Game Scoop! 859: James Bond Is a Hit, Man

(upbeat music) - What's up everybody? Welcome to "Igene Game Scoop." I'm your host, Damien Hadfield. And joining me this week are Sam Clayborn. - Yeah, it's good to be here. - Justin Davis, scoop. - And in studio, while I'm not even there, I'm at home, is Nick Lemone. - I'm back, baby. - Sorry to leave you hanging in the studio all by yourself, Nick. - It's all good. - We've got a great show for this week. Lots of great stuff to talk about. Dola's having first light is out. That's got a nine. "Meet of the Hollower" is, I think, is that out now, Sam? - That could sound-- - Out now. - By the time you hear this episode, it will have been out. - And Sam reviewed that, he gave that a 10. It also got some really cool news about the Witcher 3. So what's going on? But first, "Igene Live" is here. It's upon us. It's next weekend, it's June 6th and 7th, here in downtown L.A. Now I know everyone that is listening and watching this show already has a ticket. But if you want to bring a friend or a brand stranger, you can go to livedigene.com. You use a promo code scoop for a free ticket. We've got lots of fun stuff planned that whole weekend, but "Game Scoop Live" will be Sunday afternoon. It's the big finale of the show. And it's going to be the 20th anniversary episode. So it's going to be super fun for whatever reason. You can't make it. You can watch it live or we'll publish the episode as normal afterward. It'll be an episode you'll want to watch, I think, 'cause it's going to be a feast for the eyes. So in case anybody hadn't heard, you can now watch our videos on Spotify. And if you're subscribed to Spotify Premium, you don't get any ads. It's an ads-free experience on the Game Scoop videos. So please to enjoy that. Anyway, that's coming up next weekend. So there won't be a regular episode on Friday. We're recording next week's episode live on Sunday, June 7th at IGN Live and we'll publish it. Either Sunday evening or Monday morning. - Now, Damon, do it live. - You mentioned that you could bring a stranger. And I just want to warn people, if you are going to bring a stranger, you should ask them one question. You should ask them what their favorite video game is before getting in a car with them or doing anything like that. Because if they say, "Sonic, the hedgehog," - Yep, you run the other direction. - That's exactly right. Okay, let's start with 007 First Light. I think most of us have had it for about a week now. Very conveniently, my code came in. Right as I was walking out the door to go camping for three days. So I missed three days of playing it. But I like a lot. It's so good. Who is everyone playing in here? - I am, I love it. And I just started. - If I had to go camping during the weekend that this game came out, I would have upped so fast to glamping, doing that weird thing with the tent and a flat screen. - Well, yeah, we were doing that. - Okay. - Yeah, anyway. Yeah, so IO Interactive Hitman folks, we're to begin with this. It feels a lot like Hitman. Because the missions are sort of self-contained, kind of Hitman puzzle-ish levels, right? - Yes, it's got a little bit of that rubbery feel to the characters that you get used to and that everybody looks really good. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. So it does really cool stuff with its sort of tutorial. - Yes, one of the coolest tutorials I've seen in the game since Breath of the Wild. - That's a good place to start. - IMO. - Dude, it's awesome. It's like that section of Cyberpunk that everyone's like, "I wish I could actually play this, but like you can actually play it." - Yeah, so we don't need to spoil it, I guess, or anything. But basically, there's like your young James Bond, and that's you have to learn how to be a young James Bond. And they tell you how James Bond is trained and everything after kind of a pro-lock mission. And that whole training sequence is like in school. And it's like a little Harry Potter for James Bond. - Yeah, episode. - It's great. - It's also like a montage. - Yeah, it's like a playable montage. - Yeah, it's cut together like a full montage. It's fantastic. - February. June. March. - Yeah, it's great. - That's how you drive a car. - It's so classy. - It's some target practice. Now let's practice hacking with your watch. It's like, and it's all happening just like you, you know, a training montage in a movie. - And none of it's like hurting goats in Zelda. Where you're like, this is going on for a long time. Why am I doing this hurting guy? Do I really have to get this perfect? Well, this goat is really hard to hurt. No, it'll just cut. It'll just be like, you learn how to drive for 10 seconds. You're fine. - But the beautiful thing about-- - This is the worst part of our game. Should we have it go by quickly? No, it should last literally five hours. - The beautiful thing about the montage is, you know, most tutorials always do the thing where, all right, show us that you really know how to block. You gotta do it three times in a row. Whereas this, you do it once and then it stops there. You move on to something else. And because it is a training regime, you come back to it eventually. But it's like, oh, now they give you a little more, the leash has loosened a little bit. And now you apply all the other tutorials to this new tutorial. And it's just so clever, so smart. And it's just cool. Like the game is cool. Like, I think that was a big concern of mine going into this. It's like, James Bond is a swav MF, you know? - Yeah, yeah. - He's a cool dude. - Is he cool when he's young? And the answer is yes. He's very cool when he's young. - Yeah. And like, there's lots of, you know, question marks about how, yeah, how do you handle the character? I like this version of James Bond so far, I think. - Me too. It's better than Anakin. (laughs) - Well, yeah. - I mean, like-- - But like even the hit madness of the game, even it extends to the tutorial. Like you were talking about the prologue mission. Once the game lets you like, okay, we trust you, figure out, here's your objective, do it. There's so many ways you can go about doing that objective in just the prologue alone, which I was like, all right, they're kind of cooking in. I actually kind of disagree a little bit. I don't think it feels as rubbery as Hitman. I think there's a lot more fluidity to James Bond compared to Agent 47 in a way that I was very concerned about going into this game, because I would say I love the Hitman games, but I like being the wrench in those games. I don't necessarily love getting into combat. I don't love navigating as Agent 47, but in this, it feels pretty good, especially his like, melee stuff, it's pretty solid. Yeah, first of all, you feel like Batman, as soon as melee happens, and it feels great, and you can win, and then it's a pocket-sized, this is the smartest thing ever in a stealth game. It's, if you can contain it, it's as situation contained. Yep. Nobody heard it, you weren't loud enough. Nobody called for backup, which happens, and you can contain it. I think it's the best thing ever, 'cause I don't just wanna give up entirely on stealth usually, but I was actually saying the, I think they have a style of faces, which looks like they're engine, and you get used to it, but coming out of Indiana Jones, or something, it's a different looking set of faces and facial animations is up with it, which I think looks a little bit plastic, but it's not bad, it's just what it looks like. It's a choice. In terms of production values, I think it's the best looking and sounding eye-op-game. I really really like Batman 3. I think this is a kind of like, they've kind of increased, they've leveled up, if you will. And back to your Hitman comparison about what the game is. The Hitman DNA is that you are usually thrown in a party or a building or a war zone or something where you don't know what the best route is, and you have to discover what that is, and that route might be stealth, it might be climby, it might be platformy, it might be fighting, it might be literally finding a secret, and then using that like a event that you can open or using one of your abilities that you shouldn't, that you should save to actually do a little shortcut. Like that's the type of thing. It's like an open-world playground, and in Hitman, it's a lot more, like that's 10 out of 10 open-world playground. This is more like an 8 out of 10 open-world playground because it has appropriately scripted moments for the characters, and it has times at what you're talking like it has those things where you're like in Red Dead Redemption where you're driving to the scene and you get to drive, but it's not like it's like invisible wall driving and you can bang up your astronaut you want, but like you're still having that conversation, and like Hitman's never gonna have stuff like that. - Yeah. Io Interactive really likes putting levels in nightclubs, and there is an early mission, yeah. There was an early mission in nightclub that has a really great drum and bass track that I got here. - There's also, I gave it a lot. - Yeah, the drum bass track is good there. They're showing this on their level too, which is just a bang and party, and use them, which how Hitman-y is that, right? It's just like, you know, the mayor will be there type thing in Batman, you know? - But I also love the social engineering aspect because to your point, like in Hitman, it's very much, I found the conversation, therefore this is the way in, but I also like that you have choices to make when you're doing your social engineering where you can make a wrong choice that will come to bite you in the ass later on in the mission. And I really like that there is some level of, I need to be paying attention to the conversation as opposed to, I've already found the conversation, therefore I have an in. Like I really, really like that aspect of this, and I think that's where this, I think it's a little bit more interesting to me than Hitman in that regard. It is a smaller playground compared to Hitman, but I think that the alternate modes of getting to where you need to go are a lot more interesting. And it's more cinematic, as you said. - And they're more bond. - You can bluff. - Yeah, yeah, it's a good observation. Like Hitman is more kind of like lock and key, right? Of like, you know, if you have the chef out that you can go into the kitchen, whereas like bond is a little bit more, he's a talk dynamic and interesting. Yeah, yeah, I mean, he's a drummer. - And clumsy, right? He's like Indiana Jones. He can get beat up a whole lot, and he's still gonna be fine. And so you should be okay with that, right? And he's not gonna go around and like stab a bunch of people in the neck. Like it's like a brawler when that stuff happens, you know? - One interesting aspect that the game, I'm curious, you know, I barely got to the first mission 'cause the tour is pretty long. It's like, I would say two to three hours, but I'm at the first mission now. And one aspect that I'm really excited to learn more about is the license to kill moment, because the game during training instructs you that, you can't just go shootin' Willie Nilly. You are a government agent, even though they will disavow you if you're caught. But you can't actually kill unless they threaten your life first, unless you have a gun pointed at you, you cannot kill anyone or it will be a mission failure. And I think that is such a cool thing to include in a video game that has a lot of fun shooting. - I'm in mission seven and so how that manifests is that like midway through a mission, there'll be like a sequence where like it's turned on. So it's like you actually can dash through sequences like that or platform a little bit, but generally that's where you have to take out your gun. I mean, you immediately run out of ammo. And you have a little bit of a focus meter and you have your watch. You have some like ancillary things, but mainly those become like pick up a gun and empty it. Pick up a gun and empty it. And you have to kind of chain your way around. You never, it feels like you have like that residual amount of ammo. We're just like never quiet enough. So you have to like really think about your cover and what you're doing. And like surprisingly, I know Hitman has guns in it, but like the gun playing this is like, I think great. - Yeah. - Like it just feels good, the guns feel good. And then like you actually want to got some guns over the others. I'm always a little bit annoyed when I get a shotgun 'cause I'm like, I never want to get that close to people. And there's always red barrels. So you're like, you're always looking for like, you know, what's that fire extinguisher? What's the thing you can shoot? And it takes out a large clump of enemies. And like some of the battle sequences are more puzzles 'cause you have to like find the angle by which you shoot those. So you may get really far and then die. And then you realize like, oh, this is gonna be a lot easier next time 'cause I know to run to position A, B, and C just to shoot barrel A, B, and C. It's pretty smart. - I'm trying to look up when this game was actually announced. I feel like it was announced a long last summer, I thought, right? - No, it was like teased with the trailer of, you know, the barrel of the gun. - There it is. - It's like iOS presenting, is making a bond game. But it's like Untitled James Bond project. - November 19th, 2020. Hitman developer announced this new bond game Project 007. - Oh, I didn't even know it was announced a long ago. I thought it was until we, like, I thought it was kind of surprise here's a gameplay segment at one of those events. - Well, that was the only time after the announcement that we actually saw it. - Oh, got it, okay. - So it was like, oh my gosh, this game is alive and it's real and it looks good. - Well, so yeah, six years. Yeah, it seems like it turned out great. This is what I'm playing right now. This is what I'm most dug into. I also have been in the Hollywood, which we'll talk about just a second, but that will tell me this. - Yeah. - So I loved Indiana Jones. It's like one of my favorite games of all time now. Like, I love it. And what it did is it took a franchise that I like more than bond, frankly, and then did it justice and like a surprisingly good way. And I think Bond, like, I actually, I'm just saying, I like Indiana Jones because it's like, Raiders is probably my favorite movie ever. I'm not saying like, I don't like Bond. Like, I love James Bond. Doctor knows one of the coolest movies ever. It's insane. So I really like Bond a lot. And so to do a licensed game as well is special. And I gotta say, we do 20 questions a lot and have that question like, is it a licensed game? And I always make the joke that means it's bad, right? If it's from the past 40 years. But like, with an example, like Indiana Jones, and this recently, like, wow. RIP, IP, the worst term ever. That for a film movie franchise or a licensed thing, being put to the game, like, boy, that's working well. Almost as well as games working on TV, suddenly. Like, it's gotten figured out. Well, so yeah, we've got 007 and Indiana Jones. And I guess for Star Wars, like the Jedi survivor. Well, Lego Batman as well. Feel that niche. Lego Batman's a really good example. I mean, honestly, Arkham is the example, right? I mean, we already had great Batman. And then it went away. No, now it's back. Both Lego and Batman are licenses, right? And they work well together. [MUSIC PLAYING] That's 007, first light. I look forward to playing-- well, I'll play more of this evening. But let's go to Mina the Hall or Sam, 10/10 review from you. Nick, have you finished again? I'm about halfway through the game right now. I'm doing a lot of optional content, lots of side content right now. And there's a lot of side content in that game. Yeah, a game. So we just gave Bond a 9, which is an incredible score. And we gave-- I gave Mina a 10. But I can definitively say why it's better than Bond. Would you like to hear? Yes, please. Because it's 1. higher. That's Matt Baby. 1. higher. Yeah, that checks that. That's why. Copy. That's it. I did do a review conversation with Tom in which I talked about how-- why I think this game is a 10. And I said it's really effing fun. I used the full F word. And we moved on from there. And then they cut my other joke. So I'll use that here. And I can see why they cut it. But I still thought it was a good joke. And I was like, but seriously, though, just nobody was looking. And so I just gave it a 10. I made it to the site. Yeah, look. And now what are we going to do? Take it away. But yeah, what are you going to do to take it down, me, too? I mean, I saw the title. I was like, yeah, I agree. Within two hours of playing the game, I said, I looked at myself in the mirror and I said, I think I'm just-- I think I'm playing a 10 out of 10 video game right now. I look forward to seeing the IGN review because I think they will agree with me. I didn't even know Sam was reviewing it. Yeah, I didn't either. You wanted the other surprise. One of my favorite observations from your review. I'm pretty early on in Mina. But you make an observation that is your burrow called the hollow? Is that your hollow? It's called the underlab. No, not like the move that you do. Oh, yeah, burrowing. Yeah, burrowing. So like that burrow serving like kind of three purposes of like, you know, it lets you move faster. It's a dash, but it's also a dodge, but it's also a long jump. Yeah, like a long jump. Like that's so clever. And it does have a learning curve. Like it doesn't naturally feel, at least for me, it wasn't one of those things where it clicked like moment one. Like it took some doing like-- Plank never had that move. Yeah, like I'm missing jumps and stuff like that. But that kind of multipurpose move, it's got that perfect feeling of like it just feels so good by the time you get used to it and kind of understand what it's capable of and how long it lasts. And then you can get the thing that helps you sort of burrow farther. Like, it's perfect. It's a great move. Shovel Knight was kind of similar, right? It had its own little sort of Pogo, like DuckTales, that move that he had to sort of master it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't move. So I have a little bit of game help for the people that are just starting out. So the game goes through the demo, right? So it goes to the demo and there's a couple of early game bosses. And then it takes you to this village. And those bosses are hard, first of all. But you can grind. You can just just go to your underlab and then pop out and kill a bunch of enemies and level your attack up or attack up. And everything will be-- that'll also be really easy already. Like you can just do that. It's going to take you 15 extra minutes max. This is one of them right here. This becomes a world enemy, crazily enough. But that's just how these games work, right? All these Souls games will be like, you know, here's a giant enemy. And then all of a sudden, there's like 10 of them walking around later in the game and you can roll them, right? But so then you get to the open world. And then you get like these like newspaper, you can read this newspaper and it's like trouble in the crypt. So it's kind of telling you which way to go. But you can go anywhere, just like breath the wild or the first Zelda game. You can kind of go in order around. But it recommends you go east. So I do recommend people go east. And then you're going to get to this graveyard. And then it leads to a bridge and then a crypt. And it's just like Zelda, you're working your way. It's just like operating time or something. You're in a factory, go village. And then you're on the trail, the death mountain. And then you're in the Goron village. And then you're in the volcano, finally, for the-- you know, the Dango fighter, whatever. So that's how this game is structured. Now, right when you get to that graveyard, here's what the game help comes in. There's these like nights, which is world enemy is walking around. And like Mitchell, the best game player I know, period, was like, man, those guys suck, huh? And I was like, yeah, they're really, really tough. And so what did I do? I went in the closest, underlaid the little save point before them. And there's these stupid little red goblins that hop out of crypts around there. And I went in, I would kill two, and run back and save. And you can level up really slowly doing that. And then I'll say you can kill five of them. And then you just have to do that. You have to do what you did in Elden Ring, David, where you warp to another area and do that. And you have to get to that level where-- if you're not also just wanting to just be like the best bro or in the world and be really good at the game, and you can probably do that. You need the right trinkets, so you don't start out with them, like to parry and stuff like that. You don't even have that ability. So you have to just dodge at the beginning. So then you can level up to a few levels, your attack. And then that part will become your grinding part, because then those guys that were hard, you can kind of kill in a few hits. That feels really good. And then the first boss isn't so bad. At that point, you have about four bosses and areas and game where it'll feel exactly like Zelda difficulty. It just-- that's where that stops for a while. And then you find some optional bosses, some-- like this guy is actually pretty hard if you encounter him early, which is a weird little Easter egg. There's things like that that will happen that feels more like, oh, wow, I ventured in the wrong place, come back later. That's how these games should be. But it does get to the point where you're like, oh, this just feels like an awesome pedal and Zelda game. Just so everybody knows, that's the weird bottleneck in it. And I wouldn't change that, because it gives you the option. Do you want to grind? Do you want to get good by learning boss patterns or enemy-- world enemy patterns? It's fine. Yeah, I wanted to ask this was also a long time coming, the first non-shovel night game from yacht club games and when it was first revealed, I think everyone their takeaways was that it has kind of a Game Boy color art style and it looks like a links Awakening like, would you still describe it that way? Not at all. And you know, we're putting out a map that we worked with the development team on and we, I mean Miranda and the map G team. So they were doing this and when you put together the map, it is not a rectangular map with everything connected. It fakes that. It fakes it in the meanest way where you go to like east to the dungeon and it just keeps on going further and further and further and further than you're like, well, how do I find a shortcut here? And there are shortcuts and they're interesting. They're like little portals and shortcuts and all the stuff, but like it's not, it doesn't fit together like coho in Ireland and in a way where you can work your way, and you don't work your way around it. You absolutely go off path all the time. There's no right order until the, you know, the later dungeons in which like there's some requirements to get to them that are gated behind gameplay. But yeah, so that's one big difference. And then the other is that there's no items. You don't get items in this game. You don't get a chain hook to get over gaps that you can see early in the game. To get over those gaps, you can do that from the start if you know what to do and that's like the witness right where it's like you actually don't get skills you get knowledge. You do get these things that that help you get over the gaps in other ways, but a lot of the things are solved by like side arms, like, you know, getting the acts in Castlevania becomes a way like in this game like some of the equipment like the little bike that has a lance on it called ironsteed is like actually a way to like get to difficult parts of the game. It's so smart. There's a bunch of stuff I love about this game that caught me off guard of that surprise me. I didn't really read a lot of the previews right. I went in mostly blind. I didn't realize how kind of like, you know, story heavy, not story heavy, but there's just a lot more story in it and characters in it than I expected. Like I knew there was a town, but I did not expect the town to be full of NPCs that had side quests and many things and you can talk to them and their dialogue changes over the game. Like it's huge. It's like it's a big full on like RPG feeling town with a bunch of different, you know, little shops to explore. So that was really cool and a really delightful surprise. And also just the amount of kind of like, you know, bespoke or like just like the reason that this game took years and years and years. I guess I don't know why it took you, but it seems like the reason it took so many years is like the most amazing gorgeous like pixel art you've ever seen and it's on screen for like two seconds. And then it's not repeated again and like as someone that plays a lot of video games that's close to the video game industry, you get used to sort of seeing, you know, tile patterns repeat like you're going to see the same rooftop tile over and over. You're going to see the same building and like that's how they build the town or that's how they build the dungeon is they build it from a tile set. And almost nothing seems repeated like the amount of bespoke places and bespoke enemies and bespoke assets like just feels like almost unfathomable how, how little is repeated in the game sort of artistry. It's just fantastic. What you just said how that's another way it's like links awakening is that it has it's that links awakening put together an island of twin peaks inspired weirdos that developers are on the record saying that's why they did that. This is exactly the same right that the whole thing is like inhabited by just total goofballs and weirdos and kind of like creepy characters to like sometimes they'll like show a character's face after your chatting to like cute pig and it's like a total like I list zombie pig. It's like every single character is kind of a from soft NPC where it's like they all have very distinct personalities are all very fun and clever in a way like it is very horror themed like very Castlevania meets bloodborne in that regard but it still has that yacht club game sensibility about how like goofy a lot of the characters are and I really appreciate that but there is a lot of dark moments where there's some side quest I was like am I really doing this right now it's kind of gnarly some of the stuff you do in the game. And to the bloodborne of it all I'd forgotten about this up from the demo because I play the demo back when that came out but I just how the game rewards aggression because if you take some hits you have the ability to you know you normally in Zelda you kind of retreat a little bit you retreat to a corner and then attack safely from a distance but in this you're incentivized to get up close and personal to hit for the opportunity to get your health back and I just I love that aspect of the game so much I think it's one of those that really. Forces you to confront how fragile your life is in both in game and and in real life but I just think it's I made a I made a build based on that which I loved which was I used the two daggers which are like this is a main weapon which is a high DPS weapon and then you can augment those with a trinket that makes it so each six subsequent hit that you don't miss adds up like an on screen multiplier to your damage which is crazy. That's great right and then I use two of these trinkets that make your it makes your damage drain slowly but like and then you can also use another one the auto heals you but they don't work like you like you get internet life it just gives you more time to get in at a boss and stab so quickly that you can get them down to zero life and not even learn a boss pattern for some of them and it's just a fun thing to try so like it has the ability to like set up cheese in that way but you have to like work for it and think about it and built make that build for that and then it might not work with some boss because you know that boss might have multiple eyes so you can't just stand next to them because you're going to be missing all the time I'm watching this footage and I'm like dude I went into this saying like I do legitimately think this is the best 2d Zelda game but apart from that I think it's also some of the best 2d inspired games because like there's a sequence it's basically Metroid fusion and I'm like oh yeah this game just wipes the floor with Metroid's fusion like chase sequences. It's just so cool so clever and the game is constantly doing new things and man I'm trying to go slow in this game because I'm dreading rolling credits on it because I don't want it to end. Okay hold that thought I have some questions for you but someone's using some power tools outside I'm going to close this window real quick. Okay now I'm I believe they're very quite different games but Nick you'll say do you think this is better than a link to the past. Yes 100% I think this is way more flexible with how you're don't get me wrong I love link to the past but I also think I like both games but wow I think that this is just way more flexible in terms of how it really compliments how you want to play the game I think it gives you a lot more verbs compared to your standard Zelda game I love that you have all of the tools at your disposal to solve any problem that comes your way whereas I always find Zelda's a little bit like you know the old classic Zelda's I appreciate you find the item you use the item in the dungeon and then you kind of call it quits I like that the items that you find in this game have really meaningful changes to how you can play this game instead of just hey I can hold a little bit more money or hey I can have another heart of health like that stuff is fine it just seems so rigid and I just appreciate how much how much more flexible this game is and I really like it feels like very clearly they love Zelda as much as I do and they said how do we do that but make it different. It's like a breath of the wild moment for 3D Zelda is breath of the wild this is the breath of the wild moment for 2D Zelda correct it's doing the same thing it's like upgrading it to an open world game but to be fair Zelda did it first with the first Zelda like that's yeah and it has to be said very similar like link between worlds and the its dungeon approach which I also kind of appreciate. There there definitely is going to be discourse about how hard this game is and so you know Sam Sam's right like you can you can grind like if you take nothing else away from this discussion like you can find a safe spot and you can grind out some levels and you can emulate the game's difficulty that way right but it's it's not a sleep contrast that was so song were like it really doesn't give you the option to go away and get a bunch of you tanks and come back and have an easier time yeah like you just can't do that in that game you have to learn the boss patterns like you don't in this game you can go away. Get a kill a bunch of little enemies and come back and just absolutely work a boss like that is totally fine in this game. Yeah I had to I had to start grinding I there's like an early what sub boss or miniboss or something that was giving me a really tough time and I was like what the heck so I had to go and I didn't realize was that type of game where you could grind and I appreciate that so I like grinding be true. So Sam is this your front runner for your game of the year? Well I absolutely adore Resident Evil and Fukopia like I love and they're so different. That's like you know this is my game I want to play on steam deck every day of the year. I the issue with like where I am with this right now too is that like I like I must 100% it and I'm unable to like I there's things that I have not figured out in it and they talked in a stream. About how there's a secret ending and like when you play this game like there's an insane situation that gets set up. and the ending is so castlevania and cool. I don't know anything about that still, so I'm obsessed with that. And then there's the new game plus, which I'm in at your item counts, literally carry over, and by that I mean, the treasure chests are open that you opened, and the ones that you didn't solve the puzzle for are not. So you can just start your new game plus and like continue your 100% run. - That's sick. - Yeah, and then your levels are a little bit higher. Now the issue in new game plus is that that's where it becomes so-so. The runbacks are gone, they're just huge. Like they take out a ton of the save markers, and then there's a different permutation for each new game plus for the second new game plus and third, or third or one or the other. There's another permutation where it takes more of those out, which I'm like, how do they even do that? 'Cause they're like, well, the one I'm playing right now, there's basically a save before, you know, halfway to a boss and then at the boss. Like they're gonna take away the boss one, and they're like, that sounds crazy to me. - Yeah. - But that's where it's at. - Nick, I know you're only halfway through me in the hall of work, but about two months ago you were thinking Marathon was maybe your front runner for Game of the Year, is that still true? - Brother, this conversation is living in my head day and I've been thinking about this for a long time. It's too soon to speak, you know, Marathon is on the cusp of its season two, which looks fantastic, by the way. I'm still playing it, like I'm at the point now where I find some time to play some video games and then my Marathon crew is like, Marathon? And I'm like, I don't know when I'm gonna be able to play with them again, so yes, but I'm like, could I want to play Meena? But I want to play Double of Seven. But right now, as it stands, a long and hard conversation with myself about Marathon or Meena. So that's so far the front runners. - Well, in an alternate universe, we're all playing GTA 6 right now. (laughing) - Wow. Yeah. - Yeah. - I was supposed to be out this week. I mean, in this universe, we're gonna play it a few months. - But instead, you know, we've got both Double of Seven First Light and Meena the Hollow are both just excellent. - We're spoiled, man. This year, we're spoiled. - I know. - And I gotta play Batman. I mean, I'm really excited. - I mean, that's true. Yeah, I was gonna say not to mention Batman and-- - And I love Resident Evil. - Forza Ryzen. - Forza, yeah. - Yeah, it's another good year for games. - Yes. - We're really lucky. (upbeat music) - Okay, let's talk about an older game. A game that's, I guess, six, 11 years old now. The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt challenge is getting an expansion. Not now, not this year, next year when it's 12 years old. And I love this. Like, that's so cool. Let's give more expansions for older games. That game was 2015, so yeah. Let's do an expansion for Metal Gear Solid 5. Let's do an expansion for Fallout 4. - Double of Two got it, right? The Double of Two got a new class. (laughing) - 25 years old. - Well, there's so many performance improvements and so many different, like, just quality of life improvements in these games too. Like, that's what makes it so exciting is that you can go and play new stuff, experience new stuff, but like all the old stuff's gonna feel better than when you played it. - What about Skyrim? That's the one I want. - Yeah. - Oh my God. - New Skyrim expansion. - Yeah, I mean, you know, the only kind of, I don't know if it's bittersweet or what the quite word is, but like, you know, girl story ended so perfectly. Right, that it's a glue like cracking that back open has vibes or like, if they don't do it well, which CDPR is great writers, so I'm sure they'll do it well. But like, if they didn't do it well, it could feel more like the new Star Wars trilogy of like, now you wrapped up the storyline for like, these three so good. And then when you crack it back open, then it's like, no, it turns out everything's very sad and terrible for them. So like, you know, I don't like, he had this, we can spoil it, right? Like, yeah, it's just a very happy retirement. Like, that's how his story ends. And so that gives me a little bit of pause, but it's still incredible. And I'm still happy to jump back in. - Look at his old man run, I forgot about that. - I think it's gonna be set up very clearly for Witcher 4. It's like a passing of the torch. A lot of the Witcher subreddit was pointing out that the cover art for the DLC, what is it, song of the past? Is that the name of it? - Song of the past, yes. - It has him holding, he has three swords. Two of the swords are his normal ones, but the third sword is the one that people have eyed Siri using in the Witcher 4 trailer. So it's like, I assume this will be like him on sending her off on her, you know, on the path as it were. - It does seem like it's gonna be kind of a bridge from three to four is a pretty good guess. - And I think it was Paul Sosco, one of the, I believe PR people at CDPR. I forget his actual title, so please forgive me, but he talked about like, hey, we were very specific about our use of the word expansion versus DLC. This is an expansion in the way Phantom Liberty was an expansion for Cyberpunk 2077, which means there's gonna be a lot. - It's being, or like geographically too, 'cause they built that region inside of the city to go to. - Yeah, yeah, I'm excited. The only, again, this is just a strictly a me problem, but I had just re-installed Witcher 3, and it's like, maybe I'm gonna go back to Witcher 3 this summer, like, you know, after I got done with Meena and some other games. And now it's like, well, I don't want to play it now. Like, I feel like I have to wait. - You start a new game, work your way up to all the DLC content, get to retirement, and then take a matter of retirement when the time comes. - Yeah, I guess. - I've played a lot of Witcher 3 over the years, and I've started at multiple times, but I've never finished it. I probably won't, like, I'm not gonna put it, like, whatever, 50 hours into it, but-- - What if this is a 10 out of 10, Damon? Would you dust off the Witcher 3 and work your way up? - Well, let's just do it. Is it still fun? That was a-- - There you go. - There you go. - I mean, shoot for content. - No, I have to do it. - That'd be a good episode, actually. - I mean, this is a good reason. It's a good, it's used to do it. - It's a great one. - Great one. - They say more details on songs of the past will be released in late summer, 2026. That sounds like games come to me. - Ainscomb, baby, let's go. - Yes. Also, I just wanna say, like, we get from CD Projekt, like, stuff like this while we're waiting for Witcher 4, right? And good on 'em, because, like, what are we getting from Elder Scrolls? - Yeah, I know. - Please, just a morsel Todd Howard, anything. - Well, instead, they just put out some new stuff for Starfield, right? Okay, all right. - Well, that was well received, though. The new updated systems, yeah. - Okay. - What is interesting about this Witcher 3 expansion coming next year is that there is a complete addition of the Witcher 3. - Yeah, not any more asterisk after we did see it the first time, but there was an asterisk the whole time. They did, I mean, I don't know the last time you went back and started it over, Damon, but they did a really clever thing. I mean, I can't even get my timeline straight. If the next year an update, whatever the big update was, a couple of years ago where they refactored the map and reduced a lot of the map clutter by default, 'cause, like, the game was notorious. You know, a lot of open-worlds games are like this, but Witcher 3 in particular was notorious for just the map being just the question marks everywhere, right? And so they changed some of that around with the update that came out a couple of years ago that makes it, you know, it makes it, it's a little detail that makes a big difference. I'll have to end up playing it during Halloween season, 'cause, you know, you're hunting monsters and there's lots of spooky vibes and just wins howling. - So, man, we're just seeing all the footage of, like, "Damn, I'm gonna replay the Witcher 3, aren't I?" - I know, but that's what I want to, but now I gotta wait. - Ugh. - Something to look forward to for next year. - Yeah. (upbeat music) - All right, let's check in with the listeners. - Hey, listeners. - Hey. - Listeners, remember you can always reach us at the email address, [email protected]. Just like Mick Loven did. - What? - Yep. - Mick Loven? - Big fan of the show. Mick Loven says, "So I have a three-year-old son." And I'm starting to share some of my hobbies with him. We went to see the new Mario movie, "Head of Blast." I haven't shown him any video games, but I'm tempted. Not sure if I should wait until he's five or go ahead and let him watch me play Nintendo games. I'd like to know your experiences with this subject. When were your kids introduced to video games? Do you have any recommendations or things not to do, et cetera? - Yeah, we talk about this from time to time. I think Kingo was three when I started introducing him to video games, and yeah, definitely Nintendo, definitely Mario games, and then Astrobot is another good one and the Lego games. All of those are good because they feature big open environments with very little friction that they can just kind of run around and get the feel of moving a character around a 3D space and getting the feel like what, what, hold the controller and using an analog stick feels like. - Yeah. I think I've shared this anecdote on my kids or not little kids anymore now, they're big kids, but when they were little kids, I love my kids and I love video games, but I did not like, I did not love playing video games with my kids when they were little. It was not, before I became a dad, you sort of filled up in your head like, oh, I love this hobby so much and I can't wait to share it with them, but then the reality is it's kind of stressful for dad. It's a little bit like hurting them around, but like an amusement park or something, it comes kind of like homework for the parent of like, they can't do something and it's hard and then they're getting frustrated and, you know, or they can't, you know, like, if they're playing something on their own, I've also shared this before that like, a lot of Nintendo games for how family friendly they are and how clever they are about being family friendly and kid friendly, it's like because the characters aren't voice acted like there's a lot of reading. Even in like Mario Sunshine, there's a lot of reading. And so that was a challenge. like that really delayed, like that was like two years ago. years that we had to wait for my kids to really get turned loose in these games because they couldn't read them and understand what was going on. And so, you know, we have it now that they're a little bit older, you know, we love playing video games together, but it was not the thing when they were little that I was personally kind of hoping it would be. Yeah. Yeah. But we did, I mean, I have a lot of fond memories of like them sitting in my lap and playing early Switch games, for sure. Yeah. Did you, you know, the new Yoshi game is kind of an angle that kids, Tom gave it a seven, I believe. And it looks like the perfect game, you know, to introduce kids to Yoshi, but he tried that with his kid and in the video review of it. Yeah. He has a little audio clip of him asking his daughter if she wants to play a bar. And she says, no. Yep. Says, I want to play Kirby, which Kirby, I wonder. I think that Yoshi game looks really like interesting and cool. Like I totally want to try it. I'll get it at some point to play with you. We did, I would also say, I mean, three is obviously pretty young, but like probably one of my favorite, not just family video game moments, but just the video game moments of the last several years is me and my daughters had a family Minecraft world together. And like we all, you know, work together and like cooperated and built stuff. And you know, it's split apart and gone adventures and then come back together. So like, can't recommend that highly enough as a way to kind of like spend time together. Yeah. It's great. Every kid's different. It's up to the parents to figure out, you know, when, when is the right time and what can they handle? You know, like, like, can go watch me play through all of Elden Ring with the blood turned off. And all of the horrors that that game includes, doesn't bother them at all. But to this day, he'll be seven in a couple months. When we watch the first Mario Brothers movie, he makes me fast forward through the part in the beginning when they get their first job. And there's that dog that tries to like bite them to this day. He won't watch that. I mean, as we don't have to talk about this, if you don't want to see afraid of dogs outside of the Mario movie, oh, just in the game to be fair, he's a scary dog. It's a mean dog. Yeah. It's a mean dog. Did that dog come back in the second movie? There's a reference. Yo, she eats a dog that looks like that dog in the beginning. Don't know. Maybe that's the moment. Maybe that's how he conquers the fear of that dog. Yeah. He's seen all the Star Wars movies except the latest one except he didn't want to go to see Mandalore and Grogu because in the trailer, there's some scary aliens in it. So one of the great joys of being a parent is getting to like share his thing that I love and now I get to share it with you. But I would also just caution like they're their own people, right? And this kind of like, you know, you must be into what I must I was into can become like a little bit much. Yeah. Amongst like, I feel like it manifests most in like nerd parent circles, right? Yes. Star Wars, therefore you must love Star Wars and it's kind of the equivalent of like when we were kids, if our parents made us love like book Rogers or something, right? Like Star Wars was for us. It was for kids when we were growing up. And so they have their own stuff that like they're going to be into that you're going to scratch. All right. Cloud. It's time for our annual replay of Final Fantasy 7. I think it's funny to see my parents now have to be grandparents to a generation of kids and then be annoyed that the kids are two into video games once again. I'm like, excellent. It's all happening again. Yeah. Can I show you my Minecraft stuff, grandma like, uh, nicks, uh, cloud, uh, just reminded me, I just came from King of kindergarten spring concert earlier. And some of the kids have like a solo where they come up and just say a line and one of the kids that came up was named Kylo. And so if he's six years old now, I have to assume probably that's the Star Wars name, right? Well, and how happy were they that like, he has his redemption in the last couple of minutes of. It's like, wait a second. He's a child murder. What the heck? Well, speaking of Star Wars, extracurricular activities. Yeah. Like I said, last week, I went to see the Mandalorian Grogu. And I really liked it. What's going on with this movie? This is a totally fun movie. That way, Justin, you said you're going to see it. Did you end up seeing it? No, I didn't. Okay. The IGN channel is popping up. I said a second. Freaking time. You've seen it twice now, Sam. Nick, have you seen it? I have not. I have not. But honestly, seeing you guys pop off on the chat on like the day it came out was like, well, this is interesting. I'm curious. I know. I, I don't know, man. Like I think if you approach this movie sincerely, meaning you like Star Wars, you want Star Wars be a thing, you want a good Star Wars movie in theaters every couple years. Yeah. I don't see how you walk away at this point of this movie. Yeah. I just think, I think, I think both perspectives are valid and true where someone's like, you know, this movie could have been an email, this movie could have been a special episode of the TV show. Yes. Like that can be true. But it can also be true that like, it's just a fun adventure and don't think about it that deeply. Like both, both things can kind of like the criticism and the praise make sense to me as someone that's on the semi outside and like, I just don't care that much. So like watching at a second time, I didn't have that like, that nod in my stomach of like, oh boy, where's this going to go downhill? And I had, you know, a nice Alamo draft house meal and it's a beers and it was really fun. And I knew the people I was with would love the movie, right? Like they were like, get a, like, no matter what. And so that felt good. And then I focused on the effects which would have never been in a Disney+ TV show. Like there's some amazing like expensive things. And then I focused on how cool the monsters were. And just like how they did the puppetry and the practical effects. And it's like, there's way more of that like Star Wars classic, like, you know, or like Peter Jackson classic special effects stuff in this than there just then is anything recently. Like it's like a, it's like, it's like watching a documentary and Lucas's tricks. It's so cool. Yeah. So let me ask you this. I, we watched season one of Mandalorian as a family, but my kids haven't seen the rest. Like are they, is this self-contained enough that like they can just, oh yeah. It's the status quo of Manoran and Grogu just go on bounty hunter missions. That's the status quo of the movie. Does the family know his name is Grogu? Because that's pretty important. Otherwise I'll be confusing. They're like, wait, that's baby Yoda. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think they're going to reveal that until they bring me the child's until they bring in us because that's so because the one that can like, yeah, his name is Grogu. And he's like, oh yeah. Everyone watching the show was like, what the fuck? Let's go back to baby Yoda. Come on. And like just collectively as a society, we're like, no, it's not. And he got, we got a little bit uglier after that moment. No, you know, there's all this like kind of like this didn't have an effect on the story or the universe or anything like that. Yeah, I can see that being true. However, there's there like the Yoda connection is played up in the movie and not in like a spoilery plot way, but just like what Grogu is is like explored and I thought that was really cool. Yeah. I mean, this. So here's everything. It has a really cool opening action sequence. It expands the lore of the huts in interesting ways to me. Hell yeah. That part's cool too. Gross. It's gross. It's got cool aliens, cool droids, Grogu's cute. It's got really charming practical effects. And then just unbelievable stop motion effects in the ending suit is like, I hope they do a light magic episode on DC Plus around how they did that. I was like, what? This is crazy. Even the big CG monster that they show that big snake. Yeah. That is awesome. It is awesome movie. And the ending sequence of that's like what happens later in the movie with that snake is so good. Yes, I agree. I agree with all that. I was like, I don't know. You guys are going to make me watch a star. I don't think you're, if you didn't have fun watching this movie, I don't think you're very interested in having fun in the first place. Anyway, I think, you know, Star Wars movies have always been like events, right? They've been like big deals. Like it's a cultural milestone and it was kind of this slightly more like guarded and kind of like precious thing, even though, even though several of them were like bad. But like they were trying to like, they were trying to be like, you know, these epics and like, this movie is just not even trying to be that. It's just, you know, it's attempting to go, you know, in a different direction. And so, you know, I, again, I haven't seen it, but I understand the perspective of someone that's just like, you know, that felt like this was a little too slight for them. Yeah. You know, you're going to think, when you see this movie, you're going to think, now this is pop racing. It's working. It's working. Try spinning. That's a cool trick. I just want to chime in and say, I think the movie was just a little too long. I mean, okay. Sure. That's fine. Yeah. It doesn't work with it. You don't get your money's worth part though, Joe. Because everybody's like, well, this could have been a $12 subscription. That's fair. I just think his fetch was in the first 20 minutes could have been 10 minutes. Yeah. That's fine. Whatever. Sure. You know, rewatching the first part where he's just kind of like doing that kind of one of those Darth Vader things, or it's like, look at this fighting sequence and how bad ass he is. Yeah. I didn't really care the first time I watched it. The second time I was like, if this was in the middle of the movie, it would have paid a lot more attention and it was really good. Yeah. It is good. It's a little bit, it's got like John Wick moves and going on there. It's good. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's a little bit different. But they have done that thing where it's like, oh, Vader's here. He's going to cause trouble. Oh, wait. Yeah. And I'm not saying that that happened in the movie. That's not my, I'm not, Vader's dead in this movie, right? So it's like, yeah. What? What the heck? No, man. Alright, that brings us to video game 20 questions. Our suggestion this week comes from Jude and Pekipsi, although I don't know where Pekipsi is. What state is Pekipsi in? I don't know. It's not. It's unclear. Anyway, you have two hints about this game. Jude says this is a very underrated game, in my opinion, okay? You're hinted from me, and this is important. Listen carefully, this should inform every question you ask, okay? You are playing on hard mode, and with that, let the questioning begin. Like, this is going to be a hard one for us to get, like, like, 20 questions is on hard mode. Got it. Okay. Well, I was going to say, people get mad when I asked, is it, or they get mad when we say 70s, 80s or 90s, but it's a hard mode, so we got to do it. Is this game for-- Why do people get mad about that? Because they're like, that eliminates too many things. Like, yeah, that's the whole point of the game, man. You can just say, is it from this century or last century, it has the same effect? Why would you care? Is it from the century, Damon? Yes. That eliminates too many centuries. It eliminated all of them. All of them? Well, we know it's not in a trust-kin puzzle box. Yeah. Okay. Can you play this game on the Switch? No. Can you play this game on PlayStation Hardware? Yes. Did it come out only on PlayStation Hardware at the beginning? No. Multi-plat. Was this game made in Japan? No. It's five. What was the first clue? I remember hard mode. This century? No, no, no. What was the first clue from the game? Underrated game. Underrated Hardware. It's a very underrated hard mode. So, we don't need to ask if it's good. Yeah. Well, yeah. Presumably, it's good. If-- What was their name? Jude. What if Jude's got bad taste, though, yeah, that. So, Kepsy, North England, Alfred Chicken. Let's see. Generation was an Alfred Chicken this century. Was this game developed in the United States? Yes. U.S. Multi-plat. We don't know it's a console generation yet, though. Correct. But it is on PlayStation Hardware. Yeah. Let's see. Hard mode usually means it's a puzzle game. Could it-- I mean, I sports game or something like that. What's a thing, you know? Do you think that it could be underrated? It could be a licensed game? Probably. Like an X-Men Origins Wolverine type situation? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Is this game from the PlayStation 2 generation of consoles? No. It's not where I would have gone with it. Is this game based on a license? No. Damn. PS4 generation of consoles. No. PS3 generation of consoles? Yes. That's 10. Okay. Sorry. We got there. PS3 generations to PS3 Multi-plat game. Yeah. So PS3 generation, I'll give you another hint, because this is hard. I could not tell you-- to my knowledge, we may have never, ever once mentioned this game on this show. Oh, no. Okay. Let's figure out-- Yeah, it was chosen. Figure out the type of game, maybe. Well, I wish it was a licensed game. Was this game a-- I don't know how to phrase this. I want to get at-- was it like a downloadable game, but then it gets weird because like, oh, maybe technically, it came out on like a disc, like-- because I think it's probably like Tokyo jungle, or something. PS3 downloadable game, fat princess, one of those-- yeah, I got to get like a 3D dot hero situation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is this game mostly-- Mostly-- Exclusive? Well, but-- well, I-- Okay. Maybe you're right. All the ones I just named are exclusive. Yes. Never mind. I withdraw my question. Is it-- Damon, is this game weird? Is this a weird game? Oh, yeah. Yep. We are in American games are uncommon. Well, you said, what about Vibrib and-- we're in-- we're in-- we're in Nicolomone Land right now. I'm probably just in land, too. PS3, yeah. This is-- Hmm. Is this a shooter puzzler or platformer? Yes. Okay. But we know it's weird. I can't believe the answer was yes. Wow. A shooter puzzler platformer, so we at least know three categories. Remember-- remember Crush on the PSP? I could was that. Um. Okay. Well, okay. Was it a puzzler? No. Well, you'd see there a platformer or shooter. Well, I mean, you got to do it, Nick. Is it a platformer? No. Okay. Weird shooter. Mm-hmm. Weird multi-platform shooter from America in that from the PS3 era, what, so it's PS3 in Xbox One, then, if it's multi-platform. Are there games like unfinished swan, which were like-- that's a shoot as a-- yeah, that's true. But like, as a-- as a device, not as a violent game. Yeah, we can't ask about killing stuff or mature or whatever. Yeah. Is it-- is there a shooter where you're like, you know, it's like paint, like Splatoon. Yes. Exactly. Are we asking for real if it's a non-violent shooter? No. I was just trying to think about what a weird, what weird shooter underrated weird. What about like, what about like, what about like point blank? What about like a light gun? Like a Namco. You're shooting cans up. But there's no like, light gun games in that era, though, right? No, I guess it was with like, that PlayStation 2i or the-- Yes. And those had games that were cross-platform with the Wii. Yeah. And it could be a PSI game, and it were like a connected, like, PlayStation I, something weird. Hmm. Interesting. But I don't think any of those games were particularly underrated, I would argue. Yeah. PlayStation I is like a top 10 gaming disappointments for the things that I apologize. I mean, I don't know what-- No, I would do with that. Sure. I don't know. What about like, manhunt wasn't a shooter, right? No. No. It was a plastic bag over the header. Was Rockstar's table tennis a shooter, because it was a tiny projectile. No, but that game is underrated. They came sick. I just watched Marty Sipreme. Yeah, me too. I watched it. Oh, I watched it. It's very stressful. It's very stressful. Just like there are other movies, it's just constant screaming and running. That Beth dogg's barking. Dog's barking. Dog's crying. Yeah. Hate that dog, man. Which I know you're supposed to. That's the point. But it's like, so stressful. What about that Beth jump scene? I don't know. Yeah. That Beth was crazy. Yeah. Kind of a stealth Japan movie. I was pleasantly surprised. Yeah. Let's see. American PlayStation 3 era is just shooter. It's it. Would you call this game directed at mature audiences or adults? Um, I mean, it's tricky. Is this game rated M? No. Okay. That's 15 year. So it's something it's something weird and esoteric that's so it's for adults. It's not for kids. It's not numerated. Weird. It's your final hint. We have multiple copies of this game in the IGN library and I have one on my desk right here. Well, you just pick it up. Oh, sure. I'm going to lose my mind if this guy says it's wet. Yeah. I think that game is rated. I think that game is rated M though. What was that? What was the one Bethesda made with the mantling was like, it's big thing. Traversal. I'm telling Bethesda game. Yeah. Blink or whatever it's called. Is that what it's called? Do you remember that game where you went vertically up platforms and and and kind of duck behind them? And then you go. It was almost like a rocket tear tag game and then there was also an eight-bit game. Dark void. Dark void. Dark void. Yeah. I don't think it's that. This is an era of darks that that's a third person action game, but there's like dark sector, which is a pretty mid game that I could see someone making the argument for being underrated. Even though that's crazy. Do we need to know if this was the first person shooter? Probably. There's. I mean, what if it's a top-down shooter that we're all missing? We also don't know that it's like a shooter by genre because now I'm stuck. I guess that's Sega, but there's alpha protocol. Like some stuff for you to shoot, but it's not a shooter. Yeah. I mean, shooter doesn't mean anything. If it's not an FPS versus a. Yeah, you guys might be on to something with any of those games, and we've probably never mentioned wet on game scoop and 600, 800 plus episodes. - Do you play as a human? - No, brink, brink was the game I was thinking of, by the way. - Oh yeah, brim, do you play as a human in this game? - Yes, you play as a human. - Okay. Was this, I wanna get back to Justin's thing about like downloadable, 'cause I do think there's something valid there. Is this, like maybe, how do we frame this? Like, is this a game that was released as a downloadable only thing for a minute? Like, did it start life as a downloadable game? - He just said, yes, he has the disc on his desk. - Yeah, but we get that right. - Okay, no, no, no, no. - Hold on, we withdraw our question. - We withdraw. - Is it helpful to know if this is controlled in a weird way, if it's like not controlled with a controller? Does that help us? - Yes. - Is this game controlled with a controller? - Yes. - How many, we only have a couple of questions left. - Two questions and a guess. - And it, and it, but it's not rated M. We kind of glossed over that a little bit. Maybe it is like a point break type situation. - Not point break, point blank. (laughs) - What is that? - A point blank is the Namco. I only know them as light gun games, but it's the Namco light gun series where it's like, it's like, "Where are you wearing light guns?" We're like shooting a can up or like, yeah, yeah, I mean, I most know it from the DS version, but there's been, it's not literally point break. - Got point blank. - I'm just saying something like that, like shooting, but it's fun. Like a target shooting something. - Probably not like, hey. - What about, what about, yeah, what about pain? Does that count as a shooter? - We've talked about pain. - Pain was on an episode of 20 questions before. - Okay. - Haze is a game we never would have talked about. That's the one that had corn on. - Should we ask if this is multiplayer focused? We don't know that. - Yeah, but Haze is also not underrated. - I don't know, man. People have to be having weird takes in 2026. - Yeah. - Is it multiplayer? I mean, there was shadow gate, but we had that on 20 questions before. Shadow, whatever it was. The one where you could play as a tree. - I kind of think Justin was on the something with first person versus like, I think like, is this a first person? Am I crazy for wanting that? - Oh, man, that was sad, man. - Am I crazy? I feel like that's a, that helps. 'Cause then we start thinking in a proper direction, you know? Is this a first person shooter? - No. - Okay. - One question, one question. - Girl. - Girl, I know it, I know what it is. - What is it? - Sure, it's come up. - It's vanquish. - Yeah, but vanquish is made by Capcom, though, right? - Oh. - Yeah, you're right. That's a Japanese development game, but that down vanquish. - What about like third, like those alien colonial games? I know it's not licensed, but like a game where you're looking down at the enemies and spraying guns around. - Like a, like a twin stick, like a-- - Yeah. - We call those, oh, with like Robotron likes. And by the way, this is a tangent, sorry. But like, speaking of playing games with your kids, my daughter and I have been playing geometry wars together lately. - Damon. - That's a good time. - Okay. - We download a geometry wars, too, and we play a couple rounds like every day now. - Cool. - There were like games that were, but this is not a disc, though. I was thinking there's like N+ type games at that time, which would be more of a shooter, so helpful. What about bullet storm? - That's a first person, though. - That's a first person, yeah. - Oh wait, no, it's actually famously first person in my bed. I was just thinking about the kicking for some reason. - Good game. - Okay, okay, okay. There was a few, now I don't remember what's first person or not. What was the time, the one where you could manipulate time? - Time splitters. - Well, yeah. - There's one, like-- - Singularity is the one I was thinking of, but I think that's first person. - I think singularity might be-- - Well, you know, it's developed in the US, so it's not like one of the rare-- - You know, that wouldn't come to PlayStation at that time. - Yeah, bullet storm also wasn't made in the US, so it's doubly not that. - It wasn't, oh, yeah, I could have sworn out. - That was like an epic games game, where people can fly, made that. - What was epic working on back then? - Wait, singularity was the game that has the APA. It's singularity and then the APA version is called Singularity Dark Void, isn't it? - You were right about Dark Void, whatever the case is. You nailed that one. I don't know where to go with this. I would go with multiplayer and then we don't have it. - What about a. - Twin stick shooter, maybe, question? - Yeah, that's what we were just talking about. - I love it if it was that, 'cause we would definitely not get it. - It's so weird if it was on our disk. - Did they release-- - Did they release it? 'Cause that was platinum. - Dead Nation? - What about if it just has 3D graphics? We don't even know that. - That's true. - Who made, who made, who made binary domain? - That's Capcom, I believe. - Okay. - Is here all Japanese games. - What if it's like an arcade collection? - A schmupulation. - A small way arcade classics volume one that is sinister in it, so it's a shooter. - I mean, do we want to just, I like Sam's take 3D? - It's not. - It's 3D. - You can do that, yeah, we can do that. - Is this a 3D game? - Yes. - Oh man. - It is a 3D game. All right. Is there a guest? Should I reveal? - Hold on. - Do we have, this is it? - Yep. - This is it. - We definitely should have asked if it tossed a lot of names out there. So we botched this at the end. Damon, we get 21 questions on this one. - Okay. - And I just wanna know, and I know the answer is gonna be no. But like, have we mentioned the name of the game? - No. - Okay. - Then I don't feel that about. - Yeah. - If we were close. - Well, that's your final guess, though, you're allowed to do that. That was it. - Oh, yeah. - Okay. Okay, so this is a game. I don't think we've ever talked about, the developer is someone you've probably never heard of and they're no longer in business, but it was going with all so far. - It's called Game 3, okay. - It's the Japanese publisher. - Just, which, I think they're still in business, but they don't really publish anything anymore. They did puzzle quests, and that was kind of their big clean of fame. D3 did a bunch of good, like, DS era stuff. - This is a third-person shooter with really generic boring gameplay, but the game's premise is wild. - Okay. - And the way that they marketed it is wild. And it's the kind of thing you just can't possibly imagine being made today. It is-- - Eat lead to death of Matt Hazard? - No, the return of Matt Hazard. - Oh, return of Matt Hazard. - Eat lead, the return of Matt Hazard. - Oh my gosh. Yeah, now we never would have gotten this. Nick, did you play this? - No, I just remember the name. This is like during when I worked at Best Buy, and I always saw the cover of this game. Yeah. - Look at the cover. It's like the perfect gray scale at, you know, 360 era slop. - It's very dupe. - Greg Miller Codis. - The idea behind this is that Matt Hazard is supposedly a classic video game character who was popular in like the 80s, and now they've made a new modern day version of his game. - It's third person? - Yeah, it's a third person shooter. - That's insane, yes. - Damon, were we right about Dark Void? I think you reviewed the light that one. - I don't think I did, but Dark Void is the Capcom game and they had an 8-bit D-Make of it, yes. - That should have been that one. - Okay. - That should have been the answer. - Okay. - I think that underrated was doing a lot of heavy things and I'm like, I'm afraid. - Nick, tell me more. - It's really underrated. - I've heard this game is solid. - Is it all in Russian? - Starring the voices of Will Arnet and Neil Patrick Harris. - So what? - So they had some budget to work with. - And they got it off back then. Those are cheap gets back then. - It's got a sequel, an XBLA and PlayStation Network sequel. - Wow, there's your network sequel, Justin. - You're out of something. - Yeah. - And Damon has said, well, the sequel was network only. - So the concept is like this was a gritty modern day version of like an 8-bit D-Make of it, yeah. - But that game wasn't real, that did exist. - Because that was the style at the time, right? - We had already had Bionic Commando and Bomberman do this. - Yeah, that's way too high concept. - That's crazy, right? - Now, I'm gonna spoil the end of Bionic Commando. They're re-armed, but the arm was his wife. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. - Don't you find that out, right? - So let's send your emails about that spoiler to [email protected] and inbox that I do not see. - Yep, eat lead. The return of Matt Hazard. - Binary Domain, by the way, was a Sega game. - Sega, there you go. - It was the bell- - Do you remember a figure on where Pocax was? - The Taku. - Was it the Acusa studio? - Yeah. - Whoa. I don't know, I didn't know that. - I didn't either. - That's one game I'm gonna play when Binary Domain, I've heard nothing but good things about. - Yeah, it's an underrated game, just like Matt Hazard. (laughs) - Eat lead, the return of Matt Hazard, thank you. - I remember like the Christian name. - I remember recovering this game at the time. - Really? - And then yeah. - Because the glitch effect is kind of cool happening right now, do you see that? - They probably brought it into the Igin Office and had to explain this concept to us. We were like, okay, yeah. - You had an actual, this reminds me of an actual underrated game (laughs) which was Army of Two was pretty good. - Army of Two was probably brought to the office and they brought in a cake of beer and everybody had seven or eight beers and then they explained the concept Damon Burp, loud live. And say, okay, let's do this. Yeah, yeah, this is 2009. So well, nicely attempt. Thank you for the suggestion. Jude and Pekipsey viewers listeners. If you have your own suggestions for a video game, 20 questions, email them to me at the address email address game scoop at IGN.com. And that is all the scoops we have for you this week. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Justin. The unique look forward to seeing everybody IGN live next weekend. We're just a reminder that it's June 6th and 7th. And games going to be happening on the afternoon of Sunday June 7th. It's going to be a really good time. My name is Damon. This is IGN games. And someone talks to you about Sonic the Hedgehog just say now. The people in places we used to know. If far away, just flying, flying, feels like falling out of time. Birds above, and in your ear, keep on moving through the fear. Just wait for it, they're coming for you around the dark side screaming for you. I will be here watching you, by your way, in all the rules. I'm on you and one on me, back to zero history. That was really hard. That was too hard. I usually don't pick the two hard games, but I thought this wouldn't be amusing. What was harder? Meena, the Hollywood's first boss or that? This, the first boss I beat.