Game Scoop! 851: Sony's Surprising Slump

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So whether you're playing, creating, or jumping between both, everything runs the way it should. No interruptions, no slowing down. You don't have to adjust how you play. You just keep gaming your way, however that looks in the moment. Be more Alien at Alienware.com/gameyourway. What's up, everybody? Welcome to IGN GameScoop. I'm your host, Damon Hatfield. Joining me here in studio is Dick Lamone. I'm back, baby. We are also joined by Sam Claiborne. Hey, it's good to be here on a sunny Thursday. And hopefully, Justin Davis will remain here for the rest of the episode and will not be sucked out of his house by the tornado that an alarm is currently going off for. To God's speed there, Justin. Like, 99% this is going to stay really funny. There's like a 1% chance that that joke becomes super not funny. Think of how viral this podcast would go, though. Like, if we just see you get ripped from the room, I don't, I don't want that to happen, but I'm just saying. Dick's like, I'm a content guy. And what I'd like to see happen, what I'd like to have happen-- Try to bring the mic with you. That way we can get the last, like, scream, you know? I'll recreate the Wilhelm scream. Nothing against you personally. It would just be better content. We should have done a t-shirt mic for you this time. Did you see there's an anniversary of Stand By Me recently? This is just pre-show that we're in right now, right? This is the actual show. We're in the show. Oh, OK. Well, there's a-- you know, Stand By Me had its anniversary. And they showed this scene of Vern, like, trailing a mic box out of his pants as he's running up to these train tracks. And it's been in the movie this whole time. Oh, yeah. That's great. No one ever noticed. And like, once you see it, it's like, not like, oh, wow. I would have never spotted that. Like, everybody should have seen that white box coming out of this kid's pants as he trips over and runs up a train track. Yeah, there's a, in the goodies, one of the boys calls the other boy by his real name and not his character's name. And that's it. That's in the movie, too. It's when they're in the basement of their restaurant. That's so good. Cory. Yeah, exactly. "Vestibule Gremlin," I love it. It's in the movie. We've got a great show for you this week. We have the latest video game publisher rankings that Metacritic puts out every year, where they rank publishers by the quality of games they released. There's always some good surprises there. Publishers who are doing better than you would expect and others that are doing worse than you would expect. We also got to talk about the insane situation with PS5 prices. And then there's some really weird headlines this week, that I'll share that maybe you guys missed. Very weird headlines happening in video games this week. But first, a quick PSA. I'm going to be out on vacation all next week. The family and I are going to Tokyo. And I think Nick is also going to Tokyo. I am. But we'll be two ships passing in the night. But do not fret, Scoop Nation. Sam will host next week. So there will be no interruption to your Scoop injections. Save some of those weird headlines for me. I like that. We'll have to come up with a segment. Well, we'll see. We'll see. You got to be-- Sam, you need to be able to find your own weird headlines. Yeah. You need to be willing to get a little bit weird if you're going to host this show. Weird Scoop. So with that said, but first-- I already did, but first. The Video Game Publisher Rankings. So Metacritic does this every year. They use four sort of categories that they're judging them on. Their average Metascore for all games that they released in 2025. Then they get bonus points for the number of games that have at least a good score or higher, which is a 75 or higher. They get docked points for their Bad Games that have a 49 or lower score. And then they get five bonus points if they get a great score, which is 90 or higher. And they have to have released at least five games over the year. So that's what they're going on. I just want to point out, they could have just used the scores as the points and added them up. That's exactly what I was going to say. It's like, why not just use the average? Well, that's not what they did. So they got 28 publishers here on this list. And coming in at the bottom spot, number 28, is Idea Factory. Oh, that's Octopath, right? Or-- no, that's Algebra Factory. Octopath is Square Enix. Oh, yeah, first of all, but any guess who's going to be the number one publisher for 2025? Nintendo. Probably Nintendo. I was going to say Capcom. I'm going to say EA, because they probably put out like two games last year, and they were both getting-- No, you have to have at least five games. Did EA have five games last year? Let's find out. Wow. Who can know? Anyway, Idea Factory put out six games, 14% of them were good. Its best-reviewed game was Battlefield Waltz for Nintendo Switch, which had a 77. Oh, wow, that was very fast with the B-roll. That's impressive. Well, yeah, Jovert is a professional. But they had a GIP-heavy lineup. Stuff like, what, have you even heard of these, Nick? It doesn't-- Scar Led Salvation, it got a really low score. It looks like an Otome game, but maybe that's just because they're all beautiful boys. OK, coming in next, number 27 was Arc System Works. All right. Six games. Best one was Guilty Gear Strive, Nintendo Switch Edition. Which has an 83. And good reviews for something called Dear Me, I Was-- ellipses. That's got to be a visual novel. Yeah, that sounds like it. But then they had that new Double Dragon game, which is bad, and a fighting game based on Hunter X Hunter. Oh, and then Impact, yeah, yeah, yeah. So those are both. Coming in at number 26, Nacon. Slash Daedalic. I guess they're the same publisher. Didn't they just go out of business? Is that true? I don't know. I think they filed for bankruptcy today. I'll look it up. OK. Well, they put out eight games. Best one was Hell Is Us, with a 78. Yeah, that game was pretty interesting. A lot of cool ideas in that one, but it ran horribly on my PC. It would crash the desktop. But I like the vibe. But low scores for-- what is it? Oh, yeah, Nacon, they did file for bankruptcy. OK, well. They should have-- maybe they should have-- This game looks crazy. This is which one? This is Hell Is Us? This is Hell Is Us, yeah. Well, they also put out-- It kind of looks like Stranding-like. Yeah. They also put out Ambulance Life: A Paramedic Simulator, which sounds like Nintendo's deal of quantity fair, if I've ever heard it. That sounds like a Gamescom game. And they had RoboCop, Rogue City, Unfinished Business DLC. Oh, nice. But it was scored low. OK. Sam's completely right. That did look like a Strand-type game. Oh, Strand there. Yeah. Number 25 is Microids. French publisher. Five games out last year. Best one was AmeriZone: The Explorer's Legacy on Xbox, as in '82. They also had Agatha Christie: Death on the Nile. Those are popular games. Yeah, those are popular games. Is that like a point and click? Yeah, mystery adventure. Yeah, I don't think literally point and click. Yeah, you don't do that anymore. But it's a walking simulator, I suppose. Yeah. Lower scores for Siberia. Siberia Remastered, Space Adventure Cobra: The Awakening, and Kaku: Ancient Seal. You got to rethink some of these game titles. I remember Siberia. That's wild. I haven't heard that name in a while. OK, here's our first surprise, I think. Number 24 on this list, so pretty far near the bottom, is Bandai Namco. 23 games released. Geez. Wow. Not a lot. But only 43% of them good. Best one was actually Elden Ring Night Rain. Wow. That game does rule. Can confirm. I can see Bandai Namco, though they have licenses. So they probably put out a bunch of crap that people are going to buy anyway. And it's good business. Yeah. So they put out, apparently, more games than any other company on this list. And they had Elden Ring. And they also had the latest Katamari. But then they've got Tamagotchi Plaza, Sin Duality, Echo of Ada, and Everybody's Golf: Hot Shots, which, yes, that was very disappointing. Yeah, I heard about that. Did they do-- what's it? The vampire Bloodborne game? The-- Dustbloods? That's not out yet. No. Never mind. The sequel of something. I just had it. And I lost it. All good. Cut the vampire The Masquerade. Yeah, The Masquerade. No, the anime one, though. It's a Souls-like anime game. Oh, Code Vein. Code Vein 2. We got Code Vein. I think-- was that last year? Or did that come out this year? They had Code Vein 2 last year, I think. I don't even remember that one. There you go. It took me a minute. Sorry. OK, number 23 is Annapurna Interactive. Eight games, 47% of them were good. The best one was LEGO Voyagers. And I did not realize that was an Annapurna-published game. Wow, good for them. Same. Interesting. I want to play that. I forgot about that game. Damn. Cute game. Looks good. Yep, it's a cute game. Very short. They also did Lego Builder's Journey. That's a cozy adventure game, I think. So anybody can just publish Lego games now. Yeah, I guess so. But they had some misses. Something called Tuati, something called Wheel World, and Roguelite Creature Collector Morsels. Tuati was the new game from. From Katamari Creator, right? Yeah, the Katamari Creator. And, you know, unfortunately, you know, it looked very cute, had very fun trailers, but did not critics, you know, didn't really resonate with it. But that one was a bummer that people didn't like it more. Number 22 is Playon. Playon? Playon, yeah, Playon. 10 games released, 48% of them good. Anyone guess what their highest, their best 2025 game was? Ark? Playon stuff? No. People may not realize they're the publisher of this game. It's Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. Oh, that's right. Hell yeah. Good game. I remember that now, but I had forgotten. Yeah. At the moment. Something got a really low score. Echoes of the End. Not a good help for them. It was like a two-player cinematic third-person action adventure game. Yeah, well. Okay, here's maybe the biggest. Well, maybe not. This is a big surprise. This is number 21 on a list of 28 publishers. So pretty low, and it's Sony. Wow. But would it surprise you to learn that they actually put out 13 games last year? Yeah, that would surprise me. But then I remember they had that Splatoon knockoff and all that other stuff. That was Square Enix, wasn't it? Oh. That was Square Enix. No, you're right. Yeah, Foam Stars? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That was Foam Stars. R.I.P. Call one out. Yeah. Is it gone? I think so. I have like no sense of time anymore. But that was like two years ago. Two, three years ago. Really? Mm-hmm. That can't be right. What were Sony's bombs? So, well, their best game was The Last of Us Part II Remastered on PC. I mean, they released that a couple times each year. Yep. So that has a 90. But they had Death's Turning 2 and Ghost of Yotei. Great game. The highlights. But then they published a horror party game called Midnight Murder Club. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That just seems, I had no idea and it just seems weird. It's a good name. They published a Chinese action-adventure RPG called Lost Soul Aside. Yes. Oh, yeah? People were very excited about that and it was kind of just mid-reception. And then there were two Destiny 2 expansions that both got low scores. So they just got dragged down by all that. It's so weird that they're the publisher for Destiny. Yeah. I mean, you know, speaking of losing all sense of time, like we're in the sixth year of these consoles, the sixth year of the PS5 now. Which is a little bit, we're in the fifth year because it turned six. Sixth calendar year. Yeah, exactly. So they're going to, Sony's going to win this console generation convincingly. They crushed Xbox without releasing any games. They just, they don't need to make video games. I mean, and I don't mean literally none commenters, but just like where are all the games? Yep. Like no new Uncharted game, no new Last of Us game. The theory. That we tested on next gen console watch this week is that this generation is going to go for another freaking six to seven years anyway. And you're going to get them by then. We're going to get everything skewed because like how is power people going to afford a thousand dollars system? We're just going to have to have an inflation catch up to it. Yeah. I haven't, I haven't actually sat down and done this, but I want to look at how many games Sony published on PS4 compared to PS5 because it feels like they're like many, many, when you look at lists like this, it might actually be so much more than you think on, you know, maybe. There is some, they do Astro Bot. Yeah. Well, that wasn't last year though, but yes. Well, I'm just saying it's a PS5 game. Yeah. Yeah. One of the best PS5 games. All right. At number 20 ahead of Sony is Atari. They're back. This is their big comeback year. Atari is back last year. They put out 10 games last year. 57% of them were good. None of them were bad. None of them. They all got good scores. Uh, you didn't review any of them, right? Their best one was C. Expansion stuff like this gets included, but you know, people reviewed it. It's the Atari 50 anniversary celebration of the Namco legendary pack, which has an 84 on Metacritic because people reviewed it. Good for them. That's that's awesome. I mean, I gave the base game a 10. That game is really fun. Uh, they put out a lot of reissues, reissues, remasters, compilations. Not all of them work, but, um, they've got, they include games published by night dive studios, infograms, and digital eclipse. Okay. They own all this. Did night dive do what system shock. Was that last year or system shock to system already? Yeah. One of them, one of like remakes or something. All right. Number 19 is P cube seven games released. 67% of them were good. Best one was ira Kura Aria for PC, which has an 83 much better than Sony last year. Uh, holding them back. Uh, so we're some duds like beyond the ice palace too, which is a sequel to a nearly 40 year old Commodore 64 platformer. Wait, wait, wait, wait, Jovert. Can you scrub back to that B roll? Oh, are we about to get seconds ago? What do we say? Is it before this? No, there's it'll be with the next line. I think that tickles. There it is. There it is. That was, that was it. It looks very, uh, house of Fatah Morgana visual novel, which people can't seem to get enough of tickles. What's with you calling him tootsies. Anyway, these are colloquially known as feet or is it's feet, right? Yep, yep, yep. Yes. All right. This is a Commodore. What a Commodore 64, not this one. Is that what you said? This is, this is the Aria, not beyond the ice palace. Yeah. Okay. Good night. The sequel to strip poker on the Commodore 64, or please stay with me, Justin. I think PQ was just found a niche. Yeah, this looks nice. Oh, look at the resident evil style maps. Room, room turn red, turn the room screen. Okay. Number 18 is a publisher I've never heard of. I think they're pretty new clear river games. They're out of Sweden. They released a handful of decent PS five and switch games last year. Seven games total. Oh, this is what it is. Their best game was operation night strikers, which is a collection of like operation Wolf operation Thunderbolt. And I think operation, well, night strikers that, yeah, just night striker. Anyway, space gun, old arcade games. They get lumped in and because they play it, it's safe and just do a collection of old games, they get ranked higher than Sony. Night trickers just got like a remake, right? Like, or a new entry, I believe, uh, came out like late last year, early this year. I remember, uh, the digital foundry or John was like all over. Oh, I love that getting ready scene and operation Wolf. It looks so good. That's amazing. Yeah. Okay. This was an era, big sprites, big sprites. So pretty, so good. I love, I played this game a lot when I was a kid. Oh man, the fake three D with a Sprite. This is so cool. Oh, what's space gun. This looks kind of sick. Yeah. This looks like a, a new game, right? Mm, no, I think that's an old arcade game. Anyway, uh, the, the listeners have no idea what we're looking at. Number 17 is marvelous slash exceed, put out seven games, 64% of them are good. The best one was the hundred line last defense academy on Nintendo switch. That's an 85 love that game one day. I'll check it out. They also had a Nick game story of seasons, grand bizarre, which is it's. Basically harvest moon, right? Yes. Yes. But they also put out less successful stuff like Damon X Machina, Titanic Scion, and a dungeon crawler mashup game, uh, mash with restaurant management. Cuisineer sounds like the delicious in dungeon. Yeah, that sounds really cool. Cuisineer was a good name. Space guns, a 1990 Taito arcade game, light gum game. And it looks amazing. Cool. It has graphics. Like I've never seen before. Like it's like pastels that they had in super Nintendo. Oh man. Got to look into this game. Number 16 is don't nod. They put out five games, 69% of them are good. Best one was lost records, bloom and rage. Tape one, which is probably an ex I played that. You played, I was going to say, I remember you talking about that, Sam. It sounded cool. Wasn't it episodic though? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's, you know, what's their, what's their big game? Life is strange. Life is strange. Yeah. So it's like a life is strange, but it's about like, um, a little bit more of a, um, there's like a rock and roll theme because the kids are in a band and then also it's in a, like a. Kind of a twin peaks. They are kind of twin peaksy. So it had that going for it, but that also, I also think that, um, they developed, uh, that, and then square Enix publish it. And then this was them sort of doing their own thing. I believe like, so that's right. That is what I recall happening there, but I might not be right about that. All right. I love this one. Number 15 is Konami. They're back, baby. Whoa. We keep talking about how they're back. They put out 10 games last year, 68% of them were good. Best one was greatest origins. Wow. Greatest collection, which included a new game. Yeah. Yeah. Actual new gradius game in there. They also had silent Hill. Silent Hill. Um, they had metal gear, Delta. Bolt bangers. Um, but they had a Yu-Gi-Oh compilation and Eden's zero and survival kids. I have zero issue with it, but I've never heard anyone pronounce it. Yu-Gi-Oh, which is crazy. It's Yu-Gi-Oh, but I was like, Whoa, it took me. Sorry. I was a big Yu-Gi-Oh head back. In a day. So it's just one of those things. It stood out to me. It caught my ear. It's animated gifts. So I should have known better. Yu-Gi-Oh's mansion. Um, we, uh, I I'm really curious where Sunsoft falls in this, uh, list of ancient video game publishers, including Atari and Konami. But I don't, I don't know if they put out five games. I don't know if they'll make the list. Yeah. Number 14 is devolver digital. Everyone's favorite indie publishing house. Uh, put out 12 games. The only publisher. Brave enough to go up against Grand Theft Auto this year. Yeah. 60 uh the 69 nice of their games were good and the best one was ball pit yeah dude but there should be so it's like i and i i guess i'm kind of we were goofing at the beginning on the kind of convoluted metacritic um you know scoring system of like you get bonus points for this and that and it's like just take the average of your scores but it's like maybe you should get even more bonus points if you make something that's like a game of the year candidate or winner it's like surely like ball pit's like a generational game like it's so good it should get them more than just five bonus points other highlights were the tallest principal reawakened uh platformer called shotgun cop man oh yeah that one's really good that one's really really good that's a video game title all right mitchell has some really cool gameplay of that and it got my attention this is news to me they published monster train 2 whoa i like i like them even more yeah i mean think about the choices this developer made to or not developer this publisher made to find like cool games and put them out though like that's that's the dream right for publishers yeah so shotgun cop man is from the crew of of uh my friend pedro yeah but the platforming is done via the shotgun that propels you it's great right it's like a rocket jump but shotgun this game looks this is also the n n plus people that's what it looks like but it's not them but it's clearly evoking that style yeah yeah i like that game a lot uh devolver's big mish was big miss was tron catalyst yeah that was a mike biffle game i believe was it i believe so yeah what type of game was that i i don't i don't remember yeah i think it was i want to say i don't i don't want to say because i might be wrong yeah tron aries that was quite a movie uh shot a plane number 13 is koei tecmo nine games was in it dynasty warriors origins was that last year yep that is on there which is apparently well received but their best game was atelier ryza secret trilogy deluxe pack for nintendo switch you know one one of these days i might check out the old atelier reset yeah dynasty warriors origins and then ninja gaiden 2 black but its biggest dud was warriors abyss i guess it attempted to add a roguelite element to dynasty warriors no with mixed results that sounds kind of cool though yeah yeah for sure and here we are at number 12 is nintendo wow kingdom for number one maybe number 12 but they put out 18 games the best one was uh tears of the kingdom nintendo switch 2 edition 95 perfect game yeah um charts breath of the wild would it be there as well i would assume yeah yeah that's up there as well too and you know obviously they had you know mario kart world which even though it's disappointing still very good game high scores eights and and such dunking on bonanza i think we gave that a 10 right what do you think about it i think it's a good game i think it's a good game i think it's a good game there are two games that nintendo got really low scores for last year oh oh um well the wheel the the wheelchair one drag drive drag drive yes and okay and was there a kirby or princess game or everyone's already that wasn't princess peach right that was the year before that was the year before everyone forgot about the nintendo switch to welcome tour i like welcome tour i spent money on that i like it totally it's cute you don't need to defend welcome cool you think it's something that nintendo should have charged money for well i mean i didn't say that don't put words in my mouth i'm just saying it's a well-made and well-constructed thing uh number 11 is ubisoft and everyone's just flipping their tables now that ubisoft is ranked higher than nintendo ac shadows but they put out eight games and uh they have 81 of them were good the best one was nintendo switch and i think it's a good game i think it's a good game i think it's actually the from the ashes that's a persia from the ashes expansion for avatar frontiers yeah i heard good stuff yeah but they put out assassin's creed shadows and the prince of persia uh the lost crown and then also anno 117 pax romana the lost crown was last year or like the january oh my god wow yeah i can't help but notice we haven't got the 2k yet yep oh yeah well yeah i don't know it's hard like five games it's like a kind of a high-ish bar depending on what type of company you are yeah dude avatar and third person goes crazy this looks cool all right we arrive at the top 10 number 10 is raw fury they put out nine games the best one is blueprints that's nice blueprints last year they also did the seance at blake manor i've heard nothing but good things about that one and then a point and click detective adventure kathy rain to soothsayer but their misses were pretty good and i think they're doing a good job they're doing a good job i think they're doing a good job they're doing a good job i think they're doing a good job i think they're doing a good job i think they're doing a good job i think they're doing a good job i think they're doing a good job i like the original it's like a deck builder roguelike right they call it a deck builder okay number nine is dot emu they put out eight games the best one was absalom which i played just a little bit of and it seems like i would like it if i put more time into it they also had ninja guide and rage bound oh i love that game so much i love that game so much i love that game so much yeah great game and then cross blitz some kind of a rpg hybrid game um yeah and they include their alternate label the arcade crew their misses were a deck builder called shuffle tactics and a first person shooter called abyssus cool name and here you go sam number eight is electronic arts okay battlefield good year uh 12 games 79 good best one was split fiction well oh wow yeah geez i forgot that was last year too i know i know uh all their sports games get good scores except for nhl oh that one should get good scores yeah battlefield was well received as well i enjoyed battlefield quite a bit so since neither what's that justin oh just better video game company than sony and nintendo well since nintendo neither nintendo or ea are number one does anyone want to revise pick a different hold on ea was rated the worst company in the world 15 years ago remember that yeah that was great uh what's what could be number one maybe i have a hard time i'm the same as you guys i can't remember what came out last year i don't know xbox i don't know what would it be my xbox game studios or xbox game studios xbox has to be up there but because they definitely put out more than five games bethesda do they count or do we just count xbox there that that's yeah activision let's read on defined out number seven is sega 17 games whoa the best one being sonic racing cross worlds which yes i've been playing recently with kingo and it's very near mario kart quality it looks really fun it's very close to it it's everything is exactly the same and it plays like you would expect mario kart including the drifting the only thing that's different is when you drift they don't do a little hop into it you see so i miss it so much that little hop is so sad game feel man yeah it's cool um they also did shinobi art of vengeance which is great and justin they had two point museum yeah the two point games are great i didn't play museum i bought and i don't remember if it was in a humble bundle or what but i bought two point university for i think literally three dollars and you know because it was like some 90 off sale and then i played it for you know 20 hours like it was great i loved it but um sega apparently had underwhelming releases like warhammer 40k space marine master crafted edition and a very buggy football manager 26 which i don't know why sega is publishing football manager they always have always wow yeah okay number six is take two there they are nice seven games and actually the best one is just because of the um narrative around this game release it's funny but it was borderlands 4 at least on xbox that has a 90 on medical yeah got good scores though everybody ended up liking it a lot big deal 90 on medical wow i wouldn't have guessed that high i mean i mean you know i knew it was well liked well received but that's very high a big comeback for borderlands this says they take you had generally positive reviews for all of its 2025 games not named mafia the old country rude but you like that game sam do people not like that it was great did not get good reviews i thought it got good what's the metacritic i'm looking it up right now it has a 73 yeah actually has a 70 which is not green not good on metacritic uh has to be 73 75 that's interesting i can't recommend it enough it's a great game okay number five is microsoft okay wow which it does include bethesda activision blizzard everything uh highest rated game forza horizon 5 for ps5 they put out 21 games last year wow actually microsoft's two highest scoring 2025 games were playstation products forza horizon 5 and indiana jones in the great circle those were their highest scoring games in the great circle those were their highest scoring games in the great circle games but they also had um uh tony hawk's pro skater 3 and 4 outer worlds 2 the lower scored games were black ops 7 and then apparently the indiana jones dlc was not great avowed was up there too right uh well it was last year they don't mention it but yeah what the heck i think we gave it a seven though even though i like that game a lot yeah yeah man how how good how good was indiana jones unbelievable that's a video game i know it's crazy i think crazy i mean my hot take i don't don't hold me let me let me let me just think about this i'm gonna say it and then i'll validate it i'll validate it later but like i think xbox has put out like much better games than playstation this generation they've certainly put out more like i just i'm thinking about like you know because like in like my thought i'm like how good was forza how good was indiana jones and then it's like oh man like even like i know all the discourse around it but i thought halo infinite was really great i like the campaign a lot i still play halo infinite to this day it's always downloaded on my computer i bet starfield is better now i'll check it out in like april when the dlc comes out all right the second wave of it uh number four is thunderful they put out six games 90 of them were good the best one was islanders for pc i played the original it's very cool a very sort of peaceful chill you know uh it it's a puzzle game where i don't know how to describe it like you're you're building a little town and then it's sort of rogue likey where like you don't get to choose what parts of the town that you build and so it's like meditative and peaceful but like you're plopping down houses and plopping down businesses and you score points for putting them in that i didn't know that's what this was they're kind of like making arcades scoring out of a sim game yeah yes that's kind of awesome yeah and then you and then you build them so you can play it a couple different ways you can just be like i want to make something that's aesthetically cool or you can min max like no i really don't know really want to like absolutely maximize my points it's got a style going for it too was this on phones also uh i don't know i played it on steam good steam deck game thunderful also had lost in random the eternal die that was like that too i played a spin-off or a secret oh well no i played the original then yeah because i didn't realize that wasn't the same thing but i was on game pass okay the top three we arrive at the top three and number three was capcom i i thought they just had monster hunter wilds i don't remember that was their best reviewed game last year wow they put out seven games seven yeah but they were held back by onimusha 2 samurai's destiny remaster that's because the kids aren't used to ps2 games nowadays it's not yeah obviously they're off to a very good start in 2026 yeah what else did they have besides those i don't i don't have the full list here hey i'm there had to be like this year we're getting mega man collection or something yeah maybe a collection well or does that published by you know digital eclipse or something now this year we have still pragmata we just had a high-rated monster hunter and then there's probably a mega man this year right dude i cannot no i think mega man's gonna be next year but that said really yeah i think so but pragmata was um that uh justin what was the as a japanese title and it's kind of a tower defense game oh uh uh kuni kunigami did oh yeah yeah kitsugami or something like that yeah yeah that was a cool one it's like a pikmin like yeah i believe no i think that was two years ago okay yeah fun game i don't know if it yeah i don't know if it still is but i played that on game pass for a long time too did they publish dragon's dogma uh dragon's dogma is capcom was that last year no i think that was two years ago two years ago i think so okay wow all right number two is not a publisher i'm familiar with but they had a hundred percent good good games uh five games all had good scores it's gamera games formerly known as gamera games they probably had to change that for legal reasons it's a chinese chinese indie publisher all five of their games uh were had green scores and the best one was absalom on the pc version of absalom oh interesting the whole name what else which means uh the best one was absalom the pc version of absalom oh interesting the whole name what else the number one goes to square enix whoa nine games 100 of them good uh the highest rated game being the final fantasy 7 rebirth for pc pc yeah but also more final fantasy and dragon quest games even its worst low score game saga frontier 2 remastered was still good one of these days square enix like selling off companies and contracting and stuff last year too like they're not publishing two raiders and western stuff anymore i think it's been a while they got rid of crystal dynamics a long time ago like they sold off that yeah and like the idos montreal i've been telling this story that they're always disappointed with sales i mean and that could be true even with good scores right but yeah yeah they should just add tifa yep it's easy as that you heard it here first tifa dlc for every square enix game moving forward i actually heard it here a second because i said this last week also just give t for her own game but after that after the bouncer 2 tifa edition they also they published power wash simulator which was oh cool that's a real bright spot last year yeah so there you have it the publisher rankings and if you in case you're curious previous year's number one ranking the year before was sega number one then capcom which would have been after the year of uh resident evil 4 remake and maybe that was dragons dogma 2 that was a dragon dogma 2 year i believe uh and probably the year after that probably a smaller monster hunter that got a great score the year before that 2021 was microsoft the year of forza horizon 4 and halo infinite then sega 505 games then capcom bethesda like ea sega again nintendo take two electronic arts microsoft and then 2010 the first year they started doing it was take two for gta 5 okay except gta 5 cd project never stands a chance but the year they put out the most games they put out like gwent at the same time as witcher yeah yeah 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 uh 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 uh pretty excellent deal especially for mobile service um you know i mostly use it to just uh scroll on social media and uh 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 bucks a month all plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5g network you can even bring your current phone and your number choose from three six or twenty and you can even bring your current phone and your number choose from three 12 month plans and say goodbye to a monthly bill to get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month go to mint mobile.com slash game scoop that's mint mobile.com slash game scoop cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mint mobile.com slash game scoop that's it there's no catch up front payment of 45 for three months 90 for six months or 180 for 12 months plan required 15 per month equivalent taxes and fees extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigs may slow when network is busy includes up to 20% of the total amount of money you need to pay for a network that's busy 20 gigs hotspot capable device required availability speed and coverage varies cement mobile.com 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 app store let's talk about the price of a playstation 5 today the day we're recording this april 2nd uh the new price of a playstation 5 is now 650 a digital edition is 600 ps5 pro wait damon damon we we need to stop down because you made a mistake you said 650 there's no way that can be right for the base console no i'm talking about for the base console yep well i agree that there's no way that can be right for the base console no i agree that there's no way this is sustainable this is not right and it doesn't play games any better than than it did five years ago yeah is that right yeah we're moving the wrong direction the ps5 pro is now 900 oh my gosh 900 so the digital edition costs 50 more than at launch now from 400 to 600 no 50 more i see what you're saying yeah okay a 50 price increase on the digital it's crazy so it feels like i was like damon and i had a meeting about um this topic for next gen console watch and i was remarking like you know console consoles don't exactly have a history of coming down in price over the generations and that you know do we really expect you know a system to ever cost you know 500 again but the damon made the point that generally within the system's lifespan right we do come down that's what i would say that's why i was saying we're moving in the wrong direction is it makes it feel like it's going to cost you know 500 again like obviously a price rise and a big price rise is already just such a gut punch but it's like what we we should have like you know a 250 ps5 now and then they shock the world by going to 200 on like black friday right yes we're six years in the we we should have all invested in ps5s and just got a whole garage of them and taking them to gamestop the we and what like the ps2 dropped to like 99 over the course of their life cycle right yeah hell yeah the red we remember that one yeah so cool well and then it's like you know so the xbox i i think the xbox series x is it's that ram That's what it is. It is the RAM. I think the Series X might also be $650. I don't know if I can be fact-checked on that. It also had a price rise, but it was when the console was already kind of struggling and it just buried it. Nobody's buying Xboxes anymore. And so all Sony had to do was hang on. They're like, well, we're also going to raise the price of our console, but we're going to wait eight months to do it. What a bummer. Whatever happened to taking a loss on a console and just eating that up and trying to put out a bunch of software? We're just so quickly. It was this crazy concept two years ago that now is becoming more normal by the day that consoles are something that are just for old dudes. It's becoming this thing of if you're a kid, you play on your phone or you play on your computer. And who wants to own a game console anymore? And just the narrow-minded. These companies have to look at the big picture. And if you want your console business to be healthy and sustainable. What's the future? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's my whole thing. All these little stands these PlayStations are on. I just have never used any of these things. It's really funny to see the little things in action. That's why you do it apparently. My PS5 stand is in a drawer under my entertainment center. And then it's just going to be there. Did you see that little clear thing that was on the end? Like it was some kind of baby grand piano? I got destroyed in an unboxing. Video because I unboxed the PS5 Pro when they came out and then I pulled out. I was like, oh, what's this little plastic thing? I've never seen that before. People like, look at this idiot. He doesn't know what the heck the stand was like. I bought an OG one, dude. Be an adult. Just put it in your entertainment console. It's fine. I know. Close it in a cabinet. So you hear it go every time a cutscene happens. It needs to sound like a jet. Nick, when you're in a gaming video, never say you don't know if something is either. Just. This is the video. Wait, this is the one. Either just don't address it or confidently say something. We're just going to revisit the trauma. Yeah. This is the this is the summer flange. See, there it is at the moment. Jover, what are you doing? This is PTSD. Why am I even wearing gloves? Well, at least you didn't get fingerprints on that little piece. Yeah, see, that's why you wear the gloves, folks. I know the GameScoop audience would never. I don't even know why I'm wearing these gloves. If you are, I'm I'm bringing I'm bringing us back, guys. I have I have something on topic to actually talk about. If you are a kid and you know you like video games, your video game, Curious A, no one's releasing video games anymore, as we talked about on the show a few weeks ago. If you're a fan of Dragon Quest or Pokemon or whatever, you're going to go from being like, you know, four years old to 11 years old before the next game is even going to come out. Yeah. And then B, you have to spend six hundred and fifty dollars or your family does to like have you buy in. And play this thing. Yeah, it's it's beyond what people are willing to accept. For 40 years, consoles have cost a few hundred dollars. Atari 2600 was 200 bucks in 1977, 30 years later, 35 years later, the PS4, four hundred dollars. The Switch was 300 and the PS5, Xbox Series X and the Nintendo Switch 2 are five hundred dollars. Like, that's it. There's a family isn't going to be like, oh, sure, let's just get a thousand dollar PlayStation six. It's just beyond what a normal like nothing but the hardest hardcore gamer would accept to pay. It's pretty interesting. It's just going to. Go ahead. Go ahead, Nick. I don't know. It's just just to juxtapose the PS3 like console launch price, because it was what, five ninety nine or something. What? The PS3. When they said. Oh, yeah. But yeah, you will. People wouldn't accept it. You will work two jobs in order to afford this. It's like now that the the shoe is on the other foot, it's a little bit interesting scenario. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Yeah. So I mean, you're I just and the kids, the kids still want to play video games, right? Like, you know, the interest in this medium is real, but it's like they're just going to like what's on my iPad, you know, what's on my Android tablet? You know, what can I play on my school Roblox like Fortnite? There's no friction to them, you know, pulling up Roblox on a tablet or Minecraft, you know, like there's Sony is creating so much friction to get people into their ecosystem. You know, Sam talks about them, you know, eating some of the costs of the console. It's got to be worth it because if you become a fan, we're so weird and tribalistic about our video game consoles. If you become a fan of that one, you're highly likely to buy the next one. Yes. And the one after that, they get you for life if they can get you in. And if you can afford to get into the ecosystem. Yeah. People just buy it. Like, obviously, that's Nintendo knows that, right? Like they are trying to get I know it was an expensive switch to but they are trying to get those in houses a lot more than Sony. Is. Yeah. No, it's this is like, I mean, this is a product of it's like exact time like this month this year to because like because of the RAM shortage and because of projected, you know, just delivery prices because of the oil problems right now and all that stuff that's happening, but like, we also didn't really see a period in which it went down because I think of because because greed, I guess. So it's like, you know, this. This trajectory is not sustainable. We're all talking about that way. But it's also like, I don't know how they change it. Yeah. Everything's more expensive. I do feel we do feel kind of locked in, like the word boxed in now, which is which feels bad. I mean, I think what they do is they change it by not making another one for a long time. Yeah. We're just talking about. I mean, I can console watch. That's not the same day as this. I'm when I play Resident Evil Requiem on my on my base PS five, I have no feelings of, oh, I can't wait for the next generation. I'm perfectly happy playing games that look like this on my system that I already have. I mean, they're going to do the PlayStation thing that they did this entire lifecycle, though, right? Where it was just the games released simultaneously on PS four, PS five, and then at some point it will be just PS five only. Yeah. Or it'd be interesting to see, like, so they take out the disk drive and it's like, what, 50 bucks off? Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. So what else can you take out, like take out that little stand, make it a square instead of. Of looking like a really stupid George Lucas car and like, you know, in, in, in, in just try to like pull out things that would make this system cheaper, like take, take the power supply, but an outside of it, you know, like I know it's a redesign, but like, that's the forward thinking that needed to be happening here is like, what are the things we can piece meal out to make sure that this goes to $400, you know, in, in, in six years. It's crazy. Yeah. You need a smaller one. You know, you need to, you gotta, you gotta make these changes, um, six with one stick of RAM instead of two. One stick. I mean, we talked about Nintendo, like the switch to is expensive, like $450. That's a lot of money for the, for the console, but they, you know, they announced the price of their console and then, you know, Trump announced all the tariffs and then Nintendo said, hold on, we need to talk about the price of our console. And then after a period of deliberation, they came back and said, no, we're not raising the price of the console for now. It is going to launch. Yeah. For now. We're going to launch it $450. And so like. You know, I'm sure that was a very fraught moment for Nintendo. We'll, we'll never know. We'll probably never know like what that costs the company and like how kind of tricky, you know, those discussions were, but, but they, you know, this is a company that's been around a hundred years and is making decisions because they'd like to be around and successful for another hundred years. Yeah. You gotta have kids playing your games. Yep. Here's, here's the thing. The best selling consoles of all time sell well over a hundred million units, PlayStation two. The, uh, PS four is well over a hundred million PS five is almost at a hundred million. If consoles cost a thousand dollars, they'll sell 10 million. Like you you'll just never have a hundred million selling console ever again. You'll completely shrink your audience. Uh, and the only people who could, who are playing your console are affluent hardcore gamers. It's going to be a really small group of people. You know, one other reason why you, you lower your, your console's price over the years is that the secondhand market is undercutting you. You're trying to make more systems still, instead of just having those ones in circulation. And that's, you know, clearly not going to happen either. That it's yeah. Feels bad, man. It does. Okay. Let's move on to some of these weird headlines, which I think are more fun. Who remembers Jalico? I remember Jalico. Yeah. They made city connection. And now a company called city connection has like the rights to old Jalico games, lots of eight and eight and 16 bit games. And then they did a bunch of sports games like basis loaded. So three new Jalico sports games have been announced this week, including two basis loaded ones. And this is why it's so weird. Yep. This is why it's so weird. So let me pull this up to two bases loaded, except it's called okay. Publisher hollow Indy and developer Clover lab. I'm really, I'm reading from Gamatsu have announced hollow base. It's a pixel art baseball game based on the classic Jalico title. Bases loaded. Dude. I miss this completely. This sounds sick. But it's a basis loaded pixel art game where you play as a hollow live or like it's a Japanese V V tuber. Yeah. Yeah. So it's weird. Oh, they're all V they're all hollow live V tubers. Yes. The players in this new base is loaded are all hollow live V tubers, which I guess maybe if you're. They have fans. People might recognize them. They, well, they took over Dodger stadium last year, one night where there was a hollow live night. wish i was there in the crowd because this era of baseball game is yeah yeah this era of baseball game is like really fundamentally easy to play so it's kind of cool to like cram it into that as like a shell because like they're very fun to play with a friend yeah i just the the second as as you all know i've played every garlic like there is every vampire survivor side game and and and the second best one is a hollow live fan game that is free oh my god i don't remember the name of it but if you google hollow live vampire survivors fan game i'm sure you'll find it it's on steam you can add it to your steam library it's completely free because it has to be non-commercial um and it's amazing it's great well the the about for this says a full scale classic baseball game bases loaded returns on hollow indie a baseball game where you build a team with hollow live talents fans and mascots inspired by hollow base and compete in the exciting matches it looks like a pretty solid game i mean maybe it's just i just said it was weird right it is weird yeah that's not the only jalico sports game announced this week they also announced jalico sports bases loaded two which this one yeah sick that's great it says oh wow bases loaded two second season was originally released for the nes in 1989 uh uh base or wait is where is it i don't know i've lost it here but this is basically it's a compilation of bases loaded games that includes bases loaded two but also uh pro moero pro yaku 88 katai bond and super bases loaded and super 3d baseball but they call it jalico sports bases loaded two wow okay maybe we're on the seo yeah maybe the 3d one looks crazy yeah like though that era of like sprite based sports games it's like look it's totally nostalgia they're not like objectively better than what we're getting now but it's like so arcadey and pick up and play and like so fun and like just takes me back to my youth me and everybody else right so like i'm totally on board for this the third one is goal two jalico sports goal two includes four games three from the nes and uh one from super nintendo i guess so in there in 89 we got goal two on the nes you can see this in your mind palace sim yes it's new very much it's it's the word two but in europe they got goal numeral two and in japan they just got goal and they're all released the same year and then super nintendo got super goal numeral two got it makes total sense yeah um i remember going to like a friend's house in iowa and um they would have bases loaded want to play that and i'd be like oh my god i actually liked bases loaded you know even though i it was always fine but like the sports nes kids i just i just it's just difficult can we just play megaman x come come on yeah 100 i mean i i've never been athletic or into sports in life but when i was a kid i wanted to play every every nes game basically so i loved bases loaded i liked technoball i liked kings of the beach volleyball i loved all these games what about jordan versus bird yeah i played that too blades of steel you can you can do that you can do that you can do that you can do that you can break the rim smash it yep okay we'll dribble that was really good 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 let's check in with the listeners hey listeners yo listeners remember you can always reach us at the email address game scoop at ign.com just like bryden did who says hello damy and the scoops my name is bryden and i'm from the cincinnati area i recently i recently finished the is it still fun episode about resident evil nice and just finished listening to the episode on resident evil requiem the games look and sound absolutely incredible to me i've actually never played the game before i've never played a resident evil game with that being said my questions are what resident evil games are worth my time to go back and play and what order should i play them in requiem looks so good but i want to play the other main lines that directly lead into this plot what do you guys think i have a funny way to start this that we go into the real answer but okay first of all hey cincinnati um but uh we uh immediately so we we can see you know what strategy guides people are playing at any given time and as soon as people uh kind of stop playing requiem they all started playing resident evil 2 remake which i thought was so yeah it went straight to the first leon appearance yeah so we can talk about you know the the leon story but that's that would be my answer yeah if you wanted to you know sort of lead up to requiem the games would be resident evil 2 then you do the remake then do the re4 remake and then you can do requiem however the original resident evil remake that we did it remade in 2022 remastered in 2015 very uh accessible today super fun it rules it's a great game i think i think we already had this conversation somewhere because i remember saying this but i think it's better to go back to re1 after playing the two remake or four remake or something because even it has it has a little bit of jank and like you really understand it more when you play another game with typewriter ribbons that makes a lot more sense and with puzzles that are in a police station for some reason i know why it's because it used to be a museum um and then you go back and play that game um but it's so fun i i think i i would like if you want to be like ingest all of it and understand it like the series as a whole i think one remake two remake three remake four remake skip five skip six seven eight nine uh but that's a lot of commitment i replayed five recently and it was agonizing like a month ago i i wanted it to end but i just kept going but that said for re9 the streamlined version of the game is going to be a little bit the cliff notes do the raccoon city saga is what i'm calling it re2 remake re3 remake uh you should just play four remake uh as well because leon and then um requiem but i would say i would say re3 good game but unessential for this yes but it is nice to go to areas that you go to in raccoon city that you see glimpses of in requiem that you don't get to see um otherwise so i think there's a lot there and i think you have a better idea of what's going on in the game i think it's going to be a better understanding of what raccoon city was going through as a whole with um in requiem whereas two gives you a very distilled snapshot of just one location yeah that's my take plus i think three just don't spend more than like 20 bucks for and you should be good because it's like a three hour four hour experience yeah but out of all the mainline resident evils they're all great except for five and six in my opinion yeah five is they they had two options after they made four and i in times on xbox 360 and for academic purposes played it about a month ago uh they just chose really doesn't hold up the different i'm sure it's fine for a lot of people but they just like what if we took out all the cool stuff like exploring and item hunting and what if we just made it about killing which is fine but exactly what opposite of what i want for my resident evil game and it felt like you know needles in in my arm the entire time i just did not feel good really playing five free in 2026 that but i am a notice punches that boulder it is very funny though it is a very funny game there's a lot of good moments like that but man the dlc is good though where you go to this the new spencer mansion that part's kind of sick but the rest is bad i reviewed that i believe and i really liked lost in nightmares is what it's called pretty solid yeah yeah good stuff uh i'm continuing my no healing playthrough of requiem i'm in the final stretch i'm at the part where the final grace section at the end in the arc that's right nice totally doable yep it's actually turns out it's totally doable on casual mode and it's still very fun and still actually scary in moments like when the girl is stalking you but justin you were telling us before the show that you've got what over 30 hours in crimson desert yeah 31 hours which i know we've all become used to you know content creators and other people like we just become kind of a nerd to like you know i've spent 150 hours into this game i've been playing it 12 hours a day but like for mere mortals like me that i have a regular job and i have a family 30 hours is a lot dude because that i added up that's like 9 p.m to midnight every single night since the game came out um and i was goofing on the show so much last week we recorded early and so the game's opening you know through two or three hours are terrible like they're they're absolutely terrible and now i just i keep liking it more and more and more the more time that goes on when i'm not playing it i'm thinking about it it's it's been the first game in a long time where i'm kind of like losing sleep i'm like uh maybe i'll just do like one more thing and like it's got its hooks into me bad man um but nick i mean i don't know how much you're playing it or if you played it very much it's a deeply confusing game because because it's like you know like look like the quests are bad the character the characters are bad like if they they did patch movement but it still doesn't feel that great so it's like i can't i don't know it's casting some kind of weird spell on me i i understand this kind of hard for me it's hard for me to search my feelings and like understand understand that's how i felt about resident evil 5 no i'm in complete agreement with justin here i know it's one of those things where i know it's not particularly cohesive in any meaningful way but i can't help but like exploring the world i think that's why i'm playing it i just like to see what's around that mountain uh i do legitimately enjoy some of the puzzle stuff because i like the idea of the puzzles being like yeah just figure it out i don't know man you don't have to do it and i really i really respect that i respect that i really appreciate that they have this like i i can't tell i can't decide if it's good design or bad design where sometimes the puzzle doesn't even tell you what you're trying to do like you know where it's it doesn't say like oh get the power turned back on like that it's like okay now i'm gonna go around and turn around how to figure you know i'm gonna run all around and figure out how to get the power turned back on it just plops you into a space and then says nothing and then like maybe you don't even know there's a puzzle like and that can be really cool and exciting and like you know every once in a while i'm like i'm just gonna try this and like it does something and i'm like oh like that feeling of like it feels like bombing a wall in zelda one like it can feel kind of incredible but then sometimes it plops me into a space and like you know there's some weird dragon statue and like the game clearly wants me to do something but it's like i can't even figure out what i'm what problem i'm trying to solve and it's like is this good or bad i don't know but it's interesting like i haven't played anything like it the game does not teach you all of that you can do within its given space and i think that's to its biggest detriment because there's areas that you can revisit from earlier like you have to go here as part of the main the main line of the story that you just assume oh i never have to go back there again but i decided to and i poked around like oh wait there's like stuff to find here that is doesn't tell you it and it doesn't indicate any meaningful way it does not communicate with you and occasionally you will stumble across stuff that you're like how was i ever supposed to find this like normally game in zelda right there you learn the shorthand of the original zelda that there's one bombable wall in every single screen you kind of intuit that after a while and you get conditioned to it this game does not teach you any meaningful way that there are secrets within secrets and stuff like that which is exciting if you are the one percent of players who will find said secret but otherwise you miss so much stuff in a way where i guess ultimately it doesn't matter because nothing kind of matters what you find in this game matters in this game but i do there's no but but like i did i like finding it i i think it's also like this illusion that the game is so expensive looking that i'm like wow the graphics go crazy i love this like i like looking at this game and existing and i'm like oh my god this is so expensive and i'm like oh my god this is so within its spaces but it's like it does feel a little bit better though i will argue against justin there i do think i don't want to vomit when i move cliff every time now it feels better he doesn't move like red dead now or it's like not that kind of game it's very there's so much stuff of like is this good or bad i don't know like there's there's you know like collectibles and secrets and weapons and things like that don't have like a shimmer or don't have anything on them and so you can just walk right by some badass sword and you don't know what's there like you can't pick it up and like on the one hand that's kind of cool and interesting exciting pay attention like be immersed in this world and look at the cave and is the skeleton holding a weapon you pick up like there's not like a visual signal like you just need to clock it for yourself and so it's kind of a good thing but it's also like kind of a shit thing where like just the the the friction like the game just fights you a lot in a lot of different ways apart from the bosses i feel like trying to just pick up items to justin's point is also kind of its own battle where i'm like no i just want to get this thing that's tucked in between these things i know i can grab it but the ui is fighting you constantly like we i've played this game every single night for hours for 10 or 11 or 12 nights now and i saw a reddit post that was um hey like i'm trying to figure out how to breed animals on my farm how do i get these animals to breed they're not breeding and i've never seen a farm i've never seen a farm i don't have any animals and i don't know what that reddit post is talking about it's like what even is this game i saw another i saw one mission is like well okay i'll tell you this david i've played the game for 30 hours and i've never even come close to the crimson desert yeah okay what is the real place it's a red desert yeah i like i've never and like there's there's like there's elephants and stuff in it it's like it's this whole other like not only have i not gotten to the crimson desert but if you look at the map i'm not even anywhere close to the crimson desert like it's unbelievable i like i have seen some footage that looks like it's just a different game where there's like someone riding a dragon parachuting and like the dragon gets like an anime transformation and gets like a suit of armor i was like what the heck and i was like this looks cool but how much of the game do i gotta play you guys are lucky because they have a few months to develop that part of the game before you get there i saw i saw another reddit post and i was like oh my god i've never even come close to the crimson desert post like there's a whole there's a whole steampunk zone in the game where someone said that their current quest was to clean a bunch of solar panels and like that's what they're doing in the game now and i'm like i just can't you can tell me you can tell me anything about this game i would believe it i would believe it at this point like so i don't know man like we i i have to give i have to give one more anecdote of like this game just seems to run so hot and cold if like i'll do the most amazing cinematic optional boss fight that has like interesting voice acting and interesting lore behind it and i'll be like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh my god like this game's so good and then like the very next quest i did this happened to me last night so i'm 30 hours into the game and i got a quest that tutorializes the fast travel system and like how it works like you step on these little pads in the world and it activates a fast travel point and i have fast traveled a thousand times in this game it's at the it's at the end of this quest line and the quest is like you know you're doing quests for this noble and he's like oh my scouts found something like weird i think it might be like a quest for this noble it might be like a weapon go check it out and you go check it out and it's like a fast travel point and you go back to the guy and you tell him like oh no it was nothing don't worry about it and like that was the whole quest and i'm like why like it's just so baffling like for every single thing that's like it's beautiful and like fun and immersive then it does something else that's just completely inexplicable did you see him trying to get on that dragon and die yeah i was like well that looks like great yeah it started to look cool and then it was like oh you know you can't get on that's the mount yeah it's like time locked and all this stuff anyway i like it i like it i just finished i just finished chapter six was where i am in the main story if that is going to mean something to people listening to the show so there's a certain type of commenter on ign that thinks we're so mad that uh people are enjoying the game but no justin and mark medina and lots of people on staff are having a great time with crimson desert even i don't like i don't i don't i don't i'd have to again i'd have to search my feelings like my personal score might still be a six it's like a six that i'm kind of addicted to maybe or or sometimes i think it's like a nine that i kind of hate like i don't know i don't know i don't know what i mean i used to play bad games on the ps2 all the time that i was fond of you know that's fine you can like i play castlevania on the game boy yeah that's the i like castlevania 64 not the gba games i mean 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 very quick extracurricular extracurricular activities i've not seen the mario galaxy movie yet i'm seeing it tomorrow very excited sam i know you saw it no spoilers i saw it uh thumbs up spoilers thumbs up there's nothing to spoil there's not really any plot to the movie vignettes of mario and everybody's shouting just from whatever everything i've heard if it's you know if i'm gonna be watching nintendo references the movie with my six-year-old who loves nintendo i can't wait it sounds so fun you have nothing to worry about it's awesome okay i i loved sitting through it um i don't you know like if there wasn't enough depth that i want to see it again to make sure i didn't miss anything because you really don't but it really is nintendo references the movie but there's some it's interesting like so it starts there's just deep cuts that like when i i know this sounds cool and i'm saying it there's deep cuts that only game skew people are going to get but i'm also they're also really expensive to put in there so like why like it's just really confusing like everybody's gonna get the smash brothers you know references and there's there's stuff like that like the the very like the the illumination intro has like the um minions uh one of them gets a hammer and is like breaking a logo and the other one's playing on a keyboard no child for 35 years has has heard that donkey smash brothers they've heard or no i have heard it in smash brothers but yeah maybe yeah maybe as like the deepest smash brothers cut but it's just like that's just like why choose that like it's weird and then you know you've all seen that like warts in it that that part if you look at it it's in a casino and why is that in a casino? because super mario brothers 2 when you start a level or beat a level i mean you you do that part where it rolls the little slot machine so they made a section of this movie around that like and then like you know the bosses from mario 2 are all in there these ninja ninjas and stuff like all of this like that stuff's not in any mario game like claw grip and mouser and and what it's just it's just surprising and then i'll give you one other example again i guess it's just like i'm like this is enjoyable for me i'm just like confused um another example is uh they have they have rob as like a background thing in it and the joke is that rob moves really slow and it makes a noise and it goes that's what rob does a hundred percent so you would have had to own a rob like my man damon hatfield here have hooked it up yep have played gyromite with it to like get why that's in there and now it doesn't matter because the joke lands for all these other ways i'm not saying these jokes are bad i'm just surprised that like all of this effort went in to like match these things up and i i just i just thought it was an interesting take from it but just in general it's a gorgeous 3d animated movie that just goes from thing to thing to thing with a bunch of characters you know and you know everything's just entertaining yeah i i could not be more excited to see it tomorrow however i did see project hail mary ah i want to which is great super super super good have you seen that justin oh we're going this weekend okay well fam it's great no good seats it's just a very what's that i have one more thing a throwaway line in martin the mario movie is you'll i'm hooked on the brothers like toad says that yeah you'll be hooked on which is a reference to the super mario brothers rap from the super mario super show which was in the first movie as well here we go performing for you you if you know the words you can join in two put your hands together if you want to clap that brings us to video game 20 questions and uh this week i i i thought i would ask jim and i if someone were playing 20 questions what are the most useful questions to ask jim and i provide some responses i don't know if they're useful but would you like to hear what jim and i thinks just a couple does it know we're asking about a video game oh yeah i mean it also knows all of your names and the types of questions you tend to ask what the heck okay uh jim and i says if you're trying to play like the game scoop crew the goal isn't just to win it's to narrow down the search space as efficiently as possible using a binary search strategy you want questions that split the entire history of video games in half here are the most i say this all the time here are the most important questions to ask uh so questions one through five are the big filters and jim and i says these are the non-negotiables if you don't ask these early you'll be wandering in the dark at question 15 so was this game originally released on a nintendo platform this is a classic scoop opening it immediately separates it immediately separates the mario zelda pokemon world from sony xbox and pc except no it was this game originally released on a nintendo platform could be resident evil requiem yeah that's not jim and i that's not very useful was this game released after the year 2000 again it's right that splits the nintendo 64 generation in half maybe not all the time but that is a normal opening yeah yeah it's true it's a bold gambling nailing it does this does this game feature a controllable human character that one's actually pretty good we've asked that yeah yeah questions six through ten once you have the error in the platform you need to find the gameplay loop so like does this feature combat can you play this game without other people or was this game developed in japan questions like that can we how about we all just take let's just do it let's just do this let's use these questions okay and i have i actually have some email i need to go answer and so we can just let jim and i do 20 questions the end game questions 16 through 20 this is where you go for the kill jim and i says unless we've already won is this a first party title was this game developed by studio name does the title of the game contain the name of the main character but jim and i says examples like like zelda or halo wait a second hold on no hold up mr halo it's mr halo we all know tacking the power of juju that was the game pro tip for game scoop fans the cops often get stuck because they forgot to ask about remakes or remasters if the answer says the game came out in 2024 it might be a remake of a 1998 game that's the last i guess that's true jim and i calls us the cops i don't know anyway let's see if that was useful to you i don't know uh our suggestion this week comes from mike who says longtime gamer newer game scooper my suggestion for 20 questions is redacted for the redacted let the questioning begin all right well was this i didn't bring up fair day again what was the first jim and i question was this an intent on a nintendo console um how did they word it was this game originally released on a nintendo platform was this game originally released on a nintendo platform yes oh maybe there is a thing thing bifurcated video games into two yeah exactly asking binary based questions yeah what was next search scope uh what was the next question you want to know the next one yeah what was the next one yeah yeah yeah okay we're gonna do it um was this game released after the year 2000 was this game released after the year 2000 no all right the next one is is this an indie game what's up okay have we been doing games like have we been doing have we been doing 20 questions like maybe 10 years yeah so the interesting thing about that is the 2000 question begets it becomes more and more like it's in balance now roughly right like 26 years is around the start of video games like close but like it was not in balance 10 years ago so i don't know that's it like there's just more and more games it gets harder over time because more games are coming out damon right right um was this a game it's no no no don't ask before it's from before 2000 on a nintendo game it's from before 2000 on a nintendo game it's from before 2000 on a nintendo game it's from before 2000 on a nintendo game it's from before 2000 on a nintendo console oh so not an indie game console oh so not an indie game console oh so not an indie game we can skip that one what was next damon we can skip that one what was next damon we can skip that one what was next damon is this an indie game oh by the one after that is this an indie game oh by the one after that is this an indie game oh by the one after that what was that is this part of the series what was that is this part of the series what was that is this part of the series all right is it part of a series no all right is it part of a series no all right is it part of a series no oh ice climbers did this come out as an oh ice climbers did this come out as an oh ice climbers did this come out as an arcade game at some point arcade game at some point arcade game at some point no was this on the no was this on the no was this on the super nintendo sounds like quest 64 not super nintendo sounds like quest 64 not super nintendo sounds like quest 64 not super nintendo that's five super nintendo that's five super nintendo that's five uh same question nes no uh same question nes no uh same question nes no is this question in 64 no is this question in 64 no is this question in 64 no was this was this on a color screen was this was this on a color screen was this was this on a color screen handheld no handheld no handheld no so that means it's a game boy on the so that means it's a game boy on the so that means it's a game boy on the original game boy yes original game boy yes original game boy yes okay so okay so okay so a game that okay it's on the game boy a game that okay it's on the game boy a game that okay it's on the game boy not part of a series on the game boy not part of a series on the game boy not part of a series on the game boy that's all we know we did not follow that's all we know we did not follow that's all we know we did not follow gemini's advice and now we're in the gemini's advice and now we're in the gemini's advice and now we're in the now we're in now we're in trouble now we're in now we're in now we're in trouble now we're in now we're in now we're in trouble wandering in the dark at question 15. oh wandering in the dark at question 15. oh i i'll bring it back to gemini do we i'll bring it back to gemini do we i'll bring it back to gemini do we play as a human okay okay okay oh he's got to think about it no i don't oh he's got to think about it no i don't oh he's got to think about it no i don't have to think about it the answer is yes have to think about it the answer is yes have to think about it the answer is yes but just remember but just remember but just remember what that could possibly mean and that's what that could possibly mean and that's what that could possibly mean and that's 10. 10. 10. it means that it could be like a strategy it means that it could be like a strategy it means that it could be like a strategy game the character you were playing as is game the character you were playing as is human okay as a character i don't understand what that what that's what the significance of that is character you are playing as is a human maybe maybe it's like arkanoid where secretly aren't you in a spaceship yeah what's that called it's called break what's it called breakout no no no no alleyway it's called alleyway alleyway did nintendo publish this game yes oh okay okay is this a puzzle game no nintendo published game boy game not part of a series that question actually was a little bit clutch um you play as a human but not necessarily there's like the first run of games called like baseball and tennis there's tennis yeah that's very clearly a human yeah that's a good point okay i retract my question it's not a puzzle game so i don't know the og game boy library that well i mean you know besides all the obvious nintendo games everybody knows i feel like there's a game where you like swap pieces to well that's a puzzle game though yeah so much so much was i mean pick cross and stuff like that right yeah oh does this be a racing game or something yeah go ahead go ahead well i don't know i can't even think of a racing game like excite bike well that's a series though that's what i'm saying man i don't know if there was an excite bike what are we at how many questions that's 12. does this game have a con uh well it's not part of a series but is it silly to ask like if it has a contemporary version like if there's yes okay that yes that is silly yeah well that's a series then right at that point um what would what did gemini suggest we do well how about this can you can you see your can you see the human character while you're playing no yeah no it's not bad okay sick are you piloting sorry go ahead go ahead no you go jim and i and at this time in the game jim and i would ask uh was it a launch title uh does it have a medical score of 90 or higher is the main character a mascot or does the game involve guns none of these are helpful the shooting part is helpful you can't see your character so that means i mean it's game boy so it's not first person unless look either it's chess or like something weird like that or you know or you're in a vehicle in the game yeah i'm having a hard time thinking of like racing games though apart from excite bike are you piloting some sort of craft in this game yes i mean i mean is alleyway not a puzzle game no i don't think so really yeah i don't think i don't i don't i don't know i wouldn't count that as puzzle i don't think i wouldn't count that as a game it's just an arcade game yeah it's just an arcade game does this game um is this game kind of modeled on a arcade game meaning what a specific arcade game yeah no that's 15. you know alleyway is modeled on arkanoid maybe narrowing down the type of vehicle or breakout yeah i just i can't even think of any nintendo made you know car games space game yeah car games on the game boy does this game uh does your craft feature wheels no so it's maybe it's like a spaceship or a boat battleship land c and air that's all we've got right yeah it's got our space it's a space shooter i think was there like a like a like a or something not a gradius yeah i mean nintendo would have published weird stuff like our type balloon fighter was there a balloon fighter on game boy there was a fight but that's a series it's a series yeah yeah there's a lesser known balloon fight on the game boy everyone always knows the nes one your hint is that i i owned this game played a lot but today i would not have known that nintendo published this game that's yeah yeah that makes sense yeah so that i don't know what the encouragement is to broaden your thinking beyond games that you know are nintendo games yeah it is i think i think you're probably right sam where they probably published the game boy version of like you know gradius or r-type or something like that space game is this game it's just hard to think of this a space game is over here yeah yeah good is this game set in space yes two questions and a guess they're like asteroids or uh uh galaxian or galaga on the game boy or like a cute shooter like stinger or something like that because like galaga would have been um was that namco so like maybe nintendo published the the game boy version of it but it's not modeled after an arcade and everything we're talking about yeah exactly exactly everything we're talking about is a series so clearly yeah so like a one-off spacey game like i just don't know if i know the name of it or like what it is i mean i can't like so it's like is it vertically scrolling or horizontal scrolling or is it single screen but i don't know that that helps me like am i allowed to ask i always forget the rules regarding regarding the metagaming of it but are we allowed to ask like is it a one word title i don't know there's no cops man you can do whatever you want i think generally we avoid the alphabet and stuff like that we didn't we generally avoid questions of yeah about the alphabet but we do sometimes we do ask about um you know the title of the game or something like that but not often yeah like is it there's the character of the this game and its title which is a fun question i don't know i don't think i know this game so it's it's difficult for me to get what's the shooter oh my god yeah i don't know either something is the name of your vehicle the name of the game i don't know okay it's not tubing yeah not not to been confirmed um is this a a well-known game i thought it was better known than this all right maybe we're just blanking man uh well we got one and a guess yeah one and a guess i'm trying to think of any japanese games named shooter type space game at all and i just don't know um but it could be a pinball game too i guess uh could it well if your paddles are spaceships yeah but we said you pilot a vehicle oh yeah another thing i did in crimson desert desert last night was i fought a tank cool like with a gun you can call in an airstrike okay like it's an artillery strike there's cannons stationed nearby and you want to shoot it with a special arrow and then they know where to rain their cannon fire what else could it be um i don't know do you do you shoot aliens yep all right yeah i know this game called it's called alien it's on the tip of my tongue is it it's not alien storm yeah i have one kind of on the tip of my brain too and then i'm actually not completely sure i'm not just making it up hey uncle alien is just a soka bond game right there that one that that might be it hank go alien i think that's just a boxing game though no like maybe maybe alien storm is a video game or maybe that's something that we're just it's a false memory that's like doesn't even exist like this i have one in my head of like something that's like striker there's like this strike something but then maybe i'm just thinking about desert strike on the on the snes and i'm not really sure operations but i can't i can't i can't remember what i don't know i mean is it hank you alien it's not hank you alien justin got so close to solar striker no solar strike solar solar strike developed and published by nintendo i think the only shmup nintendo's ever made yeah this looks sick i liked it a lot well they made shmups in the arcade they made a couple of them uh pre-donkey kong wow wow okay yeah space invaders likes it's very manageable i mean it's game boy game boy remember that's what i'm saying this would be blurry as heck when i was playing this in 1990. i think it was called solar fox is one of them i think it's maybe the name of it yeah the solar striker solar striker developed by nintendo not just published by i know it's really odd right it's actually gun pay okay oh wow what i'm gonna look up the father of the game boy himself honestly sounds like a super nintendo game solar striker even more like a super nintendo game i would have guessed this game i mean the fact that this is a first-party developed nintendo game you know and nintendo like all japanese companies like people work there their whole career like i just i can't believe there's not references to solar strikers it's not a trophy in smash brothers like you know a mini game so i don't i don't recognize the game boy box art from america but i do recognize the japanese box art and it's amazing okay well if jover can really really cool maybe he can pull that up wow yeah no i've never heard of this game but yeah it looks cool i had this game and yeah you're a human they're aliens i mean all the pieces were there we just didn't know the name what do the peas do give you more guns powering up yeah gotta power up oh wow what's the impressive boss this looks cool yeah that's a whole screen yeah screen filling bosses i mean this looks like one of the bosses in like life force yeah yeah this looks great i would have guessed that is it a short game it's very short yeah yeah i think maybe six levels uh nicely attempt thank you for the suggestion mike in an undisclosed location viewers and listeners if you have your own suggestions for video game 20 questions email them to me at the email address gamescoop at ijin.com and that's all the scoops that we have here this week again i'm off next week i'll be uh gallivanting around tokyo with my kids so keep please in mind that i'm not going to talk about it in this video i'm going to talk about it in the next video but i'm going to talk about it in the next video i'm going to talk about it in the next video i'm going to talk about it in the next video with my kids, so please keep me in your thoughts. and prayers but sam will be hosting the episode next week in my stead so thank you nick go to book off the uh so i remember that's the game boy the u.s uh game boy art there i don't think i've ever seen the the japanese one isn't it cool great i love the logo is much cooler in the japanese box yeah it's really cool yeah thank you nick thank you sam thank you justin thank you to joe birch working behind the scenes to make this episode possible my name is damon this is ij and game soup and we're out good morning california let's turn the servers on let's drive and check the chatter let's all just sing along we're flying high it's passing us by reach out to me if you still believe wait my mic wasn't on and i had a joke uh wait my mic wasn't on and i had a joke uh wait my mic wasn't on and i had a joke uh when you are trying to sell your car when you are trying to sell your car when you are trying to sell your car and it has hail damage and you're just and it has hail damage and you're just and it has hail damage and you're just hoping for the best would you call that hoping for the best would you call that hoping for the best would you call that a project hail mary a project hail mary a project hail mary okay i got there it was a long walk okay i got there it was a long walk okay i got there it was a long walk the the sirens are going off again yeah i the the sirens are going off again yeah i the the sirens are going off again yeah i can hear them yeah i can hear them can hear them yeah i can hear them can hear them yeah i can hear them um i told jamie just got home when i um i told jamie just got home when i um i told jamie just got home when i told her i said i'm going into game told her i said i'm going into game told her i said i'm going into game scoop scoop scoop let me know if i need to take the show let me know if i need to take the show let me know if i need to take the show yeah the scoop must go on yeah the scoop must go on yeah the scoop must go on yeah he died doing what he loved i can i yeah he died doing what he loved i can i yeah he died doing what he loved i can i can scoop i can scoop from our bunker if can scoop i can scoop from our bunker if can scoop i can scoop from our bunker if i need to okay i need to okay i need to okay r.i.p justin r.i.p justin r.i.p justin what do you do do you have do you have what do you do do you have do you have what do you do do you have do you have like an earthen covered basement like an earthen covered basement like an earthen covered basement we have a i mean i wasn't joking about we have a i mean i wasn't joking about we have a i mean i wasn't joking about the bunker we have a tornado room the bunker we have a tornado room the bunker we have a tornado room in our it's not they when we bought the in our it's not they when we bought the in our it's not they when we bought the house they called it a tornado room and house they called it a tornado room and house they called it a tornado room and we've been calling that ever since but but it's like in our utility room, there's another little room inside that doesn't have a door. So they really do make houses with that. I don't think they made it that way on purpose. I think it's just this weird kind of bonus utility storage. Is it a pretty new house or is it like an old one? Yeah, it is. That's really interesting. You could retrofit that into a panic room then? Yeah, for sure. It's surrounded by concrete because it's the basement and then it's just this concrete room in our utility room. I'm looking at the weather. Is it getting crazy? Is it already stormy or is that not how tornadoes work? Yeah, no. There's like a huge storm cell that's about to move through. So it is looking a little bit dicey, but it's fine. I'm going to scoop and then Jamie will come tell me if I need to. I mean, for the first time in my life, we got a tornado warning in San Francisco, first of all, but I never got them in Arizona either. And it was, you know, they're called water spouts when they're in the ocean. And we got one. We got one in Daly City and it was moving this direction. It was forming. That's what the, you know, like that, that earthquake type alert says. It's like forming water spout conditions are forming off of Daly City, California. And it was like five in the morning. And I was like, Helene, do, do we actually react to this? Like, should we actually like, I can't, I really can't tell, but it turned out we did. We went downstairs with the cat and we, you know, we have a lower area, but it, everybody like was kind of talking about it all day. It's like, yeah, this is something. It can happen. What? Yeah. I know it's a very scary thing, but seeing a water, hearing the words a water spout is forming is probably evoking the coolest imagery possible with like Lincoln Park playing in the background and stuff. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a whirlpool above the ocean. Yeah. That sounds sick. I mean, I was going to say, it sounds like something you would fight in suplex and final fantasy six on your ship. Dude, that's typhoon, bro. That's a, that's a whole Sunday. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, totally. And then that's the type of thing that like sends like showers of fish to like some other state. Oh yeah. Yeah. Which I heard about a lot as a kid, but I don't think it's happened. I thought it'd be something I dealt with more as I grew up. It's like quick, it's like quicksand. Yeah, exactly. Not nearly as big a problem as I was led to believe. But weirdly, my wife the other day was like, oh, can you, did you see that thing on Instagram about quicksand? It's really scary. I'm like, I haven't been scared of quicksand in 35 years. Yeah. It's really scary. Show me what you're talking about. Is this real? And it was like, you know, somebody like slogging through like, you know, very wet sand. And it's like, yeah, they're trying to get quicksand back, everybody. Why isn't anybody doing anything about the Bermuda Triangle? Just letting all these ships disappear. 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