Game Scoop! 845: What Was the Point?

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Quince has become my go-to for everything from high-quality bedding and bath essentials to premium cookware and vitamin supplements. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers. Or go to quince.com. What's up, everybody? Welcome to IGN GameScoop. I'm your host, Damon Hatfield. Joining me this week are Sam Claiborne. Oh, excuse me. I was caught in a crimson dystopia for a moment there. It's for rescuing me. It's rescuing me. Everything was golf and red and black. For our listeners, Sam was just enjoying some Virtual Boy. I don't know if enjoying is the word I would use. It's more like lawnmower, man. Yeah. More like lawnmower, man. Mark Medina is here. I'm here, Damon. And Justin Davis. Scoop. We have a great show for you this week. We have a bunch of good emails this week. Scoop Nation has questions about search action games. There's a hot new roguelike that has caught Scoop Nation's eye. But first, unfortunately, we start with some bummer news. Because just announced today, PlayStation is shutting down Bluepoint Games, makers of many remasters and the remakes of both Shadow of the Colossus and Demon's Souls. Just generally a really. Quality, you know, remaster and remake house that's done virtually nothing but good things over the past 20 years. So this comes from Bloomberg. Confirm the news. Roughly 70 employees are going to be impacted. The closure officially happens next month. What's weird about this is this is the quote. PlayStation bought Bluepoint Games in 2021. And this is the quote that they provided to Bloomberg. Bluepoint Games is an incredibly talented team and their technical expertise has delivered exceptional experiences for the PlayStation community. We thank them. We thank them for their passion, creativity, and craftsmanship. All right, cool. Thank you. Get out the door. So they were working, you know, they did Demon's, the Demon's Souls remake. That was a launch title for PS5 in 2020. After that, apparently they were put to work on a multiplayer or a live service God of War game. All the way up until January last year when the project was canceled. The studio then spent last year pitching new products, projects, but ultimately was shuttered before anything got moving. This is just like Suicide Squad or Batman or whatever. It's like they could have been making. These great games they were specialized at, but they're like, nah, make, make a multiplayer game. And then it screwed them. It's so stupid. Buy a studio that has this one thing that they do and do better than anybody else. They're the best at it. And then like make a live service game. Oh, nevermind. Like either we're canceling that. And also we're shutting you down, even though we just bought you. It's it doesn't make any sense to me. Go ahead, Mark. That, that live service mandate that came out like a few years ago, I cannot believe it ruined a whole generation, but it really did. Like, yeah, Naughty Dog has not produced a new game this whole generation because they were working on factions. Uh, Wolverine is probably would be way further along had they not worked on the Spider-Man multiplayer game, which looked awesome, by the way, that leaked trailer and then now Bluepoint like a multiplayer got a war game instead of making Bloodborne remaster like, like, I mean, I think people need to move on from Bloodborne. Get over it. It's probably never going to be remade, but like, come on. Yeah. Yeah. Especially not now, but that just seems like such an obvious, there's more like they, you know, they bought bungee and like destiny two's not doing well. Like I'm worried about the bungee marathon situation right now. Yeah. Interesting high guard. Yeah. If marathon tanks, man, I don't know. I don't know what's gonna happen at a studio. And that's bungee. It's bungee like to have a halo and destiny behind them and then be like, oh, worried about bungee. What? Well, and like much has been written. So Kotaku wrote a story that's, you know, kind of exactly what we're talking about. We're like, everyone talks about. Microsoft sort of mismanaging some of its acquisitions, but like, like PlayStation's track record isn't much better, right? Like they, they bought firewalk studios, uh, who launched Concord and then that flopped and shut it down. So it's like almost every single studio they've acquired in the last several years has either been shut down or at least been hit with layoffs. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's just crazy to me. Cause there's always, there's always like, um, uh, an appetite for remasters and remakes and like Justin was saying. That's, that's what blue point does. They're, they're exceptional at it. Well, you, why, why not just let them keep doing their thing? People have been waiting for like blood born, obviously, but then like infamous one and two, like there's so many things they could have remade. Uh, what, what are some of those shooter games? Like resistance, resistance, resistance, what I was thinking of. And so calm is another one. People want. Yeah. Yeah. So calm. I mean, do, do we think, and I'm not saying this is what I want, but do we think. I think that maybe part of Sony's calculus is, Hey, AI can do these remasters moving forward. They could, they could have just remade shadow of the Colossus again. I'd be fine with that. Just make that once a generation. But honestly, what about just giving them shadow of the Colossus too? Right. Just do it. Just do the sequel. So what, what stops this studio though, in this weird situation, I don't think much, like they already have an expertise. We're all talking about what they do. Like what stops them from being like, okay, we're just called this now. Yeah. I mean, we're going to figure. We're just trying to maintain our office space. Can we stay here for three months and then, you know, remake, you know, something for Ubisoft. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Or like, or why wouldn't Sony be willing to, you know, sell them to someone else? Or let them go independent again or whatever. Yeah. Oh, we lost Damon. I guess the batteries went out of the camera. Joe, were you on? He's back. There he is. Okay. Did somebody just walk in the room and turn off your camera and run out? I don't know. Just gremlins. Just gremlins. Just pranksters. They could remake gremlins too. They could? Ooh. So as a brief history, Bluepoint was formed in 2006. And I didn't realize this until today, but it was two former retro studios employees that worked on Metroid Prime. Because they're based out of Texas, right? Yeah. I didn't know that. So it's all, yeah. And in 2006, they released their first and only original game, which was a PlayStation Network game called Blast Factor. It was mediocre. We gave it a 5.9, but that started their close relationship with PlayStation. And after that, they did. They did the God of War collection, the Ico and Shadow of the Colossus collection, Metal Gear Solid HD collection, Uncharted, the Nathan Drake collection. They did Gravity Rush Remastered, then Shadow of the Colossus remake, and Demon's Souls remake. Along the way, they also created the engine for PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale and handled the Vita port of that. They ported Flower to PS4 and the Vita. They did the Xbox 360 port of Titanfall. And then they supported the development of God of War Ragnarok. So they just make nothing but good stuff over the past 20 years. That's why it's such a shame. So weird. And I noticed you said, we reviewed Blast Factor. I made sure that, Damon, you did not, in fact, review Blast Factor. I did not. It wasn't you. 2006, Jeremy Dunham handled that. He was running the PlayStation team back when we had Teams. Anyway, that's bummer news. But hopefully, like someone pointed out, hopefully this team can just sort of reconvene and get back to making remasters and remakes that they just excelled at over the past couple of decades. Thank you. Right now, all of Mint Mobile's plans are $15 per month, even unlimited. So free yourself from big wireless and their gimmicks and gotchas and switch to Mint for high-speed data and coverage on the T-Mobile 5G network. Isn't that right, Seth? Definitely going to be trying out Mint Mobile, switching over. Get that three months for $15 a month. That is nothing. $15, you can't buy anything in this day and age for $15. It is a pretty excellent deal, especially for mobile service. I mostly use it to just scroll on social media and click things that I like anyway. So why am I paying like several hundred dollars a month to do that? Mint Mobile took what's wrong with wireless and made it right with premium wireless for $15 a month. 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The Apple Sports app. Just pick your favorite teams and get automatic live updates without even knowing their schedules. And when your team scores, it shows up right on your iPhone lock screen, making it easy to change. Check in anytime. So rule the group chat and download Apple Sports for free on the App Store. Or find it on your new iPhone. Alright, let's check in with the listeners. Hey, listeners. Listeners, remember you can always reach us at the email address gamescoop at ign.com, just like Andy from Montreal did. Big Andy style. And he says, I want to start by saying how much I love your show. I'm eager every week to watch the new episode. I wanted to add a little something in regards to, what you guys said about long development cycles. We often lament how long it takes to make a video game, or at least a Western studio to make a AAA video game these years. And he says, as a veteran in the film and game industry, I believe he's an animator, a very long development cycle can be quite detrimental to the livelihood of the devs themselves. Here's an example. You start a project, work on it for four to five years, and then for X reason, you get fired or you move or whatever, you leave the company, you have to find a new job. None of what you did in the last half decade can be shown legally in your portfolio. Oh, I never considered that brutal. None of your can be shown online until the project has come out. That leaves you in a very tough spot. You kind of have to be working on personal projects on the side to keep your portfolio up to date. And that's a lot of work. It's doable. It's doable if you're single and have no responsibility, but add one or two kids in the mix and a ton of responsibilities, the task becomes a huge hurdle to overcome. Yeah, that's, that's just another reason why the long, they need to sort out and get these long development cycles under control. And then obviously like, just, it's just bad for you. It's bad for your soul. Like, like let's say the project's canceled, right? It's like, well, that's, you know, it's sad. Anytime you work on something and it doesn't see the light of day, but if you worked on it for a half, half decade, it's like, you know, we're not on our, on this earth long enough for like that much of your work to like, not come to fruition. Yeah. Yeah. I never, I never felt old until Todd Howard told me that fallout five will come out one day after XXX. I was like, Oh my gosh, 50 when this game comes out. Todd Howard told you that Mark, he was speaking to you now. Yeah. You should, you should write our news team through an article they're texting. Like he just, he, you just have to wire on these apple gift cards and then everything's going to go fine. Him and pair Schneider. I just am draining my bank account. If you really were on, you know, this cycle, like say you were working on, you know, GTA, but not red dead. Then like you, you worked on a game for 10 years and then a game for 10 years, like you got like. Three more of those in your life's lifetime before you retire, not before you die, before you retire. Right. Yeah. It's like, you know, I was doing the cat math recently. I was like, well, I, you know, I have a one-year-old cat. Like if my cat lives for 20 years, like I might have one more cat after that. Amanda has a leopard gecko that she got on her 18th birthday and we're almost 40. Wow. That's crazy. He's still there. That's cool. He's still chilling. He's about to be the oldest leopard gecko to ever live. That's so cool. Is that true? I don't know. I don't know if that's true, but he's, he's getting up there. I think the longest one's ever lived is like 26. I don't know. I never mind the common section. Tell me I'm wrong. What was the stat? Like I see now, I don't know who this quote comes from, but there was a news story going around this week about how some Japanese youth, it was like a study have less affinity for, you know, dragon quest on final fantasy and these franchises that kids grew up with and really loved. And it's because their entire youth is going by without a release coming out in. That series. Like if you're taking five or six or seven years to come out with something, you're not hitting these kids, you know, frequently enough for them to sort of care about, about the thing you're making. Oh, please do that for kingdom hearts. Yeah. I mean, we, we all love grand theft auto because we got three grand theft auto games on one platform and it's like, I understand that like that can't happen anymore. People expect grant the father to be this like insanely good thing, but it's like, still, they made fans of us. And the, the, to add to. That, that theory that they don't need to be good games because there hasn't been a good sonic game since I was 11 and people still play those games. Sonic made some old sonic mania. That one was all right. Yeah. Otherwise the takeaway is I hope Sam's cat lives long enough to play fallout five. Yeah. And, and, and the takeaway for everybody out there listening is that I thought sonic was really good when I was a kid, the panel didn't, I thought it was, I thought it was good. We're all just catching strays over here from Sam for now. No reason at all. Okay. They weren't strays. They were adoptees of your positions 10 years ago. I bet you that. I bet you that video is still getting in your comments. I haven't looked at it recently, but people were still angrily commenting on that video. You know, we get a person every once in a while. It's like, I'm listening to game scoop from the start, you know, and then somehow they, they made a comment on this one, but they're going to get to the episode with the sonic was never good episode. And then they'll understand all of this. The people I love. I never said. Yeah. I, I like all of our fans and I'm glad you're here, but the, but the going back, like it's, this is a news show. I don't understand what people get by going back to the old episodes. Well, the retro pieces are still retro. It's not like going back to watch Madman, right? Like that's a very different thing. You think a hundred percent of our discussions are discussing something timely from that week. I will, I will say I, before I worked at IGN, I worked at a warehouse and I would listen to old game scoop. Yeah. Thank you. Mark Damon, we've been doing this long enough now. Like we flipped through, you know, whatever the 1996 issue of VGM. So two things are going to happen. One, we are going to run out of old magazines to flip through because they, because they stopped making them, but two, we can somehow, I don't know, like we can use the way back machine to flip through IGN from, you know, 20 or 30 years. I love, I love looking at early two thousands, uh, website. It looks, it looks better. That's it. It looks great. And it loads just as fast as it did. Back then on the way back. Yeah, true. Um, all right. We're getting into the weeds. Andy had one of their anecdote here. It's Andy. Did you have a plan for this episode? Yeah. Uh, and he says, I'm currently playing about and grounded too. I really enjoy these two games. I think obsidian is, um, is among the top studios of the last decade. It's really disappointing how the corporations estimate value in a title. Well, about is great. I'm playing it on PS five and I think it works very, very good. I like the game a lot. Andy, you should also check out the outer worlds too. I enjoy that game quite a bit. Okay. This is Daniel. Daniel says since Baldur's gate three has been the topic of conversation recently, I thought I would bring this to your attention recently. Larian made it known that they would have loved for Baldur's gate three to come to switch to, but the decision wasn't theirs to make. It seems to be a wizards of the coast call from what I can tell as someone who just got the switch to for Christmas and has put over 300 hours into divinity original sin two on the OG switch. I'm quite disappointed. I'm a 30. Five-year-old data for kids and I play in handheld mode 99% of the time because of this. I'm seriously considering a steam deck to start my Baldur's gate three journey. Love it, which brings me to my question. Has there ever been a game announcement or release that caused you to go out and purchase another console just to play it? I remember being 15 years old at a friend's house when I got my first look at the Elder Scrolls for Oblivion and a game informer magazine. I had never seen anything quite like it and decided to save up and purchase an Xbox 360 just to play it to this day. Oblivion will always have a special place in my heart and few games. I've delivered the way that one did the first true HD experience. In my opinion, we'd love to hear what from all you guys are the best and are truly the only gaming podcast around. Yeah, I didn't have the money to buy it because I was like a young adult at the time, but I borrowed a friend's PS3 just to play last of us. Like I didn't have PS3 like I borrowed it played last of us give back because I was like, I can't not play this video game. I don't know if I've ever bought a console specifically for a game. - Were you like a, like a, massive die-hard sony i have to play everything sony makes fan is that why you wanted to put no i didn't even have a ps3 i was a 360 kid i love sad dads i just i okay so here's actually what happened so i thought that last of us was the elliot page game and i was i i you know that's when juno came out and stuff like that and i was like i want to play that and then uh i was wrong but i also love beyond two souls so um so i really wanted to play it i have not played uncharted or anything i thought i was the only person that liked beyond two souls i also like that game oh that game's great uh my wife's alarm clock is still uh willem defoe's theme song from that game to this day i hear it every morning i mean we now because of my work and because video games are my primary hobby it's like i'm a day one it's been a long time since i've not had any of the new consoles day one but back when i was you know buying them myself and had less income like it was a great feeling it was never like a one game came out no i have to buy you know an og xbox or whatever it is but like if you would wait two or three years to buy a console and usually you know they only get more expensive now but back in the day they'd be like 200 bucks cheaper and there'd be a bunch of cheap games and the game companies used to release like the budget lines of games like it was the best and like i i have a vivid memory of getting i got the super nintendo in 1996 because the ps1 was already out and so it's like oh i got the console for like 80 bucks and got a bunch of games for like 10 bucks and you have this whole library of like games that like back then the console awards were like such a thing that like there's a genesis kid i had to pretend like i didn't want those snes games but secret secretly i really did and then i was able to get them all at once it was that was that was a great summer i mean i was an idiot like i got nintendo power and you just get everything that nintendo power you know looks good right so it's like that's how you did your selection but you know i ended up with a virtual boy somehow so something something was hyping me on it now but my obviously like the biggest stories that i have are are culturally like in line with the world like sonic the hedgehog like i got a genesis for sonic the hedgehog i didn't get it for anything else like it was for sonic like that was the biggest thing in the world and everybody was saying the super nintendo was for babies and i was like yeah that makes sense to me that this really rings true but then a year or two later i was like well i really like playing super mario world at my friend's houses and mortal kombat looks a little better than super nintendo definitely won't i want to play half zero on the super nintendo i think was the sale for that and then i i didn't play a lot during the early 64 ps1 years and then you know i had played mario 64 a lot at a friend's house it was great it was so fun um but then when ocarina of time came out it's like i needed nintendo 64. that was like the last time i really remember being like this game sold me on the system yeah you gotta like you hit like a critical mass of like maybe i can just pretend like mario 64 doesn't exist but then zelda comes out now there's a gold knight comes out i gotta have it beetle adventure racing beetle adventure racing's dope man you can spin i i've always only because it's now been brought up twice on this episode i'm always curious because i i was like six when this was probably happening but like nowadays console wars are very silly right the xbox series x and ps5 are essentially very silly and have 99 in the same library but i'm always wondering what leg did people have to stand on to say sega was better than super nintendo first of all if you're going to ask a question you can write us at gamescoop at ig.com just like the proper channels mark yeah seriously the thing is the thing is mark when we were 11 years old you have to understand that the sega genesis had blast processes sure yes of course but like the super nintendo live library is still one of the best video game libraries yeah that's kind of a i think that's that that came out of this early games journalism speak like that super nintendo's library is great but there's a lot of great libraries then yes there's an incredible library it's like there's there's notice you're not bringing up sega genesis you're just no it does the genesis back in the day the genesis kind of bodied the super nintendo for a long long time it wasn't until like as that version wound down with the benefit of hindsight like that people are like okay maybe the sms and it's specifically because it had the good sports games yep and that meant everything it meant everything and then it had blood and mortal kombat yeah they had blood and moral economy yeah yeah and they had this edgy uh hedgehog uh mascot that was much much faster than this you know kind of by comparison methodical super mario world right that's a much slower exploration game anybody that knows anything should know that mario world is far better than any song no it was seen as kitty and and it came out with f-zero at launch and pilot wings and people didn't play those as much and then there's just nothing for a while then there's like a punch out and metroid and those had trouble like getting audiences like it was not no you think it wasn't until donkey kong country that people were like oh my god this is incredible and like it's it's you know gonna compete backwards and like credit to nintendo for putting chips in their games and then getting to do crazy things because that there is a few like the the super nintendo library like in games that they are better but they are not cooler for for 12 year olds sure like there's exceptions like starfox was cool but like they weren't the games weren't as cool yeah and then like final fantasy right now we're like oh what i had final fantasy four and or two and three at the time like nobody cared nobody played those games like oh funny because those are regarded some as some of the best final fantasies of all time still no some of the best games of all time and then same with like link to the past and earthbound and yeah nobody played earthbound they didn't sell any copies there and then chrono trigger barely caught on mario rpg had a lot of it but it was at the end of its cycle like these are when you look back at a library wins they're not wins at the time yeah it's all because of thomas klinsky and the sega of america marketing team how are they going to get people to buy the sega genesis they capitalize on the fact that gamers who were eight when they got their nes were now yes 12 and they can say oh now now you're now you're more of a grown-ass gamer you don't need to play the baby games you've outgrown nintendo now you now you need the more grown-up genesis does what nintendo yeah i i specifically remember the whole like broken down car and that's mario kart kind of deal commercials and stuff so then you get to the end of the that that console generation and genesis added a cd drive and a 32x sure did and a sonic and knuckles cartridge whereas nintendo was like no we're gonna hold out and do these like really expensive chip additions to our games and they a hundred percent won out that point like by the time the 32x was out like they would have trouble selling saturn's as their next console because everybody's like no i just bought two iterations and they felt exactly the same yeah and that was all um sega japan's fault and then they killed it with dreamcast yep i mean yeah with with game library yeah but not at the time it was too late though they could not stand up to the marketing power of playstation or nintendo night trap want to be the one who's always in the know about the game the scores the plays here's a tip the apple sports app just pick your favorite teams and get automatic live updates without even knowing their schedules and when your team scores it shows up right on your iphone lock screen making it easy to check in anytime so rule the group chat and download apple sports for free on the app store or find it on your new iphone the lemonati has spent decades keeping lemon on top and lime in the shadows their lemon agenda has infiltrated everything even our music that hit song named after the color of lemon lemons not a coincidence big lemon has been pulling strings in the industry for years think about it but now seven up is fighting back with their new lime lemon soda now lime comes first seven up flip the sip all right this is jeff in austin texas says hi omega cops while perusing ign recently i came across an article for one of the most damon ass dami games i've ever seen hunt down overtime the gorgeous pixel art the roguelike structure the gore and classic side scrolling action i'm immediately all in on this game day one and damon i wanted to bring it to your yours and everyone in scoop nation's attention in case you missed this announcement rest assured jeff in austin texas i'm well aware of hunt down overtime because the original hunt down is a very damy ass video game i love hunting i was just i after i got this email i i revisited it last night it's great so in case anyone doesn't know hunt down is a 2020 run and gun game developed by easy trigger which is a swedish developer owned by embracer now and it perfectly nails that scuzzy 80s synthwave aesthetic terminator robocop it's got voice acting it's got pixelated blood splatter lots of little details and set pieces and then gameplay wise it's contra or metal slug or rolling thunder if you remember that namco game so yeah um hunt down is great and then hunt down overtime is a prequel i think actually that's now a roguelike or ro light and the tag the tagline says every strategic upgrade strips away more flesh and builds a cybernetic fighter one chrome limb at a time hell yeah the the description talks about biomes and stuff stuff so actually i think it's going to play like dead cells which would be great bring it on so this art looks super rad i didn't even know that they made a sequel um it's not out you say this is out or it's coming out they're making it now early access sometime this year i think that the name hunt down over time you could take those four hunt down over time and put rearrange them in any order and you would make a game title that was probably pretty dope and worked time hunt over down yeah i just like to imagine that the first game takes eight hours to be and so now it's you know now we're in overtime so now we just say biomes all the time that's the thing we've been doing biomes yeah it's like all the background's different you're in a new biome yep well because what grass here what did what did nick call it last week the search action games that was calling metroidvanias that we are yeah but that's different than dead cells style biomes though right well that's more like the rogue legacy where you're like i'm going to go with the dead cells style biomes and then you're going to go with the dead cells style go upwards and it's the attic i'm going to go to the right and it's the garden yeah but i think metro so metroid a metroid game like super metroid yeah we could say those are all different biomes right well that's what that's that's like just using that term like the word is but i feel like it's been become a game term to imply that there's some kind of rogue attuned to it but maybe i'm thinking about it wrong the most i think about biomes in the context of minecraft and like other games of like you know going to different biomes so they're adding new biomes and it's different than a level because you know you don't complete it and that's right well speaking of all this stuff our next email comes from matt jones overlord of the super fans he says dear damy and the scoops per this search action discussion in last week's episode hold on wait wait a second what you're just gonna you're just gonna breeze right by damian the scoops the coolest band name ever that's us right we're damian the scoops you're just gonna you're just gonna breeze right by damian the scoops that's great i love it no notes per the search action discussion in last week's episode i propose that when it can't be called metroidvania it should be called explore action games explore action games so with god of war son of sparta released and me recently finally playing prince of persia the lost crown because it came to game pass i started thinking about other older franchises out there that could make for great explore action games here are some franchises that i came up with that was matt talking so megaman uh says i i have read up that there may have been attempts at this in the past but how has megaman not had a bunch of games in this genre each robot master has its own biome their own power you get their powers use them to unlock new biomes finally arrive at wiley's castle to use all the newfound powers to beat the boss this seems like a no-brainer i agree i agree let's get capcom on that it's a good idea contra this one would probably be more metroid-esque as opposed to castlevania but why not have bill and lance fight through different areas to get to the vile red falcon's lair all the guns they normally get in the original game fire laser spread etc can be unlocked after beating certain areas or bosses then those guns can be used to unlock new areas yep that sounds good too we'll put konami on that one and then sonic the hedgehog he says okay i'll admit this is more to get a sonic mania pun or i'm sorry sonicvania pun with sonic mania but sonic usually goes from zone to zone collecting chaos emeralds along the way there could be an interconnected world where sonic needs to get chaos emeralds to unlock new zones fight robotnik at the end with his time traveling and sonic cd you could even put a rewind ability in one of these emeralds plenty of opportunities so what are the franchises the scoop crew thinks could use an entry in the explore action genre that this sounds like my nightmare because i don't like metroidvanias because you're too old for metroidvanias and so this this idea of turning all of our games into metroidvanias i'm way too elderly for that one what if we didn't call them explore action call them action plorers would you be more interested in that why is there why is there this video game so even roguelikes are named by you know rogue right that's where they come from and then obviously metroidvanias and souls likes it's like movies like like mission impossible isn't a bond like like other i feel like other genres except there have been several there are john wick likes now cool yeah oh i didn't know that oh yeah is it john wake and just like kind of a spinoff of like the matrix though like not a spinoff but like i mean like the fighting style no no he fights kind of like one man this like one man unkillable one person unkillable like thing like it's um one keanu he has no they made two nobody movies and then there's the sisu one with the world war two era dude he's just he the nazis can't kill him isn't that what the um king kingsman kingsman yeah that's more like although those predate john like yeah they they you know so anyway they answered the original question in mario maker 2 there's this whole subgenre of mario levels that i liked that are metroid like they're these kind of puzzle box levels where you know you're stuck in a room and you need to do a specific thing and go a specific way to get a fire flower and then you use the fire flower to get into the next space that's like mario versus donkey kong a little bit yeah and so and then there's these little you know these little metroid like non you know semi-linear puzzles to like figure out where to go and what power up you need to sort of break out of this space and i enjoy those and i would play like you know either an open world 3d mario or i would play like you know either an open world 3d mario or you know a metroidvania like 2d mario yeah there's other ways to reshuffle these levels or biomes by a commando which we only talk about on this show now is uh it has biome in the name if you uh if you remember that has like a map screen you can go back to previous levels and do things with things in them it has a map screen handles and so does mario world like we can use a little bit more of that type of game i think like it doesn't need to be you know called a game it's just a game it's just a game it's just a game it's just a game it's just a game it's just a game it's just a game it's just a game it's just a game connected areas like it is kind of cool to revisit things with more weapons and do stuff like that way but then have like a cool other way to shuffle up those levels biomic commando i can see one perfectly think of a game like prince of persia the lost crown but it's tomb raider it's 2d 2d tomb raider uh metroidvania lara is very uh acrobatic you're going to be jumping around flipping around in like a platformer metroidvania game i could see it mm-hmm let's let's let's that's a good idea let's put crystal dynamics on that one what's the dung beetle pinball game oh man yoku's island express yoku's island express yeah think about a game like yoku's island express but yeah just just like that just another one of those what did that developer go on to do they do anything which one yoku's island express yeah yeah who is that so this is by villa villa gorilla i bet even mark would like that metroidvania i did devs react for it but uh i don't remember if i played it much i don't know it's a good one okay this is ron in pittsburgh pennsylvania just wanted to shout out and say y'all have been a lifesaver since having to return to the office full-time back in february this year game scoop helps make at least one of those commutes bearable writing in to let justin know that after playing nearly every metroid and castlevania over the years i finally dipped my toes into super metroid and it doesn't disappoint in the least game is a blast playing this back in 94 must have been incredible no wonder justin loves it so much i also can't get enough of that perfect sound the bombs make the bombs to make a really good sound yeah i mean super metroid you know it is like modern metroidvanias have more interesting movement options and you can mantle up on ledges and stuff like that like super metroid is my favorite game of all time but i it is getting old enough now that if you didn't play it and you didn't play it and you didn't play it and you didn't play it when it was new certain stuff about how samus moves and how you flow through the game i could see sort of frustrating gamers that have a more modern sensibility but something that the game absolutely gets right that it still outclasses many games released now more than 30 years later is in its atmosphere and its vibes and that this alien planet that you're exploring you know feels like like when you're in the wrecked alien spaceship it's like it makes sense how these areas fit together as you go deeper and deeper into the planet it's more hellish and there's you know lava everywhere and like the way that those biomes are laid out is kind of like has a logic behind it and there's there's a there's a wordless story being told with the way that samus is sort of like you know pursuing her goals in a way that a lot of other metroidvanias aren't quite as thoughtful about their environmental design i would say yeah absolutely succeeds on vibes it's crazy that like this is it was a nintendo made game back then that had a totally different feel from anything else nintendo had ever made at the time right from the title screen it's like whoa this is a very different sort of mood piece from nintendo just dead scientists i yeah i've shared before that like you know when i played super metroid i was playing it on an old crappy crt and i did not know those were dead scientists until i just i didn't i couldn't see them on the title screen clearly enough and then i played it you know later on on a more modern television was like oh i don't know what you're referring to i need it it's on the title screen the title screen of the game is uh is a broken Metroid container is a scene yeah where a metroid is broken out and there's a there's dead scientists and you know strewn around the room in pixel art oh yeah poor they got the energy sucked out of them yeah that's right there very very very cool game we're talking a lot about metroidvanias and old games this episode and that's okay you want to be the one who's always in the know about the game the scores the plays here's a tip the apple sports app just pick your favorite teams and get automatic live updates without even knowing their schedules and when your team scores it shows up right on your iphone lock screen making it easy to check in anytime so rule the group chat and download apple sports for free on the app store or find it on your new iphone the lemonati has spent decades keeping lemon on top and lime in the shadows their lemon agenda has infiltrated everything even our music that hit song named after the color of lemons not a coincidence big lemon has been pulling strings in the industry for years think about it but now seven up is fighting back with their new lime lemon soda now lime comes first seven up flip the sip this is talon in alaska talon points out that he's 28 and says my brother-in-law gifted me a handheld emulator for christmas i need some recommendations from my favorite oldies hold up are we the oldies that can't be right we're the we're the damies you're you're or no we're the scoopies you're the damon damy no we're the scoops yeah damon in the scoops yeah mark is too old for metroidvanias though that part is way too elderly for that one alan says i'd love to hear some personal recommendations for the nes super nintendo game boy and nintendo 64 i've already saved buying a commando not to worry i just finished super mario rpg for the first time i'm lining up to play super metroid link to the past and star fox 64 three of my all-timers there you go yeah it's okay so just random random suggestions i mean here's my make it thoughtful well and like here's my kind of hot take about the n64 generation is i think uh i think diddy kong racing is better than uh mario kart 64 yes and i also i don't know that i'm going to say it's better but i replayed both mario 64 and banjo kazooie recently and like i think i'm like oh banjo might be better than mario 64 no like i mean i would i would have never have said that until this most recent replay i i mean i i i can see the take i'm just like i didn't think that you would you would ever say that yeah i think i didn't think anybody would ever say that but here we are it's the world i live in now that once once you get to that click clock woods man there's a there's a mod of donkey kong 64 that um lets you swap characters on the fly so you don't need to go back to the character swap pads and it legitimately like it honest to god makes that it makes that game go up to two points on like a top 10 review scale because the way that the game worked before is you would see a collectible that only one character could collect and like a that's already really shitty and bad but like b they did it on purpose where you would need to be one character to unlock a door and then in that door would be another character's collectible and so then you would have to go back and switch and come back and so being able to swap on the fly in the modded version is um it makes that game actually really good man i remember going through the things tooth yeah that's a hard one this is a great game yeah thank you great yeah very very great game playable on xbox too listen on any nes i would recommend shadow gate which i talk about quite often one of my favorite games of all time and i i realize it's not going to be for everyone it's a point and click adventure but it's a it's a game where you it's an 8-bit nintendo game where you explore a creepy castle in first person and the music is fantastic it has a great uh personality and sense of humor so i just it's just like a really really cool piece uh that that stands out on for being unique and original on the nes there are two other games that are like this from the same developer but shadow gate is way better than uninvited or deja vu so i just i'd love to hear someone who's 20 years younger than me what they think about uh shadow gate yeah go ahead well there's a bunch of series on the nes but shadow gate is really good overall the adventure island starting with two is really good um and then uh megaman starting with two is is extremely good so don't don't miss those um they're also really good with safe states which is nice but um yeah generally things made by nintendo are worth revisiting so like if you go and just like look up all the games that nintendo made like check out what they made for their like black box releases early on like balloon fight and klu kulan stuff like that because there's elements of nintendo games that have maintained throughout their entire existence that even go back before the nintendo that just are part of their toys and stuff like that and it's just fun to delve into for that reason so i recommend that and then there's a bunch of licensed games that are fun to just look at just to be like what they made a game based on this game and i used to love like putting on like the predator in the office or like you know any any any movie that they made a game for like check it out it's funny it's usually pretty cool like there's 8-bit versions of you know the jaws theme song and the gremlins theme song and all that stuff in the in the nes games gremlins is pretty good that's a pretty good game yeah it is it's also a home improvement super nintendo game that game is pretty awesome yeah dinosaurs it's really rare full house tournament fighter um i i i would always recommend the castlevania games uh specifically three and four um yeah very very good games but i also think one holds up as like still one of the best side scrollers ever um yeah castlevania is an easy win and very playable on those like handheld smaller screens yeah what the heck game is this nomic what are we looking at yeah that is you're on a set tim the tool man taylor you're on a set that's a dinosaur like tomb raider set and so you're fighting through it with your staple gun smart this is a fast-paced game or heidi it's a rare game uh on game boy i would recommend donkey kong 94. that's the one that's it's it's it's so good oh cool it was a little rough to revisit myths and monsters is the kid ikarus game but it's still a good game it's a nice game it's kind of neat i never played that one that's my yeah that's it that's a good one too i have a weird take but all this is probably just because of nostalgia but i actually prefer game boys lynx awakening versus the switch version because i just remember each screen in lynx awakening and that you know the you know looks like the screen scrolls and you're like yep i know what screen this is i remember playing lynx awakening on switch and not having that same type of like i didn't like it as much right because the screen moves with you so it's like you don't have that like i remember this screen it's like because you know when we're kids we play these games over and over and over um so that i i would always suggest to go back and try this game out i love it i mean zelda oracle of seasons oracle of ages are two i i was gonna say underrated i i don't know they're pretty appropriate yeah two of the two of the best is all the games yeah i think i've never played minish cap but i think a lot of people like minish cap as well yeah yeah i i replayed half of that game over christmas break and i forgot how much the cap is like a real asshole he's just very snarky was minish cap also capcom yeah it's just crazy that capcom has made three zelda games okay all of that brings us to video game 20 questions but maybe justin needs to excuse himself or you want to hang around for five minutes i gotta go because i have a band concert um it's not not for me for one of my children um okay good luck gentlemen mark you're gonna hard carry right oh yeah pack it up i got this make a good face to leave us on to justin and godspeed okay wait wait no he's not frozen when's he gonna freeze when he's you have to disconnect there you go he's very excited to be here oh i love it our suggestion this week comes from ash who says hello damon sam justin and whoever else is lucky enough to be on the best podcast in the world this week my name is ash i'm a 42 year old father of two young boys ages six and nine from white horse yukon which is right beside alaska and i'm a lifelong gamer i've been listening to your show for over 10 years now thought it was finally time to write in recently in the last year or so my oldest son has been listening to the show with me and his absolute favorite thing is video game 20 questions so much so that he constantly comes up with games to make me play video game 20 questions with him my suggestion this week is redacted for redacted because it is the game that i've redacted more than any other game and with that let the question begin i hope it's i'm wondering if it's repurchased i i had to put a tab over justin's face i can't i can't do it sorry can you read the redacted part one more time no oh man i mean you just want to hear it as it was it's just oh yeah yeah redacted that was got redacted yeah my suggestion this week is redacted for redacted because it is the game that i've redacted more than any other game and i think it's repurchased oh yeah yeah could be oh so it's probably skyrim it's the only game you can repurchase that many times this come out after 2010 nope not skyrim okay let's see not after 2010 did this come out this century yes so between 2000 2010 okay uh was this game exclusive to one platform yes hmm was it a nintendo platform no sony yes that's right that's right that's right that's right that's that's five okay okay so we are in the ps2 ps3 era did this start its life as a ps3 game no yes do okay is this game first party no well it could be psp or vita true that true that did this start its life as a ps2 game yes all right not first party all righty japan question yeah yeah was this game developed in japan no nope well that rules out a lot yeah what i was thinking especially the exclusives yeah like final fantasies kingdom hearts all that and it wasn't made it wasn't published by sony is that right right yeah interesting yeah i don't i can't see um thinking grand theft autos stuff like that let's see did this game have more than one game in the series on ps2 yes that is 10 oh oh that's interesting does this does this series have a game that's yet to come out that's been announced no not gta no not gta well they weren't exclusive i mean they were but briefly they were yeah is this game still only on sony platforms um this game is still only on sony this game interesting okay so it's a game that's part of a series that eventually probably went everywhere but multiple of the same series were on the ps2 who would have developed a game like that this is confusing yeah so i'm thinking like tony hawk but i think tony hawk was everywhere i think it was like even on 64 and stuff yeah if there's like one or two games like that this is confusing yeah so i'm thinking like tony hawk but i think tony hawk was everywhere i think it was like even on 64 and stuff yeah if there's like one or two games like that this is confusing yeah so i'm thinking like tony hawk but i think tony hawk was everywhere i think it was like even on 64 and stuff yeah so i'm thinking like tony hawk but i think it was like even on 64 and stuff like one that was just for ps or like even on 64 and stuff like one that was just for ps or something like i mean sports is kind of like one that was just for ps or something like i mean sports is kind of likely here something like i mean sports is kind of likely here yeah yeah is this game like sports adjacent likely here yeah yeah is this game like sports adjacent yes could also be racing need for speed stuff could also be racing need for speed stuff could also be racing need for speed stuff like that yeah is is this a game that like that yeah is is this a game that that you ride something around on four wheels? No. Oh. It's not racing or skating. Yeah. That's great. Hmm. What? Maybe it's not wheels at all. Maybe it's snowboarding or skiing. Yeah. Oof. This is interesting. Yeah. Is there a. Do you. Is there any sort of vehicle, whether powered or unpowered, that the humans move around on in this game? No. That's 15. Okay. So at 15, we've determined that it's not a drivey, racy, extreme sporty game. Of that, Neil. But it could be just a regular-ass sport game. Mm-hmm. I did say sport-adjusted. But I mean, I don't know what else I would mean if it's not a sports game. Is this a game about a. Oh, maybe it's like a wacky golf game. Although those are always Japanese, though. Yeah. Like everybody's golf. And what's that series from? Hot Shots Golf? Mm-hmm. Is this based on a non. I'll just do it the other way. Is this based on a team sport? No. Hmm. A couple more questions. Three more questions. I should narrow it down some. Not that I think Damon would choose Madden 04, but still. Yeah, boy. What do you do when you're not. When you're doing something sporty, but you're not playing a team sport or riding around by yourself on something? Yeah. It's PS2, so this is before, like. PlayStation Move. What's up, Damon? The question that Sam asked was, is there a vehicle, powered or unpowered, that you've something around? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it could still be skiing or snowboarding. Maybe it's a snowboarding game. Yeah. Were the SSX games, were those PS2 games? I don't know. Yeah, me neither. Well, I know that 1080 was the 64 exclusive, right? Right. Yeah. Is this a. Is this a snow sport game? Yes. Yeah, I don't think I. I don't think I can get this. I mean, it could be. If it's a series was around, though, maybe you can help with that. But, like, I can only think of, like, SSX Tricky, but, like, I don't know. Like, is that the first one? And is that one PS2 exclusive that's still. That's not. That wasn't a 64 series? I don't know. 1080 is? I thought 1080 was, yeah. Okay. Hmm. I feel like we got to do the cheating question. No, I mean, that won't really help us with this, I don't think. Well, I mean, I guess it would. Yeah, I guess you're right. The cheating question is, have we mentioned the game in the past one minute? No. Have we mentioned it at all? Yes. We have. Okay. I guess it's SSX Tricky. Could be. Or just SSX. Yeah, I don't. Maybe it's just called SSX. It could be. I don't know how to narrow that down. Don't you? How many questions do we have left? One question. So, is this game tricky? Is that what you want us to ask? It's a very. A question you ask very often that would solve this whole situation for you. Oh, is this the first in the series? Yes. Is this SSX? SSX, yes. We got there. Yay. I can't believe it. I'll be honest. I thought. I didn't know. Oh, God. Justin's back. I didn't know if, like, Tricky was the first one in the game. I didn't know if that was. I vaguely remember that being a modifier. Got it. SSX, it was a launch title for PS2. And it still. Wow. It never came to any other platform. It's still just a PS2 game. It looks like it has a good frame rate. Yeah, it looks great. So, what was the redacted thing without all the redacts? My suggestion is SSX Snowboarding for PS2 because it is the game that I have started over from the beginning more than any other game. And he has an explanation. Oh, that's me. My not-so-fun reason for starting it from the beginning so many times. is not because I love the game that much but out of necessity because when I bought my PS2 on day one from my local game store. Didn't have a memory card. They only had SSX available and no memory cards. So, every day. I'm with you. Every day I would come home from school, start the game over and try to get a little further than the last time for over a month until I was finally able to get a memory card and end my Groundhog Day-like suffering. Yeah. But you would get really good at doing that. Yeah. He kills that first stage. I was the same with, like, Final Fantasy X. Like, I would get to, like, when Santa. attacks the ship and then I would just, like, pause it and pray that nobody turned it off or anything. That's so great. And. Because I didn't have a memory card because, like, you know, we just didn't know. That is the meanest thing. Well, thanks, Ash and the kid. That was a good one. Really, really good one. Yep. Yeah, I think Tricky is the second one and that came to other platforms but this game is just a PlayStation 2 game. Maybe even GameCube. I think that one might have been too. I think so, too, yeah. I think it came to all three. Cool. This looks great. Who developed it? It's EA. It is EA. They developed it and published it. Yeah, it's EA. Wow. Crazy. It looks like a Japanese game for some reason but, yeah, it's cool. But EA Montreal, though, so if you had asked if it was made in America. Right, right, right, right. Let's see. Who was this question? A good Olympics pick, too. I've been watching the. I watched Downhill. I don't think it's called Downhill. It's called, like, Freestyle Snowboarding Women's the other day and it was, like, incredible. Like, the builds they make for those are incredible. I used to love the Olympics so much and always watched the Olympics but now, like, my, like, TV viewing habits have changed so much. We just don't ever have, like, the TV on and I just never think about it to go seek it out. I have to change everything to do that. Yeah. It's been completely. But we've been putting on, like, the gold zone or the best of or whatever they are. Yeah. Like, on Friday nights when we're, like, getting ready to go somewhere. It's been fun. I've been enjoying it. Plus, it's in Italy. Everything they show between things, I'm like, why am I not there? Usually, I love the Olympics. It'll be here very soon. A couple years. Crazy. Crazy. Ash says, thanks for all the great insight into gaming and all the fantastic weekly entertainment you provide. I look forward to your show every week. P.S., get excited for season two of Paradise next week. Now, that's how you do it. I can't believe it. It's been a little over a year and season two is here. That's how you do it, House of the Dragon. Yeah. Seriously. I remember the characters and the situations and what happened. Yeah, I know. It's like, I don't need to. Like, when Severance season two came out and went back and watched season one, I don't have to do that for Paradise. I'm good. Yep. Ready to just watch season two? Let's go. That'll be really good. So, thank you for the suggestion. Viewers, listeners, if you have your own suggestions for video game 20 questions. Oh, my God. Joe Burke. Email them to me at the address gamescoop at ign.com and that is all the scoops that we have for you this week except for an important message. It is Humble Bundle's 15th birthday and everyone is invited. Celebrate 15 years of connecting fans and gamers with good causes with the Humble 15 Time Capsule Bundle featuring games from the very first Humble Indie Bundles. Right now, you can score Odd Sparks, an automation adventure, Kill Night, Inbound, Bionic Bay, Mark of the Deep, Lugaro HD, Samuros 2, Osmos, and And Yet It Moves. This all supports Child's Play, an organization that donates toys and games to children's hobbies. hospitals worldwide. Head to humblebundle.com through March 11th to start playing today. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Justin's giant face. Thank you to Jobert and everyone working behind this episode to make this episode possible. My name is Damon. This is IGN GameSoup and this weekend I'm going to play Redacted. I'm going to play Redacted. Damon, did you watch the Slay the Spire trailer? No. Oh, man. We should do a live reacts. A GameSoup live reacts. I saw it. Very good. I think, what, March 5th is early access date? Well, the big. I don't even. I mean, I guess it's not really. You're not super spoiler sensitive. The big feature that they showed is that it has four-player co-op. Ooh. Well, I don't want to do that, but that's interesting. I mean, I have. I had the same reaction. I was like, that's sick. I'm never going to do that, but that's sick. It shows, like, four hands, like, four cartoon hands, like, picking, you know, in, like, the between-mission events that happen. Like, what choice do you want to pick and stuff like that. It looks cool. It has. It says it has co-op-specific cards. Want to be the one who's always in the know about the game, the scores, the plays? Here's a tip. And when your team scores, it shows up right on your iPhone lock screen, making it easy to check in anytime. So rule the group chat and download Apple Sports for free on the App Store or find it on your new iPhone. Finding a doctor is hard enough. Finding the right doctor, even harder. Someone who takes your insurance, has an available appointment when you need one, and feels like someone you can actually open up to. That's where ZocDoc comes in. Download the ZocDoc app to search and compare doctors by specialty, insurance, and availability. Read real patient reviews, find the right fit for you, and book instantly. Because getting seen by the right doctor matters. ZocDoc. Ready to be seen? Download the ZocDoc app today.