Game Scoop! 848: A Marathon and a Sprint

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Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was GameScoop. It's the best way to support the show. Quince specializes in. They're versatile, timeless, and transition seamlessly from the workday to dinner out. Everything at Quince is priced 50% to 80% less than similar brands. I've told you about the comfy lounge pants. Quince has become my go-to for everything from high-quality bedding and bath essentials to premium cookware and vitamin supplements. What's up, everybody? Welcome to IGN GameScoop. I'm your host, Damon Hadfield. Joining me here in studio this week is Nick Lamone. I'm back, baby. We're also joined remotely by Sam Claiborne. Hey, it's great to be here on a sunny GDC day. And Mark Medina. I'm here, Damon. It's early. What? I'm tired. We're recording early. Are the effects of the coffee still in action? Yeah. Yeah. They haven't kicked in yet. We usually record in the afternoons. We're recording in the morning this week just because of some GDC scheduling stuff. So. Anyway, we've got a great show for you this week. Lots of interesting stories coming out of GDC. First details on the next Xbox Project Helix. And Sam actually attended a Nintendo panel where they sort of gave a look behind the curtain of development on Donkey Kong Bonanza, which is. You can destroy the curtain. You can destroy. The curtain is destructible. But first, before we get to all the GDC stuff, we can talk about a couple of games that are out now. A tale of two video games. One made by a prestige developer, one of the biggest developers in the world. The developers of Destiny and Halo. Yeah. And their new game is out. And apparently it's good. It's being well received, at least by Nick Lamone right here. Yeah. And not terrible player count, but technically terrible player count. Dude, we should play together. I didn't know you were playing. Yeah. I've been in on it. I haven't asked the IGN folks yet if there's anyone around. But yeah, my squad is taking a little bit of a break because they got obligations. So looking for a team at any point. But yeah, I'm having a blast. You know, I was. Not interested in the game at all. Not like I like the marathon series as a whole. You know, Marathon Durandal was a game that I played on Xbox 360 back then just because I didn't have an Apple computer way back when that game originally came out. So that was how I experienced it. And I really loved the way that Bungie did its world building and kind of tied its overall like narrative and story and theming to stuff that was happening during Bungie's era of Halo. And once I found out this game was an extraction multiplayer only game, I was like, I think I'm good. Of course, I got in FOMO with some of my buddies worked on the trailer for it. So I was like, all right, I'll check it out. Nice. And yeah, I'm having a blast. I think that same. Bungie style storytelling that's very subtle and there for people who want to experience it. You really have to dig for it. I really enjoy that type of storytelling. And again, the Bungie. Perfected gameplay loop of grenade, you know, handgun, melee, that perfect little gameplay loop is still there. The guns still all feel so good. And the one thing that really reminds me of, even though it's maybe not as fast paced as Apex Legends, it reminds me a lot of the moment to moment of Apex Legends. And I just really appreciate something that rewards talent and skill in its like first person shooter stuff. I'm playing on PC, so there's no aim assist or anything like that. And I just really love the vibe of everything is on the line every single run. And I love that everyone is kind of out for themselves. Art direction is firing on all cylinders. I'm having a blast. I can't stop thinking about it. So you played the original marathon when it was brought to Xbox 360. That's correct. And the original marathon is a Doom like, right? Yes. It plays very much like Doom. So what of that game's DNA is in here? I think it's overall it's it's art direction and it's style and writing. I think that's basically it. There's some lore. There's some lore and stuff that's transplanted over, but I would argue you could probably just come into this fresh and be like, what? There's a previous game. But again, that's only for like the hardcore nerds who want to know what's going on on Talseti for ever since the events of the original marathon. Where's the working canter at? Maybe it's in the cryo, the cryo chamber that hasn't unlocked yet. But I just love Bungie games always feel like they do such a good job of making events. And there's a fourth area. That is being teased. Players are currently unlocking it via an ARPG website that is working in conjunction with terminals that are in each map that you have to activate in a certain order. And once that's done a certain number of times, players will unlock the final map where it's going to be like a true test of, uh, everyone's loadout and skill ceiling. But right now it's just, oh, it's so cool, man. It would have been really cool to release this with a single player campaign. Yeah, you can see it could be like a really speedy mirrors edge one, or it could be kind of a sandboxy situation. Yep, exactly. Yeah. I do wish there was a single player because I do love existing in this world. And it's the first time I played a game in a minute where I opened up my loadout on my first mission or first, like, you know, infill. And I was like, I have no idea what any of these items in my inventory are. Guns barely look like guns and it forces you to rethink. What you think of as a loadout. I was like, is it, this is, is this a grenade or is this a, an extended ammo clip for my gun? Like, I can't really tell. And it's been a minute since a game made me feel that way. And I really appreciate that learning curve. Well, Mark, we talked a little bit, a little bit about this when you played the beta and you were kind of a, you were kind of soft liking it. I would say I'm still, I would say I'm still soft liking it. I I'm, I'm telling you that the, the first company to make an extraction shooter like this, that's just PVE is going to make a million billion jajillion dollars because like that no one's done that, man, it's, I mean, that's just a co-op game, this game. Yeah, please do make that. This game is, is not like arc Raiders when it comes to like working together with people, they will kill you. The moment they see you yesterday, last night I was playing and Nick, you're not going to believe this. So I open up the extraction point and I go and I hide and then, you know, so basically what happens is it takes a minute for it to like kind of cook and then there's like a little circle, uh, in the last 10 seconds and you got to get in there. That's when you actually have to stand in it. So, um, I go and I stand in it and I'm like, all right, we're outta here, baby. And someone runs up, shoots me, there's two seconds left on the clock and he goes, because if he shoots me, I'm just down, I can still extract and keep all my stuff. He runs over and does the finishing move on me. No chance of him getting any of my loot. You, there's no chance he just did it to be a jerk. There's a second left on the clock. He's just doing it for the love of the game, man. And I was so mad because I'm like, dude, you didn't get anything for that other than the satisfaction of just killing me for no reason. So if you design it for charters, huh? Yeah. If you played arc Raiders and you think, oh yeah, me and my, you know, me and the community, we're all just going to kind of work together. Not in this game. Well, this game, they want you dead. I really appreciate that. about this game, though. Imperatively, the game is very upfront by saying you need to shoot first and ask questions later. Like the overall oppressive, like corporate overlords, it's very cyberpunk in its tone and how it's like you are basically in debt for the rest of your life and you were given the privilege of paying it off to all these private corporations. But everyone else, they're out for themselves, so you should be too. And the game is basically saying you should kill everyone first. And I really appreciate that in Ark Raiders. It is very much a, maybe we can work together. In this game, I have had encounters where, you know, I activate the X fill and as Mark says, you have to wait for it to open up and that obviously attracts a lot of attention. And often the distance I hear someone go, hey bro, let me extract with you. I promise I'm not going to shoot you. And I'm like waiting and I'm like, all right, man. And I immediately go invisible. I throw my smoke out, sprint in, and then me and him just mutual respect. We do it. But hey. That's rare in this game. I've had it happen like once or twice. If I had an objective to kill other players when that happened, I would have done it in a heartbeat. And I wouldn't have felt an ounce of shame. Which this game does give you. This game does give you missions where it's like kill other runners or do damage to them. The best way to look at this game is, so like Ark Raiders is this like post-apocalyptic. Everybody's down in Speranza and you're going up and you're scavenging for the good of the nation type of thing. You're like, okay, I'm going to kill this guy. I'm going to kill this guy. because i can see them out of people that are not using strategy guides or videos that we're making and the amount of people playing this game so i think there's some appeal to the kind of toyiness of it right like it's like it's fun and natural and easy to get into i think blotter i was like that too although i liked looking up stuff once i got into blotter to be like what what are some like crazy things that people do in this i don't know if this game has that oh it 100 does yeah it's all it's not it's not easy but it's not better figure out what those video headlines are then these four bills i'm just going to start i'm just going to start putting trust me it's not easy at the end of every headline you'll never believe the four ways you can break slay this exactly exactly exactly 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 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pokemon this is what happened to me last saturday i told kingo all right it's saturday you know if you're good all day long and you're nice to your sister and you eat a good dinner and you try harder your baseball game we'll get the new pokemon game tonight i was looking forward to playing it but he didn't do any of those things he wasn't listening to his sister he took two hours to eat dinner so i was like okay we're not getting it so i didn't get to play pokemon you got try again this saturday by the kid rules you said eat your carrots i want to build something uh it's such a good game to play with him and for you because it will introduce you to the fun part of pokemon which is just like what the hell is this little monster i unlocked and what can it do for me that's what this whole game is for pokemon and the pokemon games i think have strayed from that a little bit just because there's so many and it's so diluted and playing through it through them it's just this endless sequence of talking to npcs about the same topic about pokemon and why they're good for you i sure love pokemon yeah this game is not that it is like immediately like solve problems like explore and the exploration is fantastic build whatever you want drop your crap anywhere you want infinite inventory uh anywhere and it just like gives you free reign and the more you play the missions which are really fun the more skills you get to mess with the world and it's just fantastic and like my world is just a big mess just a big just just a big sloppy mess of just like this pokemon's like my home would be a lot better if i if i got this and then you have to kind of figure out how to solve that and when you do that you just drop it up you're like you could build them a house and like make it all badass and have them move in but you're like listen there's 300 pokemon to get to eventually you're just gonna you're gonna have a stool on the ground and a bird perch and then i'm moving on and then you just have this like trash scape and it's so fun and stupid and great and i just like i i just finished the second area which is huge and like there's whole parts of it that i don't even understand what like what i'm supposed to do with them like this whole lava area that i didn't get any pokemon out of but i don't know how to do anything with there's all these mysteries there's like things that the the central mystery is that humans have disappeared and it's funny and crazy how the pokemon think about that and handle it they're just like they're like some pokemon don't like humans some of them really want to find them and like that's your ultimate mission but then there's like little like apocalyptic messages left like it's smart and interesting and cool and like it's just such a good implementation of pokemon and i think it's perfect for you and kingo so make sure that he you know has has an easier set of ground rules this game is also food today yeah this game is also a big hit it's two what two million copies sold and at launch like yeah this is like yeah another system seller probably the first real system seller since exactly mario kart world yeah and it has to be because it's locked to switch to just if you didn't know like you can't you can play this on switch one by streaming it to your switch one from a switch to which i don't even know what that means or how that matters like a co-op thing who cares but you need a switch to to buy a copy and play this game and this would have been a huge christmas seller of the system but they didn't need that this is like a momentum game for nintendo right like as soon as people stop talking about the switch sales then a thing like this happens so i think it's really interesting oh and by the way the game looks really good like it's polished as hell and like it's just it's drawing these frames from like as i said i leave all this garbage everywhere like you walk on top of a cliff you're looking down like all the pokemon are just walking around where you left them playing with your garbage it's it's amazing like it's it's it is a switch to you know showcase they got my i like this game i like this game because i don't uh i like pokemon but i don't like the pokemon games yes so then it's nice to play pokemon but i don't like the pokemon games to be able to play a game that's what pokemon go was right yeah exactly 100 and so i like to be able to play a game where i see all the pokemon that i like but i'm not bogged down by the because i have tried i tried every year pokemon za pokemon scarlet and i'm just like they never shut up these games they never shut and it's turn-based until recently and turn-based is a little bit of a slog yeah i did i did like the combat in za but i would just wish they would let you do it instead of talking to you constantly yeah this game is fun and it's really cute like how the loop works it's like you get a clue that it's like if you have a you have items that you can make grass with or water things or or move things around or manipulate things or break them like that's the tool set you get just very it's very breath of the wild in that sense and then you use those to make a little habitat so just like a four or eight square environment that might attract a pokemon and a clue so it's like you need you know a tree that's high up in the shade um with grass under it or like flowers or something like that you build that you build a couple of them and like a pokemon appears and all the pokemon are like hey they're that they'll point out to you they're like the grass is shaking up there and something pops out you don't ever evolve those pokemon or get more of the same one or anything it's always a new one that you've you've brought out and they all personality they're all funny they talk to you in different ways there's like a dj uh boombox pokemon that's like really funny that comes out and like there's a whole quest line for it it's great no i i just have no notes for this game it is such a good builder's game this the game's existence is strange because it's made by game freak and omega force omega force being a division of koei tecmo game freak has all its other regularly scheduled pokemon stuff it's working on and has beast of reincarnation coming out later this year and then omega force mostly does dynasty warriors not this yeah so just it's just weird that this well they did they do dragon quest builders and i i think strange not dynasty warriors yep yep yeah i think i think it was one of those things where it was like that dragon quest builders game looks really cool but nobody cares about any of those characters because it's you know you have to be a dragon quest fan so i think just like pokemon go right because they made their original they made that original game i forget what it was called um niantic they they had another game and then they just ingress remade it yeah and then they just remade it with a pokemon thing so it's like it's funny that that has now worked twice where it's like hey take this game and make it into so hopefully red dead 2 will eventually see like red dead pokemon no red dead ultra realistic or ping pong not pinball yeah it's totally oh that'd be so good that's such a dumb stupid great idea a marty supreme era ping pong game yeah uh okay i also couldn't really think of any other game i would like to talk about because i don't know if there's any other game i would like to talk about if there's any other game i would like to talk about if there's any other game i would like okay i also continue to play resident evil okay i also continue to play resident evil okay i also continue to play resident evil requiem and i made it through i made it through that uh uh requiem and i made it through i made it through that uh uh open area with leon oh what did you open area with leon oh what did you open area with leon oh what did you think yeah so i'll comment on that i i don't consider this think yeah so i'll comment on that i i don't consider this a spoiler we're going to talk about a spoiler we're going to talk about a spoiler we're going to talk about some mid-game gameplay stuff no story stuff so i don't think I don't think it's a spoiler, but just a heads up. I thought that part was fun. I don't think it's quite as good as the hospital section but people in the facebook group are talking about how this it's boring it's terrible but no i don't think so it's got a cool i never thought it was terrible i like how you can snipe zombies in the distance to get more cp and the more you kill you stop running from things you start just expending as much ammo as possible and killing them so you can unlock stuff like it's really smart i think it's great the resident evil requiem revenge tour you get to just go through and kill everything and you haven't got well it's not i don't know what the sequence of things are and people keep on thinking i'm talking about the end in game which is like another area that you get to but there is a sequence of events in raccoon city where people are like oh the second half of the game is is the part that resident evil fans don't like that is such nonsense yes this part's in that there's a there is fan service for like three hours before this and around this where it's all it's doing is saying remember this from resident evil here it is and look how awesome it is that leon knows about that yes and reacts to it what are you talking about that that's the bad part of the game that is the best part and it's in the second half yep sorry reacting to the b-roll the part where he just shoots those like t-virus trank darts at people just casually is the coolest thing in a resident evil game ever it's so good yeah but i do like the stacks of buildings where you're like okay the zombies crawl up from the bottom they fall down from the top they carry explosives they're just doing like really high damage things but you are a high damage character suddenly yeah it's really cool the the militarized zombie area uh yes it's reminiscent of uh day of the dead yes the third of romero's zombie films and there's really cool set pieces like these buildings have like fallen over so you're walking over windows so you can shoot the glass so good yeah yeah yeah did you do the part of the gas station that's optional i don't i don't know what's up i don't know there's just a gas station you have to go in and get out um like a generator going in you would know i didn't do that it's a gas station i don't know it's optional that's where you go that's where you get the gas can but it's between the objectives so you have to do that to get the gas can but then the gas can stuff is optional you can do a bunch of gas can stuff to open up some areas to return to like that locked box but in that there's all these leon quips in this part and the best is when the best chainsaw part is in this part too because the the guy comes with the chainsaw he's like you must be the town lumberjack he's so it's such a call back right that's funny and then that that happens and then there's a long sequence where you can pun intended chain the chainsaw kills together but you have to i died a lot just to get that right yeah because you have to plan out because you he'll plant the chainsaw in a care in a zombie that'll come back to try to hug you and you do a one one hit kill and you if you wait that out or handle it then you can pick up the chainsaw again you can pick it up again while just sweeping around on the ground you know you have to time it right it's so fun dueling chainsaw is one of my favorite sequences oh yeah it's so good and a little fun like easter egg is technically that gas station is the gas station from the original resident evil 100 but not in the remakes you never go there in the remake version of re3 so it's just like a very fun like what if scenario it's where jill goes up the gas part is that and i feel like that if you're if people are like this is not traditional resident evil are really upset with these areas and what they're doing it's like can you appreciate that that it's like a constant deep cut it's really smart yeah there's something i also question that like this isn't resonating evil what is resident evil every game is so dramatically different yeah since i know that i know they think that it's like you know it's yeah it's very like conserve your ammo and stuff like that but also there are several mainline resident evil games the most popular being resident evil 4 that is not a thing so like it is resident evil it's resident evil 4. so anyway i'm looped i'm looping this game right now and the way that you want to do that is this and mark made a very popular video about this by the way which is my idea uh but uh it was sam's idea nick nick is actually the one that made a lot of wrote i was going to call this out yeah nick kind of wrote the bones of it which i was like once you beat the game there's just like every other game i'm not spoiling this there's just a bunch of challenges you can do right and you replay it like an arcade game and i'm replaying it that way but the funny thing about this one is that you the second replay is best to do on easy and then you do a run where you don't use healing items or a few other things that i won't talk about but if you do it that way then you then you unlock the hardest thing to unlock because you have enough cp to unlock it which is infinite ammo and then you can play in insane mode for the first time with infinite ammo so those are two really fun arcadey loops for the game it becomes this weird road roguelike where every time you're like you're playing the game and every time you're unlocking like yes bigger and cooler stuff so smart well i was telling nick like you've been in less than three hours yeah well i did it in three hours and five we did the speed run in the thing i'm doing which i might get by accident i just i've just i've been playing it for weeks i know how can you put it in three hours it's insane i did it that way too but it's because of the easy mode is that that makes that possible i think also skipping cut scenes and running past skipping cut scenes actually doesn't um that they pause the timer during cut scenes but if you play it back to back after having just played it for your weeks long playthrough everything in the grace mansion is like really fast and fun and you can decide like whether you you you'll uh do some of the extra stuff and not or not it's fine and you can not kill anything because it's easy mode you can just run through it you know i think you regenerate your life i think there are a few things it's doing as like first first of all i i don't i can't think of another resident evil game that has this many callbacks and references to earlier games in the franchise and also after you leave the open area with uh with leon there's a really dumb on rails sequence i think it's dumb nick liked it but i thought it was it's cool the first time after that i'm like all right let's speed this up it's really stupid he's got a really good one-liner at the end of that one yeah he's short enough he always has a good one-liner he uh went to the uh john wick keanu reeves school of acting i think he's got a good one-liner and then you go you go through the segment at the raccoon city police department not a spoiler it's in the trailers that segment's really cool so many callbacks and then you go through the orphanage go underground finally you're in like the the uh umbrella spoilers you end up in an umbrella laboratory yeah yeah white sterile lab and then you have to battle human opponents i can't remember fighting human opponents in a resident oh yeah also the boss of that i i let out a cheer when that boss fight happened i thought that was one of the coolest things i'd seen in a resident evil game ever the mini boss yeah the mini boss yeah that was yeah so i didn't get that that was a reference until i watched some of our videos and then i was like hell yeah because i remember that so much and i couldn't relate to it so much i didn't realize that at the time it was great well so you got rpd is so cool because it's like the safes are all still open and it also canonizes leon as the as the character you play us because he's like i guess you're talking about it that puzzle was weird i'll mention it it was in the trailers i don't care i love that puzzle is weird part that is yeah that's weird i kind of was weird i let out looking at this puzzle from like 20 years ago 30. there's one moment where you go to investigate the desks that are there where leon had his welcome sign in r2 and there's a nice call back to martin and i was like oh god yeah i've got a little tear we made a comparison and like all of that stuff we made it with remakes we made it with remakes we made it with remakes and like all of that stuff we made it with remake and all of that stuff is there it's great i look i like it a lot there is a locker though that says it needs a key and i didn't find that oh man don't get me started it's part of that very scavenger very scavenger hunt all right you should try to solve that before well i guess well now i'm past i'm past that part so yeah another run me it's no there's a couple things i'm like do i need to beat the game before i can unlock these and that it wasn't the case and unfortunately that's what i did figure that one out but that there was one i did and uh the briefcase in that area i didn't figure out but i figured out that one which i just had to walk around so much to get it to work but it's basically yeah you have to find a picture that shows you where a location is yeah we have it covered anyway i i'll i'll leave this uh topic by letting you know where i am the first room where the guards come in the human guards clear that out and then you go around the corner and then you're in a room where there's like a gap and the soldiers are on the far side of the room yeah having a little trouble i stopped there i was like okay that's enough for you you can cheese that by going up on the balcony and then walking back but they can shoot from under you yeah you go back to where you start oh and then you go back after that yeah that's what i did just because i wanted to use my rifle ammo and i was like you know this will be fun okay there is also a destructible piece of the environment that you can unleash something on that okay that's good to know oh that's great i forgot about that i didn't know that well i didn't know that until after i i played that section because you don't see it but yeah you have to go to the other side of that bridge to do that you should be able to shoot it from the window then do that because that's really fun okay yeah all right chaos yeah what a game yeah and we should have an episode where we talk about the ending because there is a really cool sequence of uh hints at future resident evils and stuff yeah we'll do when i'm when i'm finally done with it we'll do a small cast and stuff yeah we'll do a small cast 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 7-Up is fighting back with their new lime lemon soda. Now lime comes first. 7-Up, flip the sip. Okay, Project Helix, the next Xbox. First details coming out of GDC. Reiterating once again that it will play PC games. And then a bunch of specs that don't mean a lot to me. I'm not as big of a tech guy. It's next-gen stuff. Yeah. They're going to be leaning. They've got a custom AMD chip and they're leaning into AI for their own upscaling. FSR, right? Or FSR Next, I think they're calling it. Yeah. I don't know. Is anybody getting excited for the next Xbox? Is it meeting anything? Is it doing anything to turn the tide? I think the thing today was a really exciting thing, too, where they. They're dropping the This is an Xbox? Yeah. I don't know if this is an indication of where they're going. But they removed the This is an Xbox campaign from visibility in some locations. So IGN reported on that. Mm-hmm. That in conjunction with, you know, announcing a new console and being like, hey, we're making a box that can do console games. It's like, that's all getting away from that. Was it. Who is it? Seamus Blackley? Seamus Blackley, yeah. Going to be, like, wound down or whatever. They also said. Yeah. They also said, you know, they're celebrating 25 years of Xbox this year. They said, this is. We're setting this up for the next 25 years. So to your point, yeah, I think they're trying to say. All good news, I think. And then also, coupled with the PlayStation news of. Kind of getting out of the PC ecosystem where they're publishing their games. Like, there could be an era of exclusivity that feels different than before, where it's like, you can play a bunch of PC games and you're supposed to blah, blah, blah. They're going to have all that. But, like, they might be more reluctant to put stuff on Switch 2, which is not as much as common. But they might not put stuff on the PlayStation. And, like, what's that going to look like for Call of Duty and Elder Scrolls and stuff? Like, it's just all that stuff I know is annoying for consumers to think about. And it all sounds expensive. But. But, like, as a journalist, I'm like, that's so exciting to cover all that. As a consumer, I have a lot of worries. Like, everything just sounds. Like, the future sounds expensive. But they might solve that in some way. And I don't know what that is. They have to, right? Yeah. Unless, like, AI can keep the cost down. I'm not talking about AI, like, content generation. I'm talking about using it. Like, upscaling. Upscalers, yeah. Like, faking their way to higher-fidelity graphics using AI. Mm-hmm. That sort of thing. Yeah, and honestly, and this is in the middle of the controversial statements. This day about AI. But the New York Times had a piece today about how Silicon Valley is using AI. And, you know, there's still a bunch of coders coding things. But they're just doing it with prompts. And they know what they're doing. They know how to check it and, like, how to make sure that that worked. But they're saving eight hours, you know, by making a half an hour of prompts to, you know, have things write code. That's going to come to games, right? So, that. Just the programming side of things. You still need someone that knows how the game works and to test it and do all that stuff. But, like. Some of the conservation of actually programming. I'm not talking about artists being replaced and stuff like that. That's all. Unfortunately, that's happening, too. Like, I'm not. I'm just pointing out this other thing is happening. Where, like, the conservation of resources and just sheer coding is going to come. Is the next thing. And maybe that's going to make games cheaper. Is it going to make jobs go away? Like, that's the unclear thing, Stone, right? You could actually make a lot more games. That's probably good, right? Like, what if you could make, you know, the Capcom amount of games. That'd be nice. Yeah. Yeah, I was watching a game dev video where the guy said, like, a very popular method that game devs use. I think it was probably more earlier games, but probably still used now. Which is the bear claw method, right? Which is where they figure out, okay, there's some sort of, like, bug in our code. And so, we have to keep, like, shrinking until we find out where that bug is. And so, you know, they'll change things or whatever. And they're like, nope, okay. So, this is good. So, now we can, like, kind of. He's like. He's like, now we just type in, you know, a lot of them use Claude. And they just, you know, look at my code. Do you see any irregularities? And they'll be like, yep, this is going to cause an issue. Exactly right. And so, they're able to just go straight there now instead of having to manually find it. Which is, yeah. And again, there's two discussions about AI here. One is that it's going to ruin everything and come for jobs and squash creativity. This is a different thing. This is a productivity use of it where we all agree that games are too expensive and we'd like to make more. We'd like to play more video games. So, like, this is, like, when Photoshop came to Lucasfilm, it changed Lucasfilm's ability to make special effects. Like, not. It didn't replace a bunch of people at Lucasfilm. There wasn't a bunch of people editing photos. It was a tool from outside that made it so they could make more special effects. This is a tool from outside that makes it so you can make more game code or make games with fewer bugs. That is a possibility here. That is an outcome that is not evil. We are already seeing companies. Pre-layoff people to be evil. So, I don't know where this is going. But it's worth thinking about. Yeah. Yeah, the whole mega crit thing that Nick was talking about earlier with Slay the Spire, that I can't remember if they've commented on it or if people are just saying it, but their whole MS Paint thing feels like a direct, like, comparison to Baldur's Gate 3 where they were like, yeah, we used a bunch of Gen AI art to, like, do placeholders. And they're like, we didn't do that. We literally made placeholders in MS Paint. So, you get to just see those. Those now, right? It's for the culture to feel out what do we accept as art versus what do we accept as a tool. And that's what we're figuring out right now. And by the way, GDC is about that this year. Like, the events that are sold out are about these, you know, not sold out, but the ones that are filling up are about, like, crazy tools being used. Yeah, there was that panel about Google's, like, AI game generator. Yeah. Like, you couldn't. It was completely full. You couldn't get in. The Nintendo IP destroyer. Yeah. As far as the next Xbox goes. As far as the next Xbox goes, I agree with all the tech jargon. It's. It's. It's breaking. The next generation console will have next-gen features. We. That's not exciting. What I want to know is, like, for one, how much is this thing going to cost compared to the, you know, competition? What they even consider competition anymore because there's the Sony thing where they're, you know, they're pulling their games off PC because of the Steam Deck, not the Project Helix. Allegedly. But also, like. Yeah, allegedly. But also, just, like. I know there's a lot of chat about exclusives and stuff like that, and they'll end up walking that back. But at the end of the day, this thing has to sell, and their games have to continue to sell, which is why they're in the position they're in now. So, I don't get super hyped from, you know, an Xbox CEO telling me that the next console is going to be great. I need a little bit more than that before I think, oh, yep, they've turned this around. This is going to be great. I already have a next-generation. I already have a next-generation Xbox. It's called my badass PC. Yeah, I use it every day. Oh, but there was the Xbox mode for Windows 11. That does look kind of cool for Xbox. I think that's applicable for handhelds, too, right? You could make a handheld. Yeah, it's their Xbox full screen. They're just calling it now Xbox mode, where you turn on your PC and you're in the Xbox UI, which is cool for Xbox people. But if you're on your PC, what can you do then? You just play. You can play the Xbox games that you've bought on PC. It's very much an interface like Steam Big Picture, if you're familiar with that at all. It's just an elegant user. Some would argue it's not elegant, but I think, in theory, it's something that you can navigate a digital storefront and interface on a PC using just a controller. And that's kind of how it's optimized. The big drawback for PC gaming is I have it hooked up to my TV just like a console, my gaming thing. But for one, it needs a pin because it's. I have an IGN-owned machine, and I can't turn that off. So I still have to. I have a wireless keyboard. So I type in the pin, and then the thing just opens in Steam Big Picture mode. That way, the moment the pin is typed in, I set the keyboard down, I pick up the controller, and I never have to touch the keyboard again. And so that's what people want. People want to be able to go and use this thing like a console. They want to be able to pick up a controller and play it. And that's what the Xbox mode is trying to do for people. Well, okay. So speaking of Steam Machine, you mentioned Sony walking away, walking back its exclusives that it's putting on PC. We had talked a little bit last week that maybe the idea of this next Xbox playing PC games and then also being able to play PlayStation games that came to PC, that was the reason why. But here we have another theory today. This is Peter Dalton, who was the head of technology at Bluepoint, which was recently just shut down by Sony. He wrote on Twitter, I read an interesting take on why Sony may be pulling back from pushing PC releases and instead focusing more heavily on exclusives. Some people frame this as a response to Xbox, but I'm not convinced that's the real driver. A more interesting possibility is the rise of a Steam-based console ecosystem. Consoles largely exist because they provide a cheaper, simpler alternative to gaming PCs. For most households, a dedicated gaming console is easier to justify than building or maintaining a high-end PC. However, if Valve releases a new Steam console that provides a console-like experience while still giving players access to the entire PC game library, that could become a very compelling option. In that scenario, if Sony were releasing all of its games day and date on PC, the Steam console could effectively offer the best of both worlds, simplicity with the full breadth of PC gaming. It would be quite ironic, after decades of traditional console competition, if Valve ultimately ended up winning the console war. So that's his take. Yeah, I don't think PlayStation saw Valve, I think they saw them as another revenue stream, but that's why they put their games on Steam. But they didn't see them as competition, because PC gaming will always have a few drawbacks compared to console games. Yes, console games have drawbacks too, I don't want to hear it. Anyways, but yeah, with the existence of this device, it does make them a direct competitor now, and PlayStation is not playing nice with the other competitors, as we know. So this definitely seems like it is in response to that. A very fair perspective as well. And I think it's. Not only competition for PlayStation, but I would argue also Microsoft and their project Helix. I think its biggest competitor is going to be the Steam machine, and I would be very surprised if Helix was priced all that much differently from a Steam machine. I think it's going to be a very similar parallel to what we see with the ROG Xbox Ally X versus the ROG Ally X, just the Xbox coat of paint that's on it. So I think that Microsoft cannot afford to be more expensive than a Steam machine, whatever price it ends up being. And I don't know if it can physically be cheaper than the Steam machine. So very curious to see how this all shakes out. I think it'll be more expensive. The Steam machine has already kind of said that it's kind of a mid-tier. It should be about ready to go. They're just waiting on current world economic situations to settle somewhere. The biggest question I have with all of this, the reason I feel like Xbox is still there are much smarter people trying to figure this stuff out. But when you buy a PlayStation 5, PlayStation gets a cut of every game sold. It doesn't matter if it's first party or third party. You buy it on the console, they get a cut. Steam, same way, right? You buy this, unless you're jailbreaking it, you're only getting access to Steam. So then Steam is getting a cut of everything. But if you buy a Project Helix. And then you say, I'm never going to buy an Xbox game. I'm only going to buy from the Epic Games Store or Steam. They're selling you a device that they're not getting any future revenue streams from, which is like, it's so weird. We don't know if a Steam app might live on it under a consideration that they get a cut of things. I don't see why Steam would do that when they have their own console. Why would they tell Xbox? Yeah. And any games. Any games sold on your device, I don't see why they would do that. Yeah. That is a big question mark. Yeah. Xbox makes a couple hundred bucks on each console, too, though. So there is that calculation. I have a-- the problem I have with this theory, just real quick, is that I don't think PlayStation even thinks about Valve. I don't think-- I don't think about you at all. Yeah, I don't think about you at all situation. I don't think Japanese top-down, like, old school electronics companies-- really care about even Microsoft at some points. Like, they care about Nintendo, and they want to go after Nintendo, and they want to think about that, but I think the way they think about software is very, very different, and the way they think about hardware is very old school, and, you know, they'll continue to innovate and do their thing, but I don't know. I don't-- I think they might look at, like, what they-- why they pulled off of the Steam ecosystem already is because, like, the sales are bad. What-- what can Steam do for us is how--? I think Sony of Japan looks at Steam. What can they do for us? Can they make it-- they're not making us enough money. I don't care. You're taking it as purely-- it didn't make us-- it's not worth devaluing our brand, putting exclusive on other consoles. We would prefer Yotei and Saros and Wolverine to just stay because we're not making enough money there anyways, and that it's not about competition. It's just about devaluing their own brand. The thing that's hurting Sony-- The thing that's hurting Sony in the long run is that they don't have as much-- and I hate this term-- IP as Nintendo, still. You would think when they-- when they became the most popular Sony's ever become, right before Last of Us kind of came out and there was, like, PlayStation All-Stars, you know, like, the-- that by now we'd be like, "Look at all these PlayStation franchises everybody cares about." They were doing LocoRoco and Patapon. Like, all this stuff was just coming out all the time. It really narrowed to-- and they had Yotei. That's new, right? But, like, it's really narrowed to-- oh, it's not narrowed, but it's just-- it hasn't blown up, I think, as much. As much as I would have expected them to. And I don't think of them as, you know, besides Astro Bot and stuff being cute, like, having as many competitive things they own. They can't, like, easily make a theme park or a racer or a-- or All-Stars like Nintendo can. The-- the big difference between the two is that, like, Nintendo doesn't forget about its IPs, right? It's still always going to make Zelda more-- Oh, sorry, and I forgot the second half of my point. Microsoft solved that by buying everybody. Yeah. Yeah, they did. And Sony, you know, spent a little bit of time doing that with Budgie. Unfortunately, Bluepoint. And so, yeah, I just think that that puts them in a little bit of a weird spot if they're going for, like, we're going to be a console maker that makes AAA games you can only play on PlayStations. Like, I hope that they have some kind of, you know, ability to become a-- you know, we saw the last Sony conference. It was all Capcom. It was all Konami. Like, that's their-- that's their key for it, those partnerships. Yeah, they-- they just abandoned their-- like, where-- why isn't somebody working on it? Like, why aren't they working on Uncharted? Or Infamous? Like, it's so weird that they just-- I agree. --Uncharted's over, and they moved on to Last of Us, and that's it. Somebody other than Naughty Dog can make an Uncharted game. Like, it's very, very silly that they just kind of-- Where's Carappa? Bring him back. Gotta believe. Where's my boy? I think another good point when you're considering PlayStation being worried about the Steam Machine is that the Steam Machine is not going to be sold at retail or on Amazon. Mm-hmm. So, you-- you know, you would-- you have to really know about the Steam Machine and really go seek it out yourself. Mm-hmm. There's, like, many more hurdles, much more friction involved in getting a Steam Machine than getting a PlayStation. Well, you can buy a Steam Deck from GameStop, or at least you could when there were shortages. So, I'm curious to see, because I believe they were a licensed retailer, but that came after launch, though. Yeah. I think, as of right now, the Steam Machine will only be sold from Valve for right now. I think that's a good point. There's the hands and then where everything comes from. So again, this is Nintendo showing us how they built a little playground and then decided on what they were doing next. Was this talk being given in Japanese? Great intro in English, giving a great, they can clearly speak English very well. And then they switched over to Japanese. So then, and I have a picture of what the panel looked like in a second. Next slide. So then there's stuff like this that they show where this is clearly a tool in game that's being shown to say, okay, Donkey Kong's standing on mud. How much of this mud is wet? How does that affect its destruction? How much of this mud is dense? How does it affect its destruction? Not really readable, but you can see they had to make these tools. So then Donkey Kong walks around and smashes it. Next slide. Another thing here, this is the material properties I was just talking about. It's kind of showing, see, there's the obsidian panel. And what is that? That's probably harder than the other panels. And there's also a thing on here, which is not destructible. A lot of the game is not destructible. Yeah, the metal stuff. Next panel, or next slide. Wetness value. Yeah, as I was mentioning, there's the wetness value. That's the mud, and it gets a little drippy and weird. Next slide. This is cool. So this is showing, they also had a tool that overlays, like, in any point, what is actually destructible. And again, the boxes aren't destructible or they're destructible in a very specific, just two polygon way. And they might go in and destruct other stuff. But this is, again, just showing Nintendo, showing their tools, showing their dev tools, right? That's what they had to make for this game. Next slide. And I promise I'm almost at the end. This is showing how many voxels are in this level. So they backed out their camera. 347 million? Yeah, 347 million 3D pixels are destructible and adjustable in this level. Running on a game that's running on a phone. And the point here was that it's on Switch 2, right? They tried to do this on Switch 1, and they just really couldn't work it out. And when they pull out, they're very proud that things scale this way. So there's still a texture when you pull out this far that looks like zebra or giraffe pattern on the level, even though what we're looking at is a level that's backed out so far away that it's just a tiny speck in the distance. All right, let's see what we got next. And this is going great, Jobra. I really appreciate this. This is showing what's destructible and what's not. And just kind of, again, another dev tool. Next up. Okay. All right. So this is showing basically you can make a testable level before you make your game. And this testable levels, they put a bunch of their materials together and made a little obstacle course. And you can see this stuff would not have made it into the game itself. But they just kind of build these almost like Mario 64 levels, right? These little playgrounds. I just like seeing Nintendo build this stuff. This is the special stuff for me. It's like seeing this game that never existed that came out. So if you're now watching this on YouTube, maybe skip to this section, and you can check it out. There's just a couple more. Next up. Again, there's rocks that aren't destructible and rocks that are. But you can't tell the difference while you're playing. That's what they're saying in this slide, which is really cool. Next up. And they call that the trappings. This is what the panel looked like at the front. There's also, I don't know, 1,000 people behind this area. Like, I was up front here, and it was really fun to watch them go through this stuff. And they had jokes, and they had the audience all give thumbs up, like Donkey Kong at one point, stuff like that. And I think the final slide is next, which is another-- well, let's skip through these. Well, this one's just showing that in Donkey Kong, when they designed anything, it had to be filled with stuff. In Mario Odyssey, you could just build a polygon and walk across it. But in Donkey Kong, you had to fill it with something all the time that could be destructible. I thought that was cute. Next up. Let's skip past this. We're almost there. These are just cool slides. And this is the final one. You never get to see what it looks like when the team gets together. It's incredible. It takes a group photo at Nintendo. And you can just see a couple things about the youngness of this crew and how into it they are. And again, this window behind the scenes at Nintendo is totally unique and what makes GDC special. So I just wanted to share that sometimes you hear about this conference, and it's not as exciting as CES or E3 or whatever, but this is why it's fun to go to it. You get to see this. And Damon and I have been to these about old games, like Doom or NBA Jam or whatever. Which I think they stopped doing with the team. It's cool. Because they're-- Yeah. There are so many games, like you play a Bethesda game, and you kind of see behind the curtain all the time, right? Like you glitch through the floor. You can just turn the camera and see through a wall and stuff like that. And you don't get that in Nintendo games, just because of how polished they are. So it's weird to be like, somebody made this game. They did use dev tools and stuff like that. They talked about that exact example. They were like, oh, yeah, we're OK with some clipping in this game because we think it's fun. They were talking-- and they showed what they meant, which was like, an enemy was kind of destructive and going around stuff. But if the edge of its shoulder went through a wall, it doesn't matter. It's like spinning and doing crazy stuff. Acceptable levels of bugginess is fine in this game. It was cool. Cool. Kind of makes me want to play "Donkang Bonanza" again. Yeah. Also, I'm starting to get really excited for the "Mario Galaxy" movie. Yeah, it's going to be a good time. It'll be fun. I think I'll watch it in Japan. Oh, there you go. Oh, fun. After-- Oh, fun. The first movie, I have no fears about the second movie. We were all kind of worried. We're like, are they going to be able to pull it off? Is it going to suck? Blah, blah, blah. And it's like, now that I've seen it, it's like, OK, yeah, I'll just take more of this. It's fine. I can't wait for the "Dark Empire Strikes Back" ending. They pull out of the galaxy. Mario has to-- Bowser was his father. Mario's missing an arm. Dude, if they make it where Bowser is Mario's father, I'd be so into that. That's impossible. Charles Martinet is Mario's father. Yeah. OK, that brings us to video game 20 questions. Our suggestion this week comes from Zach from Washington State, who says, I sit here digesting a meal from Taco Bell, listening to the latest episode of the only video game podcast questioning my life choices and staring at a pile of sauces. This got me thinking about the varying levels of hotness and the progressively more difficult games that could match. So he's-- here's what I have. He's got five possibilities. You three will choose. You will choose your level of hotness that you want for video game 20 questions this week. There's a mild option-- Diablo. We got to go Diablo. There's a mild option, a hot option, a fire option, a Diablo option, and a Verde option. No way, dude. That's interesting. Maybe we have-- Verde's not hot. You have to pay extra for Verde. Verde is something a little different. Yeah. So if you choose Verde, you're getting an option that's a little different. Just a little zag. That's cool. I mean, if this was Taco Bell, I'd be all in on Diablo. But let's try the Verde, because Nick's here, and he's going to help. Zach says, love the show. I've listened to every episode since around 2015. Recently, my daughter was in the car with me and asked if I had met you all. I told her no, and her response was, well, you should. You listen to them so much. Well, we'd be happy to meet you. Where does he live? Early June. Washington State. We're going to-- oh, well. We could do a game scoop tour up there. Yeah, we could do that. PAX West. OK. So you guys want the Verde option? Yeah, let's do Verde. Sure. OK, Jobert, the Verde option is what has been chosen. Let me just help myself out and make sure I've got some info here. Wait, does Jobert have an asset or something? He always has an asset to play when the game is revealed. Oh, yeah. That's right. I always go Diablo, man. I don't know. It's just I like the taste of the Diablo sauce at Taco Bell. I love it. No, because we're coming off two losses, I think. Oh, OK. It just has a sauce. Diablo's very good. It has a good sweetness and tang to it. Wait, I might have lost it. Is the sauce-- is the heat of the sauce relevant to how different difficult the game is or how difficult our challenge is? How difficult-- he thinks the challenge would be. Got it, got it. OK, so, OK. That's why we're not going. Because we're not going to get some-- I don't know. I can't think of it. I think we're on a bit of a-- I think my opinion is that the fire sauce would be the hardest one to get to. But you could get to all of these. So maybe we should have gone Diablo. We got to-- No, we can get better there. Yeah, let's do it. There's not a higher reward, so it's just-- No, there's money on the line. I mean, it made me think about Taco Bell. We're on Poly Market. We got to get-- I got a lot of calls on this one. Oh, god. Can you imagine? OK, so with the Verde option chosen, let the questioning begin. OK. Is this-- I mean, is this game from the '70s, '80s, or '90s? Yes. Well, yes, OK. Well. Oh, oh. Yes, it is. It is. That means it's like '99 or 2000. Or 2000 or something. '99. It is. Or it's like just still existing in some form that like-- hmm. Is this game from the 1995 and later period? Yes. OK. Oh, wow. OK, was this game developed in Japan? Yes. Was this game featured on the Nintendo 64? No. Is this a PS1 exclusive? Yes, it is. OK. That's fine. Exclusive. Japan PlayStation exclusive. Dang. We're in my zone. OK, so now it's something a little bit different. So I'm thinking, you know-- But it's going to be-- yeah, it's not going to be Final Fantasy VII. Yeah. It's going to be something like-- You're jumping flashes. You're-- Yeah, yeah. It is developed in Japan. You're Croc, Legend of the Gabbo. Is this in any of the PlayStation-- well, is this on the PlayStation Mini collection? No. Maybe like a Vib ribbon. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I-- man, I kind of want to-- I guess nothing from Square Enix would be like out of the box. i don't think do you think this game might have not gotten a port to the united states like it could be a i wouldn't pick a game that was not okay okay all right um nice guy would you call this game having an artsy or quirky art style no i don't know i don't think okay that's great that helps us eliminate a bunch hmm uh is this an rpg yeah yeah yes oh no maybe it is i know that i know that's i know that's not really gonna like narrow it down a ton because that's like is that like what's it called the monster what's it called the monster rancher monster rancher is that a thing is that dreamcast no that was on playstation where you put a music cd and you get a monster based on the cd you put in but i don't know and then there's like and then xenogears yeah i would say that's i i think tradition great gradia to your point mark i think the playstation era rpgs were i would argue just regular rpgs it wasn't like a playstation last of us where it kind of has rpg elements in it um so let's see so rpg no when i think of ps1 i think of legend of dragon final fantasy very traditional well he laughed though so it may Maybe it's based on a license. The Verde option. The Verde. A little bit different. That's why I know it's not like Final Fantasy VII. Is this based on a license? No. Is this game from Squaresoft? Nope. Okay. That's 10. Just got to eliminate that. It's good to get that out of the way. It's not Brave Fencer Musashi, guys. Is it an Atlus game or something? Hmm. Is this developer still around? I don't know. Okay. That's a freebie. I don't know. We're not going to get this one. Okay. Is this the first of its name in a series? Yes. So it is a series, and it's first of its name. Maybe it's like a Mega Man Legends or something. Because that's kind of weird. It's not a Mega Man traditional game. Yeah, that was a 64, though, as a port. And it says exclusive to PlayStation. Okay. Do you play as a human? Yes. Yes. Okay. RPG where you play as a human. There's a little bit of a pause there, though. He had to think about that. I'm also thinking about the. You got to meta it. Why did I pause? Because Mega Man, he is part human. He's a humanoid. He's a boy. Mega Man's a boy. He's a boy. He's a boy. He's a boy. He's a boy? He's a robot. He's a man. He's literally a robot made by a human. He's a cyborg. I don't think so. That would imply that he has grown skin and stuff. He's all metal, isn't he? All right. So someone get Dr. Light on the phone. I've never gotten that close to him. What type of humans are not humans? There's like mischief. No, that's not exclusive. Okay, you play as a human. It's an RPG, PlayStation 95 and later. A little bit weird. Not a usual game. That makes me think it could be a spinoff or just an unusual game, period. Let's see. Nick, you got us in this mess. Is this a. How did I do this? You guys wanted to go back there. I wanted to go Diablo. No, you said. If this was Final Fantasy VIII, I'd have it by now. I think I forced the video here. Is this an RPG set in like a traditional fantasy setting? You know, swords and magic? Yes. Okay. See, I'm helping. Legend of Dragoon could be of. I don't think that's. Was that square? Could it be a super deformed, like crazy, like super cute RPG thing? Does anything like that exist? Super cute? Hmm, I don't. I don't. LeCroy? Chrono Cross is square. That's kind of weird. Yeah, that is square. Was Legend of Dragoon square? I didn't really like that game, so I always forget. I can't remember. I think it might be square. He said the developer's not around anymore. No, I said I don't know. He said he didn't know. So that's got to be. Y'all would know if it was Enix or Square. Yeah. Well, no, we don't know if Legend of. We don't know if Legend of Dragoon is a Square Enix game. Yeah, I always forget because I just don't care. I don't care about that game. What else? Fantasy setting. Yeah, maybe it is something like an Arc the Lad or like a. Is this a turn-based game? Yes. Turn-based. How many questions are we at? 14. That's 14. All right. Could be Suikoden. Yeah, that's Konami. We do know it's a Japanese developer. Y'all would know if they were still around. We would know if Konami was around. Konami is still around. I think they are. This is just something super weird. I'm surprised it's not based on a license. I was hoping for like some weird license game. I'm trying to think of like it's like an RPG in a medieval or, you know, like an RPG fantasy setting. But it's weird. Is it? Oh, maybe it's.hack? No. That was PS2. I think that's PS2. Is the game. That's like an MMO, but it's not. Is the series still. Is the series still around today? Yes. Okay. It's still relevant. That's 15. And I will say you guys are not thinking Verde enough. We got to get weird. The series is still around today? Huh. Japanese developer started on PlayStation. First of its name. We don't know if the devs around. It's the Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Yeah. Protector of the PlayStation. Actually, no. The Knight of the Nine Kingdoms. What? Human. You play as a human. Kind of. Yes. With hesitation. Does this game have cartoony or anime graphics? Um, I mean, that's a little bit hard to. I don't want to answer it. Is this game. I refuse. Is this game primarily like polygons? Polygonal? No. Okay. So maybe sprite. Oh. So maybe it's like a sprite-based, turn-based RPG. What if it's just a collection? Maybe it's the Final Fantasy collection. No, it's not Square. But what if it's like a collection of older games? Because that would be. Like ported. I mean, that is weird. Ask me if it's a collection. Is it a collection? Is it a collection? It could be. Wait, what? What? If you were to use it in a certain way, it could be. What is happening, Nick? This is so Verde. It's a turn-based RPG that could be a part of a collection. Okay. It sounds like it's a card RPG or something. There's something like that that uses the PlayStation Eye or something. Like Skylanders. This is PS1. There's no PlayStation Eye on the PS1. Yeah, this is before all the weird stuff. Well, it's not an IP, though, so it's not like a Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories. Like Beyblade. Remember that? Yeah. Oh, I love Beyblade. But what are we at? You've got two questions and a guess. Do we want to figure out like pixel art? Sprites? Pixels like sprites? That collection thing is so weird. I don't. If you want it to be. I can't even begin to understand what that means. Maybe it's like a show on a disc. Or some collection like that. Oh, it's a demo disc. Demo disc. There you go. There you go. Yeah. Wait, what? No, that's too insane. That's too bad. It could be that. Is this a PlayStation demo disc volume 2 1998 edition? Can I play Tony? Does this game feature other games? Okay. Am I allowed to ask a medical. Like, are demo discs on the table? I think you have to. I think you have to. I think you have to. I only pick games that were released in North America. Okay. So it can't be an entertainment thing. I mean, is a demo disc a game that's released? I mean. Why would that be a collection only if you wanted to? It is a collection. Yeah, that part just. That's. Because maybe the game is featured in a demo disc. I don't know. I've never been more excited to find out what the answer is. I'm excited, too. I'm not even careful. I'm excited, too. Ask me two more questions. One question and a guess? Two questions and a guess. Okay. There's, like, a Landgrisser. There's Ark the Lad. There's Alundra. It's not relevant, though, to this day. So that eliminates those. Never mind. Did this game exist as just a playable PlayStation disc sold in stores? Well, but. I don't think you want to burn a question on that. I only pick those kinds of. Yeah, yeah. I don't want. Well, then it had to be free. It's still relevant to this day. Well, but there's no downloadable stuff on PlayStation. So anything you would buy, you would have to. What? Should we ask about the accessory thing? Could it be accessory-based? i can't think of a single ps1 accessory i mean there's just weird controllers but that's about it like it's a collection if you also what's what's tripping me up is that it's a series that's still going today turn like a turn-based fantasy rpg okay what what if it had retro games inside of it yeah i mean that that's certainly possible i'm trying to think of like a playstation one game that has that maybe playstation oh what if it's like a early is there like any land games are connected to the internet things where you could download stuff like it'd be called like the playstation channel or whatever not ps1 he would not thought i can think ps2 was the only the network adapter for that i mean like einhand i don't i can't think verde enough for this i just can't i can't pull this off my brain doesn't go verde enough for this all right let's get two questions and a guess we can just give up dude you just give up too does this game ascribe to the live moss motto of taco bell what did the most recent entry in this game come out in the last three years well hold please oh so there is a possibility it's pretty relevant let's see turn-based fantasy rpg turn-based i mean i could be like a shin megami tensei a persona here we go this is this is how long i have to scroll on this series there's a lot of them what okay last the question was this is the most recent from the last three years yes it's is there was there a east game on the playstation but like super super long running if you have to scroll that much maybe it's like a telly air or were those on ps1 i don't even know i think it's like a i think i was ps2 what is the first one even called i don't even know what'd you ask him one question and a guess yeah i i think i'm out i don't i bomber man this is bumming me i don't know oh i know have we said the name of the game no no no all right um gosh is it uh what's what's a it lasts is it a disgaea game first appeared on playstation 2 your verity option something a little different is rpg maker if you use it to make more than one game it's a collection yeah yeah you're right this is the worst bridge troll riddle i've ever had in my entire life that's the worst bridge troll riddle i've ever had in my entire life that that was that was the verde option though i i'll accept i would argue this is a part this ascribes to the live moss motto of taco bell okay well yeah yeah it's not a game i want to live we should have thought about that not moss it is a game because you you do you do make the game and then you can play it but i mean like now now the comment you're not thinking verde enough makes sense because it's like this isn't a game it is a game but it's it's a game that where you make games uh you play as a human i i consider it's you it's yourself making the game that's fair also what the characters are just humans the developer is kusuo kagaku like a guy a dude i have no idea i wanted kagakusan is still around when i was a kid so they're still making rpg the most reason why it was 2024 i'm pretty sure they've been featured on humble bundle like you can buy like 40 of them i think this is just this is always a new rpg maker coming out i'm glad really and sam your question is what's going on with the rpg maker i'm glad i'm glad i'm glad i'm glad i'm glad i'm glad does it have cute anime graphics well it's just pixel art but then what's confusing is that i'm i'm i'm reading from the wikipedia entry in order to allow players to create their own graphics and animations for rpg maker a second program on the same disc called anime maker is included which creators could use to design graphics and import them into their role-playing games that's impressive that's why i didn't want to i didn't know how to answer that question okay cool that was a fun one that was good i think even though we lost it i still had fun yeah that was a tough one that was that was certainly better there here yeah here are your other options your mild option was little nemo the dream master oh wow hot was bactite the sun is in your hands oh love it i would have never got any of these fire the one i think is the hardest is godzilla 2 on nes okay that would have been yeah i would have got wow which i think we could have because of sam is panic bomber on virtual boy i wouldn't have got that but that's great that's cool i would have got bactite these are all kind of hard though tie why is it mild like mario 64 joe this footage is driving me crazy we've got to get this down this is literally making me he's making a game you're playing rpg maker man he's got the fire just set the sound already cycling can i just see an overworld real quick just scrub through let me find let me see some explorations this is world of long there we go this is what i need it's a video game yeah just select the sound well nicely attempt thank you for the suggestion zach from washington state viewers listeners if you have your own suggestions for video game 20 questions email them to me at the email address gamescoop at ign.com all right that's all the scoops we have for you this week thank you nick thank you sam thank you mark thank you joebert working behind the scenes to make this episode possible my name is damon this is ign game scoop and we're out Evil, super powerful robot. 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