46: The Geekenders: Next Fest and MORE with Suzi The Sphere Hunter!

Yeah, yeah, you know what time it is.

It's time for the geekenders podcast.

Mega Rand, Jesse, and Dodger.

What up?

Let's go.

Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

Go on, stream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a follow and see what the geekiners are all about.

Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

Go on, stream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a follow.

Number one geek podcast without a doubt.

Yes, another end of another long week.

Got a job and a kid, I know that you all beat.

So take a second, grab a drink, and vibe.

While we catch you up in just a matter of time on gaming, comics, whatever you're doing.

If you're nerdy like us, then you know you should tune in.

Thank you for sharing our world with us.

Now follow, subscribe, and turn to some.

Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

Go on, scream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a follow, number one, deep podcast.

Without a a doubt.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Geekenders.

Sorry, I surprised myself.

Me too.

Hello.

With your typical boring hosts, Dugs and Jessup, and an amazing, lovely guest, Susie.

Susie the Spearhunter.

Welcome to the show.

Hello, everyone.

I'm a little sick right now.

I've got a cough drop in my mouth, so you're going to hear me sounding like I have like a retainer or something.

It's really

unfortunate.

So just deal with it for

feel comfy in your mouth-throat

region.

The mouth-throat region.

Yeah.

Don't look at me like that, Jesse.

You've never said that to me.

You never said, Jesse, I hope you're uncomfortable in your mouth-throat region.

Are you uncomfortable?

Maybe I'm not going to go a mouth-throat region.

Are you uncomfortable in your mouth-throat region right now?

It's 8 a.m., of course not.

This is the first words I've said to another human being, period, today.

Sounds like it.

I woke up.

That kind of sounds like you're a little mouth-throat.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah.

Got a little,

like, thing.

The first words I've said today

to the both of you.

So if anything, it's special.

It's more special.

It is special.

Every moment speaking with you, Jesse, my friend, is special.

This podcast is built on a throne of lies.

How dare you.

He, he, he, he.

Susie, I know you just said that, again, your mouth throat region is not doing amazing, but would you like to tell everybody who you are and what you do?

Yes, I am Susie, the sphere hunter, Susie Hunter.

I work on YouTube videos,

streams occasionally, not so much recently.

I make very long videos about older video games, like

in the PS1, PS2.

uh generation and a new game occasionally again occasionally i also do a lot of like voice work.

I'm a writer.

That's how I got my start and everything.

And

yeah, I like books.

I like reading books and

scary things.

Very scary video games.

Yeah, people were saying you are an apt October guest.

I was going to say, yeah, it's perfect timing.

It actually works out really well, yeah.

Have you been silent hilling?

Yes, but not in the ways you might

be thinking.

Is it?

Oh, wait, hold on.

So it's not Silent Hill 2, you're doing Silent Hill

3.

No, one.

Yes.

Four.

One.

I might be working on a retrospective on an older Silent Hill game right now.

Nice.

Nice.

Wink, wink.

Because I don't, I have a rule on my YouTube channel where I can't cover a remake before I cover an original.

You know?

God.

It's a solid rule.

You gotta have your rules.

It's like Batman.

Yeah.

Like, everyone has to have their rules and they won't break.

Yeah.

Yes, I am an obnoxious Batman fan.

I am.

Are the older games that you cover,

are they like games that you really liked

when you were younger?

Or?

yes usually i because i had i had a very unique upbringing where i grew up in a house with like a lot of

with a lot of kids like in the late 90s you know it was uh

sort of a like a three a three-story building with three families in it you know and everybody had video games

in what like in

like in conto i guess yeah sure you said like in tanto like tonto as like a thing i I was like, in Tonto, where all the families lived in the house Madrigal and they sang and danced and they had magic powers.

Come on.

Anyway, continue, Sissy.

I basically,

I had a really interesting upbringing where

basically every video game that was coming out at the time was in that house.

So I got to experience a lot of the classics while I was growing up.

So like

the years 1999 to 2000 were like

me discovering the first three Resident Evils,

you know, me playing FF7, 8 and 9,

you know, Parasite Eve, Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, you know, so a lot of the games that I cover are

really

deeply passionate, emotionally

driven retrospectives on games that I grew up with.

But every once in a while, I'll I'll play a game that I that I saw that I would always see around that time, but missed out on.

Like, I recently covered, um,

I recently covered Lifeline, which is a PS2 survival horror game that you control with your voice.

So the whole game, you speak into a microphone, and it does not work at all.

It doesn't work at all.

How did that work on a PS2?

So that game specifically came bundled with like a PS2 headset, but you can use any USB microphone on it.

And it doesn't work.

It's kind of amazing.

I like the initiative they took for a PS2-era horror game to have a microphone, but yeah, you don't even have to explain it to me.

I know it probably wouldn't work well.

It's a really interesting,

yeah.

It's a really interesting concept, and it looks great.

Like it is one of the best, like PS, best-looking PS2 games, you know, like the graphical quality is like

really surprisingly top-notch.

And I think the reason for that is because there's nothing going on in it, you know, like you just talk to the game.

There's no systems, so there's nothing colliding with each other, you know, that would create bugs.

It's just like you talk to the lady and then she goes and does things, but she doesn't because the recognition sucks.

Right.

Like that's an example of like a game I missed out on back in the day, but like covered now.

And it's like, you know, I really wanted to like this because everyone hates it, but no, it just sucks and doesn't work.

So

I also hate it.

I think that was really fun.

I love finding out that something, something that people are doing now, and you go, wow, that's so

innovative, right?

But somebody did it years ago, just when the technology wasn't good enough for anyone to notice it, really.

Yeah,

one of the biggest examples of that I always point to is Resident Evil Outbreak.

It was released in like 2003, and it's it's a classic Resident Evil game that is a co-op,

online co-op game, you know, and it used the PS2's online infrastructure, but nobody had that back in the day, so it was like

a colossal failure of a video game.

Like, nobody bought it because nobody really played the PS2 online, you know?

But people have gotten it working now, like on fan servers, you know?

And when you play it, like, with Discord and like a full party of Resident Evil characters, you're like, this is the greatest Resident Evil game ever made.

Like you're doing like classic Resident Evil puzzles with

three other people, you know?

Way too early.

Yeah, like that's a game that was way ahead of its time and

should have waited for like the 360 generation or something, you know?

Right.

Do you think

we could easily research dudes?

I must know the answer to this.

If there are any modern games that are using the like shout at your character to get them to do stuff horror game, because I absolutely want to make that game.

Yeah, like it's like get out of there!

Get no, turn left!

Hide!

Get under the bed!

Go!

No!

That would be not that doorway!

Like, can you imagine?

That would be amazing.

Amazing.

And you would have an option.

Like, in the options menu, there would be an option to give it like the

CRTV

lines as though you're watching a movie and yelling at the movie yeah that's that'd be amazing yeah also I was one of the few people that had PlayStation 2 online stuff to play EverQuest online adventures which by the way me and the six other people playing

boy we didn't know what we were doing bro I wanted that game to work so bad damn

did you use like a keyboard and mouse on that game uh so you it you weren't allowed to but someone discovered that certain keyboards and mouses just worked with the PS2, and so you could.

Also, I think they had branded PS2

keyboards and mouses.

I think they did, yeah, because I don't know if you guys remember this.

Um, everybody's favorite Final Fantasy game, uh, Dirge of Cerberus.

You could plug a keyboard and mouse into that, into the PS2 and use it and operate it like a first-person shooter.

And it was kind of cool, I guess, you know?

Yeah, kind of cool.

I like how they're being obsessed.

They're not crying.

They're strategic stuff.

Dirge of Cerberus.

Jesse,

I know you've got your Square Enix contacts.

You got to tell them to bring the keyboard and mouse support back when they remaster that game.

My entire life has been trying to get them to make remasters of old things I love.

They don't care what I say.

Although, Vagrant Story, though.

We need it.

We need a Vagrant Story remake.

Please and thank you.

Love Jesse.

I will, you know what?

Listen, I managed to annoy Capcom enough to get them to port RE1, 2, and 3 on PC.

So anything's possible, okay?

Like.

Yeah.

Except you do like

hour-long,

in-depth...

like retrospective looks at their properties in a way that makes them respect years of their work and I am like

Dodgers downloaded terabytes of porn so I feel like the difference the difference there's a difference between by the way I don't remember if that was part of the podcast or that was the before the show

so there's zero context if you're contextual thinking to myself should we give context for that I don't think so though keep talking

Anyway, context-free.

That's my problem is they're like, oh,

that's that Goober man.

And I'm like, hey,

you guys should re-release Vagrant Story.

And they're like,

block him.

Block that guy.

Block that man.

Oh, my God.

They're like,

that's that cyberpunk ghoul.

Yeah.

Although, if they, you know, if they want to, like, start making Square Annix characters where one's like, Squall, help me.

My dick is on fire.

Yo, I got you covered.

Call me.

The Final Fantasy cyberpunk crossover that everyone is asking for?

Yeah.

By everyone, you mean me right now.

Jesse Cox.

Jesse Cox.

The single person.

Yeah.

The only person.

I just imagined playing the third part of FF7 Remake and like doing a side quest and like going into a bar and it's like a photorealistic scanned version of you like fucking like like an FF7 like puppet, you know, like how they like move like weird.

Oh, Cloud, you gotta help me.

Oh, God.

Oh, my goodness.

It's like a mini game.

I'm gonna get Spyraga on myself by accident.

Do not store materia near your junk, Cloud.

All it would take is two.

All it would take is two versions of that before more and more companies are like, all right, how can we work

Jesse with his dick on fire into our game?

Yeah.

Fuck it.

I'm making a game.

Fuck it.

I'm doing it.

I'm putting you in the game.

I'm putting you in my game.

Flaming crime.

Thank you.

How everyone?

My life goal is to be at a con on the convention circuit when I'm like 80 and be like,

you might know me as the man with the dick on fire.

Or a troll that fought.

Like, I want to have like, I also was a snake that looked like a wiener.

Like, I just want to have a list, a list of like really great roles.

People would be like, who are you?

Like, remember that game you played where the salad was made out of boobs?

That was me.

I was that guy.

I was the boobs.

Yeah, that's the one.

Listen, listen.

I can relate.

Okay.

I'm in like every puppet combo game, which are like essentially like 70s exploitation horror movies.

So I got it.

I'll be there at some point.

My little booth will be right next to yours, you know?

I love that.

That'd be great.

It'd be like, come on over.

Come on.

It's the old puppet and the fart guy.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

I mean, anyway, that's what I do for a living.

Intro over.

Amazing.

Oh, my goodness.

Have either of you guys done any of the NextFest stuff?

Have you been playing any?

Oh, yes.

Oh, my goodness.

So I've been horror NextFest thing.

By the way, if you go on on the NextFest page on Steam,

it's really funny because there's a lot of games on there that I'm like, oh, yo, that looks so cool.

I downloaded

one game called Sultan's Game.

Okay.

And I have, literally, it's the one I haven't played yet, but it's the one I would go say to look at because it looks like.

I don't even know how to describe this game.

It's like a card game kind of thing.

I don't know what this is.

I'm fascinated by it.

So I want to play that but I'm just gonna put that out there for everyone to go look at sultans I played a little bit of worshipers of Cthulhu which is imagine like a city building game but you're building a game you're building a Cthulhu cult good good old-fashioned fun but more importantly played the heartworm demo the horror game that is

like PlayStation era horror very cool super interesting played the karma the dark the dark world is that what that's called I almost want to say Thor, the dark world.

Karma is

might be my favorite horror demo I've played in a long time, maybe since PT.

It is

the trip.

It's like highly trippy.

Basically, you are a guy who works for an agency that's very Federal Bureau of Control coded.

Like it is, like, it's very coded, but it also takes place in sort of like a 1984-esque society where the company clearly runs everything and

everyone takes this drug to keep them working and motivated, even though society is like very messed up.

So it also has like a little wee happy few coding in there.

But you play as a guy who goes into the dreams of other people.

And that's sort of like what your job, like a dream hacker for the company.

Everything that takes place in it is one of those, am I in the dream?

Is this reality?

What is happening?

Who is this?

You're traveling like into other people's bodies because you're in their dream.

And so you're experiencing their dreams trying to unlock the real story of what happened then.

And so it is extremely interesting to play, but also visually stunning and more importantly,

like...

So weird it's unsettling and then scary when it needs to be when like stuff shows up and you're like, what is that?

But you're in the dream with someone else.

You have no control over it.

So, it's like a little inception.

There's a lot of things coming together for this, but it plays great and is super, super weird.

And those are the kind of things I love.

Yes, this is karma.

Interesting.

Yeah, that was that was one that got suggested to me, but I didn't play.

It's great.

Heartworm is the story.

I don't know what it is.

I guess the idea is that someone in your life died, or maybe several people died.

And

I guess you're kind of working through it, but it's done in a retro silent hill slash Resident Evil style where you can even do full RE-1 tank controls if you want, but your only weapon is a camera.

And if you take enough photos of the enemies, which are like static people,

they like, they go like,

and they d-res, and it's like the worst sound you've ever heard.

It's like,

and then they die.

And you're like, what the hell?

There's a giant crazy spider creature in it.

I don't know what the game, like, the game is a series of, or at least the demo, is a series of very RE1 style moments with a plot that I don't know what it is at the moment, but it's neat.

It's very interesting.

I've been very interested in that game.

I, I didn't realize there was a demo out for it because I've been like so busy in my personal life recently, but I just downloaded it on my other computer over here and I'm going to play it.

Like, that

sounds amazing.

I think I will.

Yeah, I'm excited.

Holy shit.

Does it have fixed camera angles?

Yes.

So there's like,

there's the

first time I realized I was like, ooh, I'm going to love this.

Is it does an intro tutorial where it teaches you how to use the camera?

And then as you run out of the intro area, it does the fixed camera of like a top-down, way high up as you run across the bridge.

And then you see this weird house.

And then it's like the fixed camera changes.

It like keeps doing, yeah, it's fixed camera stuff.

But there is a way to kind of break it, which I don't know if this is something you want to do, but we did it because we're like, F it.

the camera there's two versions where you can either use it how it's supposed to be used which is there's a camera and you're getting the fixed angle and you take the shot like you would playing an older game or you can switch to over the shoulder so when you pull the camera out it goes behind you and you can move 360 around to take the shot yeah and in that way you can see a lot more of the level and find secrets that you may not have found just looking from like a certain angle so i guess it's kind of cheating but

so it's it's like um

have you ever seen uh what resident evil 4 was supposed to be

Resident Evil 3.5 where it's fixed camera angle but when you aim it goes over the shoulder oh my god that sounds so cool yeah and so it just gives you a bunch of options it's pretty neat um

going speaking of options going back to karma The most brilliant thing I think about that game that I loved, I love when games do this, is you wake up, you have this intro scene, I don't want to spoil any of it, but then the minute you leave the initial room, you go through a series of corridors and the corridors are literally setting up your game's options.

So the first one is like, the first room you get to is the white balance.

And so it's like, oh, you hear a voiceover and talk.

She's like, if you do this and you change this,

right?

And then the next room is sound pro like sound profile stuff.

So you can have like Adobe around, right?

And the next room.

And this keeps going.

And I'm like, this is such a clever way to do initial setup for you.

stuff like that i love it's totally unimportant never really needed but when i see it i'm like oh you guys yeah love that stuff yeah i love i love when developers think outside of the box for stuff that isn't like completely important like that i feel like so many games nowadays like especially the capcom's recent games like when you put them in the first time it's just like no sound black screen and it's like here's the initial setup and it's like

okay

great.

Yeah.

And then they just throw you into the game.

And it's like, wait, I want to look at the other options.

Like, can I look at the other options, please?

Yeah.

Having that available in-game as you play, I think is a very cute thing.

Because it, because you can also see it in game.

It's like,

you know, you do options and then the game starts.

And you're like, okay, this isn't exactly what I wanted.

Let me just pause.

Yeah.

So that was pretty cool.

Isn't that so funny how, like, this is a little bit of a tangent, but like, I love how video games just like

expect you to know things.

Like, like, you put them in the first time, and it's like, how do you want the game to be?

And it's like, I don't know, I haven't played it yet.

What are you talking about?

Yeah,

really hard or really easy.

I don't know.

Yeah, the number of times that I go into the options and I look at everything, but I don't change anything because I'm like, I don't know yet.

I have no idea

how this game is going to be calibrated initially.

I don't know how annoying picking up every item will be for me to turn on the setting that picks them up automatically.

Right.

Dukes, did you?

There's one game I haven't played, but I feel like you might have.

Have you tried the NextFest demo for Joten Slayer?

No.

Have you seen that?

It's a hordes of hell.

I'm pretty sure, at least from what I've seen, it's kind of like Vampire Survivors, but Norse,

but also different in a way.

Oh, Joten, like a J.

Got it.

Yeah.

Joten Slayer.

I felt like you would have played that, but I guess not.

I want to try that.

It looks very cool.

No, I did.

I played some kind of spoopy stuff today.

I played

Urban Myth Disillusion Center.

So this,

like, initially, like, like, first impression to give you is that

this has gorgeous animated pixel art.

It's, it's beautiful to look at.

And play style-wise, you're basically like a

spirit detective.

The game like teaches you how to play in the context of like you're a person who has never done this before, right?

But in terms of like the mechanics, if you really like games like Ace Attorney or more recently, if you like the Golden Idol games, where it's like, I'm collecting all of this information and then I need to figure out how it all pieces together.

It's that, right?

So the demo is you learning how to play, but then going to like try and figure out essentially what urban myth is plaguing a person.

And so you're like,

yeah, so you like collect all of this information.

And

I think it's going to be a really, really cool game because I love sort of like puzzle games like that where it's like, let's try and figure out what happened here, you know?

So that combined with the aesthetics and how the game looks, it's that sounds really cool.

What is it called again?

I want to, I want to.

Urban Myth Disillusion Center.

It's a great demo.

I recommend it.

Okay, I'm going to download it right now.

As you guys can see, I have not experienced any of these things yet, and I'm downloading them as we speak.

Yeah, do it.

One that I think, Jesse, you should really bring to Scary Game Squad, but not

tell them at all what it is, is a game called Soulmates.

In this game,

I know.

In this game, your friend has gone missing in a haunted house, and you're like, I have to save my friend, right?

So you're playing it, and it feels like a spooky point-and-click.

Right?

It's it's like a very dark, dreary, like fucked up vibe.

Um, You're walking through all of the rooms.

You have to like hide from monsters, whatever.

But

this game is a horror dating sim

where you are trying to

connect with

the monsters and ghosts and find out more about them in order to progress because otherwise they stop you from finding your friend.

It's so funny.

It was legitimately spooky occasionally.

And I was like, I love this.

Like, the tone shift is so funny in this game.

I must stress to you,

watching.

So I went to the page.

Yeah.

And the images are like of this terrifying ghost.

Like, no eyeballs, tongue hanging out.

Like, she's...

But at the same time, I was like, damn, that ghost's stacked.

What's going on?

What's happening here?

What's up with this?

And then, as I clicked through,

my chat said the same thing.

As I clicked through, I was like, wait, why halfway through this video of this horror game does the scary monster turn into like

just a half-naked anime girl?

A cute, cute booba girl?

Yeah.

And I'm like,

what is happening here?

And then

as I saw that,

you go,

yeah, so you got to date them?

And like, it's a dating sim?

And I'm like, well, of course it is.

Well, yeah, of course.

That explains everything.

Every question I have.

I think, yeah, calling it a dating sim is just to give you an idea of the genre.

But like, I would say the term date is kind of loose.

It's more like you need to get to know them to figure out how to help them pass on so that you can like move on.

But it's a lot of like flirting with them.

I mean, look, you know, this is

our bread and butter.

We love a good ghost flirt.

Big fan.

Jesse, when I tell you, I didn't tell chat that there was a dating sim element to this game.

And when it did the switch up, everyone was like, what is happening?

And I just really, if possible, I want you to really bury the lead with the other boys and have one of the, like a different, have one of them take the lead

and just see how it goes.

Man, this sucks because there's a game that is kind of similar that I think would be a great like pair with this because the

other game I'm thinking of, and I don't remember the name of it.

Please go to Nextfest and go to the horror category and give it a look.

It is a game where it's a horror game, but it is done in the style of old PC dungeon crawlers where you like are moving forward and you do left or you do right.

And it's that screen where you're like in the box as you move through.

Yeah, yeah, and it's done that way, but it's a horror game.

And I was like, yo, that looks amazing.

I think it'd be great to do that paired with this because they both have a similar vibe.

And then this one like

takes that hard left.

It can be fun.

Absolutely.

No.

Another one, if you liked Inscription,

a game to check out is called, Is This Game Trying to Kill Me?

If you died, the game you died real life.

It's like goofy in all the right ways.

You are, you're trapped in like a spooky dude's house, and he's like, While you're trapped here, why don't we play a game, right?

Saw style.

But it has that element of like, there's a game on like an old computer that you're playing, but the things you do in that game affect like your actual world and trying to figure out like like how to solve puzzles like which which like version of your world you need to be in to solve different puzzles and progress it's i think the puzzles in this were very clever i really really liked it so if you like escape room games and you liked inscription i think you'll like that that sort of like i'm in this game but also out like the outside is also a game kind of a thing and how they sort of like intermingle.

Is this game trying to kill me?

Is this game trying to kill me?

Yeah, it's also a great attention grabber for making a YouTube video.

Like the title is a great YouTube video title as well.

Wow, yeah, totally.

Is this game trying to kill me?

Five reasons.

Number four will shock you.

Screaming face, a thumbnail, legacy.

Oh!

Yeah, exactly.

Another one that was kind of like a surprise spooky game is called Scarlet Deer Inn.

Have you guys heard of that game?

What?

But it sounds so good.

Scarlet Deer Inn.

Scarlet Deer Inn.

So this one, again, I'm going to lead off with aesthetics.

All of the characters, the way that they're like colored in is with embroidery, like actual embroidery.

So the way that they all move around and like interact with the world is really, really cool.

And there's, there's like fun elements.

Like at one point in the demo, you're talking to little kids that are playing in the dirt.

And so their like embroidery bits when they talk are like covered with dirt.

I guess really, really cool.

The like textured aspect of how the game looks.

But this game is like

an old pagan themed Metroidvania.

Yeah.

It's buck wild.

I'm looking at it right now.

looks like

It looks amazing.

I'm looking at it right now.

It's so cool.

Really cool.

We actually embroidered the characters with the sprites.

That's so insane.

I'm telling you, indie games are going to be our savior, I swear.

Yeah.

I'm so curious if the reason that is, so a lot of games, especially in the AAA space, are like, we're going to wow you with the amount of money we spend and the amount of hours this game is gonna be and all and so in the world of indie games in order to get attention you have to be as creative but on a budget so you have to come up with like

pure insanity like oh yeah let's uh make everything we'll we'll stitch it and then we'll like embroider the game yeah it it feels

It feels like the

God, this is such a weird thing to say, like the good version of the same trend that happens on YouTube or in

creator culture, where it's like, we got to go crazy.

We got to make something clever.

We got to grab everyone's attention.

And like in the creator sphere, it's people who are just like, yeah, so I

threw my friend off a building, right?

But in the video game space, like

completely out of embroidery.

And

really, we just created a Metroidvania, but it like looks super unique.

Or our entire game is stop motion.

like that kind of thing.

And for sure, definitely when you look at this game, I immediately downloaded the demo.

I was like, Yeah, I'm in.

Yeah, same.

And so, I wonder if that's like, is there a point where it goes, it's just too much?

Like, an indie company can't do that stuff, or is it a point where a triple-A company has to be like, all right, what if we spend less money and then, like,

actually create something really crazy and unique?

I have no clue where that trend takes us.

You know what?

Um, somebody said the other day that

they think probably companies making AAA titles

are not seeing the difference between a game that they think will sell versus a game that they would want to play,

which I thought was kind of interesting.

Like,

what buzzwords, what aspects do you think will sell the game versus what would actually be fun to play?

And like, what the difference is between those two things or what that Venn diagram looks like, right?

I think, yeah, it's

this is such a great topic to talk about.

I, because I, I think about this a lot, like, especially recently, because like every video game, I feel like every AAA game right now is striving for photorealism, just to get like as much like, oh, you could see the guy's stubble on his face when he's looking in the mirror and this and that.

And, and it's like, I feel, you know, I feel like

it's all whatever the higher ups that these companies want.

And video games in the AAA space, at at least have always kind of been a skin deep presentation to the rest of the world.

Like it's like, it's always been like, look how beautiful the graphics are.

Even though like, you know, the hook of whatever game, like say like,

you know, like Splinter Cell is like, oh, this is like simulation level stealth or whatever.

Like light and shadow is like a big part of it.

But like, really what it is is like, look how beautiful this game is, the rest of the world.

Like, you know, RE4 is like this octane like action game but like the real hook of it was we invented the over-the-shoulder camera you know like that kind of thing it's i'm a little more cynical about it right now just because

you know we do get games like undertale or or like you know like a five nights at freddy's that do like

fucking unbelievable gangbusters and have like fan bases that are the size of the largest countries you know like and then it's like

but still, like, Sony's just like,

we have to see Ellie cry and every tear is like, has ray traced reflections, you know,

this has to be like the most high quality thing ever.

And, and I, I don't know what it is.

I think what you said, Jesse, like, maybe it has to be both of those things where there has to be an indie game that does so incredibly well that is embroidered, but also like, okay, how do we top that?

Like, we literally can't top that with like our tiny budget.

And then maybe a AAA higher-up producer like sees that indie game and is like,

that's amazing.

Everyone loves that.

And it's sold really well.

Let's try to do that.

Oh, and it's way cheaper than what we've been doing, rendering every hair on James Sunderland's head.

Like,

why have we been doing that this whole time?

Like, I think there has to be kind of like a perfect storm of

circumstances that happens.

Yeah, it's a weird vibe because I feel like

at the end of the day, also a lot of the high-fidelity, you can see stubble or the hair, we like spend hours crafting new, like all that stuff, I think, also for a lot of companies is about showing off other proprietary things.

You know what I mean?

Like

Sony, for example, is like, some of the things we put in our games are to show off these other things that we also, like our internal processes or weird stuff we're using that we can then sell or use for other things or you know Microsoft is doing the same thing in their own way and it always feels like okay

All right, like I understand from a corporate level what you're trying to do, but you're also just making a video game and I'm gonna let you know sometimes it's unnecessary to spend 500 you know million dollars on something when it's just

It's just a video game, you know like people if it's good people play it no matter if if it looks like it's from the future I do wonder how much of it is like companies competing with each other as well.

You know, like, like not necessarily, obviously, a variable is

do

consumers think it looks nice, but like how much of it is, again, like, you know, higher ups being like,

you can see every pore on Ellie's face in that game.

We got to do that too, or we got to do it better somehow, you know?

And at what point are we going to hit like the uncanny valley again?

I feel like we're really close to that.

Mostly, yeah.

I'm curious when it hits the same point.

I mean, like, even though it's very old now,

one of the big critiques that I always thought was really funny about the Final Fantasy movie that came out

the year 2000, whenever it came out.

The Final Fantasy movie, all the critiques were like, it is so uncanny Valley to watch this.

They look too real.

And if you look back, you're like, that's not true.

They, they do, they look like mannequins.

They look terrible, yes.

But like, it's part of the, as it gets more and more real,

I wonder if

I don't, I don't know what will happen because I know that a lot of people want that

realism.

They want the characters to look a certain way, but there's absolutely a moment where it crosses the line from like, wow, that cowboy looks amazing to like, hmm, I feel uneasy about this cowboy.

Like something about him, his eyes, his eyes are like,

I don't know if it, if having

as we, because there's a lot of eye tech, right?

Where it used to be to just be dead eyes, and then they gave the eyes a little more life, and then the eyes became wetter, and then you could see reflections in eyes, and then you can see like pupil quality, and it just keeps getting better and better.

And I wonder if there's a point where that's going to be like the one that gets us is the eyes are just like, those are people eyes.

It's like when you see a dog that clearly has human eyes and you're like, it's unsettling.

What is that dog thinking about?

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're like, I can't think of seeing that dog's soul and you're like, what's this dog?

Is this dog judging me right now?

What's why you look like that dog?

And the dog just has people eyes.

You're like, yeah, people eyes.

I love that.

And that's what I feel like.

Eventually something will happen with games where the eyes will be so good that it's like,

it looked at me.

Oh my god.

And it's like, you know, I

it looked into my soul.

Reminds me of my dog that passed away and all that have a midlife crisis.

This game set me to therapy, guys.

Thank you.

The ultimate horror game.

Anyway,

no, yeah, I do think about that.

And it kind of goes back to what I was saying about Lifeline PS2, right?

Like that game has nothing going on in it, but it looks amazing.

And I guess for me, like personally,

the issue that I see with it, with like where the industry is going in the AAA space,

it feels like

maybe a loss of focus, you know, a little bit, because we do get those situations where, oh, the dog has human eyes, you know, and it's like, how much of

the dev time and budget was spent on that kind of stuff, you know, like making modeling every single button on a character's shirt and making it like 4K texture.

Like, I think I'm at this point now where like everybody's throwing this, this new, uh, this new term around for video games, like with the PS5 Pro FF7 rebirth, like, this is the definition of diminishing returns or whatever, blah, blah, blah.

And it's like, yeah, I feel like we're getting there.

Like, I feel like people are, or not people, but like these companies are.

are maybe focusing a little too too hard on the graphical presentation and i saw some people in the chat like you know like sony specifically is like a, an electronics company, right?

And they, they do, it's like you said, Jesse, like they, they want to push new technologies to the forefront because they're developing it and they're proud of it and all that kind of stuff.

And it can inform other people's work.

But at a certain point, it's like,

when are we going to get some real innovation in like the gameplay department or just like

like change like really blow my mind and impress me with like a new style of video game a new genre of game, you know,

instead of just like,

you know, human dog eyes or whatever.

I mean, that's that's what happened with me with with Astrobot is it's not like a hyper compelling game.

Like it is straight up just Sony promotion, but

The game itself I loved so much because it just did things that I thought were unique and wasn't necessarily in a lot of games.

And then I realized halfway through playing it, all the functionality has always been in the controller.

Me doing the thing where I have to blow on the controller in order to get a pinwheel on the screen to move.

Like, I was like, this is so much fun.

I feel like I can't play.

This is great.

But the damn thing,

none of that's new tech.

It's always been in the controller.

People just never used it.

And I was like, lazy ass motherfuckers.

I got mad.

I was like, it's been here the entire time.

I just,

I feel like I've, I, you know, I've had a similar revelation recently where it's like

we could have been doing this the whole time and like, you know, using controller speakers and all of those haptics in like the most interesting ways possible, but instead we're just getting like

character over the shoulder, like takes up the entire left side of the screen.

You know, like, I feel like I'm just playing, you know, like the games look amazing.

And I love, I love like when environments are like really fleshed out and detailed.

I always talk about it in my videos, but like,

I feel like I'm like mechanically speaking in the AAA space, I'm still playing like

PS3 and PS4 games, you know, mechanically speaking.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's fair.

And I guess it also makes sense because like half of the games coming out are remakes and remix too.

So it's like,

yeah, true.

Yeah, when I got a Steam Deck,

one of the like first things that you can have on the Steam Deck is basically a like a tech demo, demo, right?

That, that Valve made that's set in the, in the portal universe, and you're like a person working in aperture science, and it really tries hard to show you like all of the possible things that a dev could utilize with the Steam Deck if they wanted to.

And I remember thinking kind of the same thing of like, I'm not sure what it is that, that's like keeping us from from thinking beyond like how games have pretty much always played played or like how to utilize those things without it feeling feeling gimmicky, I guess.

Yeah.

I don't know.

But sometimes gimmicky is fun.

Gimmicky can be super fun.

Yeah.

Doing something unique because everyone thinks it's gimmicky, but again,

that controller, for example, on the PlayStation,

barely anyone is using it.

Only a few launch titles.

for PS5 actually attempted to do some of the things.

And since then, I assume because people are trying to, you know, release it on PC, Xbox, PlayStation, a lot of games just don't have any of it because it's not necessarily a PlayStation release.

And so you're just missing out on so much good stuff.

And so the gimmicks aren't really gimmicks if no one's using them.

It becomes unique again.

And I'm like, yeah, shake my controller, rumble it, have it blast sound at me.

Let me like shake it or use it to fly or something.

Whatever.

It's all built in.

Let's do it.

No.

Can I give you guys a

little like anecdote?

I had

a brain blast recently.

So

I played the Dead Rising remaster on PC.

And

it just plays exactly like Dead Rising from 2006, but

updated controls and all that.

And then I tried it out on PS4, and I had all the controller settings turned on.

And when you go into camera mode, the way you take pictures on the PS4, or sorry, PS5 version is

you press the right trigger to snap the photo, right?

Like how you would on a real camera.

But what blew my fucking mind was if you lightly hold the trigger before you commit to a full press, the camera actually auto-focuses like a real life camera.

Oh, wow.

And that's nowhere to be found like on the other versions of the game, right?

And when that happened, when I experienced my first photo on the ps5 version i was like

why don't we have like a new fatal frame video game yeah i was just gonna say it should be where you take

yeah it's like

and and they did that you know like the i think the last um i think the last fatal frame game that came out was on the wii u if you guys remember and they use the they use the big control as the camera and it's like i don't know like there's so much amazing innovative tech that we have right now that just nobody is using.

And you could use that stuff to go back to like the gimmick era of video games where

you're not just selling your game on how beautiful it is alone, but on the fun thing that it's doing.

And I feel like that was such a prevalent thing in the PS2 and like original Xbox era, you know, where it was like,

Yeah, like we're gonna we're gonna do press release, but it's gonna be all about how this really cool game mechanic that we made works, you know?

And not exactly about like, oh, look at the dynamic lighting and the peach fuzz on Kratos's back or whatever, you know, like, like, it's just,

I don't know, yeah.

I, I, I think, uh, I think the indies are really, are really innovating in that way.

And, and,

you know, like, I...

I'm genuinely interested, you know, like Jesse is like telling me about a heartworms gameplay.

And it's like, that sounds a lot like Resident Evil 3.5, which is a game I always wanted to play, you know, but never got to play.

And it's like, that's an indie dev that just took an idea that was a discarded idea and made a whole game

like that.

You know, it's like,

I don't know.

Why can't we just have these things?

Why can't we have cool things?

Why can't we have nice, gimmicky, fun stuff?

Speaking of nice, yes, and beautiful and fun, Doctor, did you play Neva this week?

No.

What is it?

it?

I think you would love it.

It's by the team that made Greece, G-R-I-S, not You're the One That I Want.

Yes.

That team.

Oh Mighty.

N-E-V-A.

Yeah.

And you play as basically a dog mom who, I don't want to spoil the beginning, but you have to take care of a little pup.

Okay.

And I think this game is designed to make you cry, but also

you

have a sword and you go around killing slime monsters and platforming and dodging

slime, these creepy slime creatures that are destroying the world.

And you and your sweet doggo have to take them out.

And it is a ton of fun.

The game is beautiful.

Someone said it'll destroy me.

So I'm tentative.

That's why I thought you would have played it.

Because I love to cry.

That's so true.

Yeah.

I mean, I know you.

I think

everyone I know who's who's played, like even I, so this is this, I got to play a little bit at play days during the summer and it's very good i'm i don't want to spoil the actual full game but in the intro as you're sort of learning the platforming bits you also sometimes have to call your sweet sweet pupper and so your character will just be like nava nava and like keep like and so the dog will like follow you around There's one part where you're doing a platform thing and you have a double jump.

So you double jump across and your dog goes to jump and like misses and holds onto the edge.

And then it's a tutorial to teach you how to get the dog to jump.

But Neva will just fall to the ground and go, and I'm like, no,

no.

I jumped out.

I'm like, are you okay?

And it's clearly the dog's fine.

And he's like, like a little puppy.

But I'm like, no,

you'll never fall again as long as I'm around.

I will forget.

I'm back to.

Yeah, I was like, I won't do anything for you.

I love you.

Yeah.

So that is, that's, that's the game.

But,

you know, it has a lot of uh very cool

platform-y kind of like uh

um

you know like the like a cool chase where a monster's chasing you through a bunch of platforms or like a boss battle in a giant field of reeds that kind of stuff.

Like it's just like the beautiful moments you can imagine that you've seen in other video games just done in sort of like a painted pastel grease style is very nice.

Very cool.

I think you will love this dukes.

I think it is right up your alley.

Yeah.

I have to play it.

Yep.

And you have to, chat, you need to save all the links of when Dukes cries so I can watch.

What the heck?

How long is it?

Have you beaten it?

No, no.

I'm not even.

This past week was a mess for me.

I played Neva.

I played Metaphor Refontasio.

By the way, that game slaps.

Metaphor is so good.

It's very fun.

I love it.

I started over.

I'm doing a luck run.

amazing i bet that would be i like getting early on when you get to fight a dragon it's like don't fight that dragon i was like i'm fighting that dragon best choice i've ever made in a video game their awards are amazing i was like yo this is great for anyone who is is curious metaphor is literally persona minus school it is in a fantasy world

and they've gotten rid of the school element instead the premise is uh the premise is that you and your like team are working for a prince who is caught in a coma by a magic spell, and you have X number of days to save the prince.

So it has the like the time thing.

But also, the king has been killed.

There is a power vacuum.

Everyone is vying for the ability to rule the kingdom.

And so there's a contest that's taking place where after a certain number of days, whoever has the most support of the people becomes the king.

And so you have that aspect as well.

So you have all the, that kind of like, we added the persona tweaks, but it's just not school stuff.

And then you have the characters trying to, you know,

fight the, the evil that I don't want to spoil because the evil is awesome.

I love the villains in this game.

It's very, I don't even want to ruin it because it's so messed up.

Yeah.

It's

so messed up in a mess.

It's so fun.

Yeah.

A couple of people in chat are saying, I literally picked up this game as my first Atlas game because you don't have to go to school in it, which is so fair.

Absolutely.

Yeah, but it's got the same like

long, interesting dungeons with like bonkers, things to fight, and like really interesting world building and fun characters.

And yeah, it's very fun.

And there's, there's multiple, so like

if you're when you play, not only are you leveling your characters, but you're you're also leveling your archetypes, which your archetype is kind of your persona basically but an archetype is this cool magical robot ass looking thing that there's various different versions of and it at first i thought it was just going to be like um

like a warrior and mage and healer but then you get you start getting things like uh merchant Like, what the hell does merchant do?

And if you use it, you throw money at people, you get discounts at shops, things like that.

And I was like, what a bizarre.

Like, this is okay.

And they keep getting more crazy and convoluted as it goes on, which is, I love that.

But then, not only are you leveling all of that, but then also you have a whole other system, which is you need to form bonds with people.

And those bonds will affect your archetypes.

You'll get better stuff, but also they allow you to do all sorts of other things.

This isn't a game where, unlike Persona, where those bonds equal like, and then we bang.

This is like, no, I need them to become, become you know or to stop the bad guy from becoming king so i need to just get people on my side like that kind of vibe uh and then there's a whole other system which is yeah it's like finding people who believe in you and like believe in your cause and and forming bond and you can you can like strengthen those bonds but like that's initially what it is is like are we on the same side are we fighting the same battle kind of a thing

Then you have this whole other system, which is as you do stuff for people, you unlock traits.

And so it can be anything from like, um,

boy, I know this isn't it, but like empathy or, you know, like you discover your strong will or you, you know, unlock brain powers, right?

And so it forms like this crown.

And then each of them, like, yeah, tolerance is what it was.

And then each of them has sort of like a peak that gives you points.

And it's these virtues that you have.

And that also affects the way the world treats you and kind of what you gain access to.

So for a great example is

one of the abilities or one of these special virtues.

You have to get it to level two in order to unlock the ability to have things sanctified.

So when you're out in the world,

you might find an item and it's like, can we sanctified at a church?

And it'll make the item better.

Well, the church is like, sorry, your wisdom's too low.

We don't even know you around here.

Yeah, so we're racist.

Yeah.

Also, everyone in this world is racist and terrible.

They treat this various societies poorly, but it's a fantasy world, so it's like cat and dog people and bunny people.

You know, the opening cutscene is like dogs on the street being like, please, sir, help me.

And he's like, get out of here, you muddy.

It's crazy.

Wait a minute.

So this game has dogs with human eyes?

It has humans with dog features, I think.

Okay, okay.

Gotcha.

It's a fascinating game because then there's also a whole other mechanic.

Like,

it is a game.

This is, I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just say this.

It's a game where when you start the game, it asks you for your name,

and then 20 minutes later, it asks you for the character name, and it never addresses your name again.

And I'm like, that's coming up 80 hours in.

This is, that's going to be a thing.

It's that kind of vibe.

So it's going to get weird.

It is weird.

It's super messed up.

And I love every minute of it.

It's going to be like, oh, you as the player is this puppet master that's been controlling the and now we have to fight

fight yourself because we're killing God and you, the player, are God.

And then you have to fight against your party that you've been crafting the whole game.

Oh my God, that would be so sick.

Somehow found, like, got a photo of you

on your face.

And like, secretly takes a picture while you're playing it.

So it's like.

Tony's like, oh, you wanted us to use our technology.

We took a picture of you through the control.

That game, the way you guys are describing it, sounds amazing.

I played, my history with those types of games was I played P4 Golden, and it took me like 80 hours to finish it.

And when I finished it, I was like, that's the only one of those games I'll ever need, ever again.

I'm tired.

Yeah.

And it was mostly just because of the school stuff that kind of like annoyed me.

I don't like the school stuff.

It's never been

a a thing for me i it's like it's one of those things where i'm like i didn't like going to school as a kid so why would i want to relive that over and over again

but yeah uh no that sounds awesome i want to check it out sounds like a classic final fantasy with the job system yeah i have not enjoyed like a jrpg style game in a very long time and this this feels like it's set in a fantasy world it's you know turn-based combat like all of the things that i've gotten kind of exhausted with but i'm really enjoying it in this game so yeah i the good news is

the demo for metaphor is like not just a demo it's the same thing that squeenix did with final fantasy 16 where they were like here have the first eight hours of this damn game enjoy yeah so you don't even have to and then the demo save file will go to the main game oh good so if you like it great if not you're like that's trash i don't need to buy it it's pretty smart.

Yeah.

I mean, it also shows like a lot of confidence in their game.

Yeah.

To be like, here, play the first eight hours.

I bet you'll like it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm definitely going to check out that demo.

That sounds freaking cool.

What were you going to say, Dukes?

Can I bring up a game that I just want to recommend, but I don't want to actually talk about?

Is that okay?

I mean, okay.

Have either of you played mouthwashing yet?

It is on the list of things to play.

Everyone keeps telling me I need to play it.

Everyone.

I went into it blind.

I recommend you go into it blind.

Done.

Easy.

Okay.

Yeah.

You mean I don't have to research anything?

Cool.

Yeah.

No, all right.

I'm still thinking about this game every day since I played it.

It is only like three and a half hours long.

It's it's a very quick play.

And I would love to talk to you about it, either of you, both of you.

I would love to talk to you guys about it after you've played it.

I definitely recommend it, though.

Has a ton of warnings.

If you're not, if like, oh my God.

Okay.

But

very good game.

Very good, interesting game.

I can tell it's a good game because every time we put out a video for Scary Game Squad, all the messages I get are

where's Mouthwash?

Play Mouthwash.

I'm like, oh my God.

It's either that or Resident Evil, or not Resident Evil, Silent Hill 2.

And I'm like, we already played silent like play the remake i'm like god oh those

remake's like 16 hours long how many of you are gonna sit around for 16 hour youtube let's play it's not happening jesse

you have to you have to find the clock hands for the clock before you do the clock puzzle now okay don't you want to record yourself doing that the good news is i think in theory i know all of the like i know that game so much that I'm not stressed, but I feel like there'll be new things.

And yeah, the next, the next one on my list that I want to play immediately is the new Blumhouse one, Fear the Spotlight.

That is.

Yes, I want to play that too.

I don't know anything about that.

The demo is great.

The premise is

you play as a young woman who is kind of like the nerdy one.

And the,

I don't know, I'm going to say goth girl.

I don't know how to describe her, like the vampi girl at school

gets you to come to school after hours and like break in because there's a Ouija board in the library because there's like a sort of

like, you know, Halloween theme thing going on.

So they have a Ouija board there.

And the reason they want to do this is because the Vampi girl is like, hey, don't ask why.

Don't ask questions.

Also, I'm not going to spoil this.

Don't ask questions.

We're going to

go into the library and we're going to talk to the dead because at that school years before, there was a fire and a bunch of students died and so we're going to talk to the dead in the school library and of course they break out the Ouija board and then shit goes down of course and uh it's that kind of horror game it looks absolutely amazing it kind of has an old school retro

ps12 era look to it and um

It is just the coolest.

The game is

one that

I played a demo for it

can't stress enough how how well they use the graphics of that time to cast some like really cool effects on screen but yeah there's like a mystery there and i don't want to get into the mystery because i'd recommend just playing it but there's a mystery about why this girl is like come on let's go let's let's go summon ghosts and because your girl is just like i just want to be liked she's totally in and so uh that's that's kind of what it is and don't go summoning ghosts in school is i guess what i'm saying

ghost that died in a fire

i've looked into that game a lot and it looks really cool and i definitely want to check it out so yeah and but again it goes back to that like

just the visual style i love

like

again it's blumhouse so it's not indie but I love the indie quality of a lot of games, which is, hey, we're not going to, we're going to like make a style and we're going to stick with it and stylize things in the end, I always believe are just like cooler looking than it just looks real, you know?

For sure.

Yeah.

And that, yeah, and that's the perfect example of right.

Like it's not an indie game per se, but it it reminds you of one.

They're just using an art style, you know, they're, they're using a graphical art style to

get their game across, you know, and it's like, there should be more of that, you know?

For sure.

I always have to specifically say it's like indie adjacent or it's an indie like i because

the internet's unforgiving

i was trying to describe uh the new prince of persia and i was like you know it feels like an indie game i love i love it i'm having a great time and people are just like it's it's ubisoft bro there's nothing indie about that you suck i'm like

you know what i you know what i meant you know you know what i was saying i wasn't a plea like oh you ubi sellout sellout.

I'm like, of all the,

you got me, guys.

Of all the companies and all the games, it was Prince of Persia.

This is what I got.

I sold out to him.

You're just, you're always going to be a shill, no matter what.

Like, oh, you said a good thing about a game.

You're a shill.

It's like, what?

You know what I meant.

I meant comparatively to everything else.

It's from their indie branch.

The same one that made Valiant Hearts.

Like, calm down.

When I was talking about Wukong and I said that it was a souls-like, so many comments were like, it's not a soul's like.

It's nothing like a souls game.

And I was like, okay.

They're like, the devs have specifically said that it's not a souls-like, and they don't want it called a souls-like.

I was like,

you're just like, okay, okay, thank you for informing me.

I'm very happy for that.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate your time.

Thank you.

Like a great example, going back to Fear the Spotlight, Chat's absolutely correct, is like Blumhouse is the publisher, but it's, I believe it's made by a husband-wife team that used to be game devs in another section of the industry.

And so, like, it's two people who made this game, and I would imagine that that qualifies as indie.

It's just because it has a big publisher that it's like, okay, like it's

like close, but it's not, but like, two, like, to a little bit of this.

So, I think that's, you know, cut everyone some slack, people.

Don't you love how, like, we're, we're so, like, as people, internet people, we're so damaged by the internet that it's like there are so many like little like barriers and hurdles that we like set up for ourselves as like a as like a preemptive like it's like making a joke about yourself before somebody else can.

Yeah.

Like you try to hop in there and like say all of the qualifiers ahead of time so that nobody can like come at you.

Like, oh yeah, I played this game fear of the spotlight.

It's an indie game.

I mean,

it's published by

it.

It looks like an indie game.

I love it.

I love it.

It's great.

Oh, my goodness.

Oh, man.

That's it.

Whatever.

It doesn't matter.

I'm not going to harp on this anymore.

I don't want to.

Chat, I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

It looks like a great game, guys.

We wouldn't go check it out without you.

Yeah.

I love you.

Yeah, no, we're the damaged ones, not you.

is there is there any other games susie i know you haven't had an opportunity to like yeah bring anything up

but

yeah i've just been i've just been replaying a lot of old games for work stuff recently like uh i'm trying to think of like it sounds like that's your bread and butter so it makes sense yeah yeah i

i replayed uh

Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow, and that's a great game.

Still.

That's amazing.

It's a fun game.

is there a reason that you were just like splinter cell yeah

yeah you know i play i i replayed all of metal gear solid recently and when i got to phantom pain i was like i was like this kind of feels like splinter cell it feels like kojima just replayed splinter cell before he designed this game and then i was like wait how does splinter cell play again and then i played it i replayed pandora tomorrow and was like oh yeah this is phantom pain like he just he just took all of splinter cell and you know like it's a little it's a little more simulation but yeah i unfortunately have not really been diving too deeply into into the newer games but i did download like every demo of every game you guys talked about yeah i hope influencing we're doing it we're doing it dabs yeah are you when you when you uh

you know deal with stuff like

Metal Gear Solid and the whole franchise, are you excited about Delta?

Do you want to jump back into that?

Is that like a

thing that you're not hyped for?

Again,

it was funny because I wasn't hyped for it.

I wasn't excited at all when I saw like the first few trailers.

But when I replayed Snake Eater on the PS2,

I was like, I was refreshed on all of the psychotic bullshit that happens in that game that I was like, I need to see like how they remake half of this stuff in like photorealism.

Like when you kill the fury in that game,

like you get a snake gets chased around by a screaming, gigantic, flaming skull in a cutscene.

And I'm like, what is that going to look like?

You know what I mean?

Like, what are they going to do for that?

So I think I will play it when it comes out.

But again, if you're listening to this, don't expect a video at release because I haven't made any Metal Gear Solid videos and I gotta, I gotta work my way up to that in video form, you know?

But yeah, I'm definitely gonna play it

because I love Metal Gear.

And I think it's, you know, like, I'm kind of like in this like remake fatigue boat right now with this mindset.

But there is a little, little piece of me that is so happy that like

David Hayter gets to come back in a game as Snake.

And you guys know, like.

They're recording new lines for that game because there is so much like

metatextual like dialogue of like, you know, press the select button snake to open your codec it's like there's no we don't have select button anymore bro actually we have we have like so many different buttons for every new console now so

like i just the just the

the the fact that dave i get to hear david hayter saying new things as snake again like it kind of like it makes the the phantom pain if you will

the phantom pain pain that i have that i had for him in that game Like, it fills that hole a little bit.

And I'm like, holy shit.

Like, so, so yeah, the little, the little kid version of me that grew up with that game is, is going to be excited to play it.

But yeah, I'm definitely not going to make a video about it or anything because I got to make videos on the old ones first.

It's my rule.

Follow my rule.

Every time people...

Talk about Kojima and Kojima games, I always think about this review I saw for the movie.

It's out now, although no one's watching it.

Megalopolis.

Oh, yeah.

The best review I saw was,

it's like watching the cutscenes of a Kojima game, but without any gameplay in between.

And I'm like, oh my God, I want to see this movie.

What does this mean?

I know it's not going to be good.

But I have to imagine it's insane.

I really, I went in a rabbit hole of people doing a like before watching the movie and after watching the movie.

And they all look so dead inside.

Like, I can't believe I made it through that.

I want to watch it so it sounds

truly terrible.

And I'm like, God,

I want to see this because

for anyone who's ever played any Metal Gear game, hell, even Death Stranding, like, just imagine no gameplay elements or no characters explaining anything to you, just the cutscenes.

And

the idea of, in my mind, I'm seeing

like this movie has fire whales and halfway through it makes you change the controller.

It's got like

motorcycles, like a person who's like becomes old really quick.

I'm expecting all sorts of amazing things.

I want good stuff from the, I know it's gonna be a bad movie, but my God,

that got me.

I was like, this is, this is all I need to know.

Should we do a live reaction?

I would love to do a live reaction.

Or whatever it's called.

Yes.

Surely that will be out on some sort of platform soon.

Yeah.

Because it is not making any money in theaters.

No.

Megalopolis.

Megalopolis.

Like, what is the title even?

So for those who don't know, Megalopolis is the, I assume, last.

Please.

I mean, like, yeah, I assume.

So

let me really quickly, I want to verify this before I say it.

Francis Vorcopola apparently has had this idea for a movie for a long time.

And it is, imagine a movie where it's about a

guy played by Adam Driver who has been known to create utopian cities around the country.

And now he's trying to create his greatest work ever, which I feel like is a Francis Ford Coppola kind of like insert where he's like, I've made good things before, but this will be my greatest victory ever.

And so Coppola

sold his wineries.

That's what I wanted to look up because I wasn't sure what exactly.

He sold all of his wineries or most of his wineries to self-fund this movie to get it made.

And it, I guess, is just

one of the craziest things people have ever seen.

So stacked, too.

It's

it's everything about this is so wild, and I guess everyone just wanted to be in a Coppola movie.

And so,

but the premise is

everyone, imagine modern day, let's say New York, but everyone has and appears to be from ancient, let's say Greco-Roman times.

And so everyone is like, my name is Caesar and I'm Lucius and I'm like Persephone, like just crazy shit.

But then they also have names where I think Aubrey Plazas, hold on.

I gotta look.

Aubrey.

I am looking it up right now.

Her name is Wow Platinum.

Yes, that's it.

Wow Platinum.

That's her character's name.

What?

That is such a Kojima character name.

Holy shit.

Yes, all of them have crazy names.

Oh my God.

I love that.

I might have to actually check this out.

Oh, my goodness.

I need to.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, the names are.

The main character is just called Actor.

Great.

This is

Adam Dry, but Adam Driver is called Caesar Catalina.

John Carlos Posito is Franklin Cicero.

Natalie Manuel is Julia Cicero.

Aubrey Plaza, WoW Platinum.

Shia LaBeouf is Claudio Pulcher.

Lawrence Fishburne is Fundi Romain.

Jason Swartzman is Jason Zanders.

He doesn't change his name.

I know.

Dustin Hoffman is Nush Berman.

Nush.

Nush.

There's something visceral about that name.

Nush.

These names are great.

Vesta Sweetwater.

Ooh.

Commissioner Stanley Hart.

Huey Wilkes.

Aram Kazajin.

These are so good.

Haley Sims, her name is Sonny Hope Catalina.

Oh, boy.

I love, I love, I love these names.

It's good.

This is...

They're good names.

Yeah.

But also, for some reason, the movie contains Adam Driver has the ability to stop time.

That's a plot point.

I don't know.

Oh, yeah.

John Boyd is Hamilton Crassus III.

Is this like an epic, like a three-hour-long movie or something?

Apparently not, but everyone says it feels like it, which makes it even funnier.

Gotcha.

Like, it felt like it went on all night.

I'm like, yeah.

How long is Megalopolis?

Oh, it's so funny.

Yeah, because I remember when I saw the poster for it, I thought it was like a, I thought it was going to be like a sequel to Metropolis.

Exactly.

Big cycle.

Ancient movie.

But

because that's like the first cyberpunk movie.

So I was like, oh, is that some kind of weird spiritual sequel or something?

But apparently it has nothing to do with it.

It's almost two and a half hours long.

That's pretty long.

It's pretty long.

We could watch it.

We could pause.

We could play games in between.

So true.

Yeah, we can go do it.

I feel like if this movie makes as little sense as I expect, I feel like we will frequently want to pause

and be like, hold on.

What's happening?

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

Speaking of pausing, are we allowed to take a little break?

Because I have to run to the bathroom.

We're about to end.

So, okay, if you can hold it.

Oh, I can hold it.

Okay, fantastic.

Do we have time?

Is it time for me?

Yeah, it's news time if you want to.

Do you mind if you want to rapid-fire the news?

Oh, I would love to rapid-fire news at y'all.

And then we'll wrap.

Yeah.

So, hey,

big news in the

Coxopolis.

We got an Xbox showcase the other day and in it, a lot of games.

But look, the most important thing is Island Wake 2's next DLC comes out next week, the Lake House.

I'm so hype.

That's going to be awesome.

Brace all your butts.

That's where I'm at mentally, spiritually, physically.

It's going to be so good.

Also, we got finally a first look at

FBC Firebreak, which is the three-person

kind of like goofy shooter in the remedyverse, which I'm very excited about.

I imagine we'll be fighting waves and waves of terrible things.

So that's super fun.

And someone has to get his damn video done before that probably comes out.

But

I'm working on it.

I'm working on it.

Then, also, of course, we have next week the Romancing Saga 2 Revenge of the 7, which is a game that, if you've never heard of it, that's probably

because it only came out in Japan.

It was remastered and released in 2017 for the first time here in the US.

But this is like the updated animeified version.

And for those of you who've never played Romancing Saga, it is kind of like Final Fantasy, but harder.

And to the point where the remake they're making has custom settings now where you can play the original, aka hard mode, a normal mode, or the casual mode, because, you know, it's a hard game.

But the premise of this one, like other romancing saga games or saga games in general, are like, you know, Final Fantasy Adjacent.

This one, though, I think is the best one because it does something messed up, which is

it's generational.

So the story takes place over countless years with different leaders.

So if your main character dies, they give their power to their heir that you select from like a bunch of heirs.

And then you now are them.

And you have to go around and recruit new people to join you.

And it's really easy to do that.

But like each generation is still fighting the same battle against these like seven previous heroes who are now bad guys.

And so as you make choices and do things like I built a smithy in my town, then the next generation has that smithy, but with different upgrades.

So, like, as you make your town better, you're also making it easier for your future leaders to fight, which I'm like, it's pretty, it's a pretty interesting concept.

It works very, very well.

Um, plus, there's a lot of quality of life things they added for the remake, so that's pretty cool.

Call of Duty, Black Ops 6.

It's a game, baby.

It is a game

coming out.

Ready for Call of Duty fan art to hit my timeline again?

Ready for it.

Yeah.

And then

Sonic

X Shadow

Generations.

Yes, man.

Where our sweet, sweet boy, Kiana Reeves, is actually playing Shadow in the game.

I can't believe it exists.

That's one of the craziest things.

Coming out as well.

Those are things coming down the pipeline.

The memest game that will ever meme is about to come out.

I will say, for people who are like clowning on Black Ops, sure, the multiplayer will be a mess.

I kind of want to play the single player, though, because you know it's going to be absolutely insane.

It's like, Commander, we have to stop this company from creating lasers that shoot planes out of the sky and turn them into jello.

And you're like, all right, let's go, soldier.

And then you just kill everyone.

It's great.

I can't wait.

Look at Ronald Reagan.

He's photo real.

It looks just like him.

Oh, my God.

Then also this week, hey, some sad news in the world of games.

We found out from Bloomberg that Bandynamco has canceled a ton of projects and are laying people off.

Again, probably the result of people spending way too much money to make games.

But whatevs.

And then, of course, Riot also

laid off a bunch of people this week.

And so

another sad week in the game dev world.

So that's not very cool, but

it is the mess that we are currently living in.

Then,

I assume in some sort of cosmic balance, but probably not even remotely close.

This is called sarcasm.

This came out.

We this week were blessed by this right here.

The Razor Pokemon

Gengar headset.

Where you two can become Gengar.

Imagine Pokemon or the cat, the cat headsets with the ears, but it's just Gengar.

It's so cool.

I love it.

There you go.

Yeah.

We also got Hades 2 patch came out.

Obviously, I'm still not going to play it till launch.

I'm not going to get suckered in and play it and then not play it at launch.

I learned my lesson from playing every Divinity game where they're like, yeah,

it's launching.

But then we got a

big PC gamer, top 100 games that came out this week for PC.

And just to give you the top five, because I guess this is where we're at, for some reason, I'll do top 10 because you'll be shocked.

So top 10, 10 is Doom 1993.

9, Stardew Valley.

8, Bellatro, which seems like recency bias, but like, whatever.

Half-Life 2.

Six is Witcher 3 Wild Hunt.

5, Persona 5 Royale.

Don't understand why that's five, but bless.

Let's go.

Minecraft.

Minecraft makes sense.

It's huge.

It was a PC thing first, so like, I get it.

Elden Ring is number three.

Don't know that, like, it's a PC thing.

Like, this is a, this is a, like, okay, whatever.

Uh, but then number two, I kind of agree with here is Disco Elysium.

I think that game's incredible.

And then, uh, I'm not sure if, like, this is recency bias or they're incredibly accurate here, but their their number one is Baldur's Gate 3.

I feel like it's a great game.

I won't complain about it, but also I'm just like that is very recent.

So

we'll see.

But

that was their top 100.

A lot of the things that appear in that seem like they're out of place, but also I know how 100 lists are made, and they're definitely designed to stir up some a little controversy.

And then

in the world of media, we got the trailer for the final season of what we do in the shadows.

Very excited for that.

Yes.

Huge, huge fan of that show.

Yes.

Same.

And then if you've been watching, just a shout out again to The Penguin.

It's great.

Absolutely.

Colin Federal's killing it.

So good.

And then Agatha All Long hit its halfway point.

So if you are interested in that show and you want to go see Witches Be Witching,

That is on Disney Plus.

The service where if you sign up, you can't sue Disney.

Destroy everyone.

And that's the news.

Fantastic.

Yay.

In the interest of getting Susie peeing as quickly as possible,

we're going to end the show.

We're not going to

make you.

In order to make Susie pee as quickly as possible.

Homework is go pee, everybody.

Everybody go pee.

Susie, tell everybody who you are, where they can find you, what you're up to.

You can find me at thespherehunter, no spaces, on Twitter.

Thespherehunter, youtube.com/slash thespherehunter.

That does have spaces.

And then

the spherehunter on Instagram.

There are underscores between each word, so it's different everywhere.

Oh, and on Twitch, of course, it's just the Sphere Hunter.

So that's where you can find me.

Expect videos real soon.

And hey,

the other day, a game I did voice work in came out called Sniper Killer, which is an a extremely horror, horrifying, scary

game that I probably won't even play because it looks really scary.

And also, I cringe when I hear my voice in video games.

But yeah, and you know, there might be some other

games coming out down the pipeline that you might hear my voice in.

You never know.

But yeah, so go check out all that.

If you follow me on social media, you'll get all the updates.

Great.

But yeah, fantastic.

Thank you guys for having me.

Susie, you were such a good guest.

Thank you so much.

Thanks.

I appreciate it.

Yeah, this was amazing.

Oh, I loved it.

I'll come back at some point.

Okay.

But first, go pee.

Like, you gotta pee.

You have to pee.

I gotta go, Susie.

Yeah, you gotta go.

I have to go.

Should I just leave?

Should I just go?

You can just walk away if you want.

Okay.

If you leave right now on camera, then everyone will know that you're peeing, which is the answer people want.

Like, is pee out.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yes.

Well, I'm going to leave the call.

That's what I'm going to pray.

Yeah.

All right.

Thank you guys.

Thank you so much for having me.

This is a great day.

It's nice to see.

James, we host a great show.

We're like the best hosts.

We're the best hosts.

We're so good at it.

We're so good.

Hold on.

I have to scooch some things.

There we go.

Ooh, that's fancy.

I like that.

We're so good.

We're the best.

I think so, too.

We helped our guest go people as quickly as possible.

And that's really what hosting is about.

Getting your guests off off camera as fast as you can.

Get out of here!

Get out of here!

We don't even want you here!

Go, P!

It's like when, you know, those movies where like the little boy has to, like, you gotta go, you gotta go, Rex.

You can't stay here, go!

Puts dog outside, go, get!

Go!

You can't be here anymore!

Mom says, I can't keep you, go!

Go!

Get out of here!

that's us

go pee

get out of here go pee

please

um

Jesse what are you doing this week dude

uh I

am

man

definitely gonna play Fear the Spotlight I intend to play or at least stream the new Alan Wake DLC.

And yeah, I don't know.

I got like stuff.

I got, you know, you know, stuff.

I'm going to try and do more

metaphor.

Like, look, there's too many games, right?

There's too many damn games, y'all.

There's a lot of games.

It's out of control.

So that's my plan.

But if you want, you can watch this show and all the scary game squads we're doing lately over on

youtube.com slash jessecox more importantly speaking of romancing saga 2 i'm making a romancing saga 2 for beginners guide so you can uh find out more about that game if you liked what I was saying here on the show and you want to know even more.

That'll be out next week as well.

Fantastic.

I'm just doing what I normally do.

I'll be playing some Final Fantasy.

I'm sponsored to play Unknown 9.

So that'll be fun to check out.

Sorry, what?

Unknown 9?

What is Unknown 9?

What is Unknown 9?

Unknown 9, where

it's,

well, I don't know how to describe it.

I haven't fully played it yet.

So, but the trailer looks very cool.

Well, describe the powers.

What is that?

You have powers.

You're cool.

I don't know.

I'm going to find out.

Okay.

I guess this is something you are going to play.

I don't know why I expect you to have answers now.

I don't have answers yet, but I would love to

come to you with answers.

Come to me with answers.

Yeah.

I will come to you with answers.

You know, the best part is when I, what are you about to say about the come at you with answers?

Because the phrase come at you with or come to you with, with, yeah, both of those like come to you is like, here's some cool things that come at you is like, this is what

they have different vibes for sure.

Yes, that's absolutely true.

Yeah, I'm, you know, I'm just, I'm just doing the dang thing.

I get it.

I'm just doing the dang thing.

But hey, thanks so much for watching Geek Enders, everybody.

A perfectly normal Geek Enders that has ended in a totally normal way.

Yeah, in a totally normal way

that won't be a problem.

Yeah, Susie peed.

I'm going to pee.

Jesse might pee.

Who knows?

Oh, no.

I

full on

the paste.

Yeah.

All I do is poop.

Yeah.

Okay, good.

Jesse's going to poop.

Yeah, I'm going to just toot too.

I'm glad we established exactly what everybody's going to do the second the show is over.

Hey, have a fantastic weekend, everybody.

We will see you again next week.

Goodbye.

Bye.

Yeah, yeah, you know what time it is.

It's time for the geek in this podcast.

Mega Ray, jesse and dodger what up let's go yo it's the weekend yeah it's time to geek out let it begin go on stream and shout it's jesse and dodger so give them a follow and see what the geek enders are all about yo it's the weekend yeah it's time to geek out let it be kid go on stream and shout it's jesse and dodger so give them a follow number one geek podcast without a doubt yo another end of another long week got a job and a kid i know that you all beat so take a second grab a drink and vibe while we catch you up in just a matter of time on gaming comics whatever you're doing if you're nerdy like us then you know you should tune in thank you for sharing our world with us now follow subscribe and turn this up

let it begin go on stream and shout it's jesse and dodger so give them a follow number one geek podcast without a doubt

This is the story of the one.

As a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing facility, he knows keeping the line up and running is a top priority.

That's why he chooses Granger.

Because when a drive belt gets damaged, Granger makes it easy to find the exact specs for the replacement product he needs.

And next day delivery helps ensure he'll have everything in place and running like clockwork.

Call 1-800-GRANGER, clickgranger.com, or just stop by.

Granger for the ones who get it done.

Did you know using your browser in incognito mode doesn't actually protect your privacy?

Take back your privacy with IP Vanish VPN.

Just one tap and all your data, passwords, communications, browsing history and more will be instantly protected.

IP Vanish makes you virtually invisible online.

Use IP Vanish on all your devices, anytime you go online at home and especially on public Wi-Fi.

Get IP Vanish Now for 70% off a yearly plan with this exclusive offer at ipvanish.com/slash audio.