Valor Mortis Impressions & Street Fighter Movie Reactions | Between Levels Podcast Ep. 16

WheelieAverage: this is episode sixteen of the Between Levels podcast. Welcome back everybody. I am, of course, Wheelie Average. You should know me by now, hopefully. I'm joined by one of my co hosts. The other one might appear at some point. But Cowboy, how are you today?

FightinCowboy: I am busy. Busy, but good. I mean, we're we're obviously super busy. This is the special stream the game and do the podcast at the same time podcast. because there's just there's not enough time in the day to get stuff done with how many games are dropping out. It is like It's it's pretty I would say unprecedented, honestly. I don't I don't I can't think of a time.

WheelieAverage: Yeah. I don't remember a time like this.

FightinCowboy: Yeah, not not not with and and it's not just the sheer volume of games coming out, but there's like So many games that are are considered good. Like they're they're clearing 80 and above across Metacritic. And it's just like, dude, there is it's that it's that meme with the girl and all the pancake plates cut, and she's like, I don't know what to do. That's it. But just for gamers right now, it's ridiculous.

WheelieAverage: I mean, you know we're busy when we're recording at midnight my time, which is not what we normally do, you know, so

FightinCowboy: No. No, no, it is not.

WheelieAverage: So yeah, so forgive me if I do look a little bit tired. It's it's just a different time of day for me. for those of you that aren't able to tune into this special live recording, the podcast will still go up at the same time on YouTube and on podcast services, so don't worry about that. but today we're gonna talk about Valormortis, which I have played and finished. You have played several hours of at this point.

FightinCowboy: I'm up to yeah, about five or six hours so far.

WheelieAverage: Yeah, so so I feel like okay, so someone in your chat's asking me to turn up my mic. Can you hear me okay?

FightinCowboy: The I can I know that's a that's a me thing. I can I can let me see, audio. Where do I see individual audio levels?

WheelieAverage: I have no idea that's a good question.

FightinCowboy: Well here, I can I can let me go do do do do.

WheelieAverage: This is a cowboy thing. This is what happens when you record live. Ugh.

FightinCowboy: Yeah, I mean it's it's here. What I'm gonna do is I'm going to crank up the general PC sound and then I will go to the game audio sound and I will notch that down

WheelieAverage: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: to a fraction of what it was. Yeah, hopefully hopefully you can hear him easier now. Is he is he

WheelieAverage: Okay, so hopefully people will be able to hear me a bit better now.

FightinCowboy: more audible?

WheelieAverage: Yes, let me know everybody. I'm I am looking at Cowboy's chat as well. I'm trying to avoid watching him play the game because I'll be distracted and my job is to host the podcast here. So so I I don't

FightinCowboy: You can't host and play and eat a sandwich at the same time? What are you doing, Wheelie? You gotta level up your game.

WheelieAverage: I I'm I don't have that AD I don't have that A D D brain, you know. That's not within me that one. But so yeah, I've played and finished it. You've played a good handful of hours at this point. Given that you haven't finished it yet, I wanna start with you. What are your initial impressions of the game based on what you've played?

FightinCowboy: initial impressions I would say are extremely positive. and and I did enjoy the demos of it that I had played back when we had a chance to preview it. I think the thing I am enjoying the most is how aggressive it is for first person combat. I feel like when first person games in general, the most recent that would come to mind would be Tainagrill, which is excellent, by the way, for anyone that's looking into it. But like when I think of of the level of aggression and parries that I'm seeing in Valor Mortis, that's typically for things like Sekiro, Lies of P, Kazan. I I haven't played a first person game that has that level of like it's time to lock in. so I am really enjoying my time. I got two two melee weapons, two ranged weapons so far. And so the current build setup is using a rapier, which has a big parry focus. So I can parry melee attacks. I can also parry bullets. And then I run with the shotgun, which coincidentally enough, can interrupt any attacks that are considered unparryable that you have to dodge. So I'm either parrying everything that comes my way, and if it can't be parried, someone's getting blasted in the face with shotgun. And it is very satisfying so far. So I'm having a very good time with Valor Mortis.

WheelieAverage: Yeah. well that's good to hear because I had a bit of a mixed time with the game. Yeah, not

FightinCowboy: Ho ho.

WheelieAverage: no not so much because of the gameplay. I actually agree with everything that you just said. I think I like that aggression from a first person perspective. That's not something we really see in any form of game, I would say. Not not just these types of games. And yeah, the the focus on parry is something that I always enjoy in any action game because you get good at a parry. You know, you're basically good at the game at that. Do you know what mean? It's

FightinCowboy: Yeah. Yeah.

WheelieAverage: it's it's kind of like being able to master that one mechanic so well will take you so far in the game. And I like the the mix of kind of range stuff and melee stuff here, I think that's good as well. The enemies are a bit hard to see in certain areas.

FightinCowboy: Yes. my God. The part where was it yesterday? I was in this it was like a cornfield, I guess. And they're just

WheelieAverage: Okay, yeah.

FightinCowboy: they're popping up on you. I'm like, my God, where did you come from? And like they weren't even like you know, they weren't even enemies that were were hiding necessarily. They were just so difficult to see in the cornfield, they would just walk up on you and you're like, my God, like it's like an unintentional

WheelieAverage: Yeah. Yeah.

FightinCowboy: jump scares, basically.

WheelieAverage: Absolutely, absolutely and I think I know where you're talking about, where all those they have like those little explodey pod things as well.

FightinCowboy: Yes, yeah, yeah, there's a bunch of those hidden in there too. And you're like, all right, this is y'all are starting to get a little trolly with this. Like I was just I would find the the best point of elevation that I could find, and then I'd be like, Okay, now we are we are we're staying up here and that's that. I'm not I'm not going down there.

WheelieAverage: Yeah, but so I like the gameplay side of the game, and I even like most of the presentational things. I think it's a pretty good looking game, runs pretty well for the most part. And the the reason the reason I say for the most part is because this game did crash on me twice while I was playing it. And and also in the later game I'll be intrigued to see if you have the same issue, but I've had so many bugs. I've had like enemies getting stuck in walls and all manner of weird clipping things like that, you know? I've had my weapon get stuck in an enemy at one point, and I literally couldn't attack anymore.

FightinCowboy: That okay, that I'm gonna be honest though, that's really funny. I've never I in all the bugs

WheelieAverage: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: out of all the bugs I have heard of or experienced in all my years as a gamer, my weapon is stuck in the enemy and I can't pull it out to hit him. That's a that's a new one. That's that's pretty f

WheelieAverage: Yeah, it was. It was.

FightinCowboy: so wait how you're gonna have to elaborate on this one. How like what what exactly went like Did you just swing and it didn't come out?

WheelieAverage: So basically I have parried the enemy, I've gone for the execution, and as I've done it, the weapon has just clipped into him and he's remained on the end of my sword swinging his weapon at me. Like it was really weird.

FightinCowboy: Yeah, that sounds that that sounds out there. Yeah. I I mean for me so far, I think we've had maybe one crash. but no, it's been s it's been very smooth so far. No bugs, no nothing.

WheelieAverage: And here's our man Sarth just joining the podcast. He is a little bit late, but we'll forgive him. Life happens, we know how it is. As cowboys over there eating whatever he's eating today.

FightinCowboy: A chicken avocado panini. It's very good.

WheelieAverage: By the way, you also need to move your camera on your stream again because of Sarth. So but yes, so what I would say is I'm very much in the camp with this game having finished it, that it's a good game but it's a wait for a sell or a play on game pass subscription service type of game

Sarthe: Okay, can you hear me now? Is there an echo now?

FightinCowboy: Test, test. Yeah, we're good.

WheelieAverage: Let's find out. No, it seems good now.

Sarthe: Sorry, sorry, sorry, my god.

WheelieAverage: That's all good. It's all good. Things happen.

Sarthe: How's it going, guys?

FightinCowboy: It's going. It's going. I am I am live. I'm pulling there we go. I'm just gonna have the podcast in the corner of the screen. I think that makes it easier than than individually

WheelieAverage: Nice. Nice, nice.

FightinCowboy: clipping shit.

WheelieAverage: I just saw that someone in in Cowboy's stream chat, Tiger Claws, has said, Wheelie, how many YouTube accounts do you have? Well that new one is actually my channel that I'm gonna start doing stuff on soon, so you know, feel

Sarthe: How many do you have though, really?

WheelieAverage: fill free to check it out. I have access to if we're including between levels and my personal account, one, two, three, four Five. I have access to five YouTube accounts.

FightinCowboy: Lot.

Sarthe: That is a lot. That would be a lot to manage.

FightinCowboy: Yeah, I don't I I get occasionally

WheelieAverage: It's Tiger Clues for scene three, yes you have.

FightinCowboy: I'll get like a notification and I'm like what the fuck? And I'm like, that's between levels. I'm like, No, turn off

Sarthe: Yeah

FightinCowboy: Game is like manager mode. No, stop that.

WheelieAverage: Yeah, these g these guys leave me to manage the manage the podcast. But that's okay.

FightinCowboy: He's he's

Sarthe: Well, I've...

FightinCowboy: got it though. He's got it.

Sarthe: Yeah, you're handling it.

WheelieAverage: And and the people seem to like the fact that I actually reply to a lot of comments. I don't know why. Maybe it's a I I'm sure that won't last forever. But

Sarthe: Yeah, I mean, people love when you, in general, I think that's like one of the coolest things, it's like, you're like seeing what they're saying about it and like actually listening and they're being heard and then you're like conveying it to us and stuff, it's like, it's awesome.

WheelieAverage: Yeah. Well well that's the thing. I've always said, right, I wanna try and I've said it to you guys. This show is is about us having fun, but is also about listening to the community and and kind of putting in place the things that they want as well, right? As much as we can. So, you know, it's like I see undecided undecided greed there in Cowboys Chat. says I wonder if Wheelie liked my latest comment. I actually did I actually did undecided. It was it was funny.

Sarthe: See?

WheelieAverage: we get we get a lot of comments and they they do make

FightinCowboy: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: me chuckle that's what I'll say but we'll go more into kind of user comments later but as we were speaking about Valormors before you came in Sarth I know you haven't had chance to play it yet.

Sarthe: Yeah, unfortunately. Thank

WheelieAverage: But

Sarthe: you for helping me get a get a code. I'm really excited for it. I've watched a little bit of cowboy playing as I've been traversing the world of LA five times.

WheelieAverage: Nice, nice. s so cowboy we we do have a question here that is on the game and I think you're best placed to answer it even though you haven't finished just because it's within your area of expertise, let's say. somebody asks, How is the character building? Are there stats points, etc.?

FightinCowboy: So it's pretty pretty simple, I think. we basically have a progressive skill tree system that's actually not all that unlike a talent tree from World of Warcraft if you just flip it and make it horizontal. So like you'll the idea is you'll have three skills and you're gonna have to distribute five points, and then you're into tier two and you need to distribute a certain amount of points. And so as you're distributing these points, it will advance and at set intervals. It will unlock a I'm not sure what it's called. We're just gonna say a runic slot. So a slot that you can then slot in a gem, and that is where things start to get a little more interesting because those will define your build a little bit more. So just to give a direct example, to start, I was like, you know, you have basically health, magic, stamina. I decided to put five into stam, you know, like stamina, more parrying, more attacking. And then in the second tier, it was an ability that only needed like three points. So I picked up three points there, but that wasn't enough. So then I went back and I started putting some points in health back from row one, and then that was enough to unlock the third tier. And at that point, I unlocked a gem slot. So I have health at this point, I have some stamina, and I have a gem that made it so that every time I I parry, I'm trying to remember. Let's just say every time you parry, you build up the damage of the next attack. Or you can also parry bullets, but you won't be able to block. And so you would have these gems that you then slot in. So you're filling out a talent tree with perks and passives, and then at set intervals, you're getting to supplement that with a gem that you either got from a a boss or found out in the world. So so far it's pretty interesting. I've created a a pretty aggressive parry build out. I could definitely see there being a more magic focused setups as well, where you're you're doing a big emphasis on magic damage. I could see firearm and gun focused setups and then probably just straight melee setups. Those are the the current four archetypes that I've seen that seem viable.

Sarthe: actually seems like there's a lot

WheelieAverage: That's fair.

Sarthe: of choice, like, which is really sick, especially with, like, the gems for however you want to play. And, I mean, like, we love build crafting and coming up with different things, so I think that's...

FightinCowboy: Mm-hmm.

WheelieAverage: Which is why I gave that question to Cowboy, right? Because my brain, don't get me wrong, I will craft a build when I play, but I'm not thinking about it the same way that you guys do. I just go based on what I'm feeling at the time, based on my style of play within the game. I'm not really thinking like, if I go for this I can then go for this and then I can add you know, link this with this. Like you guys are like That spider web kind of meme.

FightinCowboy: Well, I mean it's it's just it's it's I mean well even even thinking about it from like a narrative, you know, you're you're a bigger fan of narrative games where you really dig Alan Lake, perfect example. you know, I I bet Crimson Des like did you love Crimson Desert or were you like, it's okay.

WheelieAverage: I actually really loved Crimson Desert.

FightinCowboy: Okay. I was gonna say that's one I know me and Sarth were both like, look at the build

Sarthe: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: possibilities that I can do. Look at the crazy shit Mike Cliff can do.

WheelieAverage: Yeah. Yeah. I think what I loved about Crimson Desert was the was the freedom of the content and your way to approach it.

FightinCowboy: yeah. I've I've been saying

Sarthe: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: for a while to me I I think people are gonna look back on Crimson Desert and the crazy thing is it's added even so much more content. so even post launch, there's yeah, yeah. I

WheelieAverage: Yeah.

Sarthe: and improved a lot of the things that were frustrating.

FightinCowboy: I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Crimson Desert is essentially the GTA of fantasy games. When you think about like the shit you wanna do. In a f you know, you want to you want to go on adventures, you want to solve some puzzles, you want to get in fights, maybe you want to manage commerce, or you want to drive the cart. Like there's there's there's when there's shit in the game that I look at it and I'm why the fuck would I even want to do that? Why do I want to farm? But there's somebody else. Yeah, there's somebody somewhere that's like animal husbandry

Sarthe: Why do you want to fish? Yeah.

WheelieAverage: But there's someone somewhere that wants to do that thing.

FightinCowboy: and farming, sign me the fuck up. Like the game just it it gives you all of that. And you know, I think especially I think years from now. You know, I think people are gonna look back. I think it's gonna get remembered. People are gonna be like, man, remember Crimson Desert? Yeah, that game was a fever dream with how much stuff we could do.

WheelieAverage: Yeah. I will say I've just seen a live question from from Cowboys Chat again. It's it's Tom who comments on the show quite often. And he says, Does Wheelie generally like Souls Likes or is it just the occasional one? I have sort of explained this on the show before, but I tried a lot of the From Software games in the past and they didn't click with me, and then something happened where Elden Ring is basically one of my favourite games of all time. Like and then

Sarthe: is Elden Ring. Yeah.

WheelieAverage: weirdly, I've I've liked a lot of souls likes since then. You know, Wu Chang I I enjoyed, Neo 3, obviously a little bit different. First Berserker, Kazan, like the like I do like these games. Yeah. I'm not

Sarthe: mortal shell. Yeah.

WheelieAverage: I'm not souls in my blood like Cowboy. Do you know what I mean? Mm.

Sarthe: But you I think Elden Ring did such a good job even for me, like introducing me into the world of souls likes because the autonomy of the world and like you can just go and become overpowered. Then you can also like explore and find some crazy things. Elden Ring did the best open world kind of ever where like you just went in a cave and then all of sudden it's a new zone for 10 hours.

FightinCowboy: Yeah.

Sarthe: But but like once you had that, it made you kind of hooked on those mechanics also, right? And then you went back or like the newer ones came out. Like you mentioned Wushang. That that game was so, so sick and like it got a lot of hate in China because of like some political stuff. But that game was was was awesome. Like Wukong, even not a Souls like more like action adventure, but it has those aspects. And like that game like took over the world. I think after Elden Ring, because it really exposed a lot of people. There was these diehard fans of like Dark Souls and Bloodborne and stuff. But Elden Ring, I think, hit like the masses masses. And

FightinCowboy: yeah.

Sarthe: then now, like, I'm also, like, now I love every Souls, like, that comes out. If it's a good one, even if it's not, I'll try it. I played the cat one, Crystalla. I played a lot of it, too. But I just, like those games, you know?

FightinCowboy: Yeah, man, that game.

Sarthe: Yeah, no, I didn't say it was good.

WheelieAverage: And and that's the thing, there's no genre where every single game in the genre is good. Let's be honest. Like, that's just impossible. There's always gonna be some duds in there, but I feel like the thing that Souls games do well is we now are are at the stage where we actually have quite a big variety of what a Souls game can be. You know,

Sarthe: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: like a like a Neo 3 is very different. from from software, souls like, you know.

Sarthe: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: Well and I I think the the the greater thing it shows is that you know when you when you think about back in the day, when you think about how blind games were, you know, you think about playing through Legend of Zelda for the first time. Or playing through, I mean, even Dragon Quest for the first time. When when you ran into encounters, like I remember getting stuck in games. And obviously it it's kind of impossible to really have this with the advent of the internet these days. But I remember getting stuck

Sarthe: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: and you would just talk to your buddies and be like, How did you I couldn't get b past this part. How did you get past that? And it was it was just a different time. One from a communication perspective, but two, because games were just built different then. They were they did not hold your hand in any capacity. And I think I think the ease of use started to creep too much to where, you know, we had the the famous meme, you know, if Ubisoft made Assassin's Creed or if Ubisoft made Elden Ring, and you there's arrows pointing where to go and all that shit. And you know, log in and get this. But it it very much is it like short attention spanned gaming.

Sarthe: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: and and I think Souls likes people, they there's something about them where it's just like the obscurity of the journey. And the fact that you're like, I don't know what to do and the game's like, It's not my fucking problem, figure it out. What are you? Yeah, what are you? Are you an idiot? Are you too stupid to do this? And people are like, Fuck you. I can I can do this. I can do this. I know what I'm doing.

Sarthe: It's like, get better, dude. Like, okay.

WheelieAverage: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarthe: No, hey, it's a bug you

WheelieAverage: What I will say to be fair is that the the overly handheldy nature of a lot of games currently, I do think comes from

Sarthe: Which game?

WheelieAverage: the fact that the that the current generation of player, we do know they have a shorter attention span, right? So it's I don't I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't think developers are out there trying to sabotage their game and make it less enjoyable by doing more handhelding, I think that their decisions Yeah. I think

Sarthe: It's probably it's more accessible. Yeah.

WheelieAverage: their decisions are being informed by the data that they collect from how players are actually interacting with the game. And ultimately if players didn't need these things, the argument is they wouldn't be there, right? If the majority of players didn't need them, they wouldn't be there.

FightinCowboy: Yeah. No, I mean the the the yellow paint is the yellow paint for a reason. Like, don't get me wrong. I understand

WheelieAverage: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: why it's there. But I think the thing is that at at a greater level, I think the the surgence of Souls like shows that there is an audience who, you know, they really don't they they're it's like I like for me, I want to be lost at times in the game. I don't want you know, that's part of the thing that I love so much about dogma is when you're playing dogma, you it's it's this massive journey filled with like goofy shit and you're just trying to figure stuff out. You're just trying to find your way. and you know it d like for example, when you're when you're trying to fast travel and it's like how do you fast travel? Well you gotta go you you know, there's a cart that goes between towns. Maybe you should look into that. You know, it it's not just and and obviously they have kind of pulled back on that.

Sarthe: you'll see a TikTok and it'll be like you have to buy fast travel and you're like no, screw this game and then if you look around a little the carts right in front of you.

FightinCowboy: Yeah, yeah. But yeah, no, I mean that yeah. Yeah, that is that is what happened. but I just I think it's it's you know I think we're seeing that there there is an audience for these games that are more obscure, that are harder. And and that's just something I like. I like those games. So

WheelieAverage: Yeah, that's fair. And I what I will say as well, I don't think a game always has to be harder to be more obscure. Like a lot of these a lot of these older games

FightinCowboy: Agree. Yeah.

Sarthe: It's all that. Tears of the Kingdom.

WheelieAverage: weren't actually that hard. It's just that we didn't know what to do. So we were left

Sarthe: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: to figure it out by ourselves, you know? I think that that's one thing I'm thankful for as a reviewer and as someone who gets these games early. Of course it's fun when we get invited to a special reviewer's discord and we're all having fun solving things together like we did with Crimson Desert, right? That was super

Sarthe: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: fun. But I also like that idea of being able to just play a game in isolation, not be able to look up any of the solutions and almost have that old school experience of like, I'm figuring this out on my own.

FightinCowboy: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: And by

Sarthe: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: the time everybody else plays it, the solutions are already there for them because of guide writers and god knows what else, you know?

Sarthe: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: Yeah, no, and it's it's it's hard. Like I know you know if I didn't have that if I if I couldn't do that because of the fact that, you know, you gotta I'm a reviewer. If I wasn't a reviewer, I would probably be like extremely dark on social media. Like anytime we're even approaching

Sarthe: Yep.

FightinCowboy: a game release, I would be like, you know. I'd be like, well, it's time to just play WoW and not go near socials at all for like the next two weeks because I ain't getting shit spoiled until this game.

Sarthe: don't want to see anything.

FightinCowboy: Yeah. Until this game's in my hand. I mean, even now, people will be like, you know, if I'm if unless like outside of like live events, something like, you know, streaming PlayStation Showcase or something like that, I w I just won't look up stuff for a game. People are like, Did you see this new trailer that dropped? I'm like, nope, I don't want to. I don't want I don't want anything. I want to. That that first experience going in completely blind, you you only get one chance at that, you never get it back. Which I I I've said that at the start of my walkthroughs. I'm like, if this is your first time playing this game, you shouldn't follow this. Yeah.

Sarthe: We did it for gears right and that's why we couldn't

WheelieAverage: Mm-hmm.

Sarthe: play gears with wheelie because he had finished it already because you had to put out the review yeah But like crimson desert

WheelieAverage: That's why your chat was mad at you.

FightinCowboy: Yeah. But you never you never get that first spec.

Sarthe: was one the most magical games because like that it didn't hold your hand at all and like that ended up being

FightinCowboy: No it didn't.

Sarthe: like frustrating at times cuz like At least you learn with games like what is like relatively looks like it would make sense with with them They were like yeah, just fucking try random shit. You know

FightinCowboy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarthe: They made it easier by like adding lights and stuff but like that ended up actually being like really fun because like me and cowboy just like cold each other and we're like dude I just fucking climbed this random mountain and fought a bear and now I'm riding

FightinCowboy: Yeah.

Sarthe: it and I was it took two hours, but it was sick like like those are the experiences that I think

WheelieAverage: Yeah. And

Sarthe: a lot of people still get to experience if they don't like watch all of the guides like What we do is we get to get luckily we get to get the games early We don't have other people telling us where to go or what to do and that's something I Me and cowboy absolutely love about games is like to explore and discover something and then you're like, my god I have to tell my friend and that's the best feeling and so then that's it that feeling is literally like all of my videos is like, my god, this is sick I have to tell somebody and that's how I make all of my videos and like I don't like blame people for watching it because like not everyone has all of the time like I have ADHD like crazy

WheelieAverage: Yeah.

Sarthe: I will check every single corner if this open world game has ridiculous corners I'll check it Crimson Desert I had 200 hours before it was even out like so

WheelieAverage: So basically just make the biggest open world game ever known to man and Sarth might play it forever.

Sarthe: No, don't do it! You'll screw my whole life, don't do it.

WheelieAverage: But I I think that's another thing that I get from it as well, because I'm more of the traditional reviewer, right? I am gonna start making some content as I've told you guys, but most of the time I'll play a game for review and then especially if it's something I've liked, I then look forward to seeing other people's reaction to the game. Like

FightinCowboy: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: I was enjoying seeing you two play gears because I did know. Do you know what I mean? And I was like, how

Sarthe: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: are they gonna react to this? And how are they gonna react to that? And then, you know, it's like that's fun because

Sarthe: Yeah, it's fun, yeah.

WheelieAverage: because that's something you get with your friends back in the day when you're like showing

FightinCowboy: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: your friend a game for the first time and you're like, hey, play this, it's cool. Like that's kind of what that situation is.

Sarthe: I wonder if he's gonna find this. He walked right by. I'm not gonna say anything. Yeah

WheelieAverage: So why is there like Some amazing looking food on the screen right now. Sorry. We're looking at like the stream. That's so weird.

FightinCowboy: Have you never played Dogma?

WheelieAverage: so I I did tell you so I went to play this one and I had technical issues, so I basically was like, I'm gonna wait, and then I still haven't been back to it since

FightinCowboy: So

WheelieAverage: and I was I was going to go back to it now, but it's I'm so busy that I just don't have time at the moment to go back to it.

FightinCowboy: The

Sarthe: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: the food for this game, they actually w did a set setup and they they went out and they cooked meat and they filmed cooking various pieces

WheelieAverage: well.

FightinCowboy: of meat for the meals you can cook in the game. As opposed to like a Yeah. They were like they were like

WheelieAverage: So it's like photogrammetry, but for me it's basically what they did.

FightinCowboy: I I I would I man, I wish I could have been there for the conversation. Like how do you want to animate

Sarthe: Let's do it.

FightinCowboy: the steak? Do you want to get the the Monster Hunter guys to animate the steak? No. I picked up a couple tomahawks. This is a work write off like Yeah.

Sarthe: Guys we're all coming over let's do this. Whoever makes the most beautiful one it's going in the game.

FightinCowboy: That's the one that goes in the game. How you missing that day at the office? That's do you wanna get me in an office? That's how

Sarthe: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: you get me in an office. today's grill up the tomahawk steak day.

WheelieAverage: So Sarth, you haven't played Valarmortis, but is there anything

Sarthe: No.

WheelieAverage: you have played that you can talk about?

Sarthe: Casually moved four times this week as you saw me trying to get a sound working at the beginning Yeah, real life.

WheelieAverage: So you played real life simulator.

Sarthe: Yeah, and I also have 38 mosquito bites and Two infected spider bites and two not infected spider bites been a great time so Yeah,

FightinCowboy: Bro bro went for a quick trip in the Amazon jungle just

Sarthe: so I have not had a lot of time to play much of anything. I've like off stream played a little more of Warcraft World Warcraft forever, so I'm starting to write

WheelieAverage: Of course.

Sarthe: guides for that and like doing all of the theory crafting. So I was talking to the devs and stuff for that. I just I love wow.

WheelieAverage: I I saw your your short clip with your friend as well, which if if people haven't

Sarthe: yeah.

WheelieAverage: seen that, it's brilliant. You like forcing your friend to play well. You're you're behind him with the

Sarthe: Yeah, that was his idea. I mean, he makes a TikTok every day about some other idea, and I was staying with him, and he was like, you want to help me just shoot this real fast? was like, of course. So that was really fun. Yeah.

WheelieAverage: It was it was ch genuinely funny, like seeing you come from behind him with the sword and you're like, Good, we're gonna play forever

Sarthe: Yeah, I was holding him hostage. He's a retail enjoyer.

FightinCowboy: I gotta I gotta see this. Where is where is this? Where is this short now?

Sarthe: I posted it on Twitter because he posted it everywhere else. I posted on Twitter. I'm

FightinCowboy: What is

Sarthe: just like holding him hostage. I might have my discord reset. But yeah, so I've mostly been playing that. And then like when I need like a little break, I still Galactic racer Star Wars galactic racer just like has this thing or like I could just hop on and like do a few online races and then be like chilling and no stress. Hop off and go do the rest of things in life. So like it's mostly been focused on those right now as we prepare, because like I'm just waiting like Phantom Blade Castlevania. Is that on Tuesday? Is that already at Castlevania? I'm hyped for but Phantom Blade.

WheelieAverage: Isn't isn't it ow?

Sarthe: Yeah, it might have came out on the Tuesday that had passed. Did you watch it,

FightinCowboy: Yeah. Slowly creeping in with the Ashbringer.

Sarthe: Yeah. Yeah, he's great. Touchpad is awesome. he, yeah, he's mostly retail. And I'm like the classic Andy. And I love that people are coming together and playing Warcraft. Like the community online, if you go to Reddit or something, they're like hella toxic because everyone only sees their own perspective and thinks that they're like the victim of every like encounter. But that's like any sort of PvP situation in any game. But it's a lot of fun. I'm excited.

FightinCowboy: people peop people pouting and crying over over stuff. Yeah

Sarthe: All the time. They're like this level 30. There's a level 30 PvP tournament. S fan and tips out are putting 50,000 to the winner. And who is it is doing another 50,000. Tim, Tim, the time has another 50,000. So it's 100 K and people are going insanely sweaty, but also discovering new and broken things because it's a new version of the game. And so like A lot of people are buying gold with normal like actual money and that people are doing it on stream like streamers are doing it and they're there. They should be banned and sometimes they're getting banned. Sometimes they're not. And it's this whole entire drama right now, which is like kind of entertaining to watch from the outside. I'm like, you guys are just like everyone is fighting right now in the World

FightinCowboy: Yeah, it's

Sarthe: of Warcraft space. So that's entertaining. Not great, but entertaining.

WheelieAverage: sorry, I I've been over here laughing at Cowboys Chat because Tem in Cowboys Chat says one of the funny podcasts was when Wheelie was drinking some orange soda and Cowboy commented on it.

FightinCowboy: That's that's a that's a classic. I remember that one. I says this is Mori Funker drinking a two liter.

Sarthe: Yeah, we really used to a different drink every time.

WheelieAverage: Yeah. And now it's just water, so this is what cowboys done to me, you know? Just

FightinCowboy: I but think about how healthy you are. You're back in the gym. Yeah.

Sarthe: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: I am. I am.

FightinCowboy: You are back in the gym. You're drinking more water. Like a year from now you're

WheelieAverage: Yeah, yeah.

FightinCowboy: gonna be like, brother, is it just time for podcast?

WheelieAverage: Okay.

Sarthe: Get over here, you little ones.

WheelieAverage: god, get over here. That makes me think Mortal Kombat. But I guess that brings me to something I can actually talk about as of today. I got to

Sarthe: Mm-hmm.

WheelieAverage: see the Street Fighter movie already. I was invited by Paramount to a special screening. Wouldn't normally talk about movies here, but obviously is a movie based on a video game, so I feel like it's

Sarthe: I also love movies.

WheelieAverage: I feel like it's relevant. I was really quite impressed. And the reviews from critics haven't been great, but I'm gonna have my own review that's gonna go up very soon. I actually score it four and a half stars out of five. Because I think as a gamer, if you if you're Yeah.

Sarthe: That's really high. It was a 990 %

WheelieAverage: Yeah, because I think that if you are if you're a gamer and you're a fan of Street Fighter, this does the right thing. Where It's not trying to be a movie for everybody else. It's being a movie for gamers who understand

Sarthe: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: the IP, they understand the in-jokes, and the g and the movie's sort of making fun of itself sometimes. It has this cheesy it has this cheesy nature to it, but the cheesy nature works because the movie is self o self aware. Like it knows it's

Sarthe: Mm-hmm.

WheelieAverage: cheesy and it's sort of poking fun at not only itself. But the original Street Fighter movie from years ago as well. And it's there's just lots of nice little things. And then they do this really interesting presentational thing that I haven't seen before, where all of the flashbacks and stuff in the movie are actually shown as animated style. Like animation, cartoon. Yeah. And and then everything else is live

Sarthe: that's Yeah, it's actually cool.

FightinCowboy: That's a cool, cool visual shift.

WheelieAverage: action.

Sarthe: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: So it's it's like it makes those moments stand out more because they look significantly different, right? So it's

Sarthe: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: yeah, and it I was just I was sat there and I was like, okay, yes, is this the best movie ever? No. But when you look at a movie capturing an IP and kind of being very clearly made by people that love the IP, that is this movie. And As I said, it feels like it's being made by gamers for gamers. And to me that's that's something we haven't seen enough of with these adaptations of video game IPs into other forms of media.

Sarthe: Yeah, so many bad adaptations, like this actually sounds like it'll be like a cult classic on like on demand like on Netflix It's gonna pop off because then everyone's gonna start noticing.

WheelieAverage: Yeah.

Sarthe: this is a reference to the game this is a reference and it's almost

WheelieAverage: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: Yeah.

Sarthe: actually like the opposite of Resident Evil which was like In my opinion one of the like best adaptations for the sense of bringing that world to the wide scope. Like as a movie, it was a really good movie. But if you're just a massive fan of Resident Evil, it might not have felt tonally the exact same. So like if you're a huge, huge Resident Evil fan, you either loved it or had like qualms. But like overall, everyone really enjoyed it. And now like kind of brought people into the franchise. And this feels like the opposite. It's like made for the game. Kind of like Hellraiser also. Like you're talking about.

WheelieAverage: Yeah, and I think that's the exact thing. You actually nailed it there. A lot of these adaptations are made with the idea of let's bring this to a wider audience that hasn't really been part of it before. So they overexplain things, they simplify things that don't need simplifying,

Sarthe: Mm-hmm.

WheelieAverage: and all of this dumb shit, right? Let's let's be quite honest.

FightinCowboy: Well, I mean, and there's times too where they just they just outright change stuff for like no reason. And it's like like why are we why are we breaking established canon? Like let's

Sarthe: Yeah. People love this story and you're just making a doo-doo version? You're saying, actually, I didn't like that.

FightinCowboy: Well, I mean that's that's what that's what got me to stop watching the the Witcher show. I originally I was really enjoying the Witcher

Sarthe: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: show and then they just started coming up with like all new things. They're like, actually, the all was this happened.

WheelieAverage: Well, apparently apparently that was why apparently that was part of the reason that Henry Cavill left as well, right?

FightinCowboy: So I cavell left. Yeah. Yeah.

Sarthe: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: Because he was like, You're not doing what we set out to do here You know. and I wanna be

Sarthe: Yeah, justice to the source material. And that's that's why they

FightinCowboy: But I am very excited

Sarthe: pitched it.

FightinCowboy: to see his his his 40k adaptation. That's gonna be mm,

WheelieAverage: Yeah, for sure. For sure.

Sarthe: Yeah, my god.

FightinCowboy: it's gonna be good.

WheelieAverage: What I will say on Street Fighter though, I'm not gonna sit here and say that there aren't elements of it that are gonna disappoint people, because I do think the movie has some issues. There's a section in the movie that feels like it's missing about four or five scenes and that they basically skipped f some scenes just to keep the pacing up.

Sarthe: And you're just like, how do we get from A to B?

WheelieAverage: Yeah. And it is and it is kind of like that. And it's like it's so weird. But what I would say is I think they're confident in this being that cult classic status because they leave it on a major cliffhanger. Which clearly means they have more to tell and more to do, right? So with that in mind and The thing that impressed me is I had a lot of concerns over the casting of this movie, and

Sarthe: Mm-hmm.

WheelieAverage: I actually think every single actor nails their part. So

Sarthe: I mean, they're all of the pro wrestlers are literally actors, right? It's like

WheelieAverage: Yeah.

Sarthe: their actual job that their whole job is to to dramaticize everything. Yeah.

WheelieAverage: There is i is physical acting, yeah.

Sarthe: And and so like, I feel like they would would be. Yeah, I'm curious, And I'm glad you say that, because I mean, I was nervous for the at some parts, but I are like beforehand. But at the same time, I like checked myself and I was like, I don't expect this to be a great movie. but I think it's gonna be like a fun one and I think they're gonna fit really well as those characters because it's not that far off what they do all the time, you know?

FightinCowboy: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: Yeah. And if I was being fully critical minded about this, right, where I'm like I take the gamer out of me and I look at it purely as a movie, then I can understand some of the lower scores. Because maybe in that case I'd be around like a seven or a seven point five. But as a gamer who

Sarthe: That's still not bad.

WheelieAverage: likes the IP, that's what pushes it up to that basically nine out of ten for me.

Sarthe: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: So I think it's just a really fun movie that people are gonna have fun with. And what I would say is if you have any interest in the movie, go and see it in the cinema because that's how you're gonna get more of it, you know? So it's the more you support it, the better it's. It's like video games. Like I just saw the news today that Remedy's control resonant s has sold a million units, right? But

FightinCowboy: nice.

WheelieAverage: it didn't make

Sarthe: Meh.

WheelieAverage: the top ten on any platform. For the whole of September, and I know that it was only out for that last bit of September, but it was also one of the bigger releases in September.

Sarthe: is word of mouth.

WheelieAverage: So it's so it's kind of like, you know, I really wish I really wish them success with that as well, because

Sarthe: Mm-hmm.

WheelieAverage: there's not anyone I know who's played that game that doesn't like it, which I think says a lot, you know? So So yeah, but there's my little movie there's my little movie bit. I figured I should I

Sarthe: Wheatley's Movie Review.

WheelieAverage: sh I figured I should talk about that since, you know, Paramount was like, Hey, come to this come to this screening.

Sarthe: Yeah, no, that was dope. I I also I went to like a fight night in Los Angeles, literally like MMA and also like they had martial artists from around the world like doing presentations and stuff. And like I didn't get to go see the movie yet. Good old moving a bunch. But like that got me like really intrigued. They're doing like really cool marketing around it. I'm nervous that it's going to be because of like wider audience. It'll technically be like a box office flop. Plus. The casting had to have been pretty expensive. I haven't looked. I think it's going to hit that like cult classic thing when it hits Paramount Plus or like Netflix or whatever. And I don't know. I'm curious to see how that how that really pushes it. Yeah. But like I think word of mouth and like people that are big fans of the franchise, they're

WheelieAverage: Yeah.

Sarthe: banking on people that are big fans also of like the wrestling franchise, which actually could crush it

WheelieAverage: Yes, absolutely.

Sarthe: for them because that's a massive.

WheelieAverage: I mean, and they're gonna have

Sarthe: massive following.

WheelieAverage: crossover marketing with the wrestling as well, right?

Sarthe: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: That's the thing. So that's gonna help them get eyes on it and stuff like that. What what I would say is that I think this is one of those movies where these initial reviews are gonna put people off because they're done they're reviews that are done by quite frankly. movie reviewers, I'll I'll just say it. They're they're somewhat snobbish,

Sarthe: That's the people that do a lot of the.

WheelieAverage: you know? They're somewhat snobbish. They're a little bit elitist about how their movies are made and

FightinCowboy: Well yeah, I mean it's the it's the well regardless of it being a game, if it's adapted to film, it should present in the form of film and it's like, I

WheelieAverage: Okay.

FightinCowboy: mean and then it's like, well, is it is it more about the presentation of the media?

Sarthe: Aren't we a little snobbish for video game reviews?

FightinCowboy: Is it is it is like well, but I it is an interesting question, is what do you think is is more valuable per pres preserving the IP and what the IP is about, or making sure that regardless of where an IP goes, that it's adapted properly to that form of media.

WheelieAverage: Yeah, yeah, that and it is that's a huge conversation to have, and there's always gonna be a different answer to that depending on who you are, right? Because for example, one of the more recent adaptations that I think has actually been really good is the Fallout TV show. I don't know if either of you have watched it, but

Sarthe: Yeah. I think it's universally pretty well accepted as good.

WheelieAverage: And it and it's like but that I think why that worked is because within that universe and how that universe works, they had the freedom to tell their own story. So

Sarthe: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: they're not trying to reinvent the games or recapture the games. It's not like the Last of Us situation where they had to try and tell the same story there, but you're never gonna capture gamers in that same way. Because there is something different

Sarthe: It started out.

WheelieAverage: about controlling the character, right?

Sarthe: Yeah, but it also it the last of us started out.

FightinCowboy: Yeah. Well, I mean it's the same with with like horror games.

Sarthe: yeah. Horror game. Yeah, you go on cowboy.

FightinCowboy: Like dude, I will I I could I can watch any number of what what are supposed to be horror films and most of the time I just get like like I might get like a little jump here and there, but otherwise like I really enjoy horror films. Horror games? Dude, horror games are fucking terrifying. Like

Sarthe: Yeah

FightinCowboy: if my kid was to watch all of like I don't know, Alien or something, that wouldn't be nearly as scary as being like, All right, sons, time to play Alien Isolation. Like

WheelieAverage: I agree with that. But it's all but it's also Yeah.

FightinCowboy: fuck that dude. Games are so much scar it's it's just a different way to experience the media and hot take. This is

Sarthe: Yeah, that's me.

FightinCowboy: why games are better than fucking movies and books. Games are

WheelieAverage: I agree.

FightinCowboy: they're the best form of media because it lets you experience stories. Yeah.

WheelieAverage: They take the best of all those things and they're more immersive because you're controlling it and you are therefore part of it. And and I think, yeah, this

FightinCowboy: Yep. Yep. And this is why movie critics get butthurt, because they know regardless of how how in love they are with their film, somebody, someday, will make a game where I get to experience that film in a way that they did not.

WheelieAverage: Yeah. Yeah, that's true. That is true.

Sarthe: I literally was at a film premiere last night for a movie that I was in last year, my first film. So I'm a huge, huge film buff. I almost I'm sure I guess I don't really read like what movie critics say anywhere. But like someone who loves both mediums, it's just like for me, it's a different way of experiencing it. And like you have to be like. It's almost like anime tells, honestly, some of the best stories possible because of what they can do. But like in in

FightinCowboy: Yeah. no. Absolutely.

Sarthe: films, like they have to keep you on the rails and figure out ways to manipulate it, to give you that feeling of being in it or experiencing the story and it actually feeling like emotional instead of you feeling like you're controlling and invested in it. And that's like a it's just a different skill set that I love when it's done well. But at the same time, like I can criticize almost every video game film because they're like, that was just done awfully. That was just like a cash grab. That was what who wrote that?

WheelieAverage: Yeah. A and I think that's the problem a lot of the time, right? Is a lot of these adaptations, quite frankly, have been done by people who either don't understand the IP they're adapting, or they don't care about the source material enough to stay

FightinCowboy: Sarth, you

WheelieAverage: true to it.

FightinCowboy: I was just thinking that because you mentioned anime. I think it's it's so funny that I feel like we see games adapt movies so incredibly well. But on the other hand, games trying to adapt to anime it's it's so bad. And

Sarthe: so bad every time.

FightinCowboy: then I just realized it's it's it's fucking rock, paper, scissors. It's like

Sarthe: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: Movies are bad at at adapting video games, video games are bad at adapting anime, and anime is terrible when it turns into live action. It's just the fucking

Sarthe: Yep.

WheelieAverage: Yeah. Yeah. The the triforce of of not being very good. Yeah.

FightinCowboy: man. Triforce of fuckery. Like. But like that, I I mean, on a

Sarthe: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: serious note though, like that is one thing I do love about anime. Especially I I am a big, big fan of Isakai trash. I love a good trash Isakai. Some someone's

Sarthe: Yeah, is.

FightinCowboy: reborn in a world and they have some crazy ass obscure MMO power. I just I love those power systems. And the thing I hate is like when you think about like some of the coolest ones, like Shangri La Online, Sword Art Online. Like that that portrayal of engaging with a game on that level is such an insanely appealing idea that when you look at modern games, you're like, why aren't we fucking there yet? What is wrong with you?

Sarthe: Yeah

FightinCowboy: Where is my full dive MMO with dynamic real quest technology? Give it to me now. Like I want Shangri-La now. Give

WheelieAverage: And not very real question.

FightinCowboy: me that fucking game. Put me in the game.

Sarthe: Be in the game!

WheelieAverage: Mm. But yeah, it's funny, like maybe me and Sarth will have to have a cast just talking about movies at some point, 'cause I'm a big I'm a big movie buff as well, and I actually studied film in school, so it's it's it's so so

Sarthe: Same, that was

FightinCowboy: Yeah, I started a couple films back when I was in school.

Sarthe: I bet you did cowboy.

WheelieAverage: What kind of films?

FightinCowboy: The adult canoise. I think you know what kind of films we're talking about.

Sarthe: Yeah

WheelieAverage: god.

FightinCowboy: man.

WheelieAverage: But yeah, that so that was our little tangent of films. Hopefully you enjoyed it. But let's get back to video games, okay? Because there's an interesting questi like comment here that brings a question to mind. And it's about a game that we mentioned earlier but I don't think any of us have played yet. And it's Opportunity Fishing who basically says, curious if anyone has tried Castlevania yet. They played the demo and really enjoyed it. however it seems like people are upset that it doesn't play like the older games. And they go on to say, in my opinion, the genre has evolved. The genre of Metroid Venius, right, has evolved.

Sarthe: Mm-hmm.

WheelieAverage: If you look at games like Prince of Persia, Nine Souls, Hollow Knight, etc. So the question is, shouldn't the originator of that genre, shouldn't the ogie franchise also evolve?

Sarthe: Yes, absolutely. I mean, I

FightinCowboy: yeah, I agree. Absolutely.

Sarthe: guess I didn't play the OG Castlevania as in my first like Metroidvania was Silksong and then I went back and played Hollow Knight. So maybe I'm a bad person to call about this, but like it translates so well to new gamers. I played the new Castlevania, a demo thing. So I've played for like two hours. And I was so shocked at how fluid the animations were. The story was really well done. How great the combat was. The systems are awesome with like the cards and you finding different powers and abilities and stuff. I thought it was really, really awesome. And I really want to play more of it before like I dive full deep into Phantom Blade and then wow. So like I'm really excited. I was curious. Actually, I hadn't seen any of the reviews, so. Everyone I've talked to that's played has had a blast, but I haven't delved deep. I'm curious what your thoughts are, Cowboy, on them evolving like this, yeah?

FightinCowboy: I I think that that games as a medium should absolutely evolve. I think one, the original is always gonna be there. It's not like a franchise moving on and evolving past its roots invalidates the origins. The origins are always gonna be there. You know, if you if you look at just even who you are as a person, is you know, did did nothing matter up until now? Are you just where you're at at this point of your life and your childhood and everything else? Was that meaningless? No, then yeah. What why does it matter if the game's also gonna evolve? And two, I think, especially so when it is a primary driver of that franchise. I think a perfect example being Elden Ring. If Dark Souls One and Dark Souls Two and Dark Souls Three and Bloodborne and Elden Ring were all essentially just Dark Souls One copy and pasted, it would have been fucking terrible. The reason the games have gotten as big as they are is because of the evolution in the medium, seeing additional things added onto the weapons, seeing A shift where the combat is getting more engaging, runbacks getting shortened, things like these. And a large part of it is the game becoming more accessible as it begins to appeal to a greater audience. But at the same time, you could also consider it an evolution of the medium. And then even then, looking at souls like some particular, we still see all sorts of different variations that are popping up. We have some where you're still doing the traditional souls idea of running and picking up your souls. You have others that are doing the, you know, the souls are going to be waiting for you outside of the the boss room. But I think it's this experimentation and this evolution that inherently has made Souls likes as a medium so enjoyable is seeing all the little differences between these games, the way something like Mortal Shell presents itself compared to Neo3, compared to Liza P. And

Sarthe: Mm-hmm.

FightinCowboy: I guess someone that just enjoys the genre, like that's I I look at it like this. It's like I'm a fan of ice cream. More flavors of ice cream is not a bad thing. So Like there's gonna be flavors you might not like as much, but I'm sure there's like, you know if I put fucking twenty flavors of ice cream in front of you, you're gonna like at least like fifteen of them. So

Sarthe: And sometimes they combine the ice cream in like a swirl and you're like, this is fire. I didn't know I like these together. Yeah.

FightinCowboy: Yeah. So Yeah. Sometimes they they put a little sprinkles on there, man. Variety's the spice of life. I I love

WheelieAverage: What what I will say, just to be devil's advocate for for the sake of conversation, is I think

FightinCowboy: Yeah, fucking lay it out. What do you got for me? What do you fucking got? What's your argument?

Sarthe: Thanks.

WheelieAverage: there could be an argument that sometimes some of these evolutions are not actually good. And that's okay, you know?

Sarthe: Absolutely. But like they have to try

FightinCowboy: Yeah, yeah. No, that's that's not yeah.

Sarthe: things, right? Like it's always a risk. But like at the same time, if you don't evolve, then the game isn't going to hit the same way. Also for the people that complain that like they evolved and changed things, if they release the same game, your nostalgia is not going to be the same. You're like, it's kind of just the same thing. Look at

WheelieAverage: And you'd also then complain they haven't changed anything. So it goes both ways, you

Sarthe: Yeah. Yeah.

WheelieAverage: know? So it's I I feel for developers, because I I agree with you guys that the medium has to evolve and all genres have to evolve in some form, right? If we look at, for example, we've got one of the biggest releases of all time coming up, GTA 6, right? But even in what they've shown so far.

Sarthe: Wait, what game? Is that a game?

WheelieAverage: Even in what they've shown so far, and we just had the launch trailer today released for it, it's like you can see that they've had evolutions in that formula compared to the previous GCA game. If they didn't, do you think people would care as much as they do? You know? It's just it's things have to evolve. I think the only genre that gets away with less evolution, and I d And even that's starting to wane a little bit now, is sports games, right? I think people care less about evolution in sports games.

FightinCowboy: Yeah. no, absolutely, dude. I I would say they don't get it. Like people peop people

Sarthe: You complain.

FightinCowboy: people absolutely complain. Like it's honestly sports games, I view them as like an abusive relationship. Because people are like, Yeah, I'm getting the new fucking 2K. Yeah, I didn't change anything, but yeah, I'm gonna play it again. Fuck you. Here's my money. Give me my game. It it's like

WheelieAverage: Yeah. but part of that problem part of that problem is a lack of competition within that sp particular genre, right?

FightinCowboy: Yeah. Well there there isn't. Who else who else wants to pump out sports games every

WheelieAverage: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: single year?

WheelieAverage: Yeah, precisely. And I

Sarthe: especially when there's like an established giant monolith

FightinCowboy: Yeah.

Sarthe: in the series. But also like I have this opinion like almost sometimes it's hard to innovate in sports games because like you're just getting more more realistic a lot of the times, which like we saw a crazy amount of adjustments year to year like when we were younger or like even the 2000s and stuff. And now it's like, OK, you just you increase the graphics and like. put weather effects in the game or something.

WheelieAverage: Do you know the do you know the one that gets me though, as a as someone who does still play sports games and enjoys them occasionally,

Sarthe: Mm-hmm.

WheelieAverage: is that they will add features that they say are brand new that were basically in the franchise like twenty years ago and they just took away. You know? And it's like

Sarthe: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: it's like I get it, things change, you move on to new engines and you can't add everything back immediately, right? I understand that, that's fine, fair enough. But don't try and snake oil salesman people that this thing's brand new

FightinCowboy: I'll be right back.

WheelieAverage: when most of these people have

Sarthe: It probably works.

WheelieAverage: played your franchise for for twenty years, you know? It's and don't

Sarthe: Yeah, they should probably market it as like it's bad. This is back. But like it probably I mean they probably have studies or like numbers on like the statistics of like it works more to market it as brand new. I'm actually curious because like unless someone makes like an expose and then they have to change the way of doing it and like that actually blows up. But yeah.

WheelieAverage: Course and and and and let's be honest, anyone who says something is new, it's always new and shiny sells to people, right? Like so so that's always going to help. But it's that thing of like the reason these games remain so popular is because they're good. So they don't need to they don't need to fake things. Like th like

Sarthe: You need to market still like get people excited. It's like they're going to the store

WheelieAverage: Yeah.

Sarthe: and everything is marked down at like 90 % off and big red you like my god 90 % off for this thing. It's only 499 dollars now. I can't believe what a steal It was never whatever you know it was never 4,000 or something. You know just like yeah, so like

WheelieAverage: Yeah, it's fake. It's it's yeah, yeah. Which is that whole like I did business in school and the whole psychology betw behind like 9.99, right, instead of ten is because to our brains, even though it's only one cent or whatever, our brains don't perceive it that way. Our brains perceive it as significantly cheaper. And it's just so there is a psychology.

Sarthe: Yes, and there's a massive amount of difference in sales from those numbers. so

WheelieAverage: Yeah.

Sarthe: like with games, I'm sure that they like, because if they don't say anything is new, what is the reason to upgrade, right? So like they have to tell you something is happening.

WheelieAverage: Precisely. Yeah.

Sarthe: And so they kind of need a snake oil salesman, because like it's the best graphics ever, but like, yeah.

WheelieAverage: For sure, but but at least but at least be a snake oil salesman about the things that are actually new. Do you know what I mean? Like

Sarthe: yeah, instead of highlighting other things.

WheelieAverage: Yeah, instead of being like, hey, this thing's new, but we know that if you played this franchise for twenty years, you saw it twenty years ago. Like, they must know with these yearly sports games, and it's the same with Call of Duty as well, there's a huge percentage of that audience that has been playing these games every single year for basically the entire time they've been a gamer.

Sarthe: Won't you then, and I'm curious if anyone in the audience or like in the comments agrees or disagrees with this, but like won't you, if you've played the same franchise every year for 20 years, they're actually not marketing to you. They've got you, you're hooked. So like saying something's new and added, you're gonna complain about it and buy the game anyways. Someone else is gonna see that that hasn't ever played the game and like, that sounds fun. Like that's a cool mechanic, you know? So like I actually.

WheelieAverage: Yeah, the marketing isn't for the people who are already caught by the audience, is effectively what you're saying, right? Like

Sarthe: Yeah, yeah. Yes.

WheelieAverage: if if you're in the audience and you're buying it every year anyway, they've already got you on that fish hook. They don't need

Sarthe: Yep.

WheelieAverage: they don't need to bait you out with fake things of saying this is new when it's not actually new because ultimately they know you don't care anyway, right? They

Sarthe: mean, you'll complain a little bit by seeing it and being like, that's not even new, but like you're still buying it, right? Exactly.

WheelieAverage: Yeah. And and ultimately we live in a world where the only thing that would hurt these companies and force them to change in any meaningful way is for people en masse to not buy the game, but that's never going to happen because FOMO is a thing. You know? Like they're

Sarthe: Yeah, and I mean, go on.

WheelieAverage: I was gonna say there will ne there might be some people who don't buy something, but there will never be enough people to make a true difference. Like the one that sticks in my mind and it's a bit of a different situation. But but we had Hogwarts, right? We had the Hogwarts game and there was controversy around that. And there was a lot of people say

Sarthe: Was there? didn't even know.

WheelieAverage: there was a lot of people saying, Hey, we're gonna boycott this game. But how many of them do you actually think boycott

Sarthe: because of the crazy lady.

WheelieAverage: yeah. But how many of them do you think actually boycotted the game versus, hey, it's a Harry Potter game that I've always wanted to play? And they just bought it anyway.

Sarthe: And that team poured so much love into the game, actually, like, they really did, they didn't acknowledge, obviously, like, the crazy person, so like, that wasn't a part of what this game was at all. that

WheelieAverage: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarthe: game literally launched my career, that was the game I started with outside of WoW, so that was like, un-ironically. Because I love that universe and I love that world and I loved how you got to explore it and you could find like little details that they really cared about it. Like, technically that's the reason why the game did so well. Like the game mechanics are not great. it's a very, it's almost like the mechanics are a slight step up from like the games back in the day when like in the 2000s every movie had a video game made out of nowhere and like it was just like slopped thrown together. Like the mechanics kind of were very close to that, a little bit flashier and a little bit like polish, like not like there wasn't that much depth, but the world and the story, they loved it and it just hit and it hit everywhere for everyone that's a huge fan of the franchise, I think.

WheelieAverage: And I think that's true when you're taking any franchise and adapting it, right? Like

Sarthe: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: like Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings games, unless you're Gollum and you're broken and terrible,

Sarthe: Yeah, was like, did you that?

WheelieAverage: are most of the time Lord of the Rings games are gonna do really well because people just like that world. They like being in that world, they like messing around in the world, they like exploring it.

Sarthe: But they also will have like insanely good mechanics like Shadow of Mordor. I mean the Nemesis system is literally groundbreaking and they patented it so no one can ever do it again. Like imagine

WheelieAverage: Yeah, yeah.

Sarthe: having one of the coolest systems. If you ever lose to a boss or just a normal enemy, he remembers and gets stronger. And if you keep losing to him...

WheelieAverage: Imagine that system in a Souls Light game, you know?

Sarthe: Yeah, you would you you keep having one annoying enemy like the one the guy in mortal shell that knocked cowboy off the bridge with his shield and

FightinCowboy: Yeah.

Sarthe: Then all of a sudden the next time he's there. He's like the captain and has five guys with shields You know it's like I see your back at the bridge. You know like those things. my god When do they lose that that like IP or

WheelieAverage: Yeah.

Sarthe: whatever, but yeah, like I think Interestingly is sorry for interrupting, but like I think Lord of the Rings has had some games that have had like the best mechanics and now recently like Star Wars has having like them explore different versions of the game like you're not just the Jedi series which is sick but then also like the Racer series and then also the like. Tactical RPG whatever yeah the turn-based

WheelieAverage: Yeah, like the turn based. Yeah, yeah.

Sarthe: yeah and those have been really really good they've had some misses definitely but I think recently the major franchises I've actually put out like, unless I'm spacing on things, like some really pretty solid games, which is pretty sweet.

WheelieAverage: Yeah, I think so. I like obviously we haven't had a brand new Lord of the Rings game for quite some time, but

Sarthe: yet.

WheelieAverage: perhaps I'm misremembering, but isn't there one coming from like Warhorse or something? The devs behind Kingdom Come? Like

Sarthe: Yeah. Yes.

WheelieAverage: that could be super cool.

Sarthe: We've actually so epic and like all they need to do is just make a good game and then and then layer in the Lord of the Rings aspects You know just layer in the love But the focus they've proven that they can make an incredibly good in-depth and really like just amazing

WheelieAverage: My

Sarthe: open-world game and go on

WheelieAverage: I have one concern around that game. And it won't

Sarthe: Hit it.

WheelieAverage: be a concern for me, but it's more for the wider audience. They could go one of two ways. They could do their typical thing of really, really in-depth RPG that puts people off because it's so in depth. Or they could go, hey, we're using the Lord of the Rings IP. So we need to make this a little bit more approachable and they could end up losing, in my opinion, what makes their games special and stand out, which is the depth of their RPG, right? S so I do

Sarthe: Yeah. I think that's a super fair concern. Either way is literally a trap for them technically, right? Like people are going to be upset

WheelieAverage: Yeah, yeah.

Sarthe: either way.

WheelieAverage: Yeah, and I I just don't know which way you go because at the end of the day, when you've got access to an IP that big, you're gonna want it to be approachable for the biggest audience possible, right? Or do you believe in your mechanics strongly enough to be like it's our it's the gameplay systems that will bring people in and the and the IP is like the the Cherry on top the cake, you know, the cherry like it's

Sarthe: That's my favorite route like like Sorry to wrap back to like TV or film is like and or and or was just a good show a really solid show Based in the world of Star Wars and then they tied things in a lot more in season 2 but like that wasn't the focus of the of like what it was and I think that Other than, mean, Lord of the Rings has a massive, massive fan base, but like not the same style of fan base as like Harry Potter, so Hogwarts, like, see, because like that captures a lot more of like the female audience or like the younger audience or the non-gamer audience or like Lord of the Rings is more of like a fantasy, fantasy. It's like the OG fantasy that everything

WheelieAverage: It's the nerds, let's just say it.

Sarthe: is based off pretty much. And yeah, and so

WheelieAverage: Yeah, for sure.

Sarthe: I think they like have that. Opportunity to lean in really deep into the world where you don't slightly make it too complex But like enough of this like these systems that people feel like they're like straight up in there Living in Middle-earth that would be like I think that would end up with it being not like maybe slightly less like massively popular But eventually with word-of-mouth and over time it'll just be like this like absolute hit that just keeps going forever, kind of like Elden Ring, you know?

WheelieAverage: Yeah. Yeah, that completely makes sense. I want to twist a bit of a question here into a bigger question that will lead to hopefully an interesting conversation. there was a comment last week on one of our clips from Night Templar who basically said they had open world fatigue a long time ago and they now only play probably one open world game per year. Because otherwise they they struggle to enjoy gaming, right? But but my question is, we've all heard of open world fatigue before, and I think we've all probably had periods where where we've gone through it to some extent. Unless you're Sarth and you want treasures everywhere and and things like that. But are there are there other types of gaming fatigue that you have experienced? And if so, how did you How did you deal with those things?

FightinCowboy: Mm.

Sarthe: I it with FPS

WheelieAverage: Always thinking hard.

Sarthe: games every now and then. I dive super hard into a game. Battlefield, I played for two or three months and put in 260 hours, I was looking yesterday. I dive super hard into a game and then I just move on. If Call of Duty and Battlefield came out at the same time, which they probably did actually, I didn't even play the last Call of Duty because of that.

WheelieAverage: The last Call of Duty sucked, you weren't missing much.

Sarthe: Okay, perfect. kind of, the only Call of Duty I've played as an adult was like two or three ago and was like zombies was so good. And like that

WheelieAverage: Yeah.

Sarthe: was like kind of a similar like, it's like an RPG aspect in there. And so I love like finding all the secrets and coming up with builds. But, God I'm a nerd. But I think I get that fatigue every now and then with like specific genres for sure. And then I just like take a break from that genre for a while unless like, Something mind-blowing comes out and I'm like, ooh, I have to play that Let me just see and then it hooks me again but sometimes if it's too soon like I Get the fatigue worse after a phenomenal game It's it takes me like weeks for another game to like get me excited and I'm like almost low-key depressed Like if a really good game came out right after expedition 33 I totally have forgotten you and I'm so sorry because I was depressed I wasn't still playing expedition 33 And so like I get that fatigue and it just takes like time for me. But I don't know, cowboy.

FightinCowboy: I don't think I mean I was really thinking about different genres and I don't think I've hit the fatigue point with games. I think maybe it's just because of how many games I go through. Like I'm never, you know I'm never on the same thing for for too long outside of maybe like Magic the Gathering. so I I don't know. I think it's just 'cause I'm I'm so used to just rotating through stuff at this point. I don't think I've hit the fatigue.

Sarthe: Yeah, I did five

WheelieAverage: That's why.

Sarthe: years of only playing World of Warcraft. So I think I could play a game for a long time.

WheelieAverage: That's fair. I mean

FightinCowboy: Yeah, I mean and there's there's

WheelieAverage: I w

FightinCowboy: times like that though where like, you know, I I I think with with MMOs in particular, it's like, is it even fatigue or is it just, you know, you've hit the the breadth of content too? 'Cause I mean there's times

Sarthe: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: where, you know, I've played wow up to the point where it's like, okay, I feel like, you know, unless I'm I'm you know, I've I've done the raids I wanted to do, I hit the rank I wanted for this season, I think I'm done. You know, maybe maybe I'll come back next patch, but like for now it's just I have accomplished my goals. And I don't I I I think it's important to not confuse that with fatigue. Because I think,

Sarthe: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: you know, accomplishing and

WheelieAverage: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: moving on from something is entirely different from just dreading it.

WheelieAverage: Completely agreed and I what I would say is for me specifically, I have I don't think I've ever had open world fatigue. And what I mean by that is because I've never ever been in a situation where I don't want to play any open world game. Because to me there are quite different open world games. For ex for example, an Elden Ring gone.

FightinCowboy: a hundred percent. I d this on on that just cause you said that.

Sarthe: Mm-hmm.

FightinCowboy: I gotta call it out. Fucking like Rise of the Ronin, man. I bounced off that world so fucking fast. Like,

Sarthe: Ha ha ha ha!

WheelieAverage: Ha ha ha

FightinCowboy: but it's it's it's 'cause of how the open world is, you know. You take a look

WheelieAverage: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: at at Neo3's open world, same devs, and and one of those open worlds, I'm I'm going all over

WheelieAverage: Very different. Yeah.

FightinCowboy: the place finding one. The other, I'm like, man, get me the fuck out of here. I don't wanna be here anymore.

WheelieAverage: Yeah, and and that's the thing, all open worlds are different, right? So for example, an Elden Ring open world is very different to a Crimson Desert open world. There

Sarthe: Mm-hmm.

WheelieAverage: there might be some similarities there, but there's a lot of differences.

Sarthe: Those are two of the more similar ones, unlike the size and scope and exciting things you find in different places. But yeah, they are very, all of them are usually really different.

WheelieAverage: I mean, yes, but but but but that's what I'm saying. But is like but then you've got an open world like, let's say I don't know, You know, what what could we think of? Like Gears was more open, right? Wasn't fully open world, but it was more open. So it let it

FightinCowboy: See, but in in that case I like I don't even think that would qualify. 'Cause if you if you

Sarthe: Mm-mm.

FightinCowboy: wanted, you could just go A B. Like

Sarthe: Yeah, you

WheelieAverage: I

Sarthe: didn't have to do anything else.

WheelieAverage: agree, but there

Sarthe: It's just I made Cowboy play for an extra like 10 hours of that game. Because

WheelieAverage: Sarth made cowboy do everything else.

FightinCowboy: I was a hostage as

Sarthe: I said, ooh, I heard a sound. I'll be right over here.

WheelieAverage: It's funny. but it's I just I just think of it and like to me, if I play for example, GTA 5, that's a very different open world to Mafia 3 from back in the day, which just got an update, you know, for its for its

FightinCowboy: Mat matt hold on, hold on, say that again?

WheelieAverage: Mafia 3.

FightinCowboy: One more time?

WheelieAverage: Mafia free.

FightinCowboy: Mafia.

Sarthe: Math-Mathia. Wait. Wait, are you?

WheelieAverage: I am British.

FightinCowboy: No, yeah, and and we're teaching you how to speak the language properly. It's mafia. It ain't mafia. It's not math. Who do where do you think mafia

Sarthe: It's... Mafia.

WheelieAverage: Is mafia.

FightinCowboy: culture came from? Put some fucking respect.

Sarthe: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: Hehehehehe you you you need to speak to more British people. You'll you'll understand.

Sarthe: I speak to British people all the time. A lot of them play well.

FightinCowboy: I've never put it put it up chat chat is it is it math mafia

WheelieAverage: They do, that's to be fair.

FightinCowboy: or mafia? No ma yeah tongue twister is it mafia or mafia?

WheelieAverage: Look at T look at Tem in there. He's a br he's a look at what Tem said in your chat right now. Ugh.

Sarthe: You know, the funny part about that too is like last week I was like, Cowboy said something and I was like, wait, is that how you how you pronounce that? I forget what word it was.

FightinCowboy: I don't remember what I was either, but yeah, you did. I

WheelieAverage: That was a really yeah that

FightinCowboy: was like, But

Sarthe: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: the words that I do know, I am adamant about those.

Sarthe: Yeah!

WheelieAverage: well. But anyway, my point was you're getting us off track here. My point was that all open worlds are different, right? And to me, as long as an open world is alive with things to do and things to discover and things to find, I'm gonna have fun, you know? But if it's a massive barren open world, I'm gonna struggle a little bit more.

FightinCowboy: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: Nice, nice. So like for example, Mad Max is a really good game from twenty fifteen, right? I enjoyed Mad Max but I hated the fact that it was an open world. It needed to be because of the car thing, but that world was so barren that it became boring and repetitive really quickly.

Sarthe: Yeah, if you make an open world and it's not like... Most things don't need to be an open world. It just needs to be like curated well. But if it's a full open world, that's a massive undertaking to make sure that if you have that idea at 2 a.m. like, I'm just gonna climb this mountain real fast before bed. And then it's 4 a.m. and you've just tamed a giant bear randomly like... You have to have those thoughts and put all of the love into the world to have those aspects. But if you're like exploring and there's no like reward or nothing awesome to find in those areas and it's like barren, then like, why did you make the game in open world? Just like make it smaller and curate it better. The Phantom Blade that's coming out soon, Phantom Blade Zero, not open world at all, incredibly curated. Every part is incredibly curated. It's more like Metroidvania than than open world because there's like you'll get new abilities and then come back to different areas and it'll open up whole new areas of the map. So I don't think every game needs to be an open world. I think there's like this almost emphasis

WheelieAverage: No, I agree.

Sarthe: on it. But if you don't actually have the time to put the care into making it fit, there's no no point. Yeah, Starfield is a great point. It's like a lot of those planets you landed on. There's there's only every planet had like two or three points of interest. and then you had to land somewhere else. And like, I played a crazy amount of that game and I loved it, but like, I loved it for like, I was min-maxing random things and like farming the best items and stuff. So I didn't think, I don't think that that as like its concept needs to be an open world, but I think they've fleshed that out a lot more. But like, if you're gonna do an open world, take the time. You need the time, dude.

WheelieAverage: Yeah, for sure. I think w my least favourite open world of all time is probably the most recent Ghost Recon game. And and the reason I say that, 'cause I actually quite like a Ubisoft open world. Yes, they have that checklisty nature, but you can still find interesting things in them and you can have interesting things happen. My issue with the most recent Ghost Recon breakpoint was that it was so big that it became unenjoyable to actually get around the world. Like you would hop in a helicopter and I'm not joking, I remember very distinctly one day I was playing this with a friend of mine, right? Because he picked it up cheap and I was like, okay, let's go over here and do this mission. It took us like 15 minutes to get to the mission, five minutes to finish the mission. Like

Sarthe: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: the world is just way too big to be fun. Yeah, it's

FightinCowboy: Soon good. The the only game that I will let take my time when I travel, and I'm sure Sarth will agree, is World of Warcraft. That motherfucker.

Sarthe: Yeah. You just gotta throw on the Lord of the Rings music and you've got a 40 minute run ahead of you.

FightinCowboy: Yep, yep, you yep, you just exactly exactly. I've been doing I've been putting Magic the Gathering in the other screen. I'm like, all right, auto run, let's go. We're we're doing this. but I I

Sarthe: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: See for me I

FightinCowboy: I have a question for y'all too. All this talk of open world games, it like popped a memory into my head about a I believe it was a pseudo open world, and I can't remember it. And so this will be fun to include chat too, see who who hits this game first. All I remember is that it was a space based game. I wanna say it involved Mars. 'Cause it was everything

Sarthe: hours.

FightinCowboy: was red and dusty.

WheelieAverage: Was it red faction?

FightinCowboy: Think I think it was maybe Red Faction 2, but the the I also the most the I remember running around with a sledgehammer and you could individually break apart buildings and cause buildings to collapse. And at the time

WheelieAverage: It was definitely r red faction. Yeah, it was

FightinCowboy: there was nothing else like that. Like 'cause I remember it was in PvP. Like you could have people that were up somewhere and you could take the fucking building out and have them die in the rubble. And I was like, this is amazing.

WheelieAverage: Yeah, I mean

FightinCowboy: Red faction gorilla.

Sarthe: I never even knew of that game.

WheelieAverage: Yeah, that was the one I believe that you're talking about, 'cause that was the one that was based more in space. Red faction grill.

FightinCowboy: Yes. man. That was a cool fucking game. I don't know why that just popped back into my mind, but you're just breaking shit, blowing it up. It was amazing. I got a little mouth.

WheelieAverage: Yeah. Yeah.

FightinCowboy: well, I need the whole s'more baby. Can you go can

WheelieAverage: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: you try and do a s'more for me? Okay.

Sarthe: I need the whole s'more, it's mine. You know?

WheelieAverage: Brilliant.

FightinCowboy: Okay, you can leave it like that, baby. It's okay.

WheelieAverage: Chi child's first audio appearance on the podcast.

FightinCowboy: Well we got we got they

Sarthe: Meh.

FightinCowboy: have they have a friend from school over and so they're sitting there and the kids are

WheelieAverage: Nice.

FightinCowboy: doing s'mores and I'm like, Bring me s'mores. So I have them running s'more loops while I do the podcast and stream and

WheelieAverage: Nice, nice. But what was your you said you had a question

Sarthe: Yeah, all multitasks.

WheelieAverage: for us, so we need to know

FightinCowboy: It's getting sicky and

WheelieAverage: what your specific question was.

FightinCowboy: I'll take another one too. Alright, so once know she's ramping like this, she's like, Yeah.

Sarthe: Did your cowboy set it or did I? I was like, no, did my ADHD hit me? I was like.

WheelieAverage: Cowboy, cowboy. No, no, if it was you I would have been making fun of you 'cause that's that's just funny.

Sarthe: It's like, oops, totally, I said that? Yeah.

WheelieAverage: No, Cowboy, what was your question? You were leading to a question for us and then you totally forgot, I think 'cause you started think talking about red faction gorilla. You were like it brought up a memory.

FightinCowboy: No, that's what I wanna I w I wanted I wanted to get to Redfraction Gorilla. That was the question. I couldn't remember what it was called. And we were talking about

WheelieAverage: Okay. okay. So you were trying to get us to tell you what it was called, okay.

Sarthe: Okay, so

FightinCowboy: Yes. Yes.

Sarthe: I didn't, yeah, that's what I heard too and I was like, did I like miss here? All right, sweet. Yeah.

FightinCowboy: No, I couldn't remember what it was and the discussion of

WheelieAverage: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: open world like popped it. It was like a light switch that went on that I hadn't thought about in probably ten years.

WheelieAverage: Fair, fair. But that does that does make me think, though.

FightinCowboy: What happened to that franchise? Are they just gone now?

WheelieAverage: I think it died, yeah, 'cause wasn't it a THQ

FightinCowboy: Mm-hmm.

WheelieAverage: fan franchise? Like the original THQ. I

FightinCowboy: Maybe.

WheelieAverage: no but no no no. You're a you're a baby gamer, aren't you? There were there was an original

Sarthe: Yeah, I'm a new- I'm a- I'm a spawn.

WheelieAverage: THQ like fifteen years ago before Nordic even existed, and they went bankrupt and all of their IPs got sold off and

Sarthe: sold off.

WheelieAverage: the name got bought by someone else and yeah, it was big long thing. I forget that you're a baby gamer who only played WoW for like most of your life.

Sarthe: Until Hogwarts, I can see it got me. also I mean I played overwatch

WheelieAverage: That's crazy. That is crazy.

Sarthe: But yeah, I don't know why this is a Blizzard chill

WheelieAverage: But but it does make me think though, it brings up an interesting question which I think is a good one to like end this show on. What is it could be your favorite open world or your or your guilty pleasure open world and it doesn't even have to be a full open world, but to you if you could play if you could play like one open world game again for the first time that isn't Elden Ring

Sarthe: Why did you have to throw that? Yeah, why did you have

FightinCowboy: I was already in my head, I was like Elden Ring. Elden Ring.

Sarthe: to throw that caveat in there?

WheelieAverage: Because it was gonna be too obvious. So outside of Elden Ring, what is the open world game that you'd like to play again for the first time?

Sarthe: I don't mind for sure.

FightinCowboy: You you go, I'm still thinking.

Sarthe: Outside of Elden Ring, if I had to play any open world game again for the first time, this is the it's so easy because I would even do it from the start when it wasn't as good of a game. But imagine right now for the first time and not looking up any guides and playing Crimson Desert. my God. After

WheelieAverage: my god.

Sarthe: they've fully redone the story, after they've

WheelieAverage: Mm.

Sarthe: fixed all of the frustrating things, after they've balance patched,

WheelieAverage: Yeah.

Sarthe: so much stuff like right now, you would be like. This is the Holy Grail of games. This is insane.

FightinCowboy: I was I was thinking about saying Crimson Desert, but from a just pure purely based on the experience and how that experience was to me. And I think this might even actually surpass Elden Ring for me, is Outer Wilds.

WheelieAverage: Wow, okay. Yeah.

FightinCowboy: I would that was such an amazing first experience type of game. I will I will ne

Sarthe: I still haven't played it,

WheelieAverage: It is the type of game I would say to people, don't

Sarthe: but I've always heard that.

WheelieAverage: even look it up, go and play it. Don't look it up, don't look at anything about it. Just just just go and play it.

FightinCowboy: Yeah, look at nothing. Look at nothing. Thank

Sarthe: I I'm going to I need to

FightinCowboy: you, thank you.

Sarthe: when we get a break, someone needs to remind me that that should be the game I play.

FightinCowboy: Outer Wild Outer

WheelieAverage: we will.

FightinCowboy: Outer Wilds is I would like I I would consider it a masterpiece. No questions asked. It is it is one of the single best gaming experiences I have ever had. It's it's unforgettable. Yes, it's very clever.

WheelieAverage: It and it's really clever, that's what I'd say. I w that's how I'd describe it. It's a very clever video game. It's it's great. It's great. f

Sarthe: Okay, sweet, that's dope. All what's yours, really?

WheelieAverage: for me, there's a few. There's a few. I'm caught between

Sarthe: There's a few of your one favorite.

WheelieAverage: I no, the the

FightinCowboy: No, no, no, no, no, no. You get one. You get one.

Sarthe: You can't have

WheelieAverage: So I'm caught I'm caught I'm caught between two, and I'll say them both so we can discuss them before I decide. It's either Skyrim, okay, which because I think that Skyrim in many ways changed what an open world RPG could be. I d I

Sarthe: Can't wait to play.

WheelieAverage: r I really do think that. But there is something. I don't know whether it's my my love of good story or or love of the time period or what have you, but there's something about Red Dead Redemption 2's open world that just I I would travel around that world with the map completely off. And I know that map like the back of my hand. I know where to go. I know all the roads. I know all the towns and it's just it I fully immersed myself in that open world in a way that I've never done with another open world.

Sarthe: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: And and so I think that on a coin toss I would have to go with that. But Skyrim is a very close second.

Sarthe: Yo, well, if you're not first, you're last. I've only pretty

WheelieAverage: Yeah, that's true.

FightinCowboy: Mm-hmm.

Sarthe: much heard that about about Red Dead, like pretty much everyone says like this is just like a masterpiece and like the world is so beautiful and they did a really good job that and like, I mean, people say that about about the Witcher to like how the world is not necessarily about the like mechanics anymore,

FightinCowboy: I I I am

Sarthe: but like even like that, I can't wait to do I'm going to play that whole game fresh before the new DLC.

FightinCowboy: I am the tenth dentist when it comes to Red Dead.

Sarthe: I don't know what that means, you tell her.

FightinCowboy: I just I d the you know how everything is always like nine out of ten dentists. I am I am the

Sarthe: yeah.

FightinCowboy: time I'm the one that disagrees. I I didn't really enjoy Red Dead that much.

WheelieAverage: I mean I know people that didn't and I think that's a fine opinion to have because even as someone that loved the game, I can understand why people didn't like it.

FightinCowboy: I I think the thing is like even even looking back, like when when I like I look I think about Elden Ring, I can think of countless moments. I think of Crimson Desert even more recent. There's still some moments like climbing up that fuck ass broken puzzle and brute forcing. I'll probably never forget that. I can't there's there's a nothing in my brain that c that clings to Red Dead Redemption too. I mean I think actually there's maybe one memory and it's me accidentally no, there is one memory, and it's a bad one, actually. I remember I wanted to commit a robbery. I put on my mask.

Sarthe: As we do, as we do.

FightinCowboy: I put on my mask. I went to the bank, did the stick up, I got the money, got out of town, was like, okay, can't fuck this up. Took off the mask, changed the clothes. I think I might have even gone back to town to get like a shower and a shave and everything. And they immediately knew it was me. I'm like, what the fuck? I went from being a hobo to a d a hobo in a mask to fucking Clark Kent over here and they still recognized I was I I pissed me off. I was like, fuck this game.

WheelieAverage: what I'll say is they've obviously heard that

Sarthe: This game is bullshit.

WheelieAverage: they've they've obviously

FightinCowboy: Yeah, I was so mad.

WheelieAverage: heard that feedback because in the extended look of GTA six, which I know you didn't watch, it was revealed that in your wanted level they now take account of the clothes you're wearing, who you're with at the time, and all these different things. And so you can literally like affect your wanted

FightinCowboy: That that is good. I I would I appreciate that.

WheelieAverage: level by changing that stuff, which is which is really cool.

FightinCowboy: It w as it should be, you know?

WheelieAverage: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: Like, I'm not gonna commit any crimes, but like if I went out committing a crime looking like this,

Sarthe: If I do.

FightinCowboy: and then the next day I shaved

WheelieAverage: Mm-hmm.

FightinCowboy: my head into my beard, I'm gonna look weird. I'm gonna look so weird.

WheelieAverage: I mean, to be fair, some some people would still recognise you though, probably.

FightinCowboy: I don't know man. I don't know. I'm I'm I'm scared to even think what I would look like with no beard or hair. I'd be like, fucking weird.

WheelieAverage: Someone has to AI this. AI cowboys, no beard and no hair. wow. But yeah, let us know in the comments what what is your favorite open world. I see some right here in the live in the live chat obviously. But if you're listening later on the VOD or on audio services, let us know. What's your favourite open world? What's the one outside of Elden Ring that you wish you could experience again for the first time?

Sarthe: You can s- just- you can say Elden Ring and then say,

FightinCowboy: Cyberpunk. Cyber Cyberpunk is good.

WheelieAverage: And

Sarthe: but if it was an Elden Ring.

WheelieAverage: Yeah. I do see a couple of mentions for Cyberpunk here, which I think's an interesting one.

FightinCowboy: Cyber c see,

Sarthe: so sick.

FightinCowboy: I don't I'm a Cyberpunk, I would be the contrary. I I feel like my appreciation for Cyberpunk only grows deeper with each revisit. I I feel like it's one of those games where the the more you know, the richer the experience is. I I don't know.

Sarthe: But yeah.

FightinCowboy: Like I I love like my first playthrough of Cyberpunk was great. when I revisited it for the the Like before the DLC I had a blast. That was like the big update. And then when I went through and revisited it the third time for the DLC, that was the most fun I've had. And it's not just because of the DLC content, but I think just, you know, I knew more mechanically

WheelieAverage: That was the most complete version of the game as well though, right? So that probably helped. Like

FightinCowboy: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: people who played this thing at launch

Sarthe: She's singing Daft Punk.

WheelieAverage: like people who played Cyberpunk at launch, a lot of them ended up refunding the game, right? But

FightinCowboy: Yeah, yeah.

Sarthe: Yeah, because it was really buggy. That's, that game's like recovered so well from, from a really rough launch. I, I

WheelieAverage: Yeah. I think

FightinCowboy: It was.

Sarthe: still enjoyed it. I had a good time on launch.

WheelieAverage: I think I I did as well and I I mean I got quite lucky in terms of I actually was counting up the bugs as I played and no joke I had less than ten bugs in the entire game. Like so I was really lucky. So so

Sarthe: Really? I had a tree that was going through the entire map. I'm not joking.

WheelieAverage: I got really lucky, but it's it is one of those games that has recovered really well and this is a question that we'll answer next week in more detail. But I think off the top of my head that No Man's Sky might be the only game that's had a better recovery than Cyberpunk.

Sarthe: Those are the two.

FightinCowboy: Yeah, I don't

WheelieAverage: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: know if I can think of a third that recovered like that.

Sarthe: Yeah.

FightinCowboy: Lords of the Fallen has made a a pretty good turnaround with their two point But I don't think they were like No Man's Sky or Cyberpunk bad to begin with. They just needed a little more optimization.

WheelieAverage: Yeah, to be fair, I don't even think No Man's Sky was cyberpunk bad. I think No Man's Sky was a case of this game isn't the game people expected it to be. And then it

FightinCowboy: Well, I mean the the simple metric is is there anything else that's had mass approved console refunds? 'Cause that w that was that's pretty unprecedented typically. So is there anything besides Cyberpunk

WheelieAverage: That's true. That's true actually.

FightinCowboy: that's done that?

WheelieAverage: I don't actually know. That is something that we should probably find out, but off the top of my head, I don't think so. If anybody does know whether that's happened in the past, let us know in the comments. obviously there's always gonna be a case of people refunding things, right? And because I see some of the comments here like, Starfield or this or that, and it's like There's a difference between people choosing to refund something and there being a mass like you can refund this game even if you've played it because that's how broke it is, you know? Like that I don't think that's happened before other than Cyberpunk. So I think that is a good point there. But that also brings us to pretty much the end of this episode. I can't Talk about the game I was planning to talk about this week because they actually changed the embargo up on me, but I can tell you that I can talk about it next week. So you know, as long as they didn't as long

Sarthe: I can't tell you which game it is, but know that there's a game that we will talk about on the gaming talk podcast.

WheelieAverage: Yeah, there's a there's a game that I have played for a good handful of hours that I can

Sarthe: Yeah, you have.

WheelieAverage: talk about in detail next week. And it should be a fun discussion actually, because I know that Sarth has also had hands-on with this game at some point. And yeah, that'll be fun to fun to talk about. But we've obviously got lots more

FightinCowboy: wait, wait, wait, we got we got a spicy comment.

WheelieAverage: what have we got here?

FightinCowboy: I don't think Cyberpunk 2077 should get praise for the redemption since they didn't actually make up for all the lies and promises that they made in the trailers up to launch.

WheelieAverage: That is that is one hell of a comment. Yeah.

Sarthe: I didn't see the trailers, so that might be super fair, I'm now curious,

FightinCowboy: Yeah, I I suggest.

Sarthe: what are these lies and promises?

FightinCowboy: I I I am curious

WheelieAverage: L

FightinCowboy: as well 'cause I don't I don't remember

WheelieAverage: I don't remember any specific promises. I think that there might be things that they showed in gameplay that ended up not being in the final product, but that happens all the time. I don't I don't necessarily consider that a lie. I consider that just a game changing over development, right? Because

FightinCowboy: That's that's the that's the label that says like things in the the trailer may differ from the game. Yeah. It's it's true. That's that is a thing.

WheelieAverage: Yeah, like like

Sarthe: Yeah, they like legally have to throw that in now because they're like, don't sue us.

WheelieAverage: also let's remember, other than GTA six, I think that Cyberpunk might have had the longest development cycle from like, hey, we've announced this thirteen years ago and and and then it comes out thirteen years later, you know? I think it might be the only game to actually have hit a release that have had had that has had a dev cycle that long. Obviously

Sarthe: Yeah, to actually come out the

WheelieAverage: Obviously there's the weird Star Citizen situation where that game is never going to fully release.

FightinCowboy: Game's a fucking it's money laundering scheme at this point, I'm pretty sure.

Sarthe: Do you remember the trailer? God, I saw this, it's infinite. I just looked, it's 2008 when I saw this trailer. Beyond Good and Evil 2. Has that got canned?

WheelieAverage: yeah. So they did restart development on it in like twenty eighteen or nineteen, but we've heard nothing since.

Sarthe: They had such a cool trailer, and remember that like stuck with me. I was like, this game's gonna be sick. And then like every couple years I was like, I wonder if that one game with that pig character is gonna come out.

WheelieAverage: One game with the big character. my god. That's brilliant. That's brilliant.

Sarthe: Because I forgot what it was called because it was like in passing and then like because I went to college didn't play any games and then after college didn't play any games for a while and then I started playing wow again

WheelieAverage: That's fair. That's fair. Well, hopefully next week we'll talk about more Valor Mortis as well, because I imagine

Sarthe: Yeah.

WheelieAverage: Cowboy would have probably finished it by then. Sarth probably would have played at

FightinCowboy: Mm-hmm.

WheelieAverage: least some of it by then. Haha.

Sarthe: Yeah, if I don't get a different game this weekend, I'm gonna probably play all of Valor Mortis.

FightinCowboy: I am I

WheelieAverage: So

FightinCowboy: I am leaving for a wedding, so it's unlikely I will have it finished by then.

Sarthe: I'm going be further. Yeah, I was at a wedding last weekend. Now I'm going to beat you.

WheelieAverage: I forgot you were doing that, yeah. I don't I don't have any weddings coming up, unfortunately.

Sarthe: You're come home and I'm gonna have in our DMs, I'm gonna say, don't look at these, because I came up with these insane builds.

WheelieAverage: Brilliant. But yes, thank you for joining us for this live recording, obviously, of of episode sixteen of Between Levels. If you're listening or watching later, please, you know, like, comment, answer our questions, get in on the get in on the discussion because that's part of what we do here. But for now, we'll see you next time. Goodbye.

Sarthe: Peace!