AAA GAMES ARE TAKING A HELLDIVE! - EP 93

Cappo (00:18) G'day and welcome to Oceanic Gaming Radio. This is episode 93. Wowee. It is the 13th of the 5th, 2024. My name is Captain Perth and alongside me, my wonderful compadre, GrizzlyGaming86. How you going fella? You good? Greeeeeeezly (00:39) Kappa, I'm good, mate. We've already very briefly asked each other how we're going and I'm feeling pretty, I don't know, mate. I reckon it's this time of year. You're kind of not quite halfway through the year yet, so you kind of know that. So you've got that big gap between Christmas and everything else, but just tired and busy, man. Tired and busy. Cappo (00:49) Yeah. Yep. Dude, do you know what? I actually, I reckon I have a theory, right? When you're a parent, like public holidays mean fuck all. In fact, they're more of a hassle than just going to work. And there's all these fucking public holidays at the start of the year. And I've got to look after my son and he is a maniac. And yes, I'm just cooked all the fucking time. So if I have to do that on a public holiday, it's not really, it's not a public holiday, you know? So. Greeeeeeezly (01:03) Give it to me. Yeah. Hehehe Ben. I reckon I've got maybe less of an excuse than you, because most of mine is like, not my kids making me tired, but like my personal life, like playing too much music and staying up real fucking late and stuff. So. Cappo (01:37) Yeah, I just can't do that anymore. My body literally resists it. Like I tried to stay up past 1030 the other night to watch something that was coming out as a premiere on YouTube and I fell asleep with the phone on me. Like I... Greeeeeeezly (01:41) Yeah. Dude, we used to stay up super late playing games, man. Remember those streaming days? Holy shit, dude. Cappo (01:53) I don't know. Yeah, it's just just life has changed dramatically since I mean, how long have we known each other for? It's been like, God, it must be seven or eight years now. Easy. Greeeeeeezly (01:59) Mm. What is it? Yeah, well, I think, I think I've actually been on Twitch for seven years now. And I would have met you maybe in the first six to eight months of that, I reckon. So. Cappo (02:08) Yeah. Yeah, man, it's been a while crocodile. Well, and it's been a while since our last podcast, but you know, it's two two weeklies now little fortnightly number. Greeeeeeezly (02:16) Wow ride, Cap. Yeah, a couple of weeks. But I was actually thinking what I've done in the, in between the meantime. And honestly, mate, I struggle to put down in words what I've actually done. Mother's Day though. Happy Mother's Day to all those listeners out there. Shout out to my wife who lets me have all these great hobbies and kind of pretty much do what I want. And she's an amazing mother too. So, happy Mother's Day to you too, Cap. Cappo (02:36) Yeah, legends. Yeah, same here. What did you get up to, mate? Did you have much on the agenda? What was the go? Greeeeeeezly (02:54) We went out to a cider house out somewhere in Perth Hills where they brew cider. Yes, that's the one. Yeah. It's good. Good. You been out there, Cap? Been out there? Cappo (02:57) call cider. Yep, nice one. No, I haven't been out there, but I hear it's quite good. Greeeeeeezly (03:06) it's excellent, mate. I actually, you know what? I think one of my weaknesses, mate, is mulled varieties of liquor. So I love a mulled wine. I love like warm spirits and they do a, they do a mulled like cider out there that has like different flavours and stuff in it. Very nice, mate. Highly recommend. Cappo (03:16) Yeah. okay. Round me through it. Is it similar, similar kind of flavors to a mulled wine kind of thing or? Greeeeeeezly (03:32) It's the same concept. So like, it even had, you know how they put cinnamon stick and stuff in there. Obviously there's, you can get different types. I think they had two different varieties on one that was very citrus based. So they had a piece of lemon and it was quite a sour, mold, cider, but there was one that was kind of like, yeah, it's very similar to what you would have in like a mold one, like that star anise and, vanilla and other bits and pieces in there. But I. Cappo (03:38) Yeah. Yeah, sick. Greeeeeeezly (04:00) I really enjoy drinking it like that, eh? It's bloody delicious, mate. Cappo (04:03) Yeah. So is it like a more, cause you know, your side is kind of, they tend to be either clear or scrumpy, I guess, which is like sedimenty. What kind of, you know, what's your go to? Greeeeeeezly (04:13) scrumpy, very dark, like a very hazy kind of cider used in that. Yeah. I wouldn't, you can actually get a shot of rum added to it as well, which would knock your socks off, mate. I didn't do that because it's like pretty brutal, but yeah. Do enjoy that, mate. Yeah. But, you know what I am excited for though, Cap? Coming into winter, mate. Had enough of fucking summer. The weather's kind of changed. yeah. Yeah. Cappo (04:18) Yeah, nice. Ho ho, hey! Goddamn sick and so did you did. Yeah, I'm fucking over it too. It's just too hot. It's been too hot. And like, I don't know, it's been a nice little gradual kind of incline into into winter with the weather. And I mean, I much prefer the cold weather, got to be honest, I think that might be my Scottish and Irish ancestry starting to show through. But it's, I don't know, I just fare better, you know, I'm a sweaty, disgusting mess. If you know, in in summer, so I much just prefer winter and Greeeeeeezly (05:02) Heheheheh Cappo (05:06) I don't know, even just my wardrobe is a bit more, you know, geared towards winter, you know, so. Greeeeeeezly (05:09) wintery. I'm kind of the same dude coming from Albany and down south and you know, cold a lot of the time, but I really, the aesthetic I like made is a wood fire. You know, have the wood fire on, bit of smoke and just, you know, chilling out in your warm clothes and yeah. Love it. Cappo (05:17) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Big fan of that. But mate, I'll wear shorts and a t -shirt in the middle of winter. I don't care. I love it. Yeah. I don't need much. You know, some days are cold, but like, you know, for the most part, I don't need it. I just want to embrace it and indulge in the not sweatiness. So. Greeeeeeezly (05:32) Do you? Yeah. Not sweatiness. Now Cap, how was your Mother's Day? Do anything special? Obviously, what, Ted's... What is his second Mother's Day for Ted? Cappo (05:49) It was lovely. This is Ted's second second trot around the block. But yeah, Ted had a great time. He very thoughtfully purchased Mum a thing of flowers. He got her a one of those digital photo frames that so he can, you know, with his own personal mobile phone, he can upload photos to that. So it's pretty cool. Greeeeeeezly (05:55) Second truck around the block, yeah. Cappo (06:17) And then what else did he get? Got her a massage voucher and some other bits and pieces. So yeah, it was good. Yeah, he did. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So he was very thoughtful this year. Greeeeeeezly (06:23) mate, Ted did well, mate, all over it. Did he make anything at daycare or anything like any kind of little crafty? With shit? What did he make? A piece of paper with some pictures on it or what? Cappo (06:31) he did. And then it's it was shit. Well, it's funny because like, you know, it says like, Happy Mother's Day in handwriting. And you know, obviously, the first thing I say is, well, his handwriting is really approved. Because, you know, that's what you say is a dad. And, you know, I mean, again, for those listening, he's one and a half years old. So, you know, he can he can barely frickin hold a pencil, let alone write with one. But Yeah, I think it was it just said happy Mother's Day and then you opened it up and there was just a big splotch that he is You know very lovingly crafted. So but you know, he does he does his best. He's a little legend But but yeah me I really loved that. So But yeah, we had a really good day. We just kind of we had I'm just kind of chilled out in the morning caught up with some friends and What else did we do? Greeeeeeezly (07:06) painted yet. You had a night out in the weekend, didn't you? You had a couple of, I saw some pictures of you on the seltzers, mate, pop up in one of the Facebook groups. Cappo (07:26) Yeah, what was I doing? I can't fucking remember. Last, yeah, so last Thursday, the one the one that just went caught up with some mates of mine, just some old school friends. So I caught up with them for a Thursday night beverage, which was me, mate, we didn't get home till about 1030. And again, that was just late enough for me. And so that was a big one. And then the fault this week. Greeeeeeezly (07:36) Mm. Cappo (07:54) we had some stuff on at work and then I caught up with some some people I know through work in the city and that thankfully ended at nine o 'clock so that was a much more reasonable time but yeah I've had a couple of bits and pieces floating around but nothing crazy I'm definitely still in bed generally around about my bedtime so it's not too bad but still it's enough yeah Greeeeeeezly (08:19) Get your eight hours mate, that's all you need. Cappo (08:21) But yeah, not an awful lot's really been happening in my neck of the woods in all honesty, Grizz. Like, yeah. Greeeeeeezly (08:25) I cap, I went and caught up with Pete and Pandy, what was that? First, no, Friday night? Friday night, Friday afternoon. And played some Magic cards, mate. Put out the Magic cards and yeah, had a little tinkle, mate. Nah, I went across to Pandy's house, cause he's moved into Barry's house now. He has, yeah. So who the fuck are these guys, yeah. Cappo (08:34) yeah. wicked. Yeah. Love it. Did you go to Pete's place or your place? he's actually made the move across. Okay. Yeah. Anyone that's listening is like, who the fuck are they talking about? Just a couple of mates that we know. Yeah. Yeah. You got to remember this isn't just a podcast. This is also Blood and Grizz's only opportunity to catch up properly. Greeeeeeezly (08:52) This is Kappa and I's catch up time too, alright? You guys are just fucking second... second fiddles. Exactly, but I did play magic cards. All right, and Yeah, look love it. All the decks I have are all from the drafts that we've had over the years I've got like five or six of them. They're all shithouse, but it's always good fun, mate. Yeah fun to play Love it Cappo (09:12) Yep. Just fun to play. Yeah. That's the fun part of them being shit, right? Is that you know they're shit. And so when you make something work, you're like, yeah, let's go. Yeah. Yeah. That's good fun, mate. Yeah. I think I'm catching up with Pete on Saturday, off Sunday. And I think, yeah, I think I'm catching up with Moosey on Saturday. So a bit of an action packed weekend coming up, which, yeah, as long as we've been on time, all good. But yeah. Greeeeeeezly (09:23) Yeah, here we go. Yeah. nice. Nice. How you? Fuck. Boost band. Okay, do that, yep. Cappo (09:41) Well, Grizz, should we fucking jump into it, mate? I think we should. Let's do it. Well, firstly, I just want to say a big thank you to everyone listening live in the twitch .tv slash Oceanic Gaming Radio chat room. Legends such as Slatos Dibiruman TV and Adari Sin. Guys, thank you. Five months up and you could join him if you so wished. But yeah, big thank you to all you bloody legends. Greeeeeeezly (09:43) Let's do it, Matt. Let's give it a rip. Who just subbed for five months, my god. Five months, huge. Cappo (10:10) If you want to listen live again, just that link is twitch .tv slash oceanic gaming radio. We are live every second Monday from 7 p Australian Western Standard Time. We're four nightly now. Final reminder before I just kind of, it's the new norm. Okay. So there you go. Now, if you want to listen to this in your own leisure, you can do so by going to ogr .show. You'll find links to all of our different podcasting platforms. Greeeeeeezly (10:28) Mm -hmm. Cappo (10:38) And yeah, it's all there baby. But as always, if you listen to on a podcast, you have to review it and it has to be five stars. Again, don't make these rules up. We just they're coming down from the fucking upper echelons the brass handle these down. So anyways, there you go. So finally, big thank you to our wonderful patrons, you guys freaking rock that allegiance to keep on keep on giving, you know, the good Samaritans. Greeeeeeezly (10:51) That's it. Yep. Cappo (11:05) You know, so yeah, appreciate your big time. You can do the same by going to patreon .com slash OGR show and you could also be dropping five dollars in our, you know, little wallet every month if you so desired. Now those legends are the following. I'm Asukai, Moosey, Caging Runt, LeeGDJ, Libz, Brendan, Strops and Slatos. Cheers legends. Appreciate you. Bunch of frickin champions. All right, Grizz. Greeeeeeezly (11:28) Huge, bunch of champions, yep. Cappo (11:34) Now, bit of a quest log today. It's a chunky one, but it's a very good one. Yeah, good one in some instances and kind of fucked in others. So anyways, we'll dive straight in. Grizz, we've been speaking about it. There's been rumors, there's been freaking screenshots and freaking all kinds of shit coming out. And they finally... Greeeeeeezly (11:46) Yeah. Yes, sir. Cappo (12:02) They finally done it. They have addressed the elephant in the room, the in like the most underwhelming way possible. Yeah. Greeeeeeezly (12:09) You know what's funny about this, before you say this, they have announced the announcement of the Switch 2. They have announced the announcement of the Switch 2. Cappo (12:16) Yes, I know. I don't even know why and look, we'll get into it, right? But it just it just it didn't need to happen. It could it could have just left it, you know. But anyway, so basically, we got well, it did build the hype up, but they could have just let it keep simmering, you know. Anyways, look, the president of Nintendo last week put out an announcement on the 7th of May. So it's just under a week ago, saying we will make an announcement about the successor. Greeeeeeezly (12:30) Build a high pop, mate. Yeah. Yeah. Cappo (12:45) to the Nintendo Switch within this fiscal year. It has been well over nine years since we announced the existence of the Nintendo Switch back in March, 2015. We will be holding a Nintendo Direct this June regarding the Nintendo Switch software lineup for the latter half of 2024. But please be aware, there will be no mention of the Nintendo Switch's successor during this presentation. It's such a, it's a real wet blanket. man, it's a real shame. Greeeeeeezly (13:11) It's very culprit -y, eh? Cappo (13:15) But we knew it was there. Come on. But I don't know. It was just kind of like, sure. But also, like, Greeeeeeezly (13:17) I did. I actually have not told you this yet, Cap. There's a guy that works out on the asset I work on. He's an offshore HSC advisor. And in a previous life, he used to work as a developer, software developer for Nintendo. And he worked on, this is like 10 years ago, he worked on the N64 and GameCube stuff. Yeah, he's got some of those physical big like in -store... Cappo (13:36) Wow. You got any links? Dude, that's so sick. Greeeeeeezly (13:52) demo consoles that are inside the casings. He said that they were just like hanging around out the back and they weren't ever using them again. And he's just like, well, grab those and take those. Yeah. He's got them like in his house. Yeah. He's an Aussie guy. Yeah. He used to get flown over to the headquarters was somewhere weird. I can't believe he was telling me somewhere in Australia, there was like a Aussie headquarters. Nintendo. Yeah. Cappo (14:00) I'll take it. Wait, so he lives in Australia? Man, wild. I had no idea. I just assumed there was no Nintendo presents here apart from retail exclusively, but... Greeeeeeezly (14:17) Yeah. Now they worked on like, and I think when he started was when they were just finishing up with like the snares, like all the pal snares stuff, but yeah, physically and dude in, in, in where he worked, they had the hotline as in people calling up for their, yeah, the people that had those jobs, man. All they did was play video games and answer phone calls. Like, yeah. Cappo (14:26) Dude, that's wild. That is super wild. get out of it! That's so sick! That's my fucking dream job. I mean, that's that's his fucking video game streamer these days, right? He just did the phone call doesn't end. Well, all right. So look, no, that was a great derailment. Big fan of that one. Well, look, I mean, obviously, Grizz, it's here, you know, we knew it was it was coming. It was just the the, you know, prior to this, there'd been plenty of rumors, but this was just kind of Greeeeeeezly (14:43) Like that. It's true. It is very true. Anyway, sorry to tell you, Ryle there, Cap. Sorry to tell you, Ryle. Yeah. Cappo (15:04) You know, I guess there's probably been a fit every time we have a direct in recent times since tears of the kingdom came out. I think people have been really pining for this announcement. And I guess maybe that was what spurred, you know, Nintendo to kind of put something out to be like, look, by the way, it's not going to be this isn't the place for this announcement, but it's coming soon. This physical year means I think based on how they've written it. It's basically a year from now within that year. Greeeeeeezly (15:07) Mmm. like a financial year kind of thing is it? I can't see a year from the... okay yeah. Cappo (15:34) Yeah. Yeah, well, it's like Japan's fiscal year is a little different to like most countries have their own fiscal year. And so if we go off of Japan's, it's like roughly nowish till, you know, the following year. So. Greeeeeeezly (15:42) Yeah. Right, right. Okay. Hey, while we're here, Cap, I thought we'd quickly discuss what we know about the Switch 2 so far. And then I had a bit of a query for you, interesting one. So a couple of things, Cap. So they've announced that it has backwards compatibility, and this includes the ability to accept old carts from Switch 1. However, they have announced that Switch 2 carts can't go back in your Switch 1, which makes perfect sense. We know that it's a 1080p screen, slightly larger. Yes. Cappo (16:21) So before you keep going, we, he's all rumored still, I'm pretty sure. I don't think there's any actual solid information. Yeah. Greeeeeeezly (16:27) is this all rumours? Okay, these are all rumours. These are all rumours. This is what we kind of have heard. Pro controller supported, Joy -Cons supported. However, you cannot physically connect your Joy -Cons to the console. Apparently these are going to be magnetic, slightly different. They kind of like latch on to the side. USB -C for docking. But I guess what I really wanted to get out of you here, Cap, Cappo (16:46) Yeah. Yeah. Greeeeeeezly (16:56) and question is we've got a bunch of handhelds on the market right now, heaps in the last couple of years, Steam Deck, Legion, the ASUS ROG, ASUS ROG LI, all fantastic bits of kit that are probably, if you're looking at what the rumors say about the Switch 2, are probably stronger than the Switch 2 now already in terms of their power and other bits and pieces. So when you look at... What Nintendo does, Switch One was what, 10 years cap since released, announced, 2014, something like that. So we're going to have this Switch Two for another 10 years. And we've already got handhelds that are exceeding it in terms of their fidelity and processing power, bits and pieces. Are we going to have a similar story with the old Switch Two, mate, where we've got developers that are trying to design games that are for older hardware and making those work? Or... Cappo (17:28) Yep. Yep. Yeah. Greeeeeeezly (17:53) What do you reckon? Cappo (17:53) Well, I'm hoping that the jump is reasonable enough where we don't feel it for as long. But I know that's not gonna be the case. I think, yeah, it's probably not gonna be like the same power as some of the newer devices that have come out recently. And I mean, realistically, we really don't have any idea exactly what the specs are. I mean, there's even some stuff floating around suggesting that it will support 4K, which I just cannot fucking see happening. Greeeeeeezly (17:59) True. jeez. Is it going to be 60 frames, dude? Do we even know that yet? 1080p 60 frames? Cappo (18:23) Well, I mean, that's it. You know, the 60 frames is a difficult thing. I mean, because it's software dependent. It's not hardware dependent. I mean, it's both but you know, you can have a pixel game that runs at 60 FPS, and then you can have a 3d game that runs at 60, 60 FPS just depends on the engine and bunch of other shit. But, you know, I think realistically, they need to take this to the next step. And but also, you got to remember the audience right is like, again, we've, you know, we are hardcore gamers. people who listen to this podcast are probably hardcore adjacent. You know, the majority of people who are going to play the Nintendo Switch will not give a fuck. They just want something that's cheap, plays the Nintendo games to put on for little Jimmy, and that's all they're going to give a shit about. So, yeah. Greeeeeeezly (19:09) Tell you what, Cap, Moira is gonna look pretty good on a 1080p screen. If you're rocking a higher frame rate on that too, it's gonna look pretty nice for sure. Cappo (19:13) It is going to look real good. Yeah. Well, that's the thing, you know, I'm interested to go back and revisit some of the older games, you know, and I think that's going to be one of the bigger things for the Nintendo Switches. And one of the bigger allures is if it has backwards compatibility and it is enabling you to go and re -experience these games at a good frame rate. I can't wait for that. Greeeeeeezly (19:24) I wonder... Hmm. Yeah. Dude, I wonder if they'll do what PlayStation 5 did, which was almost like remaster some of those PS4 games to give it slightly more graphical fidelity when you bring it onto the PS5. I remember God of War, I think, did that and a few others offered kind of like an upgrade to some shaders and things. Cappo (19:49) Yeah. Look, there'd be a few target games that I think could really do with the extra power and maybe just like a dedicated, you know, Breath, well, yeah, Breath of the Wild Tears of the Kingdom, you know, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet could, you know, they could really do with a bit of help. But yeah, it's, it's look, will it be, I'm, I'm Greeeeeeezly (19:59) Breath of the Wild, cat? Is that what you said? Cappo (20:13) We have no idea, Chris, you know, so all this shit is all rumors and stuff. But, you know, even the fact that it's only rumored that the new, what do you call it? Controllers are magnetized. So we don't know for sure. We assume it's not using a rail based system. That was rumored as well. And it's there was this thing, I can't remember what they call it. There's a specific kind of term for the type of magnetic thing, but it's like a button that turns them. Greeeeeeezly (20:15) No, we don't. How did we find out about that? Where do these rooms come from? Yeah, okay. Cappo (20:42) magnets on and then they basically click in and you can't pull them off. It's like a special magnet thing. I can't know what the word is for it. But pretty right if that's the case. But also how the fuck do you have magnets that close to a hard drive and not completely fuck it? I have no idea. Someone's way smarter than me is figured all this shit out. But yeah, so look, ultimately, Greeeeeeezly (20:45) Wow, that is cool man. I like that. Mm -hmm. Cappo (21:03) We know for a fact that, you know, this is happening soon. It seems like according to this, we'll probably find out about it before March 31st, 2025, based on kind of the whole idea of having the thing within the financial, the fiscal year, sorry. And yeah, there's a bunch of shit floating around. It's really hard to pinpoint exactly what is and isn't kind of true. But there has been some extra stuff that came out as well, Grizz, where some of the... I think the president of Nintendo was kind of saying that they've worked hard to ensure that chip shortages won't affect the supply chain of this. So that's going to be interesting to see how that all plays out. Greeeeeeezly (21:35) Hmm. Ooh. have they changed the physical build of it cap to, is that what they've kind of done to make sure there's no. Cappo (21:55) Well, it's in, I don't know how they're going to manage it ultimately, because the thing is like when you are talking about distributing a device on the scale that people like Nintendo, Apple, Samsung, all those people, all those people kind of, you know, they deliver on, on that scale, there's only a few handful of chip creators that can actually supply that level of need. And so it makes you wonder what's changed. Firstly, are they looking at and the thing is right if something's changed generally the change is they've gone for something cheaper or there's been new technology and I'm gonna say in Nintendo's case they probably go for something cheaper and Look in what is it nine years or whatever since the Nintendo Switch one has released of course, there's gonna be a Skip in in technology and of course, it's gonna be buffed up. But I'm really interested to see what the price point here is. I Greeeeeeezly (22:31) Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Cappo (22:51) That's what I really want to see. Greeeeeeezly (22:52) They've also done a few little things to make Switch better throughout its time period as well. Gave an OLED screen there at one point and upgraded the battery I think, but maybe not physical specs. But yeah, price point cap. What do you reckon, mate? What is a reasonable price for a Switch? Cappo (23:05) Well, I'm trying to remember what then in initial one came out to and I think it was about 500 bucks, wasn't it? Greeeeeeezly (23:09) Yeah, I think between 500 and 600 dollars, odd dollars, something like that. Yeah, okay. Cappo (23:13) I reckon this is going to be about 700, 700 or 750. Cause I don't think they want to get too close to that $1 ,000 mark. Cause I think they're going to lose customers. Cause again, think about your target audience. And so that's like why I get a little bit worried about this because, you know, again, like I'm not the full audience. I'm probably going to buy it regardless. And I'd rather, I'd just rather there be a pro version or something that I could buy that would suit my needs. But I know they're not going to do that. But I just, I think, Greeeeeeezly (23:27) Yeah. Cappo (23:43) then playing the scales of price versus power, they're gonna tip towards price realistically. You know what I mean? So. Greeeeeeezly (23:49) Mm -hmm. Yeah, and I feel like Cap, as you approach, I mean, for me, Switch has probably marketed it a lot younger kids than, say, your PlayStation or an Xbox. And if you get closer to that $1 ,000 mark, that's the same price as an Xbox and a PlayStation. So, I don't know, you're kind of maybe competing there a little bit more if you approach that price. So they're probably pretty clever in pricing it correctly. Cappo (24:15) Yeah, I think they kind of, I mean, again, coming back to that whole idea of like, who's playing it, I think they kind of, they are kind of hitting the mark with, you know, Nintendo games being marketed as maybe a little more PG than some of the experiences you can get on PlayStation and Xbox. So they kind of win out in that battle, but I still think they're going to be working really hard to meet the price point. The one thing that I also saw Grizz was that during the investor call that this has kind of been Greeeeeeezly (24:29) Yeah, big Tom. Cappo (24:44) you know, swept up in amongst the actual announcement, well, you know, in quotation marks, announcement itself. The president of Nintendo also confirmed that the console will make use of the Nintendo account system. So, which I think is going to be very interesting because if that's the case, and I do want to know the extent of this, because I feel like we've hit a point in everyone's Greeeeeeezly (25:01) Ooooo Cappo (25:14) understanding of technology and connectiveness and expectations with carry overs of certain elements of, of systems and whatnot. You know, we've had plenty of examples of like the PlayStation going from PS4 to PS5 and a lot of those games carrying over and experiences carrying over downloads and paid stuff carrying over. Nintendo are about to tread into what I think for them is uncharted waters because if that kind of carryover isn't there, I think people are going to get really pissed off. Greeeeeeezly (25:48) I actually think it's an area, their probably weakest area, Cap, for Nintendo. The whole online integration for them, just, you know, it's always been physical carts, I feel like. Whereas I know that Xbox and PlayStation, I've bought most of my PlayStation games digitally, but I own all of my Switch games as physical copies of those. So yeah, interesting to see. But even implementing stuff in games, Cap, you know, like they have done things with the Mario Maker games and even... Cappo (25:59) Yeah. Yeah, same. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Greeeeeeezly (26:18) what, what's the Mario Kart as well has got a pretty good online, but no way near, no way near what, we see their, their competitors as, as. Cappo (26:26) not even close. So it'll be interesting to see how hard they go on all that. I'm sure that they probably got some stuff up their sleeve, but again, it's always the Nintendo kind of like almost feigning ignorance when you know, well, well and truly they are very well adept at being able to build technology and they should know way better. But I think a lot of it has been a, you know, we can get away with it and we're going to, but I don't think. Greeeeeeezly (26:52) Yeah, picked off. Cappo (26:52) I think they're going to need to really pull their fucking head in this time. So I really hope they do because I don't want to go and rebuy half the shit that I've played and bought elsewhere. Especially if they do it, they're calling it the Nintendo Switch successor. It kind of implies that it's kind of still the same model. So it's not like you're going from like disc to cartridge and cartridge to, you know, whatever else. Greeeeeeezly (27:12) Yeah, big time. Well, they're saying, well, this is rumoured, but you can put your Switch One cartridges in your Switch Two. So you'd imagine that it's going to be pretty similar. By the way, Cap, can you hear squeaking? My dog's, like, chewing a dog toy directly underneath my feet. Cappo (27:26) Yeah, I thought that was a bird. It'll be interesting to see how the cartridge looks, Chris, because I wonder if it's going to be one of those things where it's like a cartridge that has multiple grooves. So maybe the smaller cartridge can kind of fit in the center and then you can have a bigger cartridge elsewhere. Greeeeeeezly (27:43) yeah. That'd be cool. Well, I want you because that's my question to you. They tend to change how the cartridges work between generations, eh? Between consoles. Cappo (27:53) Yeah. Yeah, it could also be because I know in the last, you know, 10 or so years, there's been pretty big updates to I mean, even you would have noticed that when you're doing your SD card research for the Steam Deck, you know, there's there's different types of, you know, preferences and stuff for the card and what technologies that uses. Yes, I wonder if it'll be a change in the speed. I mean, I don't think they've got any major issues with the read write times or anything like that. But. Greeeeeeezly (28:06) Yeah. different spades and all sorts, yeah. Hmm. Cappo (28:21) I'm sure that the, maybe the size, but even then maybe not even the size. I don't know. It'll be interesting to see what they look like. If they're the same. I wonder if they'll still taste like shit. Greeeeeeezly (28:28) Yeah. Yeah, maybe. No? What are you talking about? No? Cappo (28:32) You remember that? Remember that whole thing? When the Nintendo Switch first came out, everyone was licking the cartridges and they tasted like shit. Yeah. No, serious. Greeeeeeezly (28:40) What? No. Why the fuck would you lick the cartridges, cat? Why'd you do that? All right, hang on. I haven't got one handy, mate. I haven't got one handy. Cappo (28:45) Go and try one right now. I bet you it tastes like shit. Alright. Well, you know, next time we'll bring you Grizz licking a Nintendo Switch. Fuckin' cartridge. Greeeeeeezly (28:55) Okay. Done. Wait, the little, the little, do you lick the little metal bits, mate? Or is it the actual cartridge itself? shit. Fuck, man. Cappo (29:02) No, I think you just lick the plastic gray bit and it I actually haven't done it either. Next time we'll try it out. But yeah, I think it's just the plastic didn't isn't isn't good. you're paving chat. It was like, hey, we missed you. He's saying it stops. Well, all the shit he's been doing, which means at a different convention every week. If you follow Pav on Twitter and shit, I don't know what's it. What is it? Twitter .com slash Pavlova face. Go and follow him. Greeeeeeezly (29:15) Pav needs to come on and talk about his fucking, his gallivanting trip away. Yeah. Hmm. Cappo (29:32) He's saying it was to stop kids from swallowing them. So that makes sense. They were coated in something. Yeah. Yeah. Cause they're small. They're like small little things. So I guess choking hazard. So whereas a, you know, a disc is not quite the same choking hazard, but yeah, anyways, there you go. Nintendo switch coming this fiscal year in a incredibly hyped up reveal. So there you go. Underwhelming big time. Greeeeeeezly (29:35) What? What was the actual thing? Rot. Rot. Underwhelming. Cappo (30:01) Alright, Grizz. Now talk about underwhelming Sony's approach to Helldivers 2 in the recent weeks. Holy shit. What a nightmare. And it's still ongoing. We kind of thought it was over, but let's just start from the top. Basically. Alright, so it turns out that the entire time Helldivers has been out, there was a push from Sony to have PSN linking mandatory at some point in the life cycle of Helldivers. Now. Greeeeeeezly (30:06) Yeah. Yep. Cappo (30:30) Heldivers has obviously been incredibly popular and I don't think they had the infrastructure ready to enable that linking at the time. And then the last couple of weeks, they decided that, okay, now's the time to make this stuff mandatory. Now, the issue with that was A, people didn't want to do it on PC for obvious reasons. You shouldn't have to, why should I have to link this account for a game already playing? This is stupid. But on top of that, certain countries aren't allowed to have a PSN account. And those countries are in the hundreds, you know, like 120 countries or something. Yeah, so that's a lot of countries. And so in response to all this, Sony started the listing Helldivers on Steam for those certain countries. Now, obviously, in retaliation lists, the community backlash massively. It led to all kinds of negative reviews and stuff. And out of all this, Greeeeeeezly (31:03) 121 countries, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cappo (31:28) we had the CEO of Arrowhead, which is the developer of Helldivers, say, look, we don't know what the fuck's going on. You know, we've tried to communicate with Sony, we still haven't got the full story, so we're working on it. You guys just need to keep doing your thing, and we'll try and work this all out together. Anyways, in response to massive review bombing and negative critique, it seems that Sony apparently decided to... change their stance on this and announce that they would no longer make it mandatory. Which doesn't seem to have fully happened. Greeeeeeezly (32:03) It's interesting, Cap, like, do you think they fully understood the ramifications of making that decision? Like, I think it's different to doing it out of the box, right? Like saying you need a PSN account to play this on release. So that's the expectation, but letting people sink hours and hours and hours and hours into a game and then potentially removing it from the Steam store and have it unplayable to you when you've bought it is something that... Cappo (32:13) No. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Now I will say that Sony was offering full refunds to anyone in those affected countries. So technically they weren't out of pocket, but they were out of pocket time. And it was something that they put a lot of time in. And I mean, realistically, that's the other thing, right? Like you've put a lot of time into what could potentially be your favorite game. So it's just a really shitty kind of Sony like fucking boof head move. And just realistically, Greeeeeeezly (32:31) doesn't sit quite right with me. Yeah. Well, what if it's your favorite game, you know? Like... Mm. Cappo (32:59) just very corporatey. I think they saw an opportunity to get people into their kind of PlayStation Network ecosystem. And another thing that's happening at the moment Grizz is they're trying to get people on board because they've just now they've just released the trophy system for PC like the PlayStation trophies within the PC ecosystem. Now from what I understand is those trophies are stored on your PSN account. So if you don't have a PSN, you can't engage in the kind of trophy side of things. So I think. Greeeeeeezly (33:27) Wow, there's already a trophy system in SteamCap. Surely they could just fucking use that, mate. Cappo (33:32) I know, but they, you know, everyone's always trying to do their own shit, you got to think about like, EA wants their own fucking, you know, area, launcher, it was, it's kind of like having your own launcher, but they want you to have their own kind of thing. So it's, it's not particularly good. Now, the also in response to this one, pretty hilarious thing was just the, there was like a great infographic of the negative reviews. Greeeeeeezly (33:36) Yeah. Cappo (34:00) you know, going downwards against the positive in the past. And some hilarious, what do you call it, community members created a negative review cape, which you're gonna post in the Twitter right now for everyone to see, in the Twitch right now for everyone to see. And it's literally just these three red lines that are going downwards from left to right. And apparently it looks like the, the, Greeeeeeezly (34:02) Mm -hmm. Cappo (34:30) but Arrowhead are looking to bring that cape into the game permanently as a bit of a funny kind of thing. But the... Greeeeeeezly (34:34) Hmm. You know what, Cap, I actually like the way the Arrowhead CEO spoke about his community. Cause I think he was obviously kind of forced into this a little bit and maybe he did from the start. Blindsided. Yeah. So he's gone here. There's a couple of things that he said. He's gone ouch, right in the review score. Well, I guess it's warranted. Sorry everyone for how this has transpired. And this was after 84 ,000 negative reviews popped up. And then his latest tweet was saying, Cappo (34:48) I think blindsided as well, realistically. Greeeeeeezly (35:06) Firstly, I'm impressed with the willpower of the community and your ability to collaborate. Secondly, I want to thank our partners and friends for quickly and effectively making the decisions to leave PSN linking optional. I just think the way that he engaged, it wasn't, he wasn't trying to convince them to link their PSN accounts. I feel like he kind of was impressed that they could band together to have such an impact and drive the change. Cappo (35:32) Yeah, I think it also speaks about maybe the level of communication there was between Arrowhead and Sony itself, because you got to remember, like, Sony acts as a publisher. So that means they have a lot of control over the distribution of these games, and also being so closely linked to the just financial structure of Arrowhead because they're owned by Sony, I believe. It also means that they can make certain decisions and they have access to accounts, for example, probably the same, you know, developer profile through which the game is distributed. And they may very well have done this without an awful lot of consideration of what Arrowhead thought or the timing of it. And maybe it just kind of transpired. It's kind of has the vibe that maybe it was done knee -jerk and maybe without any real consultation between the two, which wouldn't surprise me. Greeeeeeezly (36:07) Mm -hmm. Dude, it definitely sounds like the delisting from Steam has blindside of the devs. That's what I'm picking up here. And that obviously continues to happen. Yeah, that's not ideal at all. Cappo (36:37) Yeah, yeah. And that's the thing. So as of, well, two days ago, and I believe today as well, the game is still delisted in a lot of those countries. So, you know, Sony Interactive Entertainment previously attempted to force Helldivers to play as this thing leading to a mass review bombing and steam delistment in over 170 countries without PSN coverage. Now, according to this, Greeeeeeezly (36:47) Hmm. Mm -hmm. Cappo (37:04) it still looks like majority of those countries it's still delisted to. So yeah. Greeeeeeezly (37:08) Which is interesting, Cap, because they've announced you're no longer required to link your PSN account, but still it's delisted in these countries that don't have PSN. Why is that? Is there some kind of legal thing there? Cappo (37:20) Well, I, so people were speculating that maybe Steam was kind of slow on the kind of reaction to fixing this up, but Steam has since come out and said that no, Sony, it's the balls and Sony's caught on this one, like it's their kind of job to sort this out. And they've just haven't done it. And there's not really been sort of further information from Sony as to what's kind of holding that all up. Greeeeeeezly (37:28) Yeah. Hmm. Cappo (37:47) And yeah, so so steam has certainly kind of taken the hat out of the ring on that one. But yeah, it currently it's, it's still restricted in all of those 170 countries. Greeeeeeezly (37:58) Crazy. A couple of reflections from me here, Capo, and topical given our chat last episode on this, but games preservation, mate. A very big hot topic right now, especially when we're talking about the change to digital goods. Realistically, when you think about it now, we don't own these games we're buying. We don't have physical copies and things like this happen. If we're in a country... Cappo (38:21) No, you don't. Greeeeeeezly (38:28) Where PSN Save Australia, we wouldn't have access to a game we've bought, maybe we get a refund or whatever it else, but it's just that ongoing thing around, you know, you don't actually own the game. And we've got another story a little bit later around some closures of studios and what that means for those games as well. I feel like it's something that's all too frequently happening, Cap, that, you know, these essentially, you know, the move to digital goods and bits and pieces, there's definitely a... bit of a change in, in, in, I don't know, preservation, games preservation and managing that. Cappo (39:03) for sure. And I mean, naturally, I mean, obviously, it's a game as a service. So there's, you know, like, just the way that they deliver it is, you know, prone to this kind of behavior from a corporate level. And, and, you know, we don't have a physical copy of the game, because it's, it's, it's all online, all that kind of bullshit. But Chris, the thing that weirds me out, and we're going to talk about it shortly and you know, AAA games are really fucking hurting at the moment, right? And even Sony's kind of announced that, you know, they've cut a bunch of jobs and they've cut a bunch of projects and stuff. And it's like, so hang on, you guys are losing money, but now you're going to delist your game that is making a lot of money from 170 countries that are making money. What the fuck are you thinking? Like, it doesn't make any sense to me. Greeeeeeezly (39:30) Mm -hmm. Yeah, dude, it's got to be, it's got to be a legal thing, right? That's the only thing that it can come down to. There has to be some, they wouldn't do it if they didn't have to, the way that I kind of see it. I feel like if PSN is not available in those countries, it's to do with whatever their lore around media and stuff that is driving that. Cappo (40:07) Well, absolutely. But I just feel like, you know, clearly you saw that you've got a good thing going and like, you know, at the before this decision was made, you were happy like you were happy for the game to kind of exist without the mandatory linking, but then you've decided, we want the mandatory linking. I guess maybe they perhaps tried to figure out roughly how many players they were going to lose. They decided it was worth losing them. But at the same time, gamers are very fickle and when you do shit like this, they got to notice. I don't know, just seems like a really dumb. Greeeeeeezly (40:28) Hmm. Yeah, and they did, cat. And they threw their arms up and down, didn't they? Yeah. Cappo (40:38) Big time. So it's a very tone deaf action from Sony in a time where apparently there's economic turmoil that is causing them to need to do things like cut jobs. But then you kind of you give with one hand, but then you take with the other, you know what I mean? It doesn't make any sense. The sentiment there isn't I feel like it's it's it's all jumbled up. It's in my opinion, like why not just leave them on the marketplace? Greeeeeeezly (40:45) Hmm. Cappo (41:06) leave it not mandatory and, you know, just kind of let them persist because it's making you money. It just, I just, I'm really struggling to understand what's going on behind those closed doors. And I'm sure that there's probably some kind of marketing thing behind it because they want people to log in with their PSN accounts. They want people to make those accounts and log them in or that kind of shit. Cause it's good for them in the end. Greeeeeeezly (41:23) Mmm. Just... just on that whole creating an account thing. That to me pisses me off already. So imagine if you were a Xbox fanboy cap and you like this game, playing it on PC and you don't like PlayStation, you don't have a PlayStation account, you've got to go and create a PlayStation account to play your favorite game on PC. Not only that, mate, but you know, it annoys me. I don't know if you've ever played Sims 4 on Steam, but you need to have an Origin, was it? Okay, you need to have an Origin account. Cappo (41:56) Nah, last one I played was SimCity. Greeeeeeezly (42:00) And that is fucking annoying, man. You've got to like manage your lockets. Oi. Be quiet. He's back. He's got like five of his toys down here on the floor. Just squeaking them. Cappo (42:00) Yeah. yeah. Yeah. The bloody parrot's back in. Shut up! Yeah, sorry I can't remember what the fuck you're saying, I'm too busy getting hooked into the parrot. Greeeeeeezly (42:20) So I was talking about how annoying it is to have to have an account within an account to log into a fucking video game Don't do that. That shit's annoying man. It's like yeah, you don't need to do it Cappo (42:25) absolutely. Yeah. It's so annoying. Like just yeah, you got to make it optional. I think people will appreciate that more. So you know what you should do instead of making things mandatory, like give people reason to actually have an account. So instead of forcing them to build an account, give them a reason to get one, you know, make that but give it a really sick loyalty program. You know, like things like that incentivize people to do it. Don't fucking force them to do it. Greeeeeeezly (42:35) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cappo (42:53) It's the worst way to garner any kind of support from your fucking, you know, your player base is so dumb. But yeah, anyways, what do you fucking do? So there's that Grizz, but looks like, you know, we'll keep an eye on this, obviously. The other thing is that it looks like this, these same issues are going to be plaguing the Ghost of Tsushima PC edition that is coming out, you know, in the next month or so. They have... Greeeeeeezly (43:07) Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah. That's requiring PSN linking out of the box capo, isn't it? That one, mate. Yeah. Cappo (43:23) It is indeed. Now, I do think that there's probably a degree of they decided that okay, Ghost of Tsushima is going to be non mandatory, you know, with the PSN linking and I guess maybe it was a knee jerk thing to be like, well, the issue is if they've got Ghost of Tsushima, you know, with a PSN account required, then what about Helldivers? We're going to be kind of like a, you know, two kind of system kind of thing, which we want to just kind of consolidate and and go for one. So I imagine that was probably part of the conversation internally for them. They decided, okay, well, let's just do mandatory and force it. Also, the other thing to think about is Ghost of Tsushima is a slightly different game, because I think the trophies in that game would actually be part of the experience. So maybe that's kind of why they figured this was important. But the issue is, Grizz, guess what? Ghost of Tsushima is also going to be unavailable in another 170 countries because of the same issue. It's ridiculous. Absolutely fucking stupid. Greeeeeeezly (44:16) Yeah, Hunt, yep. Yeah, it is. I wonder whether they'll try to find a workaround for that in the meantime, Cap. I wonder if that's kind of what's happening. I just can't, I can't stop thinking that the reason why they've done what they've done to Helldivers is because there is some legal clause that they're getting now pushed on to not have that game available if it's a PSN game. Cappo (44:41) Yeah. It's also surprising to me, Gris, that you can have a steam account in some of these countries, but you can't have a Sony account. So I don't know what's kind of going on in that area. What is that like a compliance thing in those areas? Or it's a Sony enforced thing and they just don't deal with those marketplaces. Greeeeeeezly (44:48) Yeah. There's some shady shit on Steam dude, fuck. If you don't turn off your not safe for work recommendations mate, god. It is fucking wild. Cappo (45:04) Dude, it is grim, isn't it? It's fucking bad. Yeah, dude. Like, man, it's kind of annoying actually. Like I kind of wish I could just press a button and to be like, okay, your steam is now safe again. Like, you know, just fuck off with all that fucking hentai porn shit. But you know, have fun. If that's your thing, go for it. But just give me a way to completely opt out of that for fucking, without having to go too deep on the account options. But. Greeeeeeezly (45:14) Mm. Pev's favorite games, FYI. Loves those games. Yeah. yeah. Yep. Cappo (45:29) I might have a little secret account, you know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? But yeah, so there you go. 180 countries, Grizz. I think we've set a different number every time I've said that. And every single one of these little things is, yeah, 120, 170, 180. The country list is going up. Yeah. Greeeeeeezly (45:36) Mm -hmm. Yeah, I said 122, but yeah. The messages are the same, all right? The message is the same. A lot of country, a lot of people are not going to be able to play these video games. So. Cappo (45:52) Exactly. It's not fucking looking good. It's pretty rough. So there you go. And speaking about rough gris, this next story, pretty fucked. So we got news last week that Microsoft has decided to close Arcane Austin, the developers of Redfall. They've also decided to close Tango Gameworks. These are the guys that created the, you know, the, what I will call probably one of the better indie kind of, you know, Greeeeeeezly (45:58) Yeah. Yeah. you Cappo (46:21) Well, not quite AAA, but like B grade, you know, games in recent time, old Hi -Fi Rush. Greeeeeeezly (46:28) Dude, Arkane Austin was fucking prey as well, Cap, wasn't it? Arkane Austin was prey? Cappo (46:33) Yeah, so we'll probably get another prey, which sucks. But yeah, and basically, yeah, sleeper hit. Thanks, AerieJ. That's the one I was looking for. They've also, what else have they done? Alpha Dog Games, maker of Mighty Doom, will also close. They'll also be absorbing roundhouse studios into the Elder Scrolls Online Zenimax studios. But yeah, it's been pretty disastrous and a bit fucking rough. Greeeeeeezly (46:50) Mm. One thing that surprised me, Cap, in researching this, I went on the Steam store and looked at these games, right? Looked at Redfall. Do you know how much that fucking game is on Steam? It's $120. Still. Cappo (47:11) Is it still the same price? And I suppose, you know, no one's going to buy it anyway. So you may as well just for the idiot that buys it, you may as well just charge him 120 bucks. You know what I mean? It makes sense in my opinion. Like when when you're when you're economic, like you think about it in supply and demand, right? If there's no demand, you may as well just inflate the cost and make it seem like it's worth 120 bucks and some idiot might buy it. Greeeeeeezly (47:28) no. Is it on Game Pass or not? Cappo (47:41) Yes, it is. Absolutely. Yeah, it's an Xbox property, mate. But yeah, so it's a bit of a shame. It sounds like Arkane Austin kind of wanted to look towards another immersive sim as their next project. So this would have been potentially something in the ilk of Dishonored or maybe Prey. But yeah, they've had a pretty rough trot ever since Prey released. Prey kind of... Greeeeeeezly (47:43) Yeah, fire up. yeah. Yep. Cappo (48:09) I mean, Prey is and I have said this multiple times, Prey is one of the best sci -fi video games and sci -fi media ever created. And it was just completely forgotten about by the gamers. I can't believe it. It pisses me off on so many levels. Anyways, so they apparently they were kind of looking towards Prey 2, but they couldn't quite get people to buy it on it. Greeeeeeezly (48:18) Yeah, you loved that. Yeah. They also had announced that they were working on a big, large DLC for Redfall Cap to try to kind of revive that a little bit. They even had a roadmap spelt out for around what they were planning to do. And I don't know if you knew this, maybe you did. Actually, you might've linked it, but they had for the pre -orders, there's still like a bunch of heroes that were yet to be released, announced. Cappo (48:42) Yeah. announced and presumably will never come back. Greeeeeeezly (48:59) that people had paid for was like a hundred bucks to pre -order the game and with the hope that you'd get a bunch of content for paying that or something. Cappo (49:05) And I'll be honest with you, I don't think you're fucking getting it. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Xbox has said all development on Redfall has been abandoned indefinitely. So that's it. Vamos. So I mean, that's really unfortunate that all the development there is ceasing. And it just, it just feels like shit gris, you know, like also Hi -Fi Rush, you know, highly critically acclaimed. Like it's, it feels as if that game, you know, Shadow dropped out of nowhere. Greeeeeeezly (49:13) Yeah, right. Done. Cappo (49:35) and you know, took realistically took a lot of people by, you know, completely, you know, out of, out of the left center kind of thing. and yeah, it won a bunch of awards. Yeah. yeah, it's just, it's just, it's, it's really bizarre. I think this is one of the more bizarre ones, Grizz. And, you know, I kind of look at this and I mean, there's a bit of speculation floating around, but I think the thing that makes the most sense is. Greeeeeeezly (49:39) Yeah. Won a bunch of awards cap too, didn't it like Beth a BAFTA or something? Yeah. Cappo (50:01) Okay, firstly, Xbox is in a lot of pain. I think they've just bought Activision Blizzard King. And I think realistically, we spoke about it, you know, a fortnight ago, I think they're probably looking at that purchase and going, fake, what the fuck have we bought? We bought this fucking Garbo fucking developer that everyone thought was really good, but they're actually really shit now. And that costs them a lot of money. And now they're going fuck me to try and, you know, cut some fat elsewhere. Greeeeeeezly (50:05) Hmm. Yeah. But it seems weird though, Cap, because I can't imagine the developer behind, what are they called? Arcane Austin? No, the other one. Hi -Fi Rush, Tango, Gameworks. I can't imagine that they're a huge dev team, right? Like, surely... Cappo (50:41) Well, I'm not too sure exactly how big they are, but I mean, there's going to be at least probably 50 odd people plus some in that in that kind of area. But I think what honestly happened Gris is like they bought all these studios, they bought Bethesda, yada, yada, yada. And then Tango Gameworks were working on this game whilst, you know, during the handover or the purchase. And I guess Xbox were like, shit, okay, I guess we'll just let you release that. Greeeeeeezly (50:53) Mm. Cappo (51:10) And then I guess what happened next was because they didn't have another project in the works, you know, they're probably still coming off this high with the HiFi rush. And they've just gone, well, you don't have another project that's going to be out the next four years or something. See you later. And I think that's probably what happened. Greeeeeeezly (51:27) God, it's crazy. I mean, I don't want to jump ahead in the stories here, Cap, but there's a tweet here. Someone asked, what exactly determines success for an Xbox game these days? And then it was a response from Aaron Greenberg, who I think is, what is he, Cap? Is he an X, he's like an, he's like an Xbox. Yeah. And it's so funny because he's gone, Hi -Fi Rush was a breakout hit for us, our players in all key measurements. Cappo (51:45) Aaron Greenberg. VP Xbox Games Marketing. Yeah. Greeeeeeezly (51:57) players and all key measurements and expectations. We couldn't be happier with what the team at Tango Games delivered with this surprise release April 21, 2023 and then they've... Cappo (52:04) Yeah. But what's the only metric that they're not mentioning here, Grizz? Risk. Risk. They can't accurately measure the public sentiment for the next project that this developer will put out. And so they're just gonna get rid of it. They're gonna minimize their risk. They're gonna put all their money into IPs that are held by developers that realistically people will just eat shit off a plate that they put on. Greeeeeeezly (52:10) Yeah, find it. Okay. Cappo (52:32) That's what the AAA games market is moving into. It's moving into reproducibility as much as possible and maximizing on micro service, micro transactions and prolonged service because it's easy for them. Greeeeeeezly (52:46) How much money did Hi -Fi Rush want? Why don't they just get him to go make Hi -Fi Rush 2, mate, or something in a similar vein and fucking make heaps of money? Yeah. Cappo (52:51) I just think they didn't think that it was going to do well enough. I mean, there's been plenty of examples. I mean, you know, Square Enix has just spoken about how the second installment of Final Fantasy 7 remake has performed pretty, pretty poorly. You know, that was a game that people just assumed would make money. It didn't. Like this is the problem we've got is when they're not making the money that they want to make. Greeeeeeezly (53:06) Yeah. Yeah, dude, AAAs are definitely not guaranteed to do well these days, are they? It's actually quite risky. Yeah. Cappo (53:18) No, they're really not like it's pretty fucking risky. And so that's what I mean. They're trying to consolidate their risk. And so having all these little projects going off left, right and center is too much risk for them. And so unfortunately, I think that would these guys are just a casualty of well, you know what, we can't really be sure that you're going to sell well the next one is probably just going to be the same game. So you're gone. Greeeeeeezly (53:38) These are the kind of things that go and promote great indie studios, Cap, when a few of these guys get together and say, hey, let's... Cappo (53:44) Yeah, and they should keep doing it. And indie studios should not get bought by big fuckwits like this. They should keep doing their own thing. I know there's safety in there, but there's also not safety in there. Look what's just happened. Greeeeeeezly (53:51) No, agreed. Cappo (53:59) You know, we've had a lot of big change. And I think the other one at the moment, Grizz, is, you know, everyone looked towards Xbox game pass as this, you know, salvation, you know, and I mean, people are still getting a pretty good deal. You know, I'm getting a pretty good deal out of it. But, you know, for the most part, like Indies aren't being looked after over there. Indies are not being looked after at Microsoft. And it's very clear now that things are not looking that fucking flash. Or whilst this is happening, Grizz, you've got examples of CEOs taking massive fucking pay packets home. You know, I think, Greeeeeeezly (54:08) Yeah. Cappo (54:28) And the the payout that Bobby Kotick received at, you know, once he was kicked basically kicked out of, you know, kicked out of fucking Activision, Blizzard King, his what was it his seller, I've got it written here somewhere, give me two seconds, I'll fucking find it, but it was out of control. Okay, here we go. Bobby Kotick's payment as he leaves fucking AKB. Greeeeeeezly (54:37) Mm. Cappo (54:53) would have paid the salaries of Tango Gameworks and Arcane Austin employees for 17 years. What is that? Like, this is what I don't understand. Just fucking sort your, your upper management out. It's just insane. The amount of money that's being bled up there, but they just, they're completely self -serving. It's disgusting. They're like a fucking, you know, ring of vultures circling these poor devs below them trying to put out the best product they possibly can, but then they've got all these hurdles in place like, Greeeeeeezly (54:59) Yeah, right. Cappo (55:23) know, fucking KPIs and trying to like put as much fucking microtransactions and other bullshit into your games. It's just terrible. And they wonder what what's wrong with it. Greeeeeeezly (55:30) I think that's part of why Redfall was such a hollow experience, Cap. I felt like more time was spent on the things that didn't really make a good video game in that release, and it was a piece of shit. Cappo (55:44) Yeah, well, I think the big thing with Redfall, and I will say what I understand happened at Redfall was that Xbox apparently was like, okay, just build your game and we're not going to be involved with it at all. Obviously, that didn't work out particularly well for them. But at the same time, I think there's a lot of issues that happened with just the general development at Redfall in terms of how the cards kind of fell for them and what happened during the changeover between Bethesda and Microsoft being sole management. Greeeeeeezly (56:11) Mmm. Cappo (56:14) you know, it's not a, it's definitely not like a, you know, this is why Red falls shit kind of moment. I think Red falls shit because it just was shit. And it's another example of just AAA games project management falling to pieces. And they just couldn't quite get it right. But ultimately, Grizz, I think, I don't know, the more I look at this Grizz, you know, we had Sarah Bond, who's the president of Xbox or whatever, come out and just said some completely Greeeeeeezly (56:23) Shit, man. Yeah. Cappo (56:43) insanely again tone deaf thing about this whole kind of process and you know, yeah, it's it's, you know, yes, rough. Well, they didn't even say that they're just like, yeah, they just didn't quite meet the what we needed and yada yada yada. But it's like, well, what are you expecting from these developers? And there's just no transparency there, I think. And in the last kind of five years, people and I mean, even myself, I kind of been praising Xbox for being a little bit more. Greeeeeeezly (57:02) Hmm. Cappo (57:09) I guess gamer focus, but realistically you look at this and you kind of think well, you're not really. Greeeeeeezly (57:16) Didn't they come out a day after this was announced, Cap, and say that they needed more games like High Fire Rush? Isn't that... Yeah. That's just the same announcement. You could have them. They're right there. Look, it's a really tough time, Cap, and the numbers say it all. There's another article you've linked here that... around the revenue for Xbox decreasing by 30%. And that's this year. Last year, they actually had quite a strong year, apparently, 2023. Cappo (57:22) Exactly. Yeah. And I think that was Sarah Bond who said that as well. And it's like, well, you could have them, you know, you just don't fire you. Yeah, literally. Greeeeeeezly (57:44) So things are moving a little bit. And I guess my reflection, I don't know, this is my small little pigeonholed life here in Australia and gaming and Xbox is a global thing, but right now the cost of living here is fucked cat. It's, it's tough. we've got very high interest rates, people with a mortgage and even rentals and everything else. And look, it does not surprise me that console sales are down and sales in general are down and tech, tech markets struggling because. People just haven't got disposable income, mate. That's exactly right. Hmm. Cappo (58:12) There's less money. There's less money circulating. Yeah, big time. And it's just hard. Like, the, the, the amount of time and effort and resources required for things has not dropped. But the amount of available resources to allocate to that, whether it be in purchase or in support, that that has dropped. You know what I mean? So we're still expecting the same output. Greeeeeeezly (58:32) Yep. Cappo (58:37) And we're fucking picky these days, man, especially when it comes to media. I mean, I know I am I'm not gonna watch TV if it's a if it's shit like, you know, back in the day, I probably watched just about anything that was put on TV these days, it better be fucking it better be like, fucking the Lord of the Rings level fucking media. You know what I mean? Yeah. Greeeeeeezly (58:39) So ... Yeah, big talk. Yeah, dude, we're the same with our video games too. Maybe this is just getting old, but yeah, like, you know, we won't play shit games anymore. And this is Brotato. Brotato is one good shit game. That's great game. Yep. Cappo (59:01) No. Well, yeah, good shit. Yeah. But yeah, look, just to go back on your comments, you know, yeah, we're seeing 30 % down in games, in game machine sales for Xbox, console sales are just under 25 PS5 sales are just down, just over 25 % down, Switch sales are down 38%. I will say we're kind of getting towards the pointy end of the console generation. So, Greeeeeeezly (59:16) Yeah, right. Cappo (59:29) the people who have bought the consoles are kind of probably already bought the consoles. And I guess that's why people are trying to squeeze a little bit out of the market again with maybe seeing a PlayStation five pro coming out soon. But yeah, look, ultimately ultimately Grizz, this just fucking sucks. And I just we're not gonna this isn't over. Like, you know, Xbox has said that, you know, they're planning more cuts after these, these closures. So, you know, I think we're going to continue to see this. Greeeeeeezly (59:31) Got them. Yeah. Cappo (59:58) to happen. I mean, well, clearly we are. Greeeeeeezly (1:00:00) What about our beloved video games, Cap? We're gonna see a hit in quality video games, mate. We're seeing all these studios and fuckin' other bits and pieces. Cappo (1:00:09) Look, it's I think it's going to be interesting. I honestly think we'll probably see a couple of things I think we'll see, you know, there's going to be less games made, because there won't be as much capital available. But I think we'll see probably more indie games, like less AAA games made, but we'll see more indie games get made, which I think is going to really throw I mean, obviously, the fact that we have indie games is a big deviation from, you know, back in the days of going to the blockbuster and pulling a Greeeeeeezly (1:00:22) Mm -hmm. Cappo (1:00:39) SNES cartridge off the shelf, you know, so, you know, people can create video games in the basement and off they go. But, you know, like Gary J is saying in chat, the current pattern is not working. It's really not. And a lot of that is because AAA studios have just bloated to beyond recognition. And Greeeeeeezly (1:00:43) Yeah. No. Little bit of a gaming revolution cap maybe is on the cards, mate. Cappo (1:01:02) Well, I think honestly, I think it's just going to be a financial revolution over time. People are going to be, I mean, I have found myself not buying a lot of AAA games at the moment because I honestly think they're garbage. And I've been pretty picky with what I've picked up. So I think that'll continue. And these bigger developers will just kind of suffer a little bit. And realistically, Grizz, it's a necessary evil to get to the other end of this where maybe the market stabilizes a little bit. Greeeeeeezly (1:01:14) Yeah. Cappo (1:01:31) We kind of understand a little bit behind what needs to happen and what players are willing to kind of, you know, purchase and buy. Greeeeeeezly (1:01:38) I actually, looking back at how Embracer did at Capol, what they're doing, I think that is, I mean, obviously everyone's doing that now, but you see refocusing, slimming down of resources and they've kind of got their three buckets of what they're delivering on. There still is indie studios in those buckets, but I feel like that's obviously what we're going to see across the board, continue to see until, I don't know, they start making money again and having a bit more surety. Cappo (1:02:04) Yeah, I think it's like anything, Gris, you know, you buy stocks, you're going to probably diversify your stock portfolio, you're going to buy some big dogs, and you're probably going to buy a few medium dogs as well. Right? So, you know, it's a similar approach, I guess, in terms of this is you're going to buy some AAA developers, you know, buy a few little indie developers that have done pretty good, and they're going to hopefully continue to put some reasonable projects out. Maybe a little bit more risky, but at least they've shown that they can do it, right? So, Yeah, it's just, I don't know, man. It's who knows what the what happens either either way, Grizz. I just think Xbox really seemed to have lost control big time. I really don't know what what their play is. I don't know who they're trying to get where they're trying to get. And it's really difficult to understand what these these changes where what what what what key KPIs are they trying to meet? Like what does a developer need to do like? Greeeeeeezly (1:02:42) Behave. Cappo (1:03:02) If I was a developer in the... Yeah, I think so too. I think so too. They're kind of trying to put their eggs in a basket, but I still think if I was a dev under the Xbox banner at the moment, I'd be pretty fucking worried. So, yeah, unfortunate. But I mean, I don't know what sorts this out, Grizz, but I do think that unfortunately there needs to be more AAA casualties, but... Greeeeeeezly (1:03:02) It sounds like it's just managing debt cap, I think is what it's coming down to for now. Big Tom. Yeah. Cappo (1:03:27) the unfortunate side of that gris is we're still gonna see the body Bobby Codex getting big fucking bonuses because they've, you know, slimmed down like they get paid either way they get paid in the good times and they get paid in the bad times because they've just cut all these fucking jobs. It's just CEOs are fucking scum. Honest to God, like they are utter scum. And this that echelon is just it just takes away from the work that actually happens on the ground to get products up and get them moving. Look, That's not all CEOs, there are probably some good ones out there. I don't know any but, you know, regardless, it's shit. And hopefully, you know, some more casualties kind of sort of teach those guys lesson but I doubt it. Greeeeeeezly (1:04:12) Yeah, they'll get into indie games, mate, and create these beautiful, successful video games and show them what for. At the moment, it's a bit of a wind story from the old AAAs saying, you know, fuck, it's so much risk and it's hard. Yeah, it's tough, yeah. Cappo (1:04:18) Yeah, but yeah, all right. it's so hard crying into their fucking pool of money. It's such a fucking Scrooge McDuck moment, right? And it's just like, yeah, we things are really tough at the moment, guys. I was just going to take a quick swim in my fucking, you know, pool filled with billions of dollars. It's just ridiculous. So pathetic. Anyways, Grizz, speaking of Microsoft, tell me about Diablo four. Greeeeeeezly (1:04:41) Yes. Ooh, all right. All right, Cap, so Diablo IV, there have been some rumblings for a little while that there were going to be some quite large dramatic changes happening in the Diablo IV camp. Since then, we've had some announcements. On April 30th, Blizzard announced its next season, Season 4, and the name of the season, Cap, clearly defines that they are undergoing some major changes. So Season 4 is titled Loot Reborn, and the quote goes... Cappo (1:05:11) Wow. Greeeeeeezly (1:05:13) The forges burn with renewed vigor, stoked by braziers to hone the steel of sanctuary's finest. Across the land, hells expand, legions gather to multiply, their strength to ambush wanderers that pray to the hell tide. But look, Loot Reborn as a whole cap, essentially they're overhauling many of the game mechanics to give pretty much a new experience for Diablo or what they see as a new experience. and really focusing on rather than providing physical updated content for the season, providing changes to the way the game plays and functions to give a better overall game. So I guess I just wanted to take you through what the key features were. We're going to have a bit of a chat about them and go through it. So some of the mechanics that we're seeing here, so essentially they've overhauled how items earned in the game, how they function. Cappo (1:05:57) Yeah, drop it on me. Greeeeeeezly (1:06:08) and also how you can empower them through crafting in other ways. For the items, they now drop with heavily reduced number of fixes on them. So a general complaint from Devlo 4 players was that it was really hard to identify whether an actual item was an upgrade for your build or not, because it had so many different little bits of information on it, like, you know... you get like six or seven different affixes on an item. So actually figuring out whether that's, yeah, figuring out whether that's good for you or not is difficult. So they've simplified it a lot. So legendaries drop with three fixed affixes on them and rares drop with only two fixed affixes on them. So you can basically look at that straight away and identify whether that provides you a power boost or not. Yep. So much easier to evaluate. They've also nerfed the drop rates significantly. So... Cappo (1:06:41) need to be a bit of a mathematician. It's gonna work out for you. Yeah. Greeeeeeezly (1:07:07) there was complaints that basically you'd go out, fill up your inventory full of items, go back and salvage it. And it was also really hard to identify whether the items you had picked up were actually good for you, because of how complex they were. So the item drop rates themselves have been heavily reduced. and the items that do drop, are generally more meaningful and allow you to evaluate them quicker to figure out whether you want to pick them up or not. Obviously to coincide with this, the way that the crafting system work has had to be reworked because you're getting less materials and other things. So I'll go into that in a little bit, but they've kind of reworked the whole crafting mechanic. There's a bunch of quality of life stuff, Cap. So when you played, mate, you would have had these legendary aspects that you would have to have. Basically when you extract a legendary or break it down, you would keep that affix and you would have it in your inventory as like a... Cappo (1:08:03) Yep, yep, yep. Greeeeeeezly (1:08:04) and you could apply it to other items. So they actually have a physical codex for that now. So that you don't have to have inventory space to hold those anymore or stash space. They go into a physical book that you can filter and search and you can favorite your favorite ones. They still have different levels. The codex is of power. They still have different levels depending on the roles for those. But yeah, they're going to give them to you in a book, which I think is great. That was always something that pissed me off. Cap was inventory management was... pretty annoying. Cappo (1:08:35) There was a lot of it and it was like, okay, I'm doing this at every stage of the game for every part of the system. Like it's just, it's a pain. Yeah. Greeeeeeezly (1:08:40) Yeah, exactly. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, so there is some good quality of life stuff here. So there's that and I believe there's other tabs and stuff for inventory management to reduce that. But a bit on the crafting caps, there's two different types of crafting now. And essentially because you have less affixes on your items, they've kind of reduced this way to be able to, I guess, change the item in a way that you want to for your build. So they've got two different things, one called tempering and another thing called master working. So the way that tempering kind of works is you'll find manuals that drop around sanctuary. These manuals will give you a list of affixes for those manuals and you just need to take those to a blacksmith to learn those affixes. So you actually can't start tempering your gear until you've found... the blacksmithing manuals around by farming enemies and other bits and pieces. So the idea is that once you've got the affix that you need, whether it's like, say, for example, crit chance or something, you're trying to get crit chance, you can literally go to a vendor and you can temper that onto your weapon. It'll start out at a very low quality. So you might put crit chance on it. I'm just theory crafting here. It might give you like 3 % crit chance or something. Cappo (1:09:43) Okay. Brought. Greeeeeeezly (1:10:05) And the idea is that the second tier of crafting is called master working, where you then upgrade those affixes that you've applied to your items to make them stronger. So this is kind of where the late game kind of comes in. So to start master working the affixes you've applied, you need to get late game mats. So they're in specific dungeons that I'll talk about a little bit, some of the late game stuff. And that allows you to empower the affixes that you've applied here. So you can kind of see this theme here, Cap. The items are going to be simplified when they drop. You can customize what three affixes you put on that item, any of them, as long as you have found the blacksmithing manuals for them. So essentially you're no longer relying on RNG to get the item and the, the stuff on your item. You can create it as you want it. So you want crit chance, crit damage, and a skill. You can put those on there as long as you've got the manuals. The manuals aren't used when you use them. You can use them as many times as you want. You just have to have learnt it to do that. Cappo (1:11:05) Yep. Greeeeeeezly (1:11:05) So where the power spike kind of comes in is master working slightly RNG dependent. So it'll allow you to empower when you were using master work, you'll empower all the affixes on an item. Then every fourth time you master work it, it'll pick one affix out of the ones you've applied and give you like a significant increase to it. So that's where the RNG piece comes in. Yeah, we have to reset it. So once you've done it the fourth time, that's it. You can't do it again on that item. You've got to reset it and... Cappo (1:11:26) And you keep doing that until you get the one you want. Greeeeeeezly (1:11:34) try again to try to get the right one. Yeah. This. Cappo (1:11:36) Right, okay. Yeah, so you're kind of working up in stages to that point, then if you didn't quite get it, you start again. Greeeeeeezly (1:11:41) Exactly. And you're going to have mats, you're going to have mats that do that. So obviously that's going to limit the amount of times you can do that. And they also have introduced this thing where they've got tempering durability. So your items, even the best items will only be able to be tempered a certain amount of times before they don't let you do it again. So it's kind of like, it's interesting because you're no longer concerned about that really rare drop piece of equipment. It's more about managing your. crafting and your crafting materials to get the items you need for your build. So it's actually almost in my mind, it's almost turned what I found rewarding in the gameplay loop for Diablo on its head. Cause it's not that dopamine hit from finding an amazing item. I mean, that's still important cause there is still like unique drops and stuff, but it's definitely create your own a little bit more, create your own items. Cappo (1:12:17) Yeah. Yeah, which I'm going into minds about it because I don't know, like, do you think this is what Diablo four needs? What does it need? Like, is this it? Greeeeeeezly (1:12:45) I've got some yeah, I've got some thoughts on it I might I might save them till the end as a more holistic But I know I don't think this is what Diablo needs cap. I I think this is a step in the wrong direction, but I Don't think it's the first time Blizzard have done this and I think they're trying to simplify the game to allow Easier for more players is kind of what I think but we'll see Cappo (1:13:09) Yeah. Well, yeah. And the games has come out on Game Pass, which would make a bit of sense, right? Maybe it's good timing for that with an influx of more casual players or people who aren't pining for a action RPG. Kind of mobile a fires it a little bit, doesn't it? Greeeeeeezly (1:13:15) Yeah. Does a little bit, does a little bit. look, that's the crafting items. so this is the season of loot. So that overhauled that completely. there are some things gameplay wise cap. They've reworked the way hell tides work, but essentially I don't want to go into that too much because it's pretty much the same. There's areas marked on your map. There's quests there. You go there. One thing they have added in the hell tides though, is that, and I think I do this for wow cap. Maybe you can confirm this, but essentially you get a stacking, Cappo (1:13:48) Yeah. Greeeeeeezly (1:13:59) debuff on you, you're like marked and as it stacks on you, the enemies deal more damage, more enemies come, bosses come out and it's kind of like a, what does it call it? A threat. You have a threat on you. Did WoW do something similar like that? If you stayed in an area for too long? Cappo (1:14:15) Yeah. It might have, I think there might've been something in Battle for Azeroth or the one after that. What was that one called? Can't think. No, that was Battle for Azeroth. Yeah. I think maybe there might've been something like to do with that in the wider open world, but I don't think it was that much against the player. Like I think there was, you know, it's still, there was still threat levels and stuff like that, but not that hardcore. Greeeeeeezly (1:14:30) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it comes to the point of like, if you're there for too long, then like this crazy, what did they call it? They say some fucking undead dude comes and slams you, formidable warrior. Some guy comes and gives you the clamps. So yeah, interesting. So it's kind of like timed anyway. but they have finally capped after many, many, many, many, many, many people whinging about this have included an end game. So there is now an end game. there was kind of an end game, but this is an official one now. Cappo (1:14:56) That's pretty cool though, I like that. Greeeeeeezly (1:15:15) called the Pit of Artifices, I think it's called. And essentially, I think these work like rifts from D3. So you need to do the Pit of Artifices to find the masterworking items to allow you to masterwork your weapons. And essentially, these are dungeons that are randomized. They're not available until World Tier 4. And they have... Cappo (1:15:19) Yeah. Greeeeeeezly (1:15:42) scaling levels that you play through these. So it starts at one, I believe the max is 200 and that's nearly impossible from, it's very difficult apparently. So it's kind of like a, you know, obviously as it scales in difficulty there's drop chances of stuff increased and rarity and other bits and pieces. So yeah, I think this is something the games need for a while, but a direction in the end game cap. So now this is two things they've tried to address through this, which is the... Cappo (1:15:53) Right. Absolutely. Greeeeeeezly (1:16:11) itemization and a bit of an end game. They have included a new boss cap, which can pop up, which is a throwback to Diablo 2, I think. And Dario, do you remember the first? Yeah. She was the one that had her tits out. And when you were a little young and you'd be looking at those pixels being like, Jesus. Look at that. Yeah. Well, well, well. Yeah. Cappo (1:16:20) a new boss. yeah, yeah, yeah, and Dario. Yes, I do. Yeah. Well, well, well, what have we got here? Greeeeeeezly (1:16:41) Yeah, so you can collect a bunch of items to summon her. She's like an Uber boss or something in the game. Yeah. But that's pretty much it on the gameplay cap. So obviously alongside this, they've got their seasonal journey, which comes with a free and paid premium battle pass and other bits and pieces that come with cosmetics and other things in there. Look, I looked at the mate and nothing really too out of the normal there for me. I could probably turn by it, but yeah. Cappo (1:16:46) Yeah. Yeah. The usual garbage. Yeah. Greeeeeeezly (1:17:12) The usual, yeah. But yeah, look, that's it, mate. I think they have actually really tried to listen to their players this time and give us what we're asking for. But whether or not they have done a good job at providing for me, I would say no. What's your take on it, Cap? What do you think, mate? What are your thoughts before I dive in? Cappo (1:17:23) Yeah. look, I think this was definitely a general kind of outcry for maybe not this kind of specific approach, but definitely some degree of simplification and consolidation of, I guess, the the some of the systems they had, because I would just compass them and there was a lot of going on. It was just it was just too much. Greeeeeeezly (1:18:03) I will. Yeah. Cappo (1:18:05) and they didn't meld together nicely. so I think they are kind of listening there, but I don't know. Like I Greeeeeeezly (1:18:13) The power rewards also, I always felt like when I got to the end game, even though I only got there once, but I would find my creep in power was so slow, like 0 .1 % of a damage increase when I'd find a new item. And it was really hard to get that wow feeling and make me enjoy the game from continually progressing. It just didn't have that built into the game. So I don't know whether this patch is going to fix some of that with the way that... Cappo (1:18:32) Yep. Greeeeeeezly (1:18:42) the crafting kind of works, but maybe, maybe it will help with some of that. But yeah, I think having an end, dedicated end game definitely helps a little bit. Cappo (1:18:51) Yeah, I think, I mean, you're right, mate, like a dedicated end game is really important. I mean, there's also going to be a nice balance between, I kind of feel like the difficulty spikes were not like that you got across the game weren't super meaningful, even when you're leveling and stuff. I mean, they did make some changes where you're, I can't remember how they... Greeeeeeezly (1:19:11) Hmm. Cappo (1:19:16) describe the character that's in that perpetual realm, but I believe you can now just play them all the every season now right without much repercussion. Greeeeeeezly (1:19:23) Yeah, yeah, so that's one thing, Cap. There's a seasonal and there's an eternal realm here. So they're actually pushing all these changes to the eternal realm, which usually for the seasons it only impacts the seasonal realm. But this whole itemization change is a literal game change across all realms that's going to happen. So... Cappo (1:19:40) Yeah. And then I assume after this, they'll kind of still have the continuous seasonal changes in the seasonal realm, but it's just to kind of get you back in. Greeeeeeezly (1:19:47) Yeah, that's right. They've kind of used this. I think they're kind of using this as a, we're trying to fix our game, good faith, you know, listen to the community and fix it, which, yeah. Cappo (1:19:54) Yeah. Yeah. Look, I think it's a sign and a step in the right direction. I don't think it's the entire direction. I think there's still some big end game issues that they've got. And I also just think the game's kind of fucking boring. So I don't know how you fix that. But I mean, what's your thoughts, Grizz? Give me the Greeeeeeezly (1:20:08) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yes, look, I think there's good and bad in here. I think the good is we've got an end game. They've implemented some quality of life stuff like the Codex of Powers being an actual codex and some other inventory management bits and pieces. I think the itemization, for lack of a better word, I think they've blizzified it a little bit. And I cannot help but think about... Cappo (1:20:21) Mm -hmm. Greeeeeeezly (1:20:34) what they did to WoW retail, which, you know, every, they went from every character, basically been able to do everything in current patch, heal, DPS, tank, doesn't matter who you are, you can kind of spec yourself to do that. And essentially the way that I read these changes to the items is that you can find any item on the ground, as long as it's got three decent roles on it, you can take it to the vendor and you can put whatever it is you want on that item to make it fit your build. And to me, The core mechanic of a Diablo game was finding that item that provided for your builds on the ground. It's like, yes, wicked. I found an item that's got like 5%. And don't get me wrong. I know you can reroll items in Diablo games. Diablo 3 had a reroll item, but it's literally like one, you get to reroll one affix per item. This is adding three affixes. You're basically building your weapon from scratch. So it's actually changed to me. It's actually changed the, it's actually changed the genre a little bit and it changes. the way the dopamine hit is going to kind of hit you. It's going to hit you when you're crafting your items and you might get that perfect masterwork affix that rolls extra high. So I don't know, man. I kind of feel like, yeah, this is going to be way more approachable because people are going to be able to see the items are dropping on the floor and be like, yeah, that one's better. So I can pick that up and it's going to be a lot easier to identify that and see that. But... Cappo (1:21:39) Yeah. Greeeeeeezly (1:22:00) Yeah, I think for in terms of pulling me back in cap, it's not, it's not doing it for me, that. Cappo (1:22:01) Yeah. No, I think I really need like a really good, you know, I even think about Diablo three and I just feel like the general kind of story campaign progression was just a little bit neater and just well put together. But, you know, Grizz, this whole kind of change reminds me a lot of just generally what's happened to Destiny and just the way that, you know, your weapons are kind of just plug and play and that's fine. It works for, you know, for Destiny, but. Greeeeeeezly (1:22:18) Hmm. Mmm. Cappo (1:22:35) Destiny started out very similarly with a lot of grinding required. And I think Diablo has kind of missed that. The reason being is that people have played all the other Diablo games to this point. And so they kind of come in with a certain level of expectations. They haven't had that, I guess, inherent ability to just kind of be a bit grindy for a little bit and maybe just push the game in other areas to be better at. So they've kind of gone harder in here because they just assume that... Greeeeeeezly (1:23:00) Yeah. Cappo (1:23:03) that's the big sticking point for most of their players because that's what they may be getting elsewhere. I don't know. What are your thoughts on that? Greeeeeeezly (1:23:09) Yeah, I tend to agree mate. Yeah, it's kind of weird. I don't know, Diablo IV is such a weird thing to me because it was there and then it just kind of disappeared. People kind of lost interest in it. Just fizzled big time. It did, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it did fizzle. I don't know, I don't know, Cap. Like what realistically would bring us back in, mate? And like you mentioned, I think I would be more likely to go play a D3 season than what I would for D4 right now for some reason. Cappo (1:23:17) It just fizzled, didn't it? It really fizzled. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what I can't it's really hard. I don't quite know what it just feels. The game feels a bit mobile to me. I don't know why I get that feeling. But like when I play I kind of get the feeling of like, this could just be on my phone for some reason. I don't know why I feel like that. But like I really do. And I feel like it's drawn too much from the development of a mortal. Greeeeeeezly (1:23:41) Do they need? Ha ha ha! Yeah. Cappo (1:23:59) and encapsulated that and even even visually for me, I kind of I look at it, it's kind of just meh. Greeeeeeezly (1:24:05) Do they need to, if they, is there something with the loot cat? Like, do they need to make you feel more rewarded to play the game? That help? Cappo (1:24:15) Yeah, I, yeah, maybe, do you know what? I do understand the sentiment of like, is this weapon actually good for me? Because sometimes my brain just can't be fucked doing the algebra to figure out if I'm actually going to get any benefit from this, you know, and sometimes you make a choice because you think you go, okay, I'm pretty sure this is going to be better. And then you kind of commit to it. And then by the stage that you've committed to it, you probably destroyed the old one. You think, fuck, this was not a good idea. Greeeeeeezly (1:24:24) Yeah. Mmm. Yeah, and you feel like you're power. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's right. Like there's, you know, there's like crit strike caps and stuff you want to be on and other bits and pieces has definitely made it a bit more approachable. Cappo (1:24:50) Yeah. And who fucking knows what those are? Like if you're just a casual player, I mean, how the fuck would you know what the soft cap is for the critical strike? You wouldn't know. It's just useless. Like, you know, it's so silly, but I don't know. I think Diablo's got some issues, man. And I think one of them for me is just a kind of a pretty boring end game and just not an awful lot of, yeah. Greeeeeeezly (1:25:01) Eh, mm -hmm. It does. Yeah. Dude, that's what it is. You know what? They need to get this end game sorted. They need to get seasonal ladders sorted, Cap. Which is like, you know, where you have, I think season... No, I don't think they've got that yet. And they did say it was gonna take a while. I think seasonal ladders will be great for the game. But I also think, mate, they need to leverage off the multiplayer aspect just a little bit more. They need to get you playing with your mates somehow. Cappo (1:25:21) have I not got that yet? Dude, what the f - fuck? Yeah, yeah. Dude, they need raid like experiences. I really think that would be a lot of fun. Like, and you've got something to work towards. Yeah. Greeeeeeezly (1:25:42) Yeah, like stand here and fucking press this button and do this and like imagine that Diablo dude, that'd be sick. Cappo (1:25:48) Yes, it would be really fucking cool man. And they actually had things like that in a mortal. And it's one thing that I feel like they should have brought over from a mortal. Don't bring the fucking monetization bullshit that you take everywhere with you. Get the good features out of your shit games. You know, like it's just, it's really, man, it's frustrating, very frustrating, but yeah. Well, Chris, unfortunately it sounds. Greeeeeeezly (1:25:56) Hmm. Hmm. Mm -hmm. You know what though, Cap? I think from everything I read, mate, I'm the only one that has this bad take on it, on the itemization. Most people are like, that's great. Yep. Read, look at the itemization. That's what we've been asking for. Cappo (1:26:21) Yeah, it's gonna be really simple, you know, that game that I found boring already is gonna be even simpler. Yeah. Good idea, idiot! Yeah. Greeeeeeezly (1:26:27) Yeah. So maybe it's good, mate. Maybe I've got a real bad take on this and maybe it's going to be fantastic changes. Cappo (1:26:33) And I can see I like your take. I think it makes sense. And it's like it kind of comes more so down to like, OK, maybe there's this there's a immediate like, this is great. But then what's the long term kind of allure of this? Like it's it doesn't seem like it's particularly interesting. You know what I mean? So now. Well, but speaking about interesting grizz, Hades to hit it steam like a frickin truck big time. Greeeeeeezly (1:26:46) Hmm. No. No. We'll say, mate. Yeah. It hit it, smashed it, and it's weird cap because it's still in early access mate. It's not even a full release of the game. Yeah. Cappo (1:27:05) It's still in early access. Yeah, it's still yeah, it's it's it came out of nowhere. We I think last last podcast we were discussing that they had a technical alpha in the works and I don't even know if they ended up doing it. Maybe they did but like pretty much straight after it felt like the beta had model the early access had hit steam and it's there and people seem to be really liking it might people are saying it's some Greeeeeeezly (1:27:18) Mm. Cappo (1:27:32) you know, just the perfect kind of sequel for this game. You know, people are swooning over the new gods and all that kind of shit, so... Greeeeeeezly (1:27:36) Now, cap. I wanna read this to you. This is from a Steam review, early access review. Optimization is on point, 90 FPS on Steam Deck with the highest settings and six hours of battery life. Hello, question mark. Been swapping between PC and Steam seamlessly and having a blast. Bug list, no glitches, tons of content. Mechanics are enjoyable, story setting, characters, pacing is incredible. Everything gets introduced in a seamless way. Cappo (1:27:53) Yes! Greeeeeeezly (1:28:09) Dialogue is fast, the lore is very well paced and doesn't interrupt the gameplay. Soundtrack, well the soundtrack is something else entirely. Combat has improved a lot, way more diverse with magic spells, button pressures and power combinations. Generally feels way more snappier than Hades 1. That to me, I loved Hades 1, but this review actually got me pretty excited mate, especially the Steam Deck comment, like that's cool. Cappo (1:28:34) Yeah, I mean, that's the big one for me. Like, you know, Hades, in my opinion is I mean, it is a console is a controller game. Like, you know, you don't you don't play this game on a keyboard. If it like I don't think it feels great. And so for it to sit on my Steam deck at 90 FPS at what was it Max graphics that's out of control. Greeeeeeezly (1:28:48) Hmm. Yeah, 90 FPS on Steam Deck with the highest settings and six hours of battery life. Sounds pretty optimized, yeah. Cappo (1:29:00) Yeah, I mean, that's very, very exciting. yeah, big time. So I suppose the only thing is like neither of us have played it gris. And I think we kind of, we had a bit of a chat in the Facebook, our Facebook chat. And, you know, we, you know, because we kind of discussed it, and you said you're going to play it. And I was like, Yeah, okay, no worries. Have fun. And then you said, I've actually changed my opinion on that. I want to kind of enjoy the entire thing. And I think that's a real good thing to do gris on many levels and Greeeeeeezly (1:29:13) Yeah. Yeah. Cappo (1:29:29) The big one is like, it's gonna be finished when you play it in one point, well, finished, you know, in 1 .0, and you're gonna get the whole experience, you know? Greeeeeeezly (1:29:35) Mmm. There was some things that put me off. So I actually bought the game and I was, I installed it and I was ready to play it. And I watched someone playing it on Twitch and I noticed that things annoyed me. Like not all the portraits were finished. There was placeholder for a bunch of the amulets. There's not all the weapons that are there. Some of the voice acting for some of the dialogue wasn't in certain bits. And I just thought, nah. I need to wait. I just want to wait for the full whilst all the gameplay is there and you can actually do a hell of a lot. You can play through the whole game. There's no ending yet. So there's no ending cinematic, but you can beat the boss, I believe. and there's no. Yeah. Yep. So there's all obviously they have, maybe they just haven't included it in, in. Yeah. Maybe this may well, maybe, maybe that's like the first part of the game. I don't know, man. Who knows? But, yeah. Cappo (1:30:15) Really? That's fucking weird. Okay. Maybe there's something after that final boss. Yeah, what says here, the current state of the early access version on Steam, it has more environments, foes and fully voiced characters than the full version of the original Hades game, but it isn't complete, which is kind of that's crazy, dude. That's kind of bonkers. Greeeeeeezly (1:30:38) Mento. Yeah. a lot isn't it? As you can see once being so well received people saying that this is better than many other 1 .0s that are coming out from other devs it's just such a complete game already. Cappo (1:30:53) Yeah. Well, another thing I'm kind of getting from this is like, well, I wonder Gris, if a lot of that is, you know, they've kind of gone, you know, look, Hades one, like it was critically acclaimed. We've got a really good baseline here. Let's just not fuck around. Let's use use the engine, use all of our design assets and just really go hard on like we have the baseline, we can just design a Greeeeeeezly (1:31:08) Hmm. Cappo (1:31:20) completely new experience really go hard on the controls and the new powers and stuff, you know, kind of all the design factors and stuff. So they haven't had to spend an awful lot of time on the development of the engine. They can just focus on the gameplay and the everything else, the lore and the story. Yeah. Greeeeeeezly (1:31:22) Hmm. I love that cap. I think that is so good from what I've seen. You know, it's more of the same, except it looks like they have just built upon what they had there and made it better in every way. You know, from that review sounds like there's quite a bit more in the combat. You've got spells on the bits and pieces and yeah, I think, I think this is going to be really something to watch. It's already copying amazing reviews, but I don't know cap. Is this potential game of the year, potential game of the year game for 2024? Cappo (1:32:03) Well, if it comes out before the end of the year, sure, maybe though. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's Bellatroy though, dude. I don't know. It's gonna be pretty fucking hard to beat Bellatroy. Pretty freaking good. Well, Grizz, speaking of other games, should we, I've got a little question to ask you, mate. I don't know how, I don't know how your game has been going. Greeeeeeezly (1:32:07) Mmm. Yeah, Bellatro's pretty strong, mate. Pretty strong. Yep. hmm. that's a hard question, Cap. Look, I actually haven't done a whole heap. I've installed two new games, but I haven't played them yet, mate. I've installed them, but I haven't played them. I actually have been spending a lot of my free time, Cap, editing videos for a new YouTube channel. Did I tell you that? Cappo (1:32:35) Hahaha. I think I've seen some videos, but tell the classmate, what's the go? Greeeeeeezly (1:32:48) Yeah. Okay, look, so we've been getting some pro recordings from our band sessions. And so I've been editing down shorts and drum covers for a dedicated YouTube channel, which has been fucking popping off cap in there. It's been going great, mate. Yeah. Cappo (1:33:03) Yeah? That's sick. Greeeeeeezly (1:33:05) been good. Maybe I'll post the link in the Twitch chat. So I've been doing that with my free time, but I have been doing other things, Cap. I have been doing some gaming. So we are progressing our honor mode playthrough of Battlesgate. We were out of act one now. We nearly had one rip. Like so fucking close, dude. Dude, so did you know that you know those Githyanki, the crèche and there's a bunch of them. Yeah. So we had, Kertie is playing Lozel. Cappo (1:33:20) Who is the savior? Yes. Greeeeeeezly (1:33:31) So we thought that you could just, we could just go talk to them and there's no way they're going to fight us. Cause she's a gift Yankee, but like they found out. Well, they had, I think like they found out that, she had the thing in her head and they just started attacking us. We didn't even get a turn before we even got a turn. Me, Kertie and one of our other followers were just dead done. Cause they've all got like double attacks and shit. Cappo (1:33:35) Nope. She runs off. Yep, that is that area is fucked. It's basically don't go there. Or you or you ambush them, which kind of sucks. Greeeeeeezly (1:33:59) Yeah. Yeah. So we like we're. We just thought we'd pass the conversation check. So look, look, we are progressing. We haven't ripped yet. we've all got like little, so one of our belly, the other guy that plays with us was kind of on the edge of battle when he was able to run away. And, and I think he is invisibility potion or something got out. Yeah. Cause the idea, if you lose your whole party, it's done. But if you've got one guy there, you can go back to with us and get everyone back and keep the run alive. So yeah. Yeah. It was very close, man. Cappo (1:34:12) How did you get out of it? For five years. Yeah. Jesus Christ man, that's wild. Well, you would have lost a bit of gold for that as well. Greeeeeeezly (1:34:36) Yeah, but dude, you can just pick pocket. Did you know you can just pick pocketed back off him? He just, it doesn't even react, mate. It catches you, but nothing happens. You just do it until you get your gold back off. But you know what, cap? One thing I have noticed on a mode, everything is more expensive. Everything. So, so like, you've got to be careful. You can't just go to the vendor and buy whatever you want. And you also obviously, Cappo (1:34:40) my god, are you joking? Come that way as well. He's an ancient god. He doesn't need that money. Mmm. Gotta think a bit more. Greeeeeeezly (1:35:02) Yeah. And you also obviously can't save scum anything. You can't like save and pickpocket someone and reload it until you get that. It's just like. Cappo (1:35:07) Well, how does it work? You have a finite amount of saves or something or? Greeeeeeezly (1:35:11) You have no saves. So you cannot reload. You cannot reload. you can stop. You can save it and stop. But if you can't reload a previous save, it doesn't, like, you just got to play where you're at. Yeah. Cappo (1:35:14) How do you stop? yeah. yeah, yeah, right with you. Yeah, that's well do well. So you finished the first act then? Yeah. Greeeeeeezly (1:35:33) First Act is pretty much done. Well, actually not really. We're about to go through the Underdark. So I think that's technically still First Act. We've done the Goblin encampment. We've done... we actually... Dude, it's so crazy how different that game is, man. So we... The first time we did it, we cleared out the Goblin encampment in the Goblin encampment. This time we convinced them to attack the Grove and then we defended it from the Grove and they all rocked up. So the big bad... Cappo (1:35:45) Yeah. Yeah. Ahhhh Greeeeeeezly (1:36:01) We smashed him. So the big battle was at the Grove, which was cool, man. It's so cool. Like completely different, different little play. Cappo (1:36:04) That's rad. Yeah. That is rad. Yeah, that'd be good fun to do that. Yeah. nice, man. Greeeeeeezly (1:36:10) Other things cap I've been playing a bunch of data to ranked I've climbed a little bit won't go too much into that But I have continued my old ring playthrough. I just beat Radan now cap So I'm kind of working my way through Yeah, intention is to get up to moag and then it would be him or just leave it there for the DLC Yeah Cappo (1:36:17) la la. nice. Yeah. I need to do the exact same thing. I just haven't had the energy. Greeeeeeezly (1:36:33) Yeah, it's cool. It's cool to pick up. It plays well on Steam decks. I'm kind of just, whenever I feel like it, jumping on there and slowly progressing along, but feeling very powerful. Nothing's really been too much of a challenge yet. And I don't know, man, I feel like playing through it once, you learn a few things, like, you know, just stagger the fuck out of your enemy pretty much. Yeah. All that kind of cheese. Little bit of cheese, mate. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Cappo (1:36:40) Yeah. positioning and yeah, like cheese, a little bit of cheese, a little bit of parmesan. Yeah. Love it, mate. Gorgeous. Greeeeeeezly (1:36:57) That's my gaming mate. Look, I didn't, I really wanted to play another Crab Stretch. That's going to have to wait till the next one. So it is on my list. I'll get into that. Well, what about you, Kappa? What about you, mate? Cappo (1:37:03) Yeah, yeah. Well. I did play another Crabs Treasure. I beat the first boss. Yeah, I did. I did. And it's good. I like it. I played it on Xbox Game Pass, so it didn't cost me anything. Will I go back to it? We'll see. I think I just don't know if I have the patience at the moment. I... Greeeeeeezly (1:37:12) Did you? Ahhhh. How'd you find it? Hmm. Is it hard? Cappo (1:37:31) It's not, it's not hard. No, I mean, it's, it's a souls game. Like I haven't gotten past the first I've got past the first boss, but I haven't gone beyond that. I'm sure it gets much harder. but I, I one shot of the first boss, without much issue. and just didn't have much issue running up to the boss before that. So it wasn't terrible, but I do quite like what they're doing. I think it has that feeling of like a, not a banjo Kazooie, but kind of in that kind of same. Greeeeeeezly (1:37:45) next time. Cappo (1:38:00) You know, like an early Sony kind of platformer thing going on with Dark Souls style combat and stuff. So it's really cool and kind of that Finding Nemo kind of, you know, kind of under the sea kind of aesthetic. It's good. I really like what they're doing and I think it definitely deserves people's attention if they want to just try something a bit new and add Souls -born -y. So can definitely recommend that one. But one game I did play is I bought Animal Well. Done it. Greeeeeeezly (1:38:11) Yeah, aesthetic, yeah. Nice. yeah, I actually saw you playing that, mate. That's the one that one of our mates told us to check out, wasn't it? Cappo (1:38:32) Yeah. Yeah, so I had it on my radar anyway, and I've kind of been not really vibing any of the games I've been playing. Like I'm still trying to get through Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and I'm really having a hard time trying to finish that one off. It hasn't really hit home for me as much as the first one did. So I kind of was looking for something else over the weekend and that popped up on special. I thought, yeah, fuck it, let's get that. And it just released. And it is brilliant. It is a little weird, ethereal kind of pixel art. Metroidvania game with emphasis on some simple physics puzzles and stuff. You kind of casual classic kind of stuff like using switches and trying to get things to move to here and there and but yeah it's just really well put together. Greeeeeeezly (1:39:21) Is the platforming hard, Cap? Is it hard? Is the platforming difficult? Cappo (1:39:24) it's not been too bad. There's been a couple of areas where the jump has just been a little bit annoying. but for the most part, it's been pretty, pretty serviceable. and there's been some areas that I've been working through in the kind of latter part of the game. I think I'm almost finished, where it's been quite satisfying getting some of the harder kind of platforming puzzles done. So, it's, it's really, really good. I think it's. It's really weird as well. I don't know, it's got this weird thing going on. You're like this little blob running around in this like pixel art air sort of world in this well. And there's water everywhere. And there's all these animals in there doing weird shit. And they interact with you in different ways. It might be helpful, and they might be kind of not so helpful and hurt you. It's an animal well. Greeeeeeezly (1:40:17) It's an animal world, mate. Cappo (1:40:19) But you're kind of running around this kind of very Metroidvania. You got a Metroidvania, like a Metroid kind of map. You know, you open the map up and it's kind of one of those, you know, Metroid style maps. And yeah, yeah, you see where you're going. And you're finding these things that open up other areas, like, I won't give away too many of the things, but you know, you find like a frisbee and a yo -yo and they help you do certain things along the way. Greeeeeeezly (1:40:24) Hmm. really? Right. Blocky kind of, yep, see where you're going. Yep. Cappo (1:40:47) And just the interactions are really nice. I really like how the puzzles that you're figuring out are very, just very satisfying when you figure out what the solution is. And the artwork is just really, really nice. It kind of has a similar feeling to Noita Grizz sort of, but not quite. Just that kind of pixel. Greeeeeeezly (1:41:11) Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Cappo (1:41:16) physics thing going on, but not quite the same degree. Greeeeeeezly (1:41:18) Do you like it, Cap? Do you like it, the art stuff? Cappo (1:41:22) I do actually. Yeah, when you're in it, I think it feels interesting and weird. And another thing about the game grist is there's no music and nothing. And I only realized that till I got towards the end of the game and I was like, there's no fucking music in this game. I've almost finished as far as I can tell there's like four major areas you go and do and I'm pretty much done with that. So I think I'm I mean, I haven't kind of Greeeeeeezly (1:41:31) What's zero? Holy shit. Have you finished it? Have you finished again? Cappo (1:41:50) basically I'm finding these keys out in the distances and I've got three of the four and I'm just about to get the fourth one. But yeah, it's really good. I'm really enjoying it. If you're looking for a little indie weird kind of experience that's kind of Metroidvania -ish with some really interesting art, it's definitely worth a pick up. I'd say it's probably a little bit expensive for what it is, but it's good. Greeeeeeezly (1:42:13) the one. What's the price tag on it, Kappa? Cappo (1:42:19) I think it was like 35 AUD, which I was kind of like, hmm, I reckon this is probably closer to 30. How much is that? Greeeeeeezly (1:42:21) Okay. Dude, fucking Hades II is pretty cheap right now, eh? It's like 40 bucks or something. Dude, you can buy a Redfall for 120. Phew! Cappo (1:42:29) Damn boy. I mean, you could buy Animal Well and Hades 2 for less than that. Greeeeeeezly (1:42:38) 40... 43 bucks mate, 43 bucks. 380s or one red fort, yeah. Cappo (1:42:42) But yeah, yeah, crazy. But yeah, look, animal well really, really cool little game definitely worth a check out if you're looking for some little weird indie experience. But, but yeah, just really like the, the interactions between the animals that are in this well. And again, it's really weird, like the animals like trying to get away from you and some of them like trying to you know, get at you and and then you have these weird interactions with some of them. I've there was this one animal that basically it chased me into this hole that I just assumed it couldn't get into it. I was just like, what are you fucking doing in here? And then yeah, just killed it killed me. Yeah, it killed me. Yeah. But yeah, there's some really fun little interactions that happen in that game. So definitely, definitely a lot of fun. Definitely can highly recommend. So yeah, there you go. That's my game and gris. So Greeeeeeezly (1:43:20) How was he in there? How was he? fat. Bastard. Okay, how many Captain Perth's cap? You don't sound like 10 out of 10 Captain Perth's. You don't sound that excited. Okay. Cappo (1:43:38) Nah, look, it's probably four out of five. Like it's not the best thing I've ever played in my life, but it's just fun. You know, it's just a fun little kind of platforming, Metroidvania thing. And I really appreciate the artwork and what they've done with the interactions with the kind of animals that are in that well. It's just good. It's just really well put together. But it's not a Bellatro. So not Bellatro. All right, where's... Greeeeeeezly (1:43:58) Nice. It's not a Blattro, mate. Cappo (1:44:12) in the freaking game baby yeah so cop cop to you mate watch out grizz multiverses reveals that the joker is coming to their fighting game lineup so multiverses just announced that they're they're coming back in for another round because i think they kind of wound it down for a little bit but it looks like it actually looks like mark hamill is fucking voicing it because he's got the mark hamill joker va which is Greeeeeeezly (1:44:12) You got me, mate. You shot me. Jesus. Look at that. Yeah. Wow. Cappo (1:44:42) kind of fucking wild. So I just think it's really rad that they got Mark Hamill doing the animator voice. So very, very cool. But yeah, so there you go. Greeeeeeezly (1:44:51) Cool. Yeah. There you go. This is weird, Cap, because this game came out a long time ago. V -Rising is out of early access now into version 1 .0. What do they say? They've got new zones, they've got new dynamic events, new bosses and enemies, choose your difficulty, world improvements, new and magic weapons. That game was actually quite fun. Cap's little multiplayer number. Cappo (1:45:17) Yeah, yeah, I was just thinking that like I'm kind of I'm kind of like I mean if it runs, okay on Steam Deck, maybe I'll get in there Could be a bit of fun Grizz. We could you know get a little server going, you know, maybe I don't know. Yeah Fuck yeah. That's another thing. Yeah. God. What are we gonna play? What do you reckon? All right, we'll put it up to a vote Yeah Yeah, I reckon it's gonna we need to play something where I can lie in bed and Greeeeeeezly (1:45:25) Maybe, yeah. Yeah, good little server. Yep. We've also got Valheim we've got to play as well, mate. Hmm. Dude, we need to play something, Cap. Fuck. We need to play something, mate. It's been too long. Cappo (1:45:43) just like emote at you whilst I'm having a little light out. All right, Grizz, Ori and the Blind Forest Devs say number three isn't happening anytime soon. They're working on No Rest for the Wicked for at least another decade. So, yeah. Greeeeeeezly (1:45:45) Okay, yeah, I understood that. Figured something out. Ooh, wait, no rest for the wicked. Was it the one that was a little bit more focused on combat cap? Is it the one? Cappo (1:46:04) Yeah, it's kind of like a top -down, I think it feels kind of soulsy, kind of almost isometric, I guess, but not quite. But yeah, top -down kind of fighting game. I don't really know what, soul's like action RPG. So I mean, it is soul's light. Yeah. But yeah, so yeah, there you go. Greeeeeeezly (1:46:17) Hmm. Okay, interesting. Okay, Cap, in today's earnings call, EA's CEO, Andrew Wilson, says he has been playing the next Battlefield game with the development team and it will be a tremendous live service game. So there you go. Do you believe him, Cap? What do you reckon? Cappo (1:46:39) Wow, I can't wait. I can't wait. Andrew, I bet it's gonna be, it's gonna be so good. I'm sure. Can't wait. Can't wait to not play that. A tremendous waste of time, I reckon, Grizz. That's what I reckon. All right, Grizz the gaming Elden Rings Shadow of the Earth Tree will be the first and last expansion for that game confirms director Miyazaki. So this is all we're getting. And I mean, look, we've waited long enough for it. So it's probably gonna be a big chonker. So, Greeeeeeezly (1:46:47) Another, another live service battlefield. Woohoo! home. Cappo (1:47:09) You know, if it means we get another Elden Ring adjacent game after this, I'm okay with that. Greeeeeeezly (1:47:15) Mm -hmm Cap apparently riot released Vanguard, which was a kernel level anti -cheat software And players have been claiming that it's bricking their computers right says do some troubleshooting and releases what something some way to only Okay, apparently it only affected zero point zero three percent of low players, but yeah, I don't know That's pretty fucked Cappo (1:47:39) So you say it, yeah. So it was brick and computers. Only 0 .3 % guys, get over it will ya? Heard a way wisp. Well, yeah, maybe that was the kernel level energy, just destroys the kernel. There you go. Greeeeeeezly (1:47:42) It was. Yep. Yeah, just a small portion of them, mate, you know? Maybe they were cheating, Cap. Maybe they were cheating. Mm. Cappo (1:47:58) All right, Grizz Matterlords, another EA game with a city builder medieval flair opens its first day with 156 concurrent players on Steam, fourth most played video game. So yeah, this is a little indie kind of city builder game, medieval kind of style. And yeah, it's kicking ass. Greeeeeeezly (1:48:18) Kickin' ass, that's the way. Cap, UK government has responded to a petition that would require video game publishers to keep games they have sold in a working state. What did they say about this, Cap? I haven't read this full thing. Cappo (1:48:31) They said that gamers should suppose should discuss supposed law infringements with publishers regarding false advertisement of consumer misleading, meaning they don't give a shit basically. So not going to happen. Sorry. They're going to continue to kill video games. Grizz Starfield is getting its first DLC shattered space coming third quarter. Slatos is going to shit his pants. Yeah, you know. Greeeeeeezly (1:48:43) Yeah. That's not going to happen. Is it? Mmm. Easy. Do we know anything about this, Cap? What is it? What's happening with it? Shattered space. Okay. Cappo (1:49:03) Well, I guess that's where the shattered comes from, is the pants that Slaytoss will be shitting in. The shattered space pants. Anyways, no. Look, I don't know what's going on. Greeeeeeezly (1:49:09) right, yep. This shattered, yep. as well as a small update later this week, Cap, apparently. Something happened at the end of this week too. There you go. Cappo (1:49:19) Yeah, probably. Look, I don't really know. I don't know what's going on there. I think there's... Greeeeeeezly (1:49:27) Ooh, it has... So the one that's coming out in the week is changing some of the building mechanics in the ship, making it better in the ship. Cappo (1:49:36) Yeah, they're also fixing the map because the map was utter garbo. So they're doing some touch ups to the map. But I don't think they've got an awful lot of information about it. I think it's probably just going to be more of the same thing just in space. So there you go. Greeeeeeezly (1:49:55) Very cool, very cool. Cappo (1:49:58) I think it's your one, mate. Or is it mine? Greeeeeeezly (1:50:01) I don't have any more in the run sheet unless there's more. You added some! Fuck, I missed them. Cyberpunk's last 30 days of Steam reviews is 95 % positive, lifetime score 83%. What a redemption story, cat. Cappo (1:50:04) I'm sorry. Big time. This is like No Man's Sky level shit, isn't it? And well deserved, I think. Grizz, I'm just gonna go back up one. Marvel Rival Stream Keys. So Marvel Rival, I think that's the, is that the card game? I think it is. So they're giving away streamer keys for free just to get them in and play it. Anyways, they asked them to sign a contract that noted in the contract that the streamer would not disparage the game in any way. Greeeeeeezly (1:50:16) Hmm, it is. Yep. yes, my bad. Hmm. Mm -hmm. Dude, someone that can't say it's shit. Cappo (1:50:43) That's fucked up, isn't it? So fucked. Yeah, there you go. Greeeeeeezly (1:50:47) That is no good man. That is no good. CapEA promises to be very thoughtful as it moves towards adding in -game ads to their games. Cappo (1:50:59) Yeah, very thoughtful indeed. Greeeeeeezly (1:51:02) You're surely on billboards and stuff, right? That's what you've got to do, mate. Cappo (1:51:04) I think it is. I think it is just mostly billboard stuff, which has done been done in the past, like older games used to do it, but... Greeeeeeezly (1:51:09) Dude, if I'm playing a game and I see a coke on a sign, I'll be like, fuck yeah, love a coke right now. It is. Just not in my olden ring, please, Cap, all right? Cappo (1:51:14) I mean, it's kind of immersion, right? Like that's real life shit. So I don't know. I'm kind of into it. Yeah, I think the thing will be like if they directly connect it to like, I don't know, like your search history on online or some shit. And they're like, you know, Greeeeeeezly (1:51:30) Could you imagine you're like in a boss fight and he's like, just fucking starts talking to you to go buy this, buy a big man. Radagon. Cappo (1:51:38) by Big Mac. Yeah, yeah, yeah, buy a Big Mac for a buff against me. I don't know. Fucking hell. That'd be wild, wouldn't it? We're probably getting pretty close to that shit. I don't know. Side quest to buy a Coke for boss fight. I mean, I'm into it. You know, I reckon that level of multi marketing would be quite hilarious. And I probably will be taking it and then you know, the year after get really annoyed how everyone's doing it. But still, it would be a novelty to begin with. Greeeeeeezly (1:51:45) Ha ha ha! Excellent word. Yeah. Cappo (1:52:08) Yeah, anyways, Chris, that's the show, baby. Well played, sir. Look, big, big thanks to everyone listening in the Twitch chat live. Appreciate you guys immensely. Arij, the BirromanTV, Kemikaze, Krakka, Slatos, Dardee. Guys, you guys rock. Appreciate you being in here. Again, thank you to all our wonderful listeners listening to this podcast in their own time, in their own fucking car. You know, whilst they're mowing the lawns, you guys rock. Drop us a Greeeeeeezly (1:52:11) That's it, mate. Did it. On top. Cappo (1:52:37) cheeky little review would appreciate immensely. Otherwise you can go to ogr .show and you can find your favorite podcasting platform through there. Other than that, another big thank you to our Patreons. If you want to support the show, you can do so by going to patreon .com slash ogrshow. Otherwise, if you want to find our Discord, you want to find our Twitter, you want to find anything else, it can all be found at ogr .show as well. So go and check those out. Keep an eye out for little clips and shit during the week. We'll probably have some little bites. But yeah, look, that's everything. Appreciate you guys. Yeah, Ripper, mate. Love your work. All right, take it easy. See you in a fortnight, guys. Peace, fricking out. Greeeeeeezly (1:53:16) Nice work, Capo. Hell yeah.