chose it this high up but I think it was probably smarter than how low I had it yeah yeah yeah go for it so all right number five is um let me see I had this up earlier uh oh yeah you stole my number five I forgot about that so I gotta go to number six now uh Prince of Persia the Lost crown that was on my list yep yeah uh my hope is that this game is in the 80s I don't really care about where I think that talk online has been kind of weird uh because I think people wanted more 3D prints of Persia and they haven't gotten that in a long time but I think that Sid scroller action games like this have really had a great Resurgence and I think that if this game does does well has a high chance of being well regarded to the point where it may not break into the 90s I'm not bullish on it enough to say that but I think from what I've seen and what I know the franchise is capable of I could see this being a solid 80 and that's enough for me okay I I am going to take a game that I would not be surprised isn't even on your list but I'm very excited about it that game being the Plucky Squire yeah it's it's on my list as backup in case it's necessary and I think it's a potential but yeah so why is your what's leading you towards that being a high enough pick to be number five I have a feeling we're not going to overlap too much more and honestly this is just one I want to make sure I have because I do have a really good feeling that's going to be good I think it's a super Charming game so I'm not surprised um I was actually surprised to see that it was a 2024 game to begin with yeah I I just don't think devolver misses like they almost everything they make is great yeah you're right I think Anna Perna's in very similar light where almost anything that they put out is going to be well received so absolutely yeah it's smart choice but yeah I didn't even have it numbered so yeah maybe we won't overlap as much as we thought I know that my next game will not overlap on because coming back around for number six uh this game is leaving early access February 23rd so Forest will be my sixth Choice yes I'm surprised that two years in a row I didn't think you'd grab it so I felt comfortable leaving it till a little bit later yeah but if it if it hits anywhere close to the forest one it's a hiats okay um I guess in a way I'm playing my own own game here um I I was um I'm taking some influence from people around the industry oh okay I don't know if this this game has got nothing for me but everyone around me seems to think it's going to be good which means I am taking Grand blue frantasy relink oh yeah dude that's a game that I do not see the value it's been the works for so freaking long and it keeps getting delayed and I just I don't know I'm I'm like you I don't see I'm ready to drop it but I'm I want it just to be sure I hope it's a I hope it's a sneak pick for you yeah like both of us are doubting it and then it's a high 80s that'd be crazy that would be nice all right bro what's your seven all right so seven for me is uh hellblade 2 senua saga that was on my list fairly bullish that it will make it this year and if I'm being honest my main choice is that hellblade one did pretty well in Metacritic on a much smaller budget and with a much smaller audience and while that may have helped sentiment around it and it may have gotten a higher score because people were surprised at how much a Indie team was able to do without a publisher that's possible but I really think that hellblade was a great game and I think if they can push some of those ideas even further with bigger budget and with with knowing that people are into the idea I think this could end up being a high 80s I would love for this to be one of Microsoft's first breaks into the high 90s um that's really rare for them if they get that here I think they'd be sick but I'm not truly anticipating it I think if this can get an 88 89 they'll I think I'd be very happy and I think Microsoft would too I can agree with that okay H man that's that's not a bad pick I'm GNA I'm gonna follow suit with you I'm going to take a Microsoft exclusive coming from the Black Rock as the homie Lord Cognito would like to say I am taking a vow with my seventh Pi dude that is a ballsy pick because nothing nothing indicates that it's coming this year no I I just checked their gameplay trailers says 2024 oh it does okay I guess I'm wrong then cuz the whole reason I didn't choose it is because I didn't remember seeing 2024 anywhere and I don't see and I checked a bunch of lists about games coming out in 2024 and avow was not on any of them so I don't know why the list did not do me Justice because like I said I was about to take Monster Hunter Wilds with my first pick so yeah that would have been a rough pick hey push it up to December 31st so we're going into eight now correct yep okay eight for me is a game that I have a feeling is on your list because I'm surprised you haven't chosen it earlier uh just because of who it's being made by but who's who's to say that it actually hit the same rarified air um I'm going with metaphor ref fantasio not because I actually think it's a game that I will like could be um but I think paying attention to what people enjoy and what is behind with some body like Atlas this seems like a game that could easily end up in the 80s yeah that's a really good pick I didn't even have it on my list I forgot oh no okay yeah that so that's eight for me I'm feeling really good you've only taken one of mine so I've just had to scoot all my numbers up by one well you've taken you've taken more but they were so low that I'm not worried about it yeah um h my next pick my number eight pick with the draft I don't even I'm not going to take it yet I'm not taking this game yet um you know what I'm gonna go for it I believe in the game I'm taking hell divers too oh okay you finally hit one of my list again uh it's it's further down but I think that the game has a good chance that's number 14 for me okay nope that doesn't look right is Hell divers one word yes okay yeah um yeah I think it looks great I think the move to third person will be fun I think it's hitting the right balance of uh quote unquote dark excuse me Dark Souls level difficulty with just fun gameplay it hell divers one is [ __ ] awesome so yeah I've never played it uh but I know a lot of people really love it so I'm not at all I'm not surprised at all to see it hit anybody's um all right so we're going for game number nine now right yes sir all right and so since I'm scooching up that means at The Wolf Among Us too I'm putting my faith in once more this [ __ ] as my number nine Choice uh if you ask me if I was here's the thing I replayed the wolf amongus this year at the beginning of the year on Vita and it's so good that does not at all mean that a sequel will be good telltale's a very different company now for a million different reasons but I think if they stick to the core at all about what made this game good and they have a decent set of riders if I'm not mistaken the original Riders from the first game are back for this one if that is the case I think this game has a chance to be the triumphant return for Telltale I hope that's the case this game has gone through hell from a development standpoint but they have recently spoke about it still hitting 2024 so I feel confident enough to put it on my list okay um I would like to preface this with I am not confident this game will come out and I am only taking it because I think if it does come out it deserves a top 10 which means I am taking Hollow night silk song oh yeah dude that's actually a super good choice but I have just basically existed in the point where that game doesn't exist until it comes out can I tell you a funny story about Hollow night silk song my old boss I loved him great guy um Keith shout out if you're listening to this show I have been waiting I made a joke out of it that I would only tell T him when I thought Hollow night was coming out I have not texted him in four years something along those lines because I'm just waiting for the day it gets a release date and I can text him it's finally time dude it's here's the crazy thing is I really debated putting this on my list yeah but I've been burned so many times that I just couldn't find myself to be emboldened enough and I got burned with so many games I I chose to be a little bullish on last year that I decided that instead of risking a zero again that I was just going to leave it alone so with that in mind I do think that there is a chance considering how long it's been that the approach for that game from a marketing standpoint would not be to Shadow drop it but to show it again at an event and be like hey it's out in two weeks I agree get ready to rumble so yeah so you very well may be in a spot yeah but I'm curious to see if you're going to keep that risk the whole year or if by summer game Fest if it's if it doesn't show up at summer game Fest that you're like okay I might drop this yeah that's exactly what's gonna happen yeah so all right BR what's number 10 uh my number 10 is one that I'm a little worried about coming out this year just because some of these games have been pushed a lot the games that have been uh internet found and then kind of got pushed behind by big developers and big publishers but I'm goingon to go with black myth Wukong and a lot of the reason for that is because a couple of the games from these programs I've really enjoyed like fist um forged and Shadow torch is what it was called um and I think the I was really bullish on Li of P but there was always a part of me deep down that thought Li of P might ended up being a kind of not so great game that just got shown off really well and the fact that Li came out and is among the my favorite games this year has kind of given me a new renewed interest in developers from that part of the world so I'm really hoping this game can prove to be at bare minimum an eight if it's an eight I'm happy with the choice okay okay so there we have it okay I'm gonna take a game that I don't even know if you've ever heard of and I am taking uh unicorn Overlord I actually saw it earlier and I'd never heard of it prior to earlier but yes i' saw it [ __ ] sick that's all I got to say about it because I do not know a ton about it but it looks fun I'm with you so I noticed and I almost don't even want to say anything oh but we're pretty far in right now and I noticed that neither of us have chosen and outlaws it's on my list I feel like oh it's it's typed in but I don't have a number beside it but I I think that that I think that goes to show you that uh neither of us are too bullish on that game actually hitting a 24 window because if I'm being honest I don't mean this in the bias sense but there seems to be a general rule that a relatively High budget Star Wars game is going to at least land in the a or higher category it pretty much without fail happens that way so if this game is any kind of okay the fact that it's Star Wars is probably going to push it to being viewed even more prominently since Star Wars continues to grow as an IP so I think Outlaws has a high chance of being an eight or higher I just don't know if I want to risk the zero so it's interesting that you landed on that uh so my first kind of off-the-wall pick that I'm hoping against hoping that this game still comes out this year um is Creed Fall 2 the Dying World damn it that's on my list cuz greedall one was awesome but here's the thing greedall one was a 77 if I remember correctly on that a Critic so greedall 2 does have a new publisher does have more money behind it and it is spider's first game where they really kind of broke out of their shell uh from a popularity standpoint so I'm hoping that greed Fall 2 can get in the eights you muted yourself shush you didn't have to I [Laughter] noticed I'm going to go ahead and match your I'm not entirely sure but I want it kind of thing I'm gonna take John I'm gonna take John Carpenter's toxic Commando bro that is a wild choice but I hope it pans out for you but you don't think it looks good I don't but I am not the zombie fanatic that a lot of people are but I do love John Carpenter so My Hope for you is that John Carpenter is good enough to make that game push it over the edge actually be good my hope is that it at least kind of for you is that it lands in because whenever I was mulling it over earlier I was thinking this game could kind of end up in kind of The Killing Floor territory but even Killing Floor 2 sits at like a 78 I want to say uh so I feel like best case scenario for that game you're talking like high sevens it's not as bad as some of my worst choices from last year I'll take a high seven I would too I would too trust me I'm gonna keep an eye on it I will drop it if it's if it starts to look a little you but I'm gonna give it the benefit of the doubt as my pick here man you never know I think zombies just have a very specific place in media and sometimes they surprise me like people really like it and I would like to say it's probably because the games are all good but I was really surprised at how well Dead Island 2 seemed to have gotten received and even sold like the game seemed to do well overall for project that for a long time I personally consider to be doomed I really do want to play that game too it's cool all right Brett what's your 12 oh okay so moving everything up one as it were you took my 12 at one point so I've got to take my 13 unless you took my 13 did you yeah Bucky quio right no no but it looks like either I forgot to put a 13 which I don't think I did I remember going through so you must have taken it I know of ronin was was pretty late in mine um there's a couple of choices I'm a little iffy on that I think could be smart but they may not be smart enough but I'm going to go ahead and start hedging some of my bets here since I don't have a 13 instead of moving everything up by one um I am gonna say that 13 will be 12 or sorry 12 rather yeah uh 12 will be oh what I'm on G 12 oh you're right I moved I moved CH yeah that's what it was I moved uh creedall up into that position but I was looking for 13 because it would have been the one to move up into place I know what I did so for Game 12 I'm gonna land on what should be a relatively safe bet and I'm want to do Luigi's Mansion 2 Dark Moon remaster oo okay I like it good pick okay all right okay okay I think Now's the Time um I'm a Kickstarter backer put that out there right now I'm taking Mina the hollower okay all right not bad looks great Shovel Knight is a classic or shovel Knights a classic so taking it Brett you got a 13 for me I do have a 13 for you and it's a game I'm genuinely surprised you've not taken yet okay but maybe that's because you don't feel like it's actually G to come out this year which I think is a potentially fair thing so before I before I actually choose it I'm G to quickly say myself just for the record I have one that I'm going to pick at 17 and 18 you're G to laugh when I pick one of them because it's not coming out next year but I'm taking it just in case oh wait am I oh never mind okay I'm thinking a completely different game I guess um it it would seem that this game already has a release date uh oh spaghettio that's good that means I I'll find out soon uh like a dragon infinite wealth yeah that game looks fantastic I cannot believe that you did not take this I didn't realize it was this month holy crap um I'm going to be honest I've been burned every time I took a Yakuza game they've been like sevens so yeah but here's the thing I'm gonna be honest now that I know it's coming I'll take a seven in the 13th spot you bet your ass I'll take a seven here's my hope if every game I chose releases this year I'm in a much better spot than last year that is facts speaking of that I'm gonna take a game that I know you're not going to pick but I'm still picking it because I bet it didn't even enter your brain I am this is go I think the publisher EA has to nail this game this genuinely might be one of their most important releases of all time which is why I'm confident in it I am taking NCAA football 2025 okay that is is the NCAA games are Monumental games oh they are trust me I I have a bunch of friends around here who like the football and I would be shocked and that's their thing if they [ __ ] this up I actually wouldn't be it's EA but still well here's the thing I'm going to be honest it's EA regardless of what anybody thinks they always make games that are good enough for the people that want to buy them and I think that means that they're good enough games that they tend to review well enough if this game doesn't end up in at least sevens you you know it's like here here's the thing any game from EA is so unlikely to be in the six and Below category that it's a Smart Choice in and of itself yeah look even hold on just because I feel it's important to do it even one of their most hated games or at least most [ __ ] talked games of all time Anthem is at a 59 that's how often do they put out an Anthem you know I mean not often yeah I do so it's like if if a 60 essentially a 59 is literally their lowest and it was a live service game I feel like you're in good Aira you're in a good spot you're not going to worry about this yeah that's pretty good but smart point that that did not show up in my mind at all never crossed my mind at all so I'm with you all right so following through what are we on now we on 14 okay see what I want to give 14 to this is where we start going into Parts where I can be smarter with some of my decisions or I can start highlighting some of the games I really want to do um here's one that I feel bullish on and I think it might be on your list somewhere uh so I'm gonna go ah aad and take it now as 14 it's bishers ghost to new eaten I think the game looks incredible I love vampir I love remember me here's the thing all of don't nods games that I really love do not score very high I don't know why remember me did not score very high it was like a high 70s and that sounds bad I'm I'm saying that for a Metacritic draft where your goal is to get the highest possible this is not an obvious pick I agree but I do think it's a safe bet when we're in the 14 out of 18 category that I feel strong enough that this will get at least seven and therefore it's not a zero it's super unlikely to be a five or six or four at a seven it's a good choice in 14 okay all right I think you're going to laugh at me here oh um this game game should be out by March 2025 the CEO of Take 2 has indicated that he does not believe there will be any delays Auto six really no I'm not [ __ ] insane I am taking a game that if it does release next year I'm confident in the high 90s that game and again I have to take this game because you will drop something for it okay which means I'm taking Judas it's actually a super smart choice but I feel like that's a 25 game I don't think it's coming out next year at all but it's supposed to come out in the fiscal year that ends in March that is three months of 2024 and a lot more of or three months of 25 and a lot more of 24 so I'm going to take it if there's no date by like June I'm out but I'm taking it anyway okay blame you can't blame you at all it's smart choice um all right I'm GNA go I'm actually going to switch up my 15 and 16 because I feel pretty good about them and I don't think you're gonna take the other one from from listening to this conversation uh so 15 for me is gonna go to little nightmares 3 I love little nightmares one I didn't play little nightmares 2 yet but it reviewed pretty well and so if I landed an eight here I'm happy if I landed a seven here I'm happy I don't give a [ __ ] you know what I mean that sounds bad I'm not trying to judge the game in that direction but I think that there's a good history and it's the type of thing where they don't have to rock the boat a lot to end up with a relatively solid score so the only way I can really see this getting a seven is if someone goes it just doesn't do enough to to try and build on its predecessors instead it leans on their things too much well guess what people liked those things so if it ends up at a seven because of that I'm happy fair enough I'm checking one there's a game I noticed that you have not chosen that uh I really thought you would have carried over what is that oh carried over yeah um oh I'm not taking sua then I don't trust them um those bastards this is hard oh man oh man all right [ __ ] I don't believe in the team I believe in the IP okay just want to make that clear when I take silon Hill too that's okay I am unsure of how I feel about it hitting 24 as well oh I think so Sony's been talking about it as a 24 game no hey I hope so I that dude for how late in the competition this is this is probably your best choice thanks I there's a very high chance that this I believe in I I I completely get where you're I believe in the developer enough that with the strength of the IP and the yearning for it this is going to do well enough yeah I think that's exactly where I'm at yeah that's a pretty smart choice um okay all right my my 16 is way safer than your 15 and that's okay uh It's Paper Mario Thousand-Year Door remaster ah yeah that's good yep that's good yeah that's a good one all right I feel like here here's the thing I don't feel like there's as much need to talk about remasters because if I'm being honest a it's a Nintendo game they tend to put out games that are at least seven and eight at the bare minimum right um but this was already a fairly beloved game and it did like in 80s and back on I think it was high 80s back on GameCube and' 04 so you know Nostalgia is a powerful thing we saw Metroid Prime remastered literally do better than I think the original Metroid Prim did on release if not at least the same and if you get the same which is why I chose the last of us two remastered you're in great hands you know it's like Nostalgia is so powerful that that's gonna be a big factor here all right Chris 16 Buddy um I'm gonna go with a safe pick here I think this game is guaranteed at least 75 um okay just and it's 100% coming out next year absolutely no chance it's delayed because I am taking mlb2 the show yeah I think that's smart choice I was surprised it wasn't higher up in your list I want tell you Chris it's on my list with no number because I was like he's gonna take it I almost felt like I had to give it to you I appreciate that I deserve it you know like I I felt compelled to be like Chris has to have first chance like it was like it was probably like one of the candidates for 18 you know what I mean like it's a smart safe Pig and it's for sure coming out so um Chris I noticed that Stellar blade hasn't listed it was I get burned no I just rise of the Ronin was my scary pick and Stellar Blade's one of those so I'm not I'm good so that you're H oh no no no it's not not at all oh okay I think that game will be fine it' be great and it'll probably even land at the very worst a six but do I want to risk a six right now I don't know but I can tell you the character is a 10 so you have that going for you I yeah I very much have that going it's the end of your list and you can drop so you know I mean you're right I can drop and it is into my list but Chris I plan to play better uh earlier on than I did last year no more red falls on your list I feel worse about redfall than I do for spoken I had no reason to believe that fores spoken would be amazing from a pedigree standpoint I just hoped it would and I ended up loving the game so that's great a but redf fall redfall came from rarified Air as far as I was concerned and I have never been burned so bad to the point where as excited as I am at the prospect of Blade coming from Arcane you best believe my first thought is I'm G hold up and wait till I see more on that definitely since it's not coming for another four years so you know there's that too fair enough all right Chris so what are we on we're on 17 now right yeah yes all right for 17 I can play it incredibly safe I could can you play it safer than MLB the show no no I cannot that's uh that's absolutely true but what I feel pretty confident on but I'm G to double check myself real quick I feel relatively confident that this game will come but it'll be a game that will be in my potential to drop just based off of Rel if I start to feel worried about the release date I'm going to choose the success the successor to the very popular VR title Thumper in the form of thrasher if it follows suit should be a high 80s you're muted I don't hate that pick at all I like that yeah all right so 17 goes to Thrasher that means I gotta make a real tough decision to figure out what my last title is gonna be here but go ahead Chris so I've made a lot of risky picks and I'm going to make another one here and it's funny because we talked about this game earlier in the show um I'm taking Concord that is a that is a very big risk in my opinion but I expect it I think it's coming hey I'm with you there's a game on my list that much like yours for 18 I'm not choosing it I don't think but I I want to at least shout it out much like Hades 2 ended up on your list there was a game that was supposed to be out in Early Access um this year and if I'm not mistaken it got pushed into um 2020 4 because of yeah we're we're delaying steam Early Access to 2024 hyperlight breaker it's the 3D followup to hyperlight Drifter and hyperlight Drifter is incredible game and I love it and I think that this game will be very good but because so many developers have moved towards this early access thing you look at certain games and they are very comfortable being in Early Access until they feel like they can confidently release Sun of the forest will have been in Early Access for 11 months if I'm not mistaken by the time that it releases as a full release and so it's very risky to choose a game that's going to be in early access because another good example is balers Gate 3 which was in Early Access for about a year and a half two years yep yeah so when you look at those things I am not quite bullish enough to want to choose hyperlight breaker but I think it's a good Shout Out game okay instead my pick which is I want to avoid dropping but I'm willing to risk this year for 18 because none of us have talked about it yet and I will drop it if things do not calm down enough uh with what's going on over in Ukraine but I'm gonna go ahead and choose stalker 2 because that was on my list yeah now here's the interesting thing here we're in a weird position where we have almost no clue what's coming from Sony next year right now yep I feel like there are some games that will make the chopping list and honestly stalker stalker 2 might be one of them once we actually hear more about what Sony has coming but I have another wild prediction that I didn't want to throw out there because I'm hoping it's not true whenever Josh asked what our predictions were not only do I not think that conquered or fair games are going to make it this year if they do it's going to be very late in the year I feel like maybe in November um I don't know know that besides second party deals like Final Fantasy um or third party deals I guess in that capacity uh Final Fantasy 7 rebirth I don't know that Sony's gonna have any big first party exclusives this year I hope I'm wrong that's bold but I can see that I see Zero reason to believe that they have any right now you know what's funny you want to hear one of the games that was on my list what's that ghost of sushima 2 that's a dude that is the most bold thing you can put out and Hey listen I hope it does come out but if you look at Sony's trajectory of how they release games and or at least how they announce them and how they talk about them we should have known the next game without a release date after Spider-Man 2 the only true guest we have right now is Wolverine and it's from the same Studio that just put out Spider-Man 2 which makes it really unlikely considering there was a leak too that it's going to come out in this year so with that in mind what the hell does Sony have up their sleeves yeah The Last of Us remastered you know The Last of Us Part Two remaster technically counts but it's a remaster what does Sony have as new or sequel IP that they have any kind of Hell divers counts but it's a smaller game for them I'll give them their credit though it is at least an exclusive from them and it is first party what is their next big budget game yeah we don't know Concord right second party but it's Concord yeah and look that might be the thing but if I'm gonna be honest if son's 2024 plans are for their for both of their tent pole games to be fair games and conquered I think that's a crazy bold choice to have made and it may be of necessity because none of the other games were just ready enough to be shown yet that's it's very likely it's possible um or you know to release yet really because I feel like we're going to see games this year we may see ghost toshima this year it's not coming out this year no definitely not so with all that in mind I think that it seems crazy that I have more Xbox exclusives on our on my list than I do PlayStation exclusives yeah yeah man what's your 18 bro oh you said it that's sorry I'm too you said it you're fine what's your man this is the game that you seem to be thinking is no way possible it's coming that was Concord I picked it early um okay if you chose GTA 6 though for real like I thought you were earlier I was like that's a real madman Choice that'll be the first pick into 2025 draft no question um oh yeah this is hard because I'm between like three games and a DLC okay I'm glad you brought up DLC because I almost and I know what it is it's her tree but I didn't know for oh oh okay I didn't know if they were I didn't know for sure if it'd get reviewed separately and if it would count so I I steered away from it but I thought her tree is a her tree is an excellent choice if it gets a separate review you [ __ ] up because that wasn't even on my list and I just told you it yeah but I'm not picking it either way the DLC was Final shape and I got burned on you got hard on life I did but final shape like I have I think we have to be in agreement final shape has to be good you think but it has to be good that's like the future of Bungie if they [ __ ] that up it's probably over for Bungie as we know it look realistically regardless but it probably has to be good even more now that they're owned by Sony yeah than if they were independent because Sony acting in the advisor role be like if this has to be good and if lightfall came out and didn't blow the world away that Sony's going to be like listen final shape has to be better but then the excuse for lightfall being and was that hey this was just the the side one right the main one final say people are working on it right now exactly I'm not picking that though um [ __ ] Destiny 2 this is it's hard because here's the thing I I'm not worried about you stealing anything solear our list barely overlapped yeah one I think actually I stole more from you than you from me I'm pretty sure you did yeah um one of the ones I'm considering but I don't know if I'm bold enough but previews are really good it looks fun looks a little weird but it looks fun foam stars is on my list dude I here's the thing about foam Stars I don't believe in it at all and it's not my type of a game at all and so I I didn't even type it in it's not even on here as a potential for me because I I feel like it's going to come out and a lot of people did give it but in all honesty I just don't believe in the game at all every game that I chose today is a game that I even if I don't care about it like I'm I don't care about yeah I don't care about Luigi's Manson 2 or Paper Mario but I know that they're beloved games that people enjoy and that there's real value in them that I can tell I don't see the value in foam Stars yet I hope it's there and I'm glad to see people do seem to be excited for Even in our Discord but it's a no from me dog but watch it be a sleeper hit oh I could see that um I'm gonna look up one more thing because I'm considering Phantom Blade zero okay well Chris we on a Time [ __ ] it I'm taking all right stop stop doting cuz I'm I'm taking making my pick I'm picking something safe something that I personally think looks fun um something that I know is coming out next year and I'm taking PlayStation exclusive Pacific drive there you go I think that game looks looks interesting I'm not completely sold on it but I do believe it's coming out and it does have that PlayStation exclusive thing look at that Chris I just got my list yeah on my wrist the list wrist list yes rless all right Chris well now that this is set in stone the competition is on and I wish you the best of luck but also burnning hell all right let's talk about it who you think has the best list uh Chris can I say that I'm partial to my own yeah you can doesn't mean it's right no look realistically speaking I was very surprised in now words end of this that you had I think three games off my list total and all three games besides Persona were pretty late yeah so I'm gonna say I do genuinely feel like as much as I thought about this and even tried putting myself in your shoes I do feel like I have the list that I would have wanted to see and I was worried you were going to take okay so with that in mind I I I do but I feel like you have a couple of really good choices that i h i I hged Against I think SLE hle 2 is actually a really smart choice first and foremost okay I like that you have a you have a much much more risky choices but they have high dividends if they do pay off and that's Judith and Hollow KN but I think you have way more opportunities for zeros than I do I do uh which is interesting because we both had a lot of zeros last year I think we actually we had an equal number of zeros if I'm not mistaken I might have had one more than you one two three but clearly I've I've course corrected I can only hope I didn't course correct too much yeah we both had no you know what I want to know something crazy I won and I had four you had three oh interesting well yeah but I I also had redfall yes but I did have one two three four five I had six 90s yeah so so that helps and I had I had a few 90s but they weren't enough I'm gonna be real with you I immediately regretted taking Concord but it could hit because here's the thing I had I hope yeah for your s but also for PlayStation's sake I hope I mean they've clearly invested a lot yeah warmer Warhammer was a safe seven yeah in my opinion but I chose against it yeah was your riskiest game you put on your list cuz I said mine but I have a couple in here uh honestly right now riskiest is probably stalker too because of the fact that with what's going on Ukraine there's just literally no way to tell when they will return to developing it if they even have what it development is like and how much stopping mid project to go do something will uh impact the game and if they come back to it well they want to change the game based on the experiences that they had I think it's a real weird one but if I take it away from that um I don't know man I'm gonna be honest I played it pretty safe this sounds maybe The Wolf Among Us too because Telltale has yet to be able to get their [ __ ] together since they've reformed as a company and there's been a lot of bad talk about how development's gone and how it's stopped and started and stopped and started and the same thing I was talking about with stalker comes true here how does that impact the game does the game even make it this year still even though they keep talking about it does this game push out yet again um maybe maybe black W myth Wukong just because it's literally an unknown quantity nice we know what the game looks like but no one knows a developer there's no pedigree right so I tell you one ones I chose against that I really expected for you to see definitely since Pikman ended up doing pretty well for me and a couple of the Nintendo choices did well for you um I still had PR Pete showtime and Mario versus Donkey Kong on my list if I really wanted to play it Ultra safe Princess Pete Showtime's a good one yeah so I was really surprised that you didn't take any of those I was I thought surely this man the whole reason they're on my list is because I thought there's four here if he takes one I take another if he takes another one I take another one I was like I will two for two this man this will happen but instead you just gave me all of them so I did yeah but I'm okay with that uh we'll see see how it goes along uh so Chris May the best man get the memorabilia hell yeah brother all right Chris uh this of course wraps up episode 235 if I'm not mistaken of the show and uh with that in mind we are going to move along into the outro so if you want to follow us on Twitter and be part of the community's take which this week I think is also going to come from one of our lovely um question askers I'm going to do exactly a simple one Reach Out going to do what Josh A's asked what are your three predictions for the year whatever they may be gaming related throw them our away we want to hear them uh so if you want to be part of that head over to X or formerly Twitter triangle sqrd you can find us on Facebook triangle squared uh at Place podcast which is a group for you to enter and join into or you can click the link down in the description below and join the Discord where you can be part of our day-to-day conversation with a bunch of other uh listeners and patrons uh become a patron yourself maybe and get a 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