Game Scoop! 855: Can Resident Evil Survive Without Its Stars?

What's up everybody, welcome to IGN Game Scoop, I'm your host Damon Hatfield, joining me this week, our Sam Claiborne. Hey, it's good to be here, and you all. From podcast and locked, Miranda Sanchez returns. I'm back, surprise! This is way sooner than I thought, and it's a delight. I agreed, way sooner than I thought too, but also a delight. And we've got a great show for this week. There's, man, lots of games still coming out. I'm still playing Pragmata. I know both Sam and Rand are both playing titanium court. And a couple of the games, Rand is playing Windrose Budfirst. There's this new Resident Evil trailer out today, not for a new game. It's for the new film from Zach Kregger, director of Weapons in Barbarian, which are both very good. And I think it's a cool trailer, and we knew going into it that Kregger is doing his own story. It wasn't going to tell the story of Resident Evil 1 or 2 or whatever to its own thing. But in universe, in the Resident Evil universe. And a lot of people are pointing out that it seems like a cool horror movie, but I don't see what the Resident Evil-ness of it is. I don't know. I think it's an interesting approach. My faith is in Zach Kregger, especially after Barbarian weapons. Sam, I know you've seen weapons. Miranda's seen Barbarian, but have you been not weapons? I have read the synopsis of weapons. My favorite thing in favorite way to consume horror movies is by reading the synopsis and getting a super cut of all the jump scares. So that way, when I do go watch the movie, I'm not scared, because they just stress me out a lot. Like, I just don't handle them very well, so in order to actually enjoy the story, I just kind of spoil it off myself. That's the only genre I do it for, and I love doing it that way. It's so fun. That's cool. I respect that. This teaser trailer shows us there's a guy who's trying to get into Raccoon City, and the events are happening the same day as Resident Evil 2. So it's the day that the outbreak spreads beyond the mansion into Raccoon City. And we see some, you know, there's a giant big bloated monster man in the sewer. There's a multi-limbed thing here that's coming out of the house. And then you see some bodies dropping, which are presumably zombies throwing themselves out of windows or rooftops and whatever. And that's kind of it. It's basically a tone piece to let us know this is coming. But a lot of people are saying, you know, where's Leon? Where's Jill? Anyway, Sam, what's your initial reaction to this? Well, Miriam Webster defines a resident as a person that lives in it. No, I think that's the only connection to Resident Evil that we're going to get out of this trailer. But I'm sure there's going to be nods and stuff like that. I think that we see more and more that you need to make a superhero movie to make a genre movie. Or you need to make a video game movie to make the horror movie you want to make. That is what's happening is that it is very easy in Hollywood to get a license and then make a really creative cool film like Joker, right? Or like a penguin to two examples. Yeah. And then, you know, you get to the penguin was like a crime series that's just like you could have made a soprano's like crime series. But instead, he's just like, well, one guy's the penguin. Did you know that? Like, that's all it is. You know, and like that, if that's that, then the filmmaker is so good for this that like it doesn't matter. It's just a continuation of that filmmakers like awesome horror movies is going to be great by itself. The fact that it's Resident Evil and if we get a few nods, that's going to be kind of cool. And in some way, I think it's better that it's not here's Leon because one you have to can and choose someone to be Leon in this this era. And that's hard. And it's like what version of Leon is it? And like, is it adapted well? And I think whenever you try to do a story within universe that doesn't encroach on the, I think. Canon is almost better because then you're exploring like the rest of the world like how is impacting other people like there are still stories to be told that are outside of these main people who matter the most in this universe. And like you don't need to mess with them against just not necessary, especially when there's like. Like the story of Resident Evil, why it's just so cool and interesting as its own like horror story that like there's no reason why you should just be chained down to. You need to use these characters and hit these plot points from these games, but you should probably focus on this game because it's like that's what the games are for, right? Like that's what we have. Halo and Fallout both did the look everything is going to look exactly like this video game and we're just going to cram it with things and people like Fallout they didn't like Halo as much. But then by the second season of Fallout that was exhausting I think it was like oh my gosh I can't believe I'm seeing more vaults and you know brotherhood of steel max and everything is just like it's exhausting. Whereas like this expands a universe and makes it look like like what's what is the adjacent storytelling makes it feel bigger and makes it not feel retread again which I think is cool. Both of them. Yeah an interesting point there I think Fallout season 2 has some parallels with Last of Us season 2 and that they started following beats of games a little bit more. But in ways that were really I think hard for them to convey or uninteresting. So the thing with Fallout though it is more original than what we have seen with Last of Us which is an adaptation of the game more directly with some skewed stuff. But I think you could see how the story tellers involved in that kind of fumble that really hard and made the tie into all these different points less interesting. So when I look at like Halo also which as a huge Halo fan I did not like it. I know some people are like here that's cool they're just going out of left field doing something completely different but for me because they want to take these characters and I think it's cool when you do reinvent them for a different platform. So for instance there is this one we're going to animate really quickly. So Sailor Moon you have the manga you have the original like 90s anime so different from the manga so different and then you have like the new anime series that is like one to one to the manga. But then you have the live action series which you can only torrent like basic is not available anywhere else and it is crazy different from everything else. But those are like cool ways to reinvent that story and play with it but a lot of times it felt like within character like the actions they made here we go. This is it if you're watching you're enjoying the live action Sailor Moon show that only aired in Japan and it is actually fantastic like it is so much fun and like what they do with these characters in the way they expand their personalities is wonderful and that's the same thing that 90s anime did. But when you look at like one to one recreations yeah it is it is something it's like power rangers asking like it's it's a funny I guess effects. But but the thing is that you you gain something when you take these characters and like the hard and essence of what they are in their storytelling and shift it completely different and like it's like an alternate universe right rather than we're taking these people you like and we're changing them entirely. Like they're just different people and that's kind of what they did with with Halo it felt like it's like master chief. This isn't master chief this is just some dude you call you're calling master chief whereas like in this like Sailor Moon live action these characters are still them it's just their circumstances are way different so they're having to react differently and like the way their power is coming about a little bit different and so I think that is a really compelling way to reinvent something for a different platform. So when we're looking at this with Resident Evil bring it back I think them saying okay we want to not be constrained to what has already been said and and be able to play in this universe in a fun way and letting this you know like obviously quite successful horror storytell like shine in the way he shines. That's just going to make for a better movie and who wouldn't want that. That's my spiel. I agree with you Craig is proven himself he's an off tour he writes his own stuff 100% yeah you don't really want them to like be pitch and hold into just telling the story of Resident Evil 2 again you know something else it's not like I can also see from the perspective of a Resident Evil fan who's like oh my gosh there's a new Resident Evil movie out there's a trailer for it. They're tuning in hoping to see stuff that they get you know from Resident Evil so I can understand that too. Yeah the Mario movies go go go down that route because they're literally nothing but hey you love Mario how about this and this and this and this character and this guy and this lady speaking of. Somebody must have liked the Resident Evil movies because they made like six of those Milo Jovich ones. Yeah there's the old ones if you want something else a little bit more. Yeah real quick we've talked a lot about the Super Mario Galaxy movie recently but Miranda what did you think? I've grown to like it more and more since I've since I've seen it now I have you like it to see it more times I saw twice I voluntarily took the kids twice okay I like it it's fun not gonna not gonna down that hill but I liked it. I think it's fine yeah it's fine Miranda did the strategy guide for Mario Odyssey and I think never wants to play a Super Mario Brothers game again. But famously famously does not like 2d Mario which is really great because someday she's gonna be that's gonna be the desert island situation. She's gonna be stuck and she only has an emulated copy of Super Mario World or Super Mario there's three and she's gonna have to play through it all and then she's gonna say like wow this really is the best game ever. I would be so sorry. Yeah I did not grow up with those games in particular so I kind of missed them and when I got to them I was like why isn't this 3d? Like I want more space I want to go run around and platform not just this limited thing. - It's funny to bring that up, I'm going on a tangent here. King has been playing a lot of Smash Brothers. So through Smash Brothers, he's learned about so many different games and franchises and characters. And he's really interested in all this stuff. Like, you know, Mega Man and Pac-Man and the older Mario games, Burdo. And he wants, he's like, really it's interested in all this stuff. And then he wants to like play these older games and check him out. And every single time he spends two or three minutes with it and he's like, no, I don't like this one. And every, every single time. - Oh. - He's really into like, Mega Man. And I actually have some advice for Capcom. We talk a lot about how successful Capcom has been the modern Capcom. Man, they just, they rarely ever miss. They're one of the only developers that knows how to consistently deliver great AAA video games. But King go got really into Mega Man and just like learning about all the robot masters and Dr. Wylane, Dr. Light and all the different powers and levels and which power is strong against which robot master. It's like Pokemon because like, they just, kids just love this stuff. They love filing away all this information. Like if I told you, if you had never heard of Pokemon Sam, ever, if I told you there's a new Pokemon game coming out, it's about catching all these monsters. Would you like, there's thousands of them. Would you like me to tell you about every single Pokemon? You'd be like, no way. But King go and say, yes, let's sit down, tell me about every single one. So I think Capcom should make a Mega Man game, like more for kids, just imagine Mega Man, but astrobot. Just kind of an easy breezy platformer, 3D platformer with Mega Man, I think kids would go crazy for that. That's about one little tangent. Anyway, I have a couple things about Resident Evil. Anyway, we just learned before we filmed this, if anyone was wondering who this lead character is, it's the junkie guy from weapons. And I was like, oh, that's great. 'Cause he was really funny in weapons anyway. He looks, Sam is right, looks very different here. Number two, this is out, I think it says September 18th, later this year, that's only a year after weapons. I don't know how these something directors can deliver a movie a year. That seems crazy. I guess if it's more practical effects than indie sized, and you get a really good horror movie out of it, then it's not that kind of expectation of like spending $200 million on Resident Evil movie, where you're running through a lab at the end, or whatever that's expensive. But, Sam, if it's possible to release a movie a year, we're owed like 30 Tarantino films. (laughing) And let me just raise the stakes there, probably 50 or more Star Wars films. - That's true. That's true. Yep. And finally, this takes place in the day of Resident Evil 2, which is in September. So I don't know why there's snow on the ground, and he's wearing a beanie. So that's a little, hmm. That makes me scratch my chin just a little bit. - Yeah, September. Okay, well, you know. I don't know, okay, there's these days. - But this is 1998. This is September 1998. - Maybe they did their research, and they discovered that in September 1998, at this time, there was actually a dusting of snow, and they kept it to. - Yep, they did the research. - Yeah, it would be really, I mean, first of all, if it is set in universe, and this is like outside of Racking City, or partially, it's cool to end with what happens to Racking City, which is like a very visible, cool thing that could happen. - Yeah, I'm gonna guess that will not be portrayed in the movie. It would be awesome. - I think, yeah, I don't know, actually. But I do think that whenever we get the next trailer, it will be a little bit, maybe a little bit more Resident Evil-y, like maybe a little bit more of a nod to certain things that people would recognize, 'cause this feels almost more of just like a really cool trailer for a horror movie, rather than for a video game adaptation. And I think that was probably the intent. It's like, look, this cool movie that's coming out from this guy that you like already, horror games. - I'm gonna spoil Resident Evil Requiem, so just get the head 30 seconds. - No, okay. - All right, not in an extreme way, but in the end of that game, Leon says, just some like off-handed line, like, where the hell is Chris? And that's all you get from Chris in the game? What does he say? - So when they're rescued, whatever that like, I don't know if they're military, whatever they are, they say, yes, like Commander Redfield. Yes, Commander Redfield. And then later when Leon is talking to the cleanup crew or something, he says like, he's out there busy out there somewhere, something like that. He's the mentioned like twice. - Yeah. - Anyway, he mentions Chris though, right? - Yeah. - And some like off-handed. - Yes, yes, yes. - Yeah, so that could be what happens in the end of the rest, you know, it's like, everything's resolved. - Oh, everything happens. And then a guy comes home, gives him, you know, oh, Mr. whatever your name is, let's talk to you about the events that happened here. Here's my card and says, oh, I'm Brola Corporation. (laughing) - Or at the end, he gets a call and he's like, that was my sister. She's a cop. Her name is Jill. (laughing) - Yes. - I kind of do hope they do something like kind of cheesy like that. I think it's really funny. - Yeah. I mean, it's better than a master of unlocking joke. We don't need those anymore. - No, apparently there's like a greener in the trailer somewhere. I missed it, but Durbert said it's awesome. And I was surprised, nowhere at the beginning of the trailer or the end, Capcom didn't get their logo in there or anything. - Oh. - No Capcom mentioned. - Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Do you know who's, is it Sony that's doing it? And I actually don't know. But the, I see any like 15 times of the robot. - I know, I know. - The logos and everything are pure, isn't evil. So that looks cool. Also, it looks like evil within though. - That's true. Oh, I remember that. - Yeah. - Oh, hey, looking through drawers, that's a big part of that. - Yeah. - Well, that was, that's the, that's true. - Yeah. - That is the most res, and there's a key. - There's a key. Yeah, going for the key. When they opened in that house, I was like, man, there's so many drawers looking right there. Like, look at all that stuff to rummage through. It's great. - Yeah, I know you just got to walk around until the X button appears, right? And then also when you go downstairs, that means there's a B1 map and a B2 map. (laughing) - It's just pure, it's just pure Resident Evil. - Yeah. - I probably end in a lab. - I'm excited. I'm excited. Just to see the next movie from Zach Kregger and that it's not that far away, only a few months away in September. So, Resident Evil, please be excited. (upbeat music) - Let's move on. I'm still playing frag Madam. I'm Sam. Have you played anymore? I know you were playing, but you got distracted by-- - I can't know how far I've said, but I started playing another game, but I'm still playing it. - Did you make it to where you're going outside on the moon? - I'm at the end of the greenery area. - Okay. - So now that sounds cool, though. - Yeah, after that, you go to outdoor areas. And it is very cool, 'cause it's just a cool scene, 'cause you have Earth up in the sky. - Yeah, that sounds awesome. - And your movement changes. Your slower outside in the lower gravity, and you can jump higher and your boost is more erratic. So you have to sort of switch up the way you're doing your jumping. - It's like those parts in dead space when you went into the zero grab, and then you have to actually use your rockets to like bounce across the place in it, and it works really well. - Yeah. - God, remember EA needs to make pretty good games. - I mean, occasionally they still do, they did split fiction last year. - That was EA. - Publishing. - Anyway, everyone that has talked about this on the show is really liked Pragmada. Miranda, how'd you find it? - I also really like it, and I'm excited to get back to it. That's the problem right now. So there's just so many games out, and I'm just playing old games right now. Just like games of comfort, my cat got sick, so I'm just kind of like comfort stuff. But I really want to get back to Pragmada. Like that's one of the ones that I think is that like the top of the list take it back to into finish, because it does seem very easy to get through, not like super easy, but easy enough to get through. I also just love the combat. It's so fun. I love puzzle games. I love like, it's like weird saying, like dual wielding my brain to do two things out one. - Yeah, that's what makes it good. - That's just so much fun. I love the collectibles and just the way the whole map is laid out as an invitation for you to kind of go explore more, or you can just go to them objective. Like you don't have to. It's just, it's nice. It's a kind of game that I want right now amid, I guess basically coming off of Pocopia and Tomodotu Life, which are very open-ended things that are happening and having that structure is really nice. - And I guess we can talk about this now, but it is interesting that at the end of each level, there's a robot boss that's like the end of the forest areas. Woodman, he gives you a shield. - Surprise. - Oh. - Surprise. - Sam is Goofin. Scoopin and Goofin, those are Mega Man jokes. - I have not. (laughs) - I see. - No, Pregnant is great. And it's just regularly doling out new weapons and new abilities and there's so many hidden things to find and collectibles in every level. It's great. - But. - The one thing. - We'll go ahead. - Oh, go ahead. - I was just gonna say the one thing that I don't like so far. Like I'm still pretty early on just a few hours in, is how he doesn't want to listen to Diana when she's trying to say what a Pregnant is. I'm like, what is it? And he's like, no, I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it. - You, stop. - Why did I just agree on this point? Because by that point in my game, he had said it like, she had said it seven times. - Yeah, in my game, she had only, she was introducing it first. He's like, no, I don't want to hear it. And I'm like, I get that he's panicking. Like he's in this state of survival. So okay, he just want to hear your technical stuff. The second time she does it, it's kind of chill. And he's like, no, no. They would let her talk. What is the Pregnant? I want to know. I'm sure it'll come later. - She explains it. - But I like them overall. They're like really cute. I was kind of worried because like, Whenever you have a little kid character, that's like. really young like she is, or seemingly really young. They can be kind of annoying, but she's so cute. She's so cute. And he's, we talked about this too, he's a nice guy. So it has a kind of a wholesome feel, like there's no arguing and it's good. But I thought it was funny, like the whole thing is that he's trying to get off of the moon. 'Cause this disaster has occurred here and he's trying to contact Earth, he's trying to get off the moon. He tells Diana he's gonna take her with them. But Sam, we put up a video on what to do in the end game or after you beat it, so he's like, oh well, okay, I guess they're not leaving. Good to know. (laughing) - Or maybe there's an explanation where, maybe there's a, what does it call the point of no return or whatever or so, like easy. - Yeah, it's hard to say, like what that could be like. - I thought it was funny. But to both of you, I don't even know what titanium core is. - Yeah, you won't know after playing it either. - Yeah, it's a weird game, intentionally. - Okay, that's a good way to describe it. - Intentionally weird. - Well, so it has like a very like, Tim and Eric style of like absurdity and humor and it's not like gross or like not like that type of it. But just like where did this come from? Like it's a little bit off-putting and it has this like really like stylistic presentation of like three or four colors. So just be aware that like that's happening and there's like infinite dialogue from characters and cats and things that like-- - This is not what I was expecting. - Yeah, and then a lot of this stuff. And then like, I don't know if this has happened to you Miranda, but at one point you can choose like to like watch one thing or beat the, it's like you can either beat this level right now or you can watch this or you do a boss fight or watch this. And if you watch it, I believe it's the creator or the musician that worked on the game doing like a 10 minute song about fish. - What? - No, I have not seen that yet. - Yeah, so there's a lot of like weird outside the box. But basically what it is, if people were describing this to me in a way that I will not describe it to you. So you do play a puzzle game in almost like a match three style. But what you're doing is while you're doing that and pieces are falling in and doing all the normal match three stuff, you're actually setting up a strategy play field by which the castles and your castle and everything are placed in a way where then you have a rampart round where that turns on and all the people come to life and they battle it out. And you just do that over and over again. But it's a rogue light because your job that you play in it is either to send out a bunch of soldiers and you can buy units per level, just like blotch or anything like that, you're switching out weapons or cards or whatever. But other times, your only skill is you set yourself on fire. So then you have to do the whole level. So there's no water near you. There's a bunch of fire flammable things around you and it burns down. So that's all to say, it's like basically a rogue light strategy game with a match three component and then like an exploration little castle component and it's totally wild. - It's absurd. It's absurd in like such a fun way. There is a story to this as well. - Yeah. - I don't know, but in almost like asteroid city, if you've seen that movie, which I love very much, but basically-- - Yeah, a West Anderson movie? - Yeah, yeah. So it's like, this is a play and we don't have our lead anymore. So we cast someone new and she doesn't know any of the lines but she's here and so she's gonna go in. And so then they get into this thing where it's this person that you're playing as gets lost in the woods and finds themselves at the titanium court. And then they can't leave. And the court is now saying that you're the queen and you have to help the fairies win their war. And then every, the match three comes in is like every day you have like a tide. And so it changes what the field looks like so that you're constantly shifting that around. - And the fairies are all business people. - Yeah, they're all very strange business people. - They're corporate roles. - Yeah. - They don't win anything. - Yeah, they're not cute. And it's such a fun inversion. There's a talking cat. Like there's like this weird mystery. So like if you reach the end of like what is technically the map or battlefield, you get a night scenario where like the court is completely different. You have to explore. So there's like a mystery element to it. And like the levels of strategy are just so much fun. And at first it's really intimidating but it would you agree with him? The game's like really forgiving. And if you fail, it's like, oh well. - And it's the road light in which you absolutely get to use stuff after you fail. And you start ramping up your level so you can take more and more stuff with you into them. But by that point you're starting different roles. Like I played a lot of this game. I played 10 or 12 hours. And I get obsessed with one role. And then it's just like any of these games where you're like, well I'm never gonna play another one. This one's so fun. But this gives you a cap on that. It's like you'll get to somebody. It'll have like a challenge. It's like beat this boss as this role. And then you want to try another one after that. And the other one usually is pretty fun. But they're really different. I was just playing one where you're crawling around as an octopus on the map. And you don't even do any of the send out of troops and stuff. - That's what I'm doing right now. - Crazy. - It's so weird. - It's so weird. - It just goes very strange and wonderful places. It has like that Alice in Wonderland vibe. But if it were again, slightly fantasy with corporate structures. - It's definitely a just one more round thing. Like it's got everything going for it. Like if you play this game and you play this left like this, you won't be disappointed. It's like it's all really good. So you recommend it. - Yeah, yeah. - Okay. - But I gotta stop playing it because I need to play other things and it's like one of those things like this was my only game for a month, it'd be fine. - Yeah, that's the problem. So there's just so many games out right now. This is the one that I play. Like when I'm getting kind of close to bed and I've realized that's a big problem because as you said, it's just one more battle. Like one more day, it's fine. And I say up to like two a.m. And it's like, well, great. - I think it's a very Damien game. It's just like you can, I skip a lot of the stuff. Like a lot of the dialogue, it's like crazy. But then like sometimes it's just so funny to watch and like again, that music thing. And then the music is actually kind of nuts too. Like clearly some of me like did this kind of like low-fi guitar and drums music for the whole thing. - It's great. - You hear it so much that you get sick of it, but then it's stuck in your head and you go back and play in this variation on it. It's just, it's a whole thing. - All right. I will check out Titanium Court tonight. (upbeat music) - And then Miranda, you've been playing a lot of Windros. - Yeah, so this is a, yeah, there's just again, there's so many games to play right now. And Windros is another one that I have been into. So in vain of like intruded and other survival friend games comes Windros, which you play as pirates and Blackbeard is ruling the seas and has destroyed your ship. And now you need to kind of avenge your crew, bring 'em back and go fight Blackbeard as you can, I guess. That was kind of the story as I got pretty quick. It is still early access, so there are some issues. But it is so fun. Like it's just really satisfying and weirdly hard because you are playing on your own servers though you can kind of tune it down and like make it as hard or as easy as you want. But it is just really intuitive and how a lot of it systems work. One thing I was so happy was, I think I've talked, no yeah, I talked about it last time I was on the show, was one of the things that I hate most is when you have these survival games, I have a lot of crafting and I can't find where those resources are. This one, just if you're within range of the base, it just pulls from all your pockets and all the trust around. You don't have to craft like a special one. You don't need a special component. It's not an upgrade, it's just default. Like thank you, thank you. I will continue to play this game. (laughs) And so it makes that really easy. But basically you start on these little islands. There are like different kinds of themes where you can find but it's procedurally generated where they are in the map. And you start with a few like easy quests of like kind of after having been ship wrecked effectively, rebuilding your crew. So like you have to make weapons, you have to make gear, you have to go kill more for their food. There's like dodo's everywhere. And they're the most aggressive things ever. And they're so annoying. And I'm like you deserve to go extinct. It's great. Fighting enemies is like a really big gamble 'cause like if they're a three or four, like you can get taken out so fast, which is really like really cool. Like I like it when it's pressuring you to think about, is this encounter actually worthwhile? Should I go wait for my friends? And that's what I did. It was my friends sort of just helped me guide me through the first bit 'cause I've been playing for a few hours. And then we just were able to like divide and conquer parts of a quest and like proceed together. And like that's just such a fun way to play. By the time I ended, I had like a little like tiny sailboat for just myself and we're working on building a big boat. But building bases is really intuitive and fun. I really like just the general design of the characters and the look of the game and it's definitely one. I wanna play a lot more of. - Is there a supernatural, like a fantastic element to it? Like some kind of monsters that you're fighting also? - Oh yeah, okay. - There's giant crab things. They're crazy looking, they're very aggressive. There's also like these zombie guys kind of, like they're just washed up very wet corpses basically. They don't look that scary, but they're, yeah, they're pretty gross, like kind of bloated. So you'll see some of those sorts of things as well. And there is some sort of magic element. but not like your cast expels or anything, but something with the story that I didn't quite understand with Blackbeard, so we'll see what happens there. But overall, still very-- - We didn't get to talk about, good. - I was just gonna say that the combat on the sea, it's like if you're watching, you can kind of see some people on a ship right now. So we didn't get the big ship yet, but it is really hard because Blackbeard's ships will just be in the water. And if you get on your tiny ship, they will just hunt you down. They start shooting at you like crazy. It's like chaos. It's really fun though, because sailing is just fun. So it's like a gamble anytime you go out. And I like it a lot. - I think the Assassin's Creed reveal happened after the last game scoop, right? 'Cause we didn't talk about it. - Yeah. Yeah, I think so. And just reminds me, I think it looks really good. - I mean, yeah, it does look good. I have not played Black Flag since it was released. So, you know, 12 years ago or something? - I watched one of those like 15 minute like breakdowns they did. And like there's a lot they added and removed to like to make it more like the contemporary Assassin's Creed games. Like, you know, they added characters and stuff like that. But like they, it just, I didn't remember too, that it has a grappling hook, which is kind of great. It's like kind of makes them awesome. And then yeah, then just like the ship combat they added, like new skill trees and stuff. And just like that was my favorite stuff. But it looks like, like, you know, in that game, I always wanted to just get back on the boat. I was like, I was only playing the other stuff so I could do like get my, oh, leveled off. Whatever, I just really like to see combat in it. So I think this looks like a lot, a lot better tweak of that combat and gameplay. - You can't wait. - Ubisoft and the developers have stated multiple times that it's not an RPG. Which I just think is-- - Well, because that's what the, you know, the last four have been, right? Origins Odyssey, Valhalla, and shadows. But I don't, I don't know. I didn't think like the RPGness was a part of it that anybody had a problem with. I don't know. - I mean, I don't see how it's effectively different. It's a giant open world game, giant open world on maps and then also underwater maps and then boat maps. I don't really understand. - Well, again, it's been a long time since I've played this one. But maybe numbers don't fly out when you attack. - No, yeah, they won't have that. But that new Splatoon game has numbers that fly out when you shoot enemies. - Oh, cool. - That's an RPG. - Mm-hmm. - Yep, easy. - Cool. Windrows, is that, is it multiplayer Miranda? Looks like all the footage we were seeing looked kind of single player, but I wasn't sure. - Yeah, it is multiplayer, but you can't play by yourself. So if you don't have friends who want to join you, they can also just jump in if you're running your own server. So if you're hosting locally, whenever you're playing, they can just hop in. - It has a lot of players on Steam. Like, it's a big game. - Cool. - Yeah. - All right, let's check in with the listeners. - Hey, listeners. - Listeners, remember you can always reach us at the email address [email protected], just like Michael Reyes and Portland, Oregon, did. And speaking of Miranda said she's playing a lot of old games. Michael says, "I'm curious to hear from the crew "in your own gaming time. "What's the ratio of older games versus newer games "in your rotation?" These past few years, I've been playing classic and retro games through my Retroid and Miu devices. Some for the very first time, such as Half-Life, Mario 64. Star was nice in the older public. Diablo and Zelda links Awakening. I'm also currently working my way through more modern games, such as Expedition 33, Stardew Valley and Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. Person in my own ratio for how I spend my gaming time is one-third modern games and two-thirds retro games. How about you all? What would you say, Miranda? - Dang, nice. I would say I'd probably flip that with my time, like probably two-thirds modern one-third retro. I've been recently getting back into my old devices so I still have my PS Vita, I have all of my DSs, like those are all ready to go. And I find myself sometimes getting back into the back catalog of Game Pass, just to play some old games that I really loved, just like comfort stuff. I think whenever I get really stressed, I just want to go be in places that I already know I enjoy rather than having that kind of stress about thinking about games for work. That's ultimately what happens when I play a lot of new games. I kind of think of, oh, how does this gonna impact what we're doing for the guide, or is this once said, or did we do this thing? 'Cause this is hard for me, did we do that? So it is kind of nice to be able to like step back into games that are just so not necessarily applicable, not that we don't have guides for these games. - You should be writing guides for those games too. - Not that we don't have guides for the old games. And I don't know what the state of all of them are, but I can tell you, we do not have a guide. I'm like 99.9% sure for Princess debut, which is one of the games that I'm playing right now. - I don't know, I don't think we would cover that. Which is a DS Otone rhythm game basically, which is a very specific, yeah. - Do you have a guide for just me? - Do we have a guide for the first Half-Life or Diablo? - I don't know. - Yes, yes and yes. We would have those, the issue with those is that they were written and then ported to like three or four CMS by now, so it's like, whatever the wiki version of this is probably pretty crazy. - Mm-hmm. - Yeah, four metting gets weird, but yeah, that's kind of where I sit. And I've been going back to ball pit a lot. I know I just, I talked about that all the time this year. - Why that's still on my backlog? I gotta see it. - It's so fun. It's just so fun to dip in. It's very meditative. And that's kind of what I like about it. Like I can just kind of, you know, zone out for a bit. They just had an update too. So it's even, even more exciting. - Yeah, I saw that update. How about you, Sam? - I mean, it's, this is weird. I, first of all, I just played a lot of for Apple and I played a lot of Resident Evil 1 and a lot of Zelda because we did those for our new series. Is it still fun featuring this panel right here? So those, and usually when there's an eShop game out a set of eShop games, I will go through and play those. I don't do as much of the, I don't have any devices that are like emulator devices right now. So unless I bought a bunch of like cartridges, then I'm not going to go through and like play that stuff. But yeah, it's not, it's not a huge split right now. I just have to do so much, so much gaming for work. Now, the change comes, why this is weird for me is that like, I play old arcade and pinball machines all the time. And that's what I'm doing when I'm not at work. I'm usually working on those. Or, you know, I guess playing them, but like playing them to make sure they work. And that's like an ongoing thing. So like in that sense, I'm not like gaming, but I'm like doing a side hustle constantly, getting CRT's to work. So that's fun. Cool. Yeah, like I usually have like one big game, one big, you know, recent game that I'm playing, just, you know, to basically for the show. So we can talk about Resident Evil and Pragmaton, stuff on the show, and then it'll be 007, and then it'll be 4th, 4th, 4th, and 6th. So that's probably like 90% of my time. And then 10%, you know, just like checking out, you know, just picking up my, my meof mini flip or something to play some, you know, whatever. Yeah, I guess you were showing Kingo games too. Yeah, that's nice. It's nice having those on hand. A lot of them are on like Nintendo Switch Online. He wanted to check out my versus Donkey Kong, and then we were checking out a bunch of Mega Man games. So yeah, I'll do that. But probably in 90%, 90% of my time is whatever the latest big game that's out now. Although, as Sam has said, we have this new show. Is it still fun today? It gives us a really good excuse to play old games for work too. So those are the best games I've played all year. Like seriously, that Resident Evil 1 was so fun. It was so fun. And like when we were playing Ocarina of Time, I couldn't put it down. That was so fun. I was forward to it in each night. I was like, this is great. This is so fun. I was thinking about it ahead of like a print strategy guide. So that happens. And I actually did just play through all of it. Metroid Prime 2 before Metroid Prime 4. So like, on Wii U, so, you know, I do do this stuff, I guess. So I would say it's a pretty healthy split. I probably do play, you know, 30% of my time playing old games. Yeah. All right. This is Mark from London who says I was curious with the panel thought about how regional gaming habits have changed as we have become more globalized and connected. I feel like habits around the world are starting to feel a lot more synced. An example for me is things like how Final Fantasy has moved away from turn-based combat to maybe appeal to wider audience and how games tend to come out everywhere now versus some that never came to Western regions. Do you feel like there are still games that are made almost only for a region anymore or all games maximizing returns by trying to target everyone? It's true that I think, yeah, I think almost every game gets a worldwide release now. And I think that's largely because of digital distribution. Like, why not? I think it costs a Japanese publisher next to nothing to put their game in the eShop in the West. So why not do it, right? I think sometimes the answer to that is that that does still exist in some way. So if you look at the Nintendo Direct, there's one in Japan or for Japanese audiences will sometimes be different. Like, there are games that don't come here still or will come here years later because even though it might not cost them a lot to put them on the eShop, you still got to do translation, right? So like, that's going to be where their cost is if they're not planning for that already. So I do think there is some aspect of that, but I would say like if you're looking at say Final Fantasy and the transition from not being strictly turn based, it seems maybe like that could also be an internal preference, right? Like they could maybe just like develop being a little bit differently. Where it's that kind of pseudo turn based with like some elements of it, but mostly action oriented. Yeah, I don't think they're trying to West wash that. Like all Final Fantasy games have gone that direction. Weirdly. No, I think it like, if you look at like Kingdom Hearts 2 and like the success of that, and I think maybe just they saw something in there that they really enjoyed and wanted to kind of mix it up with Final Fantasy and just continued with it that way. So it's hard to say, and I think it would be a developer by developer thing. But as far as like global appeal, it's hard to say that developers really think that way because I think there is still like a key market they're targeting and saying like this is what these are the people who mostly pay for our games or will invest in them if it's a life service thing. So we're going to make our things for them. And then I think if you see like smaller studios that they're just making what they want, right, not necessarily for a specific target audience globally, I guess you could say. So there's a huge amount of games that are only made for the US. They're called Xbox games. Oh my gosh. Hey. Hey. Yeah. That doesn't sell in Japan. Oh my gosh. It's tragic with Blue Dragon. You know, you say that, but also whenever we would go to TGS or I would go at least, and we meet up with our guys from Rige and Japan. There's like one or two guys on that team that like loved Xbox games. They're so excited because we could talk about it. And they're working for IG and Japan. I know. And so we would we go talk about it. They're like, oh, yeah, people paid as much like, but they're trying. And I'm like, yeah. I mean, think of all the Gacha slop that we're not getting here. It's all like, first of all, Korea is famous for MMOs, right? Yeah. Like we get them years later. They're made for Korea, though. They're not. They're not really made for the West, right? So that happens, and then, you know, there's the Gacha's that are like, you know, Genshin type things that, you know, really like a lot of those games are made for Japan or China and mind. And then they come here sometimes, but I, the vast majority don't, you know, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's like niche genres. I think there's still like, Masha on games that they don't bother releasing in the West or, you know, so much. There's a lot of NES so much. I think that's really cool, too. There's like the Den Chidego like train simulation games or, you know, like, I don't know, there's even, but there's also examples that we've seen on Sam with the seal of quantity where there's just Japanese games being released here that aren't even translated, they're just, there's not even an English localization, it's just a Japanese game that's built here. And there was, I think it's cool. There's local sports games like cricket, you know, is big. I'm not saying that's like a small thing in the world. It's a huge thing in the world. It's just not in the United States at all. So it's like, you know, if you're going to make a cricket game, it's going to be here in England and India and other territories that we will never even see here. Yeah. It's really cool. There was, I think there was a time though to Miranda's point that I think Japanese developers were trying to cater to the West, maybe in the late two, like 2008, 9/10ish, because, you know, Capcom, we had, I think Resident Evil 5 and 6 did that. Score Enix got into the Tomb Raider game, I remember being out of TGS, some Japanese publisher, like, I don't tech mo, someone like that had a Gears of War clone, just like big, burly cover shooter, bro shooter, it's like, why is this coming out Japan? Remember when Bomberman got the Grady reboot? Well, now, yeah, that was a little bit before that interview. But then I think they realized to Japanese developers, go ahead, you have first. Just to the Japanese developers credit, I think they learned, like with Capcom and the start of Resident Evil 7, that they learned that they should lean into what, you know, what makes them Japanese developers, and I think they found great success doing that. I mean, it's really cool in our lifetime seeing Biohazard and Dragon Quest become the names of, you know, that are used in the West just a little bit sometimes. Like, Biohazard was used for Resident Evil 7, which I thought was cool. We still have Probotecter here. So in terms of Westwashing, I turned which I just coined on this episode, the NES and Super Nintendo era was really funny for this because there is a lot of anti-Japanese sentiment at the time. There's a bunch of like, you know, stuff in the news about Japanese cars versus US cars and you know, production, shipping to Japan, there's all this kind of an anti-Japanese sentiment. So this giant influx of pop culture from Japan happens and what do they do? They're like, we got to make this not look Japanese and how do they do that? They took all of the amazing drawings that like KG Unifune made for Mega Man or that Shigeru Miyamoto made for Mario and they would like completely wipe them out and then make them into like, stupid, like, I don't know what you would call them, like, what is that called? The sprayed paint art. Airbrush? Airbrush? Airbrush crap. Yeah. I mean, that's how we got the original, the infamous Mega Man one boxer, right? Yeah. But a million of them. I mean, they're all like that. And some are really cool. Like, Contra and Castlevania have the best boxes ever made, right? But like, that's not what the games look like. You look at the cute art of like, you know, Simon Belmont, like, you know, that they would have drawn in Japan. Yeah. There we go. Yeah. I mean, that's like-- I was trying to look at, oh, dear Lord. Okay. I was like, what do you mean? Like, it's brushed. And I was like, what is that supposed to mean? And you show the Rock Man one boxer? I see. I bet it's right. I bet it's right. If you can do a side-by-side joke with the actual Japanese Rock Man boxer, I mean, the Rock Man one just looks like the game. That's terrible. Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah. I mean, it was like this for everything, like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest or anything. They made these like, stupid, he-man-looking characters. But in Japan, it would be like, the super-deformed, like, you-- This is-- Yeah. That's true. [MUSIC PLAYING] What's up? That brings us to video game 20 questions. Oh my gosh. Our suggestion this week comes from Nick from Mount Juliet, Tennessee, who says, "Dame and always makes me happy when you rock a sound garden shirt, so I'm not wearing it today." So based on our mutual love of Chris C. in the gang, why not choose? My suggestion for 20 questions. No need to thumb through any of the other submissions, because I've got your scoop right here. Three to be exact. So you can make the scoop crew choose. Well, I've chosen the second. He gave me three choices. I've chosen the second one, because the first one is called-- it's something called "Eco Night" on PlayStation 1, which I've never even heard of. And the third option was Jersey Devil on PS1, which I know is a mascot platform, but that's where my knowledge of that game ends. I just know there's an X-Files episode about the Jersey Devil, which is like a big foot. Yeah, I only know it in that context. I have selected option number two for you. So with that-- What could this possibly have to do with Chris Cranell? I don't understand. Well, I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about that. All right. With that, let's get to the questioning begin. Is it a PlayStation 1 exclusive? No. Okay. I was like, the other ones are PlayStation claims. Yeah, that's a good point. Is this from before the year 2000? No. Ooh. Okay. Is this a 3D graphics game? Yes. Oh, Miranda might have played it. I might have played it. Is it a PlayStation exclusive game? I don't believe so. Let me just double check and know. Okay. Did this-- Just rolling that out. Yeah, did this come out before 2012? Yes. That's five. Okay. It ended with my encounter. Yeah, I think we're-- I'm trying to switch to that because I think that's when PS4 started. Hmm. That's a good way to look at it. I might be wrong about that, but it's good to know. Did this game win any major awards? Hmm. Hmm. Let's see. Did it? I don't think so. He's looking at the-- what's the section called on Wikipedia? Reception? Exactly. That's exactly what I mean. Yeah. No game of the years, smaller game, probably, not necessarily, but just not incredible. Did this release on a compact disk medium? Yes. So not a cartridge, so not Game Boy DS or some of the DS. Yeah. That's a good question. Now, a little border, is this a PS2 arrogant? Yes. Okay. This is a little hard for me. Yeah, I-- did I-- I had a PS2 just for Kingdom Hearts. That's literally it. So-- I don't think I ever played the first Kingdom Hearts. Definitely played too. Is this game for a licensed property, like-- Is it based on a license? Yes. Based on a license? Okay. Okay. We're getting somewhere. One of those. Is it based on a movie? Yes. That's 10. Oh, shit. Okay. That's good. Based on a movie, PlayStation 2, not exclusive to not win any awards. [LAUGHS] This is based on a movie from around the time that the game came out. No. Oh. Interesting. Ooh. So-- No. At the time of the game. That's weird. It's-- maybe it's The Warriors by Rockstar, which is one of the best movies ever. Um. Uh, I'm trying to-- there wasn't a lot of games that would have been based on old stuff. Is? The time. It's probably The Warriors. But I don't-- I thought that was a PS2 exclusive, but that could have come to Xbox. Ask a question around it. Okay. Because I don't know anything to ask around to the game specifically. Is, uh, based on a movie from the 1970s? No. Okay. Ooh. Okay. Is the movie based on a fantasy movie? No. No. - Oh, okay. - Sci-fi? - Nope. - Nope. - What? - We're almost at 15. Day. We're at 14. - Miranda's good at keeping track. - Yeah, I always like keeping track. - Yeah. Well, there's like, they did made a godfather in the Scarface game and stuff, but those were all Wii games, right? - Yeah, I thought those, but this, it's not an exclusive to PSU. - It was just was on PSU. - Yeah. - Yeah, I mean, yes. - Disc-based. - Yeah. - Is this a crime movie? - Yes, that's 15. - Oh, he might be out of something then, because, - Yeah, I think, so Godfather was Scarface. - 'Cause I can't think of any other license games. - But Godfather's a 70s movie, but Scarface is an 80s movie, I believe. - So there's that. - Yeah, that's later. - I'm trying to, I don't know much about the game. I've seen the movie. Is it out of control? - I didn't even know those had games. So. - Yeah. - Or something every day. - Is this based on a plot about a drug lord? - No. - No! - Wow. - So no drug lord, no fantasy, no sacrifice. - What could it be? - Let me assure you, if there are three questions, then I guess you are absolutely in reach, you're in reach here. - Yeah. Yeah, 'cause maybe this was a, maybe the game isn't about the same thing as the movie or something like that. Like it's not a retelling. - Yeah. - I'm trying to, what do we know about this? - Uh, well, I guess the setting, because the setting would be the 80s, I think. I don't know though. - But we don't, yeah, we don't know it's the 80s. Do the movie take place in the 80s? - No. - No. - I'm so confused. - I'm, so it wasn't from, the movie did not come out around the same time as the game. - Yeah. - It was an older movie. - How many questions do we have? - Two. - And a guess. - Have we mentioned the movie or the game yet? - No. - Okay, so we just gotta think of some kind of crime movie that is in this, you know. - It doesn't have to be like crime, the problem is, I mean, we have like-- - And we asked if it was a crime movie. - Right, didn't we ask that? - I thought you said if it was a crime based game. - Well, then he said no. - I mean, this is stupid, but like I could, I would call those spy things, but there's always bond. - There is always bond. I was thinking, 'cause I'm trying to think of some other like kind of big movies, but it's hard to say whether or not they're too old, but. - Yeah, spy hunter is not a movie from that time. Yeah, I don't, man, this is weird. I mean, clearly there was like some kind of like famous movie that got a game that probably wasn't that great. - Yep. - I don't know, I don't know where to go. - You have one question, I guess. - Okay. - There's some things where I'm like, was that then and I don't remember. - It's like, that's the time in my life or. - Time is strange. - Did this movie have a sequel? - No. - Ooh. - Lord. - A singular movie that had a game tie-in. - I mean, this is enough to get it. I just don't know what it is. - It came from the PS2 era. - Yeah. - Based on a movie, not from that era. A movie that did not get a sequel. That's not from the 70s or 80s. - Not a word-winning game. - Not an award-winning game. Crime theme. - Of course it does have a crime theme. - Was there any like 90s movies? - Someone out there shouting. I know you're out there shouting, I'm so sorry. - I know, I know. - I'm so sorry about to let you down. - I'm the, it's like Matrix, you know, but crime movies would have been- - It's not sci-fi, it can't be sci-fi. - Right, reservoir dogs. Did that exist? - It did, that was in the 90s. I'm pretty sure. - Was there a reservoir dogs game? - I don't think there was a game. That could have been. - I don't know, yeah, I'm just gonna have to give up. We're just gonna have to get this one. - I think, yeah, I don't, I am unfortunately not very helpful with crime movies. I don't watch that many of those specifically that are old. - That's it. - I think we can think of a stuff we get a game. - Yeah, I think we have to give up. Ooh, Sam, it is reservoir dogs. - Oh my god, I got through it. - I was like, Sam, why don't we just say reservoir dogs? Just to guess. I was like, I don't, I'm very happy. - The stats keeper will make up a new staff for this, which is the last thing they guessed was their right game, but they didn't guess. - I had no idea that was a game. - How was it? - Well, this is when IGN and IGNUK both gave their own review scores. IGN, we gave it a three out of 10. And IGNUK gave it a 7.5, okay? - And you gave their voice game it gave it a year. (both laughing) - But the stats were great. - So you're playing through the plot of the movie, but they don't have the likenesses of everyone, and they certainly didn't have the voice talent, I don't think. So what a weird project. What a strange project to exist. - What? - What do you actually play? - I think you drive. - There's driving and shoot. It's the third person shooter and driving game is what it's just like. - A little bit of Grand Theft Auto DNA to try to get it to tell the story. - But it is right at the same time that the Godfather and Scarface games came out too. So there was, there was, let's make a let's gotta make games based on all these classic crime films. - And this came out for Xbox also? - Xbox PS2 and PC. - Wow, yeah. Definitely didn't have a waggle version on the Wii. - It's cheap, but Godfather and Scarface did so. - Yeah, who made it? - This, it was published by AIDOS made by Volatile Games, which is no longer, - No. - The AIDOS. - Yeah, but and they did a lot of license stuff based on Nickelodeon properties too, so. - Yeah, yeah, this engine doesn't look terrible. - Not for the time. - Yeah, not for the time. - When is Roads of War Dog set? Just 90s? - I mean, it probably came out in 91, 92, so it would just be set then, I think. - Thank you. - Yeah. - Well, we got there. - You got there Sam, good job. Thank you for knowing crime movies. - Kind of. (laughing) - But get closer to that. You know, we're, - The Scarface War dogs game. - No, we know. - Yeah, it was brutal. Well, I thought you had a better chance of getting that than Econite or Jersey Devil. - Yeah, definitely. - Yeah. - Nicely attempt, what's up? - What's this, what I don't get the story still, like. - There's no story. He's just saying, he's trying to get me to pick his, he's appealing to the fact that I like SoundGarden to get me to pick. - Got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it. - Thank you for the suggestion. Nick from Mountain, Juliette and Tennessee. Viewers, listeners, if you have your own suggestions for video game 20 questions, email them to me at the email address [email protected]. And hopefully everyone knows that IGNLive is coming up soon. IGNLive2026, happening June 6th and 7th, downtown LA. Come hang out with us. We're gonna have a lot going on that weekend. Celebrity panels, game reveals, life stage shows, giveaways. We'll be doing the 20th anniversary edition of Game Scoop there. It's gonna be a really good time. You can get tickets right now at showclicks or live.igin.com. There are 15 bucks a day. So please be excited for that. And that's our show. All the scoops that we have for you this week. Thank you, Sam and Miranda. Thank you to Joebert. We're gonna behind the scenes. Make this episode possible. My name is Damon, this is Ijin Game Soup and Rout. (upbeat music) There it is. Oh my gosh. How do you, oh man. That's crazy. The art is though for the rock man. I know it's really. Today, the technology exists to make a rock man game. That just looks like that. Yeah. That's what it should look like, but Astrobot. It's Astrobot, but it looks like that. That'd be really cool actually. Yeah, that's why that. What about the more awesome though? You know, we do, we do so much prep for Game Scoop. We have the writer's room and then we have rehearsal. Then we have dress rehearsal. And we got all the way to dress rehearsal without having anybody on the show but Damon and I. Thanks for swinging in there. Yeah, I didn't stop you. Yeah. We showed up and only then when we were getting mic'd up to realize that no one else was coming. So. (laughing) God, I could join. Yeah, it was great. All right. Okay, thanks everyone. Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much. Sam, I'm going to pick up. I'm going to pick up my mom from the airport now and then this week and we're going to Disneyland. Nice, is there a park hopping plan? Are you just going to go to one? Yep, no, we're doing the park hopper. That's great. We were seriously considering tacking on a Disneyland thing to being down in Los Angeles for IGN Live. Yeah. But it dumps us onto a Monday after that and then it's just like a work week. And I'm like, I don't know, like I'm like, I don't know if that really is going to make sense. I'll probably be behind on so much. like the next week and maybe, but we're actually traveling starting then, but yeah. We're not gonna, we have free tickets that expire in June, and I think we're bombed. - No, go down, what are you doing? Go this weekend. - Yeah, it's brutal. - Just go. - They just flipped over space mountain. It's hyperspace mountain again. - I love hyperspace mountain, it's so stupid. So like, blow fire, how they do it? It's like the things they project are like, crappy looking and it's just great. - It's fun, yeah, no, that's my favorite. - Yep, that'll be really fun. - No, I do wanna go, but I just don't know. I'm glad to go down to LA though for that time for Azure Live, it'll be fun. - Yeah. - All right, thanks everyone. - I'm excited. - Thank you. - Thank you. - Bye.