Pure anticipation and speculation, and Space Jizz. Join us for a conversation about the 2024 games we're looking forward to the most.
Pure anticipation and speculation, and Space Jizz. Join us for a conversation about the 2024 games we're looking forward to the most.
In this episode, we share our thoughts about the games we think will hit the hardest in 2024. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is on Joseph and Willie's shortlist. The air-dashing looks tasty, and we're dying for more time-shift shenanigans—while we wait for the remake of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Willie breaks down the concept for Banishers: Ghosts of Eden, which sounds like a game of consequences, and promises to give an in-depth review of Rise of the Ronin if you buy him a PS5. Taylor (of course) brings up Light No Fire, a game scheduled for release in 2025 instead of 2024—because guidelines can't keep an AI-loving kid in check. Other games mentioned are Black Myth: Wu Kong, Star Wars: Outlaws, Tales of Kenzera: Zau, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, and Mariachi Legends. Also, Taylor thinks Darth Vader looks like a loser. Please direct your hate at him.
Here's the full transcript for this episode.
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00:00:00
[Alienated by ELFL plays in background]
Taylor: Maybe, uh, whip out some cantina, jazz, jizz, I think is what it's called now. [Willie chuckles]
Joseph: Cantina jizz, what? That doesn't sound good.
Taylor: Space jazz. Yeah. [Joseph, Taylor, and Willie laughing] Whip out.... Whip out a bunch of jizz on these fools.
Joseph: Wait, wait, wait. Is that a real thing?
Taylor: Yeah. Oh yeah. That's space jazz, bro. Jizz.
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: Space jazz is jizz.
Taylor: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Willie: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.
Joseph: Shit.
Willie: The cantina music in Star Wars Universe, yeah, that we hear a lot is, is called jizz.
[Taylor laughing]
Joseph: I did not know that, interesting. [Taylor and Willie laughing]
Taylor: I was today years old when I learned...
Joseph: J I Z Z?
Willie: Uh-huh.
Taylor: Yeah, jizz, dude.
Joseph: Oh shit. Okay.
Taylor: There's nothing else that that could possibly mean, bro.
Joseph: No, not at all. Not at all.
Willie: And if you look at it, it's like, if you look that up, I don't know this, [Taylor and Joseph laughing] I don't know where this particular one is, but like, performers of this music style are often called Jizz Wailers.
[Alienated by ELFL fades out]
[Intro theme plays - Tiger Tracks by Lexica]
00:01:04
Joseph: What's up? Welcome to Berries and Blades. Thanks for tuning in for a casual conversation about video games. My name is Joseph, and I'm here with my friends, Willie and Taylor, and we're just three regular guys wondering which Willem Dafoe performance is the best of his career, but I digress. So what do y'all think?
Taylor: Oh man, that's an easy one. Um, so, okay. Not as easy as I was initially thinking-
Joseph: Stalling. Immediately stalling.
Taylor: -but there's the, [chuckles] well, uh, so what's the, the one that he kind of blew up in back in the days about the two brothers? The Irish brothers, what was that...movie?
Joseph: Mm. That's uh, The Boondock Saints.
Taylor: Reservoir Dogs, right?
Willie: Boondock Saints.
Taylor: Oh, Boondock Saints. Yeah. I get those two confused constantly. Yeah, that one was epic, but I did really like him in the recent movie-
Joseph: That's uh, Agent...Agent Paul Smecker.
Taylor: Smecker, yeah. At like... so above and beyond with that character. Um, but also, recently I saw the movie he was in, was it called Inside?
Joseph: Uh, he's in Inside Man.
Taylor: Uh.
Joseph: I think, with Denzel.
Taylor: No, it's one where he, he's a, an art thief and he gets locked into-
Joseph: Oh!
Taylor: -um, into a condo where he's trying to steal some art.
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: And that's just how it starts off. And the whole thing is him just trying to survive this smart house-
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: -that has him locked in.
Joseph: That sounds cool. I don't know what that one's called.
Taylor: I thought it was Inside, but it's something like that. I thought it was pretty damn good. It's a one man show.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Like it's got like two or three actors in it at most, but it's almost 90 percent him. And it's perfect Willem Dafoe material because as he's in there, he just goes more and more insane, you know, like as he's the air gets stuck one way or the other, or as you would imagine, like you start running out of food, things like that.
Uh, he just goes into full on insanity mode and he's a great person to see do that.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: Oh, it is just called Inside.
Joseph: It is?
Taylor: I recommend it.
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: I definitely recommend it. It's good. If you, if you love Willem Dafoe-
Joseph: Uh-huh.
Taylor: -and you're willing to watch him in pretty much whatever, it's definitely worth checking out because just seeing him unravel into madness is always going to be a winning formula.
Joseph: You did watch it?
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Nice. Yeah. I like the, the concept for just, uh, the entire setup for that.
Taylor: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it's great. And there's some really good art in it too. Um, which is a lot of movies have good art, but since this one is specifically about stealing art from a collector, that collector's house has a lot of really cool looking art in there that the movie does a good job of focusing on just enough to let you appreciate it.
Joseph: Yeah, yeah. I'm glad you mentioned Agent Paul Smecker from Boondock Saints because that might be one of my favorite performances. I don't think it's his best, but that's definitely one of my favorites that kind of like made me really appreciate all of his work.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: It was like that performance that was like, Oh. Shit, now I'm like paying attention to him. And, uh, Willie, what stands out to you?
Taylor: Same.
Willie: I don't know. I thought Taylor was going to say, Spider-Man for sure. When he was like-
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: -oh, this is easy. I thought he was going [Taylor chuckles] to say Spider-Man.
Taylor: Spider-Man was in my head. That is a great role.
Joseph: I thought he was going to say Platoon.
Willie: Yeah, I did think that too. That, that was a possibility.
Taylor: I've only seen Platoon once or twice so it doesn't, it doesn't come to mind immediately, especially in relation to the foe. I think Boondock Saints was my first soiree into that dude's range, and so that's always what comes up when I think about him.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Uh, he played a rat in Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: I didn't remember that, but I saw it on the list earlier.
Willie: I mean, I do think his performance in Spider-Man was good. It is, it is a good fit because that dude is all over the place in that movie.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Yep.
Willie: I don't know. I, I do think of Platoon and Boondock Saints as the other one that I do, like, think of immediately.
Joseph: How about Jesus Christ in The Last Temptation of Christ? 1988.
Willie: No.
Taylor: Huh.
Willie: I don't think so. There was something else I saw on the list when I looked at it too.
Taylor: What does he play in that? Is he like, schemey stabby guy?
Joseph: He's Jesus Christ.
Taylor: Oh, is he?
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: Oh, okay. Wow. I would expect him to be like the guy who stabs Christ or something, like he's, uh, comes in with a weird smile and like, uh,
Joseph: The Stabbing of Christ.
Taylor: The Stabbing.
Joseph: Starring Willem Dafoe.
Willie: Oh, I was thinking about his character in John Wick.
Joseph: Oh, Marcus.
Willie: Yeah, yeah.
Taylor: Oh, yeah.
Joseph: I do like that character.
Taylor: Yeah, that's pretty good.
Joseph: It's not much of a role.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: No, it's like, I don't even know how many minutes, but it's, I bet it's like 10 minutes on screen, probably 15 or something like that..
Joseph: Yeah, it's not a lot, but I like, I like that character.
Willie: Yeah. I don't have any other strong feelings about it, but I'm sure [Taylor chuckles] there's plenty of [Joseph chuckles] other good roles.
Joseph: Coming out this spring, Willem Dafoe in The Stabbing of Jesus Christ.
Taylor: [laughs] I wouldn't watch it, but I would definitely check out reviews on it. Probably be entertaining.
00:05:58
Joseph: Uh, alright. It's the beginning of a new year for gaming, and like most years, there are a ton of games on the horizon. Games like Skull & Bones, Tekken 8, Dragon's Dogma 2. And Princess Peach: Showtime!. Shit, at the Game Awards alone, there were previews for like 37 new games. And I know-
Taylor: Wow.
Joseph: -because Willie created a spreadsheet with links for all those trailers. Anyway, I'm saying all of this today because we're going to share some of the 2024 games we're looking forward to the most.
And I fully expect some crossover in the games we want to talk about. So I'm just going to start us off with the game that I know Willie is also looking forward to, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. But talking about this game is tricky because we're recording two days before the demo goes live for Nintendo Switch.
But this episode won't be published until a week after the full game is released. So there's a 100 percent chance we have already played this game by the time you hear this. But uh, Willie, am I right thinking this is one of the games you're looking forward to?
Willie: Yeah, it's definitely on my list, on the short list of things that I'm looking forward to, the gameplay looks cool just right out the gate. It's for sure like 2D platformer style thing that I want to play. I'm gonna try to avoid talking too much about Sands of Time while we talk about this, because [Joseph chuckles] that's honestly what I really wish we were playing soon. But this does look fucking cool, you know? So like, I don't want to downplay that this game looks cool and I'm sure I'll like it.
There's some time manipulation stuff in it too, in a way it seems like.
Joseph: Uh-huh.
Willie: But you know, I've also just been waiting for Sands of Time for forever now.
Joseph: Yeah, I'm pretty hyped about this game, even though they like, that fell through the cracks somehow.
Willie: Yeah, it's good that they were able to recover something else and do something else cool.
Joseph: And honestly, like, a new game in that series I think is really fucking cool too, even though we didn't get Sands of Time. Cause I think that's still like a TBD.
Willie: Yeah, they like cancelled it at some point, and we're just like, we might get back to it.
Joseph: I wonder if it's like, hey, we want to focus on something new, but I think it would still be a cool fucking remake slash remaster.
Taylor: Yeah, this one almost feels like, um, an interim for the moment. Like they're kind of falling back on the classic type of gameplay for this and not reinventing the wheel for it. Just giving it a new coat of paint, making it look good, probably giving it really good controls, making the powers feel good and all that.
It does seem like maybe they've got something a little bigger going on elsewhere and still working on something that's more of a traditional new game-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: -if that makes sense.
Joseph: I do really like that it's going back to like the 2D platforming roots. I think that's pretty fucking cool. And to do it in 2023, I think is great, looks amazing. I like the art direction, like the style of the artwork. I think it looks pretty fucking awesome.
The time powers, they kind of just explained as being new and how you can use them. So I like that they've kept that-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -that aspect of the game.
Taylor: The impressiveness of the art. And the fact that it is a platformer coming out in 2024 makes me just assume automatically that it's going to control really well.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: And also the fact that they're, uh, bold enough to release a demo for it, you know.
Joseph: Dude, only a few days too, like only a few days before early access because early access is on June 15th if you have the deluxe edition and then the full release is on the 18th and the demos on the 11th. So that's only a week.
Taylor: January or June?
Joseph: January.
Taylor: Oh, okay, you said June. I was about to say that's way too far away.
Joseph: Did I say June?
Taylor: Yeah. [laughs]
Joseph: What the fuck? I think I also said 2023 a second ago, too.
Taylor: You have to go listen to that one.
Willie: You did say 2023.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: I didn't catch June.
Joseph: Yeah, I don't think I said June. Fucking liar.
Taylor: Catch up, homie. [laughs]
Joseph: Fucking lies.
Willie: Yeah, the movement in this game does look really good. Just the like dashing around the screen sort of stuff and just, the other thing that stood out to me is those boss fights,
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: They just remind me of playing something like, uh, I guess most recently the last 2D platformer sort of thing I've played was Metroid Dread, I'm pretty sure.
Joseph: That's exactly what it reminds me of.
Willie: There are other indie games that I've played that are platformers that, you know, I would have played more recently, but I don't know, something about the polish on the game, reminds me of Metroid Dread.
Joseph: Same, same. And even the big beast battles that the show-
Willie: Yeah, that.
Joseph: -the size and the scale of the boss compared to, Sargon is the main character that you play as, who is the youngest of a group of Immortals. And in the game, you're trying to rescue Prince Ghassan. So interesting that you're, you're playing as almost like a side character, a new character versus playing the person that would be identified as the prince.
Taylor: It's typically a good move.
Joseph: Yeah, I like it. And then at some point in the game, it seems like the other Immortals turn on you and I think there's going to be some boss fights against the other Immortals along with the big beast boss fights.
So I'm assuming at some point in the story, the other Immortals think that Sargon betrayed them. At least that's what I gathered from just watching like the couple of trailers they've released. So I think story wise, I think it could be interesting because it seems like there's going to be some decent drama in how like the story unfolds.
Taylor: That's cool. I'll be looking at the gameplay, because this is going to be on all the, all platforms, right?
Joseph: Yeah. It's like PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, series...
Taylor: Nice.
Joseph: Xbox Series, Switch, and Amazon Luna.
Taylor: So they're trying to hit everybody
Joseph: [laughs] Yeah.
Taylor: I would definitely be curious because now in a world where things like Hollow, and Dead Cells, and Metroid, like, you know, there are platforms that have really got their shit together.
It'll be interesting to see how they conform to that technology and also how they try to either set themselves apart or, you know, improve upon it or whatever they're going to do. Um, I'll definitely at least give it a shot.
Joseph: And I forgot to list who's doing the development. I don't know how I forgot that in my notes, but they did Rayman. So like they have experience with platformers.
Taylor: Oh, wow. Yeah. That's a pretty good lineage. Like Rayman is highly regarded.
Joseph: The air dash. I don't know if you saw that, like you're midair and then you dash forward-
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: -That little bitty mechanic, I think is going to make the game great. It reminds me of what you can do in Celeste.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: And they still got wall jumping.
Joseph: And when you combine those two, like you have the ability to pause in midair and then dash across the screen. It like really fucking opens the door to like challenging platforming.
Taylor: Looks like they got the classic tropes too, where you got to wall jump and dash over crystals and all that.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: So. I... but it does look pretty like on the, on the stills, like whenever I stopped that trailer and just look at the gameplay stills, it looks really good.
Joseph: 50 bucks.
Taylor: Whoo.
Joseph: I wonder how long the game is going to be. 20 hours, maybe. I don't know. That seems, that seems kind of long, but who knows? I hope it...
Taylor: I find that these are so dependent on how good you are-
Joseph: That's true.
Taylor: -at platformers too.
Willie: [chuckles] Yeah.
Joseph: That's fucking true.
Taylor: Like it might take one person three hours and another person 30 hours.
Joseph: Exactly. I'm happy to wait... to pay 50 bucks for this game though.
Taylor: I'll be seeing if it comes out on Game Pass. This is one that I, for some reason, I could see this one coming out after a couple months. Get their sales in-
Joseph: Yeah, that would be sweet.
Taylor: -have a sale or two, and then bring it on to The Pass.
Joseph: Uh, let's move on. Willie, what do you have on your shortlist besides The Lost Crown?
Willie: Um, it's interesting that there are a lot of good platformers to talk about. So I don't know if I'm going to talk about another platformer.
Joseph: Oh, I did have another platformer on my list too.
Willie: The other thing I noticed...
Joseph: It's probably the same one.
Willie: Probably. The other thing that I noticed when doing this research was, uh, there's a lot of games that are talking about immortal beings in them. The other thing I noticed besides that is there's a ton of action RPGs coming out. That's what everybody has shifted to.
Joseph: Are we in a transition from fucking mechs to immortals? I feel like there's been a ton of fucking mech games.
Taylor: No, no, we didn't have enough mechs.
Joseph: No, you want more mechs?
Taylor: No, there weren't enough mechs yet. Yeah, we need more. Don't even put that thought out there, dude.
Willie: There was some mechs for a while, and then they just sort of went away. I didn't even play Armored Core...6.
Taylor: No.
Joseph: Yeah, I didn't either.
Taylor: That's one I'm waiting to come out on, on the Game Pass as well. Cause I do want to check it out. But, it's so hard to pay 70 for a game right now.
00:13:51
Willie: I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go somewhere different. I think I'm gonna go with, uh, something I didn't even really know about until recently, uh, called Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden.
Joseph: Banishers.
Willie: That game looks cool.
Taylor: That one does look cool.
Willie: The developer is Don't Nod who also did Life Is Strange.
Taylor: Oh.
Willie: So Life Is Strange is like episodic thing, if nobody, if you didn't ever play that before that a lot of people would say is like the competitor to Telltale's games.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Sure. Sure.
Willie: But like, that it's better. A lot of people are like, they did what Telltale was trying to do, but better. And I think there's arguments for that. But like the big mechanic in Life Is Strange is that you can rewind all of your decisions basically to remake them and see how it's going to play out, which you could never do in Telltale games.
Joseph: Oh, that is interesting.
Willie: It is. And it changes gameplay in a way that's like, you know, if you can see all your choices and what their consequences are, how do you then move forward versus Telltale where you're like. Oh, I got to make this decision like right now and whatever it is, I'm stuck with it, [chuckles] you know, unless you go back and play through again.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: Anyway, they got a lot of praise for that game. So I'm excited about this next thing because it's also about choices.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: If you haven't seen anything about it, it's about these people who are called Banishers who are basically sworn to protect the living from the dead. I think their names are, uh, Red and Antea are the two characters, like the two main characters.
And Antea dies at the beginning of the game. At the end of the prologue, she dies and becomes a ghost, basically. She comes back as a ghost, and that's like, what Banishers basically hate the most.
Taylor: Huh.
Joseph: Oh shit.
Willie: So she's like, in this, [chuckles] in this in between stage, where you have to decide as Red, I guess, and I think you still play as her, but as Red, you're like, making this decision together, if you're gonna like, ascend her, to let her pass on to the afterlife, or if you're going to, to, uh, try to resurrect her using the souls of other living people.
Taylor: Oh God.
Joseph: Oh damn.
Taylor: Definitely gotta be some impact from that.
Willie: I'm pretty sure they're, they're in love. And so he's like struggling with that decision, whether or not he's going to let her pass on-
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: -or he wants to bring her back to life.
Joseph: Mm. Hmm.
Willie: Bringing her back to life is going against the rules of the Banishers, right? Their whole motto is something like, uh, where is it? I saw it somewhere. Life to the living, death to the dead And definitely goes against their complete motto to try to bring her back-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -but to do so, he would like really have to kill people and take their souls and feed them to her somehow through some ritual.
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: Hmm. So this is a February game?
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: That's cool. You think it'll be episodic?
Willie: No, I don't. I don't think so. I think it is like a whole story altogether.
Taylor: That's cool. I like the look of it.
Joseph: I do like what they're showing. There's just no fucking gameplay, though.
Taylor: Yeah, well, some of that might actually be gameplay because of the way that those work and they're, they're like, uh, context driven, uh, narrative choices, and...
Willie: Well, this one is more of an action RPG-
Taylor: Is it?
Willie: And there is a good... let me find it. There's a good...
Joseph: There's like a little clip of combat where it's like swinging a weapon. I think.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Yeah. Let me share this with you real quick.
Joseph: The graphics look good. I mean, this is not, this is not what I picture when I think of the game, Life Is Strange.
Willie: No.
Joseph: Right?
Taylor: No.
Joseph: That's like worlds apart visually, right?
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: No, even The Walking Dead series-
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: - had more like swing the bat to hit the zombie or shooting guns and things like that pop up occasionally, but I... both series could have used a little more action sometimes for a lot of gamers, I'm sure, but-
Joseph: For sure.
Taylor: -It just depends on what you're looking for as well.
Willie: So, uh, I put a link in chat to a trailer or like a gameplay trailer, which is pretty cool. And there is some stuff at the end of that. That's talking about one of the early cases in the game.
It's, uh, I think they called it Hammer and Tongs. It's a haunting case is what comes up on the screen when you see it and you're going to investigate this, this couple. This woman who's being haunted by her dead husband who was an asshole to her like her entire life that they were together and she meets somebody else that she falls in love with and I think that they kill the husband so that they can be together instead, and the husband comes back as a ghost haunting her.
So when you get there, you like see the situation and you have to decide, do I take the ghost who's a piece of shit and let him ascend? Or do I banish his soul to like the void? Or if I'm really trying to bring back Antea, do I... if I let the ghost go or ascend him or whatever I do, do I kill one of the people to get their souls-
Joseph: Oh, shit.
Willie: So I can resurrect... so I have one soul to help resurrect-
Taylor: Wow.
Willie: -you know, the person I'm in love with?
Joseph: I just see a menu where you can blame the people.
Willie: Yeah. [Taylor laughs]
Joseph: Like you can choose to ascend or banish-
Taylor: Yeah, Blame, Banish, yep.
Joseph: -and then you can blame her or blame him.
Willie: Yeah. In doing so...
Joseph: Oh man, this seems like a game of consequences.
Willie: It does. And there's like a, I think they say in that video, there's like five different endings.
Joseph: Sweet.
Taylor: I don't see much in the way of anything that's showing me actual gameplay. Like I... definitely the choice mechanics and stuff, but I'm not seeing anything that shows...
Joseph: Action. It's like all cutscenes.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Yeah, its...
Taylor: It shows me controlling a character and walking around and, and having any kind of like explorability. I'm sure that stuff will be there, but they sure aren't showing it.
Joseph: That seems like mostly just like interesting narrative.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: But if they're calling it an action RPG or action game or something, then I'm sure they're... okay, here we go. So at 7:30, 7:40 or so. We do get some.
Joseph: Okay, so that's the very end.
Taylor: Okay, he's pulling out a gun. Okay. Yep. And then running at 7:41 and slashing down on a guy.
Joseph: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: I will say I'm... I always get a little skeptical if you're about to show someone hitting an enemy with a sword and then you don't show that in the trailer.
Joseph: Mm... hmm.
Taylor: That's a very-
Joseph: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Taylor: -that's a choice. That's a choice. If it looks beautiful and you love the mechanics of how your sword breaking up, you know what I mean? Like, it's, it's just a little devil's advocate, but-
Willie: Right.
Taylor: I find that people that cut that stuff out, maybe it doesn't look quite so good. Maybe it has more of like an MMO style polish to it where there's not, I don't know.
Joseph: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Willie: If you uh,, go to that Game Awards trailer. One o' f..., I think 1:04 in that trailer. It's like also at the very end, there's some gameplay. Some stuff that looks like-
Taylor: Let me see.
Willie: -some actual combat starts at like 105, I guess. It's mixed between cinematics and gameplay, I'm pretty sure.
Joseph: This is exactly what I saw and thought was gameplay.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: There's like a really cool parry.
Taylor: Oh yeah, parry. There we go.
Joseph: Yeah. I'm kind of with Taylor here because like you save the action for the very end of that video and then you don't really show much of it-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -including the actual impact of the contact.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: That's interesting choice, but the game looks pretty fucking good.
Taylor: Yeah, it looks worth checking out.
Willie: I like the idea of it too, that somehow there's just this like organization of people who are responsible for passing on ghosts from-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -the living to death, and like having to make the choice all the time of like, do I banish this thing? Is this thing evil or do I let them pass on, like ascend them? It's it's a weird concept for sure.
Joseph: Yeah, it's interesting. I like uh i like that it can change the way the game unfolds.
Taylor: Yeah and it's another dimension whereas. If the game, like most of these are fairly linear with the you know where you're walking, what the maps are.
But what it really opens up is all the choices and like what happens with those choices, how long they affect you down the line. So I think-
Joseph: Nice.
Taylor: -that one's got some potential.
00:21:41
Joseph: Yeah. I didn't spend much time on that game, but I'm glad you brought that up. Taylor, what do you have? Anything? Fucking Jurassic Park or some dumb shit.
Taylor: Black Myth for me.
Joseph: Oh.
Taylor: I can't wait for Black Myth, man. That's a-
Joseph: Black Myth: Wukong
Taylor: -it seems like that's going to be our big, um, uh, Dark Souls game for the year. There might be four of them for all we know, but this one just looks really cool. The enemies that it shows, um, specifically the one with like the long necks and the and the lanterns for heads, walking around in some deep cave dungeons. Combat looks badass, the characters look amazing.
This one seems like somebody took a souls game and turned the weird notch, knob up.
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: And I didn't even know that you could do that because souls games get so like weird as it is with their bosses and Elden Ring did the same. But this one seems to really take it to another level because it's got that Japanese edge to it.
Joseph: Chinese. Chinese.
Taylor: Oh, Chinese. Okay. All right. Maybe that also explains the, how the monsters look different than Elden Ring did.
Joseph: Mm. Yeah, yeah.
Taylor: Was Elden Ring, was that Korean or was that Japanese, the development-er on that? That was From?
Joseph: Yeah, that's FromSoftware.
Taylor: Oh, okay. That was From, okay. But I really like the look of the enemies on this one. I think that they, they look super creepy. [chuckles]
Joseph: [chuckles] They are, man. I think that's what a lot of people are looking forward to is like, just the enemy design and boss designs and-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -this game along with others, it's like pulling inspiration from, uh, ah, it's a piece of writing. I can't remember it off the top of my head. Do you know it Willie? What is the, there's, it's like, um.
Willie: No, I'm not sure. Oh, Journey to the West is the*-*
Joseph: Yeah. Yeah. That's it. That's it.
Willie: -is the like piece of literature.
Joseph: Yeah, that's what I was trying to think of. So yeah, pulling inspiration from there.
Taylor: The Giants are super interesting, man. Like it, it definitely hearkens to like Shadow of The Colossus or definitely Souls has stuff like this um, and Elden Ring did a good job with it too, but yeah, I'm, I'm thinking of the giant turtle, which looks incredible.
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: It looks like it has an entire mountain on its back, unless that's just behind it. Whatever's going on there. I, I feel like you can get on that things back and probably fight some difficult enemies on there.
Joseph: Yeah, I think you're right, Taylor. This would probably be the big, the biggest souls like game of the year. I think there's one other game that could challenge it, which we'll probably end up talking about here pretty soon, but if the combat is good and smooth, combined with the character designs-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -I think it's, it could be fucking hit.
Taylor: Absolutely, man. Basically, every frame of their, that almost three minute trailer that they had for the game awards was-
Joseph: Bizarro.
Taylor: -chocked full of amazingness. Yeah, total bizarro. And not only that, but really showing off how good the map design looks, how good all the textures are, the water looks great. That's the beauty of these Souls games is that Dark Souls 1, you really had to forgive a lot of fidelity issues because they had to make that compromise between always having the game play right, but also trying to show as much as they could visually. And now we're finally getting to those points where they're getting so optimized that they can do both.
They can have the game fidelity look incredible, but also have all of the controls and all of the physics and all the systems working really well together. This is just another, another step in that evolution, but it looks amazing. Like the part where he's riding on the beetle.
Willie: [chuckles] Yeah.
Taylor: Like riding it, flying a beetle somewhere. It almost looks first person and that might just be for a moment. That could be a cut scene that gets you from, onto the turtles back or something.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Just things like that look cool.
Willie: I was watching that part and I, it sort of felt like he might have actually been, he might've just killed like a giant beetle or something and he was riding it for a second before it hits the ground.
Taylor: That's possible.
Willie: 'Cause like at the end of that part, it's like going down and he like is getting ready to jump off or something it looks like.
Taylor: Yeah. And it looks like a hard landing too. It was like a definite hard landing, but I am, I can't wait to play that.
Willie: To your point about it looking good, I feel like this is the year of a lot of games that are going to look really good because it feels like people are getting much better in Unreal Engine 5.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: And there's just so many things that are being developed for it.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: And a lot of stuff like this one, I can't remember. I already lost it. Is this one on Xbox One? Because I feel like everything is starting to move away from last generation of stuff so that they can look good, right? Like this one's not on Xbox One or PlayStation 4.
Joseph: Pretty sure it's just next gen only and PC.
Willie: Right.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Yeah. Yeah, and so like, that's just the way it's going to be, you know, for a lot of things this year.
Taylor: That's where we're at in the cycle.
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: We're at the point where everybody's like, okay, now we figured out, you know how to make our systems work. Now it's optimize, optimize, optimize, and everybody who does that, they're just building on it and eventually this game will play on the Switch or something. That's just the way it goes.
Joseph: That's how I was kind of surprised that Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is, uh, listed for Xbox One.
Taylor: Everything. Like that, that is another thing that made me think on that one, just to touch back on that point. That's what makes me think it's kind of a intermediate game that they're coming out with-
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: -to try to help them fund another project is the fact that they're trying to hit it on every single platform that they can. Being loyal to one platform, one or two, they're like, let's put this on everything we can and optimize it for anything that has joysticks on it.
Joseph: I had more of the feeling that it's probably just an easier game to run on hardware.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: So that's probably why it was like on Xbox One and PS4. And who knows, maybe it's just like a, why not? Like if we can do it, we should just because more people are going to buy the game.
Taylor: Yeah. And maybe it's getting easier for them to retrofit now too. Like with what Willie was saying about Unreal 5 coming along and just the tech of all of that getting better and people learning how to utilize it better.
Joseph: Right. Right.
Taylor: It might just be getting easier to optimize that stuff for everybody.
Joseph: Yeah. I don't know the price on this game, but I'm guessing it would be 70 bucks, but the release date is August 20.
Taylor: I'd say that's one of the only games that I've seen so far that I would be buying straight up.
Joseph: Full price?
Taylor: Yeah, full price.
Joseph: Oh shit.
Taylor: Yeah. 'Cause that's a, that's one of those that. You can get into it later, uh, Elden Ring was the same way, but it was most fun to get into it and be into it in the meta while everybody else is, is exploring it and discovering it.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: It's just an element where you're getting more to the game when you're in that period.
Joseph: But...can you get past the first boss?
Taylor: Probably not.
Joseph: That's the question.
Taylor: Probably not. We'll see. I don't know. There's an amount of hype when I get a game like that, when it's new, that I feel like helps me push through it, like Lies of P.
Yeah, grind through it.
Because you know. Yeah, you know, like, you haven't seen any videos on it. You don't know what's around the next corner. You don't know how big or crazy the next boss fight is. And those are the things I want to get to.
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: So, uh, I'll grind or do whatever I have to, to, to push to that point.
Joseph: Word. Yeah, Black Myth, I think that's gonna be a good game.
Taylor: Yup.
Joseph: Uh, man, that makes me really want to talk about another similar game.
Taylor: Do it.
00:28:54
Joseph: But, I think I'm gonna change directions and talk about Star Wars Outlaws. TBD, but it's supposed to be released in 2024.
Taylor: Is that in our list?
Willie: Mm-uh.
Taylor: No, I don't think so.
Willie: No, because they didn't release anything new for it. It's just been...
Joseph: It was all GamesCon-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -announcements for this game.
Taylor: Okay.
Joseph: I don't think there's anything new besides what had originally came out during GamesCon, uh, in 2023, but this should be a 2024 game published by, uh, Ubisoft. Engine - Snowdrop. Never heard of it. Game engine, Snowdrop-
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: -But developed by Massive Entertainment. It's a third person action adventure game. Will be released on PC, PS5, Xbox Series. The first ever open world Star Wars game set between the events of the Empire Strikes Back and the return of the Jedi, which I think is the fucking perfect spot.
Perfect fucking spot to put this game, uh, be placed.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -uh, a female protagonist named Kay Vess, a scoundrel, seeking freedom and the means to start a new life. But of course, Star Wars has to fucking create some kind of little companion. And she has one, some animal called Nyx.
Taylor: Huh, so she won't be, as far as we know, she won't be a Jedi.
Joseph: Yeah, I don't think she's meant to be a Jedi at all or have any like, be force sensitive in any way.
Taylor: Wow, this, there's an element of this that really reminds me of Metal Gear 5. Kind of when it goes into the open world parts.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: And it may just be that that the tech is getting that point that it's all looking that good at the very least, but this looks super compelling. And what you said, the first open world Star Wars game, that alone is going to sell the shit out of a game because the last two Star Wars games, I didn't play the most recent one, Survivor-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: -but I did play the one before that. And, uh, even though they weren't open world per se, there were, there was openness to the environments still was a lot of fun. So I think that if they're able to pull off that level of engagement and fun per click or whatever you call that-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: You know, where you have so many encounters and everything, and it's, it's innovative enough. They're definitely going to have a hit on their hands. That alone will just have people saying, I got to get into that and go explore that world.
Joseph: I think the potential is huge, man. Love that it's third person game and there's a stealth, like there's just stealthiness to it.
Taylor: Yep.
Joseph: Like, I think that pairs really well with somebody that is just, like, getting by, right? Stealing, being a scoundrel.
Taylor: Yep.
Joseph: I don't know if the underworld is the right word for this, but it seems grimy in that way. Like, you're doing some pretty grimy, low level survival type gigs and taking on jobs that you're just like trying to get paid, but also not get yourself fucking killed.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: I like that. It's low level, right? We're not we're not dealing with Skywalkers. We're not dealing with the high level Star Wars characters that, I don't know. Sometimes it feels like Star Wars is like having a hard time of breaking out of.
Taylor: Yeah, dude. Yeah. Every time I see Darth Vader now, I'm just like, why does this guy look so much like Darth Vader?
[Joseph and Taylor laugh] You know what I mean? Like I know that there's an element of calling back to the old days and to what people remember, but dark, Darth Vader looks like a dork.
Like I'm going to say it, it's uncomfortable. It's an unpopular opinion, but that dude looks like a lame ass loser.
Joseph: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Taylor: Not like somebody who's going to murder me.
Joseph: Are you talking about his costume like in the 70s?
Taylor: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just bringing it back. And it makes sense to some, to some extent, kind of like the VR game. You want to be there with Darth Vader. That's cool. That's like a dream come true. But if you're playing a game like this, I don't want to see Darth Vader. He's going to look stupid. And I want to see a bunch of new badasses.
I want to see a new bad that Is scary and you see him, you think, oh my God, I got to get away from this dude. Or just anything other than, once you see the same character, the same big bad over and over and over and over enough, he's just going to lose everything. And at some point you're just gonna be like, who's this fucking dork? [Joseph laughs] Especially people that didn't grow up with that.
Joseph: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Taylor: You're going to see that and think this is lame as fuck.
Joseph: I mean, I've thought that a few times about his, his costume.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: You know, the first three in the first trilogy, I've thought that about his costume within like the last couple of years where I'm like, this fucking doesn't look intimidating at all. But I mean, it was at the time-
Taylor: Yep.
Joseph: -and hats off to them for switching up the voice actor and not letting whoever wore the costume to voice Darth Vader, because that literally fucking saved that character I think because that's fucking iconic like no doubt dude.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah
Willie: You talked about the engine for a second or like I don't know what what that engine is for this game. And it's um, it was used in The Division and The Division 2.
Joseph: Oh, that's right.
Taylor: Oh.
Willie: I think it was developed for The Division.
Joseph: Right, I did read that.
Taylor: Okay, that wasn't a terrible engine.
Willie: It also got used for South Park as well [Joseph chuckles] The Fractured But Whole.
Taylor: Haha, yeah. The Fracture But Whole.
Joseph: Yeah, really, really-
Willie: It was in that.
Joseph: -really pushing the engine hard there.
Taylor: Well.
Willie: Also, Rocksmith Plus, it's also Rocksmith Plus-
Joseph: Oh.
Taylor: [laughs] Oh great.
Willie: [chuckling] -uses the same engine, which is like, huh?
Taylor: Great, so I'll be able to plug in my electric guitar-
Joseph: Hell yeah. Sick.
Taylor: -and play through some of this, I hope. Maybe, uh, whip out some cantina, jazz, jizz, I think is what it's called now. [Willie chuckles]
Joseph: Cantina jizz, what? That doesn't sound good.
Taylor: Space jazz. Yeah. [Joseph, Taylor, and Willie laughing] Whip out.... Whip out a bunch of jizz on these fools.
Joseph: Wait, wait, wait. Is that a real thing?
Taylor: Yeah. Oh yeah. That's space jazz, bro. Jizz.
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: Space jazz is jizz.
Taylor: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Willie: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.
Joseph: Shit.
Willie: The cantina music in Star Wars Universe, yeah, that we hear a lot is, is called jizz.
[Taylor laughing]
Joseph: I did not know that, interesting. [Taylor and Willie laughing]
Taylor: I was today years old when I learned...
Joseph: J I Z Z?
Willie: Uh-huh.
Taylor: Yeah, jizz, dude.
Joseph: Oh shit. Okay.
Taylor: There's nothing else that that could possibly mean, bro.
Joseph: No, not at all. Not at all.
Willie: And if you look at it, it's like, if you look that up, I don't know this, [Taylor laughing] I don't know where this particular one is, but like, performers of this music style are often called Jizz Wailers.
Taylor: Pfft.
Joseph: Wow. That's a group name right there. The Jizz Wailers.
Taylor: The Jizz Wailers. I, that's mine. I'm stealing it from you.
Joseph: Fucking Bob Marley and the Jizz Wailers.
Willie: There's also a jizz box, that's a musical device.
Joseph: Wrap, wrap up the jizz box.
Taylor: I will say that, um, all of those, like, especially The Fractured But Whole and The Division engines, I really liked both of those. Both of those worked great for what they were supposed to do.
Now The Division, I had a lot of division in my thought about that game, mostly that it sucked, but most of that came down to the end goals, the end games that they put in place. It wasn't that the engine itself sucked.
Joseph: Wait, don't tell me you actually played that.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Oh yeah, for sure he did.
Taylor: Yeah, South Park: Fractured But Whole? Yeah. Yeah, I played two of 'em.
I played multiple South Park games.
Joseph: Willie, you played that too?
Willie: Uh, no. I don't think so.
Joseph: Okay.
Willie: I think I watched Taylor play some of it at some point.
Joseph: Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Taylor has played it.
Taylor: Yeah, it's good stuff.
Joseph: But I was not expecting any of us to have played that game.
Willie: There was another South Park game before that, right? That was not the first one?
Taylor: Yeah, the Stick of Destiny or Stick of Truth.
Willie: Yeah, yeah. That's the one that I, I think I watched you play, not this one.
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: Yep.
00:35:55
Joseph: Hmm. Bonus points for the Star Wars Outlaws is that the on screen typography looks fucking fantastic.
Taylor: Oh, come on, dude. It's not going to be a Star Wars game unless they have sick font going on.
Joseph: It looks fucking real good. So I hope that is carried across into whatever menu system there is and on the map and stuff like that. 'Cause I think that's just going to be that nice fucking typographic polish that definitely makes me feel better about playing the game. I can read the shit.
[chuckles]
Joseph: You know, I'm not, I'm not challenged.
Taylor: So there'll be readable stuff probably, huh? Like things you pick up and read.
Willie: Probably.
Joseph: I bet so, yeah.
Taylor: Voice recordings.
Willie: In an open world, I would assume there's gotta be, right?
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: Gotta get some lore out there.
Joseph: I just hope they don't go, like, I don't imagine they would do this, but, the level of shit you can read in Cyberpunk is out of this fucking world, dude. [Taylor and Willie laugh]
Like, stop. Stop. This is, this is fucking wasting my time now.
Taylor: Well, Witcher was similar though, wasn't it? Didn't, didn't Witcher have an insane amount of lore and books you could read.
Joseph: Control did. Control also did.
Taylor: Yeah, I think that's just-
Joseph: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt?
Taylor: -Yeah. Yeah.
Joseph: I don't remember.
Taylor: I think Witcher had a decent bit.
Joseph: Oh there were books.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: I think there were books you could find.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: They had straight up books. Even back to Skyrim, there was way more than you could...
Willie: Man, Skyrim was great for that though. That's a point in my life when I'm like, I'll read it all. I'll try. [Taylor laughs] I'll, I'll see what's going on. And there's just like full on huge chunks of books that you can read in that game to learn about the world.
Taylor: Yeah, with volumes. There were some that went over 10 volumes, right?
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Oh fuck.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: You just have a collection in your library at home of all the books.
Taylor: Yep.
Joseph: That was me with, uh, that was me with Control. Like that same feeling where it's like, there's so much, but I'm reading it all. I guess they did that with Starfield too, right?
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: There's a bunch of books and shit. I just sold them all because they fucking sucked. [Willie chuckles] But [laughs]
Taylor: Yeah, weighing me down, books.
Joseph: I remember a bunch of books in Starfield.
Willie: Yeah. I didn't read any books in Starfield, I don't think really. They also had audio recorder like things that you could listen to-
Joseph: Mm. Right, right, right.
Willie: -which was good.
Taylor: That's about as far as I'll go. [Willie laughing]
Joseph: [chuckling] Yeah.
Taylor: I will not read a bunch of books in a video game. It just feels weird to me.
Joseph: Yeah. I didn't come here to fucking read.
Taylor: But I will listen to recordings. Yeah, I came here to pop heads..
Joseph: I came here to shoot stuff and blow up shit.
Taylor: Yep.
Willie: I don't know if we're going to talk about this in a future episode. I don't know if we're still going to, we talked about... Joey and I talked about maybe doing like maybe some New Year's resolution style things in a, in one of these episodes. But Barbara had maybe mentioned about like reading books in games. My resolution was going to be to read like books in games. [laughs]
Joseph: 100 books.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Oh man, there's some good stories in there. I mean, that, uh, one of the stories that I have locked in my head that I want to make it to a cartoon and have for a long time came out of some of the reading material in, um, Dishonored because they, they had such good... I think that games like that really, neither of you played those though? Um-
Willie: Mm-uh.
Taylor: -But they, they did a great job of making the books no more than like two or three pages.
Joseph: Nice.
Taylor: They had a good amount of them that you could read, but they were perfect chunks. A lot of them, were straight up short stories. So they might've been two pages.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Interesting.
Taylor: And, uh, for me, that was perfect because it was just enough to be like, oh shit and then, you know, you get some that are light, but because that was such a dark world, most of them were dark and ominous.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Okay, Star Wars Outlaws, that is TBD.
Willie: Before we leave that, I definitely want to make sure, it's just cool that there's like, you know, vehicles everywhere, so like you're on a speeder bike, like out in the desert.
Joseph: The speeder's cool, yeah.
Willie: Yeah, and then you're like, in a spaceship, flying around, so like, how much of that is...
Joseph: Oh! I think you can take off from the surface too, straight into the fucking atmosphere.
Willie: Right, exactly. So I think they're gonna do that again, which is pretty great.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: And you mentioned Nix, and I think that there's like a mechanic where Nyx can do the thing where they go grab stuff for you off the ground. Like if you're out of ammo or something.
Joseph: Yeah. And like hit buttons and controls and shit.
Willie: Yeah-
Joseph: Yeah. I like that.
Willie: -and that's pretty cool.
Joseph: Hell yeah.
Willie: That's always plus.
Joseph: Yeah. 'Cause it changes how you want to like strategize your like sequence of like taking people out. You know, like if you are playing stealthy.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: I like that, that you can use Nix as probably a distraction or used to like pick things up, bring things back, hit buttons.
Willie: Can you imagine like sending your cute little pet over to somebody like, to distract them while you come up behind them and take them out. [chuckles]
Joseph: Hell yeah.
Taylor: What are the odds that that pet is going to get murked at some point? [Willie chuckles]
Joseph: Oh...that...that will suck.
Taylor: They're going to make you love that pet and then they're going to take that pet from you.
Joseph: That would suck, man.
Willie: Yeah, that would suck.
Joseph: Especially the way the character looks.
Taylor: This is the new Star Wars.
Joseph: The way they've designed the character, it's like, automatically fucking cute.
Taylor: [laughs] Right.
Joseph: You know, Taylor's right? Like you're going to fall in love with this character immediately, like in the first couple of hours.
Taylor: Yeah, this ain't no BB that can, you know, be shot with a blaster and then repaired. This is a baby.
Joseph: Yeah, shot out of a cannon.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: This is an organic creature.
Taylor: Yeah. So they're going to play with our organic creature hearts on that.
Joseph: Oh yeah.
00:40:49
Taylor: Just... I want to throw out as a, this is not one of my favorites, but I just came across it in here as I'm kind of going through this list and looking at games that I haven't seen yet. Uh, Big Walk looks super freaking fun and interesting. Did y'all watch that one?
Willie: Yeah, that's a 2025 and I'm, that would be on my list if this, if it was a 2024 release-
Taylor: Okay.
Willie: -I would absolutely be talking about it because that game does look great.
Taylor: It looks so fun.
Willie: It's made by the people who made Untitled Goose Game.
Joseph: Oh.
Taylor: Oh, interesting
Willie: Dude, I really want to play that. It's a multiplayer like cooperative puzzle sort of-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -I think open world adventure.
Taylor: Elements of it remind me of, oh man, I can't think the name right now. What was the open world open universe game that came out a couple years ago that, you take off in a wooden spaceship and you're flying around. There's only like six planets-
Joseph: Oh, Starfield. That's Starfield. [Joseph and Taylor laugh]
Taylor: -to explore. Yeah. It was uh... Six planets to explore, it was an Xbox marketplace game or, or Xbox, um, Game Pass game.
Joseph: No idea.
Willie: I don't know.
Taylor: Golly.
Willie: It's not ringing a bell at all.
Taylor: I wanted to say like Outfield or Outer.
Willie: Oh, is that...
Taylor: Oh man. Outer Wilds.
Willie: Outer Wilds is one. Yeah, for sure.
Taylor: Might've been Outer Wilds.
Willie: Is that how that started?
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Hmm.
Willie: I don't remember that.
Taylor: Yeah. When you wake up, you wake up under a starry sky and you're like with these, um, I don't know, native people to this planet. You are yourself as well. But their tech, they're like just figuring out-
Willie: Mm.
Taylor: -how to explore the universe and, and you're taking the first rocket off of the planet. And the planets are like small and easier to explore, but yet have some really like crazy ass puzzles, and I mean, one planet is covered in tornadoes, so you have to land on it-
Willie: Oh right, I do remember that now.
Taylor: And do all kinds of crazy shit, like go into a tornado and... like, I feel like if y'all didn't play that, I definitely feel like Willie, you would have a lot of fun with that game.
Willie: I watched someone play that. That's how I know. And, uh, I just found some gameplay of it. I was like, yeah, I did. I did watch somebody play that game.
Taylor: That was like a, uh, intellectual playground, really that game, because there was so much exploration, but also so much... the puzzles weren't overly difficult, like they were just enough to be fun and stimulating and to give you something to do, a reason to explore, but that's what, uh, Big Walk actually reminds me of, is elements of that, but more of a co-op thing, which, hell yeah.
Joseph: I like the description on YouTube, uh, it's a quirky puzzle game that takes place on a deserted island with a bunch of bizarre looking bird people.
[Willie chuckles]
Taylor: That sounds perfect.
00:43:27
Willie: Do you have a, another pick? I'll let you go next. 'Cause I'm still, I'm still thinking about.
Taylor: Me?
Willie: Yeah. Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah. Um, mine is, it's a cheater because we don't, we don't know yet, but Light No Fire, man.
Light No Fire is something, uh, because I am...
Joseph: Shit, you breached. Breach. Alert.
Taylor: I know, I know.
Joseph: We breached our 2024 contract.
Taylor: I know, man. Um, so, so we're thinking that that one won't be 2024? Is that probably going to be a 2025, or?
Willie: We don't know.
Joseph: I don't know, actually.
Willie: We just don't know, I guess.
Taylor: My thought was that these guys develop so fast and they have such a good system already. I was hoping that maybe we'd see it by the end of the year, at least.
Willie: The only reason I think that we might not is that he said they had a small team working on it when he announced it.
Taylor: Okay. So they're going small again. So maybe not.
Willie: So I don't know. I just don't know.
Joseph: Best case scenario. Winter 2024.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if they had to push back too, just because of how much blow back they had to work through with their previous game, No Man's Sky. They may play this one a little bit slower and make sure that when they release it's...
Because they could never do that again, right? They couldn't release another trailer that has a giant worm coming out of the ground and flying over people and then not have that in the game. Like that's a mistake that you make once, you don't do that again.
Willie: Maybe, but what if they, could they do an early access game-
Ah.
Taylor: That's totally possible, man, because those open world games, the open world survivors are, those are really big in early access for sure. And they do really good in early access. So maybe, I guess that's a big if.
Joseph: I could see that probably happening based on how many freaking updates there are to No Man's Sky.
Taylor: Right.
Joseph: And just like how they continue building on that.
Taylor: And tho those seem to be slowing way down, which is also why I was thinking because... wasn't the last one, didn't they announce that that was the last-
Joseph: I have no idea
Taylor: chapter for...
Oh, there's more stuff coming?,
Willie: No, there's definitely more in 2024-
Taylor: Good lord.
Willie: -for No Man's Sky too.
Joseph: Shit did not look like it's slowing down when I saw that clip on-
Taylor: Oh my god-.
Joseph: -at the Game Awards
Taylor: -so much. Yeah. They have done so much for that game. That... that's what makes me excited about it is one, I love open world games. I love co-op games like that, but those guys have definitely proven theirselves. If you buy that game, you are getting a hell of a deal.
Joseph: Word.
Taylor: And you're probably getting a long term project as well-
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: -that they're gonna make right every single time that they can. Like they've earned a lot of trust.
Joseph: Extreme value, man.
Taylor: Yeah, extreme value.
Joseph: Like in that kind of game, like extreme value for like 60, 70 bucks.
Taylor: Yeah, like absurd value, absurd like, like if you were just asking a developer of that or demanding of that rather, you would be for sure out of line. [laughs]
Joseph: Right.
Taylor: You would be like an absolute asshole to be like, do all that and do it for free.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: That's insane. That is, that's a dev team that loves what they're doing. Like they love that fucking game.
Willie: I'm gonna go with you on this one just because I also want it to be here already. I want it to come out. I've watched that trailer multiple times just being like, oh, what other cool thing might I see in here?
But, you know, it's very obviously from the beginning, there's all kinds of shit to look at just, you know, mounts. And then those skeleton people, you could just be skeletons walking around, I guess.
Taylor: Yep.
Willie: And obviously there's a ton of different races. I know Taylor pointed out, uh, those rabbit people the last time, which look cool as fuck.
Taylor: Yeah, yep.
Willie: There's giants in that thing.
Taylor: Especially if your mobility is based on like, if you're a rabbit, if you can like bounce faster, like a rabbit. Oh my god.
Willie: There's a lot of cool stuff in there. Some of the aliens look like the, look like some of the characters from No Man's Sky too.
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: The squat little toad looking creature looks like the, like it could be from No Man's Sky.
Joseph: Nice.
Taylor: Yeah, it looks so cool, man.
Willie: There's paraglider in there. Some flying mounts, obviously some base building.
Taylor: Oh yeah. The mounts look insane. And just like, just like you would expect from them. Like you can just fly the mounts around perfectly. You're just sitting there flying it like a jet, a personal jet across the, [Joseph chuckles] and the building looks really good.
Like you get to see them building a house and bringing everything up and the way that, rocks are flying up and building the walls and everything. Like they seem to have all of the pieces in place for a perfect game. Somebody flies off on a hummingbird.
Joseph: Yeah, man.
Taylor: I mean, that's my jam. I freaking love hummingbirds.
Joseph: Yeah, that's jammy for sure.
Taylor: Yeah, jammy 9000.
Willie: There's, in that section with the rabbits. There's also a giant character, sort of in the background that it scrolls to, and it's like, can you play as that? Or is that just an NPC that's in the world? But you know, that thing is sitting down and looks eight feet, 10 feet tall or something.
That would be weird if there's also people inhabiting the world who are also giants, that you could be that as a player character, but I kind of doubt it.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: But who knows.
00:48:22
Taylor: I just love to see their take on an Ark because Ark, for all of the issues we had with Ark, there were a ton of them, a ton of bugs. There's a ton of stuff that's just a little off or annoying about it. If you're not a perfect arch-e-type player of something like that, um, then eventually you'd get bored.
Willie, Willie and I are good examples. I'm more of like an action driven. I just want to get in there and go kick some ass and see some cool shit. Willie and Barbara were more like, hey, let's build places and see about training these things. And like, you know, playing the game as it should be because there was so much there to do.
It'll be interesting to see these guys take on that because there were elements of No Man's Sky that were the same way where you could just go out and start ripping ass everywhere and doing cool stuff.
Or you could sit on a planet. On the same planet or, you know, same system forever and just sit there and build things and, you know, progress and evolve technologically-
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Taylor: -But it's almost mixed with a look that is a little more detailed, but almost reminds me of like the newer Zelda games, just with that great looking, get up on a hilltop and look out and find something cool and go towards it and mysterious.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: And they could be pulling from some of that type of gameplay too.
Taylor: Hell yeah, do it.
Joseph: Yeah, for sure.
Taylor: Like, the best parts out of games like that, you know, don't mince words. Just go ahead and do that shit.
Joseph: I mean, a lot of people were incorporating the glider component, like that, that ability to glide like across an open world since uh Breath of The Wild. I feel like that's in a lot more games since then, and I think it's fantastic too.
Taylor: And the climbing. I wonder if they'll have, uh, if they'll have similar climbing, like rock climbing-
Joseph: Hmm.
Taylor: -and things like that with your character.
Joseph: That is interesting. Yeah.
Taylor: 'Cause they're so big on tools, but before it was all space tools, you know what I mean? Like every gun in No Man's Sky would have, I don't know, 10 different slots or 18 different slots in which you could put different chips and different tools and things build onto it, make it into a crazy thing.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Like, now, they're not going to have that space element. It's going to be all grounded in an open world, which I think opens up to all kinds of shit. Why wouldn't they put in claws that you could put on your hands and climb stuff? But I'm pumped.
Joseph: My guess is, uh-
Willie: I'm excited about that.
Joseph: -Yeah, me too. My guess is spring 2025.
Taylor: Yeah, that's a good conservative guess.
Willie: I can definitely see it being really late 2025 too, you know?
Joseph: Sure, yeah.
Willie: Just because that team he said was small-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -but I am hoping for like a surprise at some point.
Joseph: Word.
Taylor: You know how they, they seem to like, uh, October and November, if I'm remembering correctly for their like kind of big release cycle.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: I don't know. Maybe, maybe No Man's Sky official release was like April or something weird. Like they, they kind of marched to the beat of their own drum when it comes to releases.
So that also is, it leaves it real up in the air.
Joseph: Yeah, for sure.
Taylor: These guys are not beholden to anything.
00:51:28
Joseph: But, uh, Willie, do you have one final game?
Willie: Yeah. I think real quick, I'm going to rattle some stuff off that I'm not going to pick just because I don't have a PlayStation 5, which is...
Joseph: Oh, man. Immediately a game on my list.
Willie: Yeah. Obviously, I'm going to go with the obvious one first for me, which is Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Can't play that. But the other one that I am stoked about is Rise of the Ronin-
Joseph: Uh-huh.
Willie: -is something I would like to play.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: It's by Team Ninja, who made like the Ninja Gaiden games, and like Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, and it also looks like that game Tenchu or Tenchu Z, the way that it feels to me.
Joseph: Uh-huh.
Willie: But um, that's something that I would love to play, but PlayStation 5-
Joseph: Me too, man.
Willie: So I'm not even going to put it on my list because-
Joseph: I'm trying to figure out a way to do this one, man. Like, I don't know, 70 bucks. Obviously, I don't have a PS5.
Willie: Somebody could hear this and gift all of, or me and Joey, because we don't have Playstation 5s. [Taylor laughs]
Joseph: Pfft. That'd be amazing.
Willie: You could just gift 'em to us.
Joseph: Shit.
Willie: And if you did that, I would review Rise of the Ronin for you. [chuckles]
Joseph: [laughing] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Taylor: An in depth review.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Personal review.
Joseph: Totally worth the $500 it would cost you to send us a PS5.
Taylor: Yep.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: That game looks incredible, man. Like I, I-
Taylor: Yeah, it does.
Joseph: -I've paid a little bit more attention to it since like The Game Awards and going back through and watching the trailer. It reminds me of a cross between Wo Long, which makes a lot of sense. Sekiro, which also makes a lot of sense. 'Cause Wo Long is a lot like Sekiro, but then Ghost of Tsushima.
It's like they mashed all of these three together and hey, glider, there's a fucking glider in the game, which looks badass. There's a grappling hook. You can fucking ride on horseback and I don't think it's as linear as Wo Long was.
Willie: Yeah. Man!
Joseph: I did see, um, they have been working on this game for seven years.
Taylor: Wow. Well, they don't mess around.
Joseph: I feel like seven years is a bad number since that Starfield.
[Joseph and Willie laugh]
Joseph: [laughing] Star... Starfield shit.
Taylor: We don't know what those guys were doing. They could have been just straight up meeting and shooting hoops for that entire development cycle for all we know.
Joseph: Word. I did, I did jot down a little bit, uh, I don't know where I got this, maybe from the website or somewhere, but this is a quote from somewhere about Rise of the Ronin. The black ships of the West descended upon the nation's borders and the country falls into a state of turmoil. Amidst the chaos of war, disease and political unrest, a nameless warrior forges their own path, holding the very fate of Japan in their hands.
Taylor: Huh.
Joseph: There's something about it being a nameless warrior, a warrior that is like fucking giving me Elden Ring vibes dude. Maiden less, fucking lowly tarnished. I want to play another nameless warrior.
00:54:02
Willie: Man, I have so many things on this list. I think because you brought up tarnished, I'm just going to go with the Shadow of the Erd Tree DLC.
Joseph: Oh shit. I hope there's something.
Taylor: Oh yeah.
Willie: That's what I'm looking for.
Joseph: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hell yeah.
Willie: We usually don't talk about leaks too much. And I don't know that there are any, but like, that are worth believing.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: But if they are to be believed, it could be the end of February.
Taylor: Ooh.
Joseph: Yeah, that'd be fucking great. I mean, there's other shit to play. So even if it's...
Willie: It's the anniversary of the release of Elden Ring-
Joseph: Oh.
Willie: -and people think that it might be... there was also some weird, uh company, I think called Thrustmaster that makes controllers.
Taylor: Pfft, Thrustmaster.
Joseph: Thrustmaster?
Willie: I think they make like, usually make motion controls or like not motion controls, but like driving stuff for like those kinds of games.
Joseph: Why is it, why they got to use the word thrust? That just sounds sus.
Willie: [chuckles] I'm pretty sure that's their name. I'm going to look it up now.
Joseph: It sounds like a as seen on TV piece of workout equipment.
Willie: They do the like, [chuckles] they do the like, uh, steering wheels and stuff and like flight sticks for games.
Taylor: Speaking of that, I'm going to inject something real quick. I want, did you guys happen to see, if not, I'll send you the video of it. There was footage of someone who was using AR and they were playing, I think Flight Simulator, and they had their flight stick in, in front of them in the center, and the AR was immediately putting their flight stick and arm and everything into the game.
Joseph: Nice.
Taylor: Into the cockpit so that like, as he was moving it, you can see like the dude's tattoo and everything, like as he was flying-
Joseph: Oh shit.
Taylor: - it just had to stick in there. I was just like, oh my god, this is... and his legs, like you could see his own like knees and everything the way he was sitting.
Joseph: Huh.
Taylor: I'll send y'all the, that video 'cause it's super impressive. It's just like 30 seconds or a minute, but that's where we're going with AR. I wasn't sure if y'all saw that.
Willie: I think I did see something very similar to that. I don't know if it was the same one.
Taylor: Sick.
Willie: But that company, they're doing a collab. Well, so there was a tweet that was posted at some point that was a collab between them and Elden Ring that talked about the anniversary and the like, celebrating the launch of their DLC or something.
And everybody's like, does that mean it's going to come out soon? And we didn't know-
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: -but then it got deleted, I'm pretty sure.
Joseph: Hmm. Okay. Okay.
Willie: So it's very, it's very possible. That we get that sooner rather than later. I, no matter what, I think it will be 2024.
Joseph: Yeah, I think so too.
Taylor: It needs to be.
Joseph: Even it's not that soon. I'm not even, I'm not even worried about that because there's some good stuff to play.
Willie: Yeah, there definitely is.
Taylor: Yeah, but we haven't seen any DLC from them, hardly, right? Like there was a little bit. Um, a few months in, but it was just kind of auxiliary things added. I would be super surprised if we didn't see the DLC come out this year.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Oh, yeah. I think everybody would.
Taylor: Because they want to get their name back into the end of the world. Like if anything, maybe they'll do something special for the anniversary. And then after that...
Oh, here's that tweet, "Rise tarnished and let us walk a new path together. An upcoming expansion for Elden Ring Shadow of The Erdtree is currently in development. We hope you look forward to new adventures in the Lands Between."
Joseph: Yeah, I hope so, man.
Taylor: I could see them wanting to wanted to like get the name out there again, because right now, people are still rediscovering this. I see it on Twitter all the time, people like, oh, should I check out Elden Ring? Yeah. Okay.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: And then three days later, they're clearly in an Elden hole and loving it. [Joseph chuckles] But yeah, that's, this game is too good, I think to let rest for over two years-
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: -or over a year.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Honest..., it's just like, man, y'all take y'all's time. I'm like 100 percent confident that it's going to be great.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: So like if, yeah, I don't even care if they don't want to rush it.
Taylor: No.
Willie: I mean, I think it's, it's basically been two years now, you know-
Taylor: Since it came out?
Willie: -since the game came out.
Taylor: Okay. I thought so. And then... that's a long time.
Willie: It will be two years in February. So like, I feel like they've been working on it since they launched, right.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: And maybe even before, so-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -cause there's a whole story that we don't know about Miquella and I think that's, that's some stuff that we're gonna get to find out, I hope.
Joseph: That's gonna be some juicy shit too.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Whatever becomes of that and how it ties stuff together. Looking forward to that.
Willie: Yeah, for sure.
00:58:08
Joseph: Only other game on my short list that we don't really have to talk about so we can wrap up soon is Tales of Kenzera: Zau. April 23rd. $20, dude, this game is fucking 20 bucks. That's incredible.
Willie: That one's on my list for sure.
Joseph: Yes.
Willie: I didn't want to pick that right after we talked about Prince of Persia.
Joseph: Yeah, I thought so, yeah.
Willie: But, uh, that's the second on my list for sure.
Joseph: It looks so good. And it's focused on story, but the platforming is there.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: And to me, it looks like you took Kena: Bridge of Spirits and you turned it into what they're calling a 2. 5D platformer, which I don't really know what 2. 5D is.
Willie: I think it usually means that the, like, there is a little movement back and forth on the screen that matters, you know?
Joseph: Yeah, I like that.
Willie: And I think it's a mix between the backgrounds being traversable and the foreground being traversable is usually sort of what it means, I think.
Joseph: Hell yeah. I'm down.
Taylor: Not gonna lie. This, this trailer is two times as compelling as the, as the-
Joseph: Prince of Persia?
Taylor: -the other one we were talking about. Prince of Persia. Like, this is really, really good.
Willie: Yeah, it definitely looks cool.
Taylor: They're showing all kinds of stuff on here.
Joseph: It's gonna be great, man. And like, the inspiration for the game, I think is what's going to make it great.
Willie: Yeah. Just that guy talking about it.
Taylor: Oh, really?
Joseph: The game is literally him dealing with the grief of losing his father. And he's like, turned that into a video game. So like already you're like, fuck, this is coming from a bad ass place.
Willie: And it's a tribute to his father because they liked playing video games together.
Taylor: Oh, that's crazy.
Joseph: Yeah, man.
Willie: And so he made this thing to deal with the loss and the, the person, the character Zau in the thing is trying to bargain with the god of death to bring back his father. Like that's part of what's going on.
Joseph: I think it's gonna be great.
Taylor: Those games have like, they do get an extra special place in a lot of people's hearts because so many people go through that. Everybody goes through that, you know-
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: -at some point in their life. And the... we saw that with, uh, That Dragon, Cancer, right? Was it... was that the name of that one? The, it was like an indie game that a guy made for, uh, but they, it was because they lost their kid. And there's just an amount of weight that those, that those carry.
I think it was called That... That Dragon, Cancer.
Joseph: Mm. That doesn't sound like something I've heard of.
Taylor: I mean, if you just, if somebody just read you the description, you'd be like, I never want to play that because it's, it's so heavy.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Right.
Taylor: Like the content is impossible.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: But the people that do play it were like, that was one of the most special experiences of their lives, you know-
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: -to try to deal with something like that. So, and, and I think in that one, it was, they tried to make you feel what he felt, um, like what the dad felt.
Joseph: Right. What I love about the, I mean, obviously there's like, Tales of Kenzera, there's like a lot of grief, obviously, in like the inspiration behind the story and what it means to... I'm probably going to butcher his name, Abubakar Salim is who, who the actor is that like, this is a project of and like, you know, it was his father and like, this is his project.
Willie: And he started the studio to make this game. Like, he was like, I...
Joseph: Yeah, which is incredible.
Taylor: That's beautiful.
Joseph: That's what I was trying to get to is what I love about these games is they're good because the people really fucking care and give a damn about the end result, right?
Taylor: Yep.
Joseph: So, like, what this means to him means this is going to be a fucking fantastic game because he cares so much-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -about the end result and what it means and like how it's a part of his healing process and like that, 100 percent I'm going to buy this game and play it just for that reason alone.
Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. And to support somebody like that, who, who did it for such a compelling reason, you know, you're not going to start hearing the music from that wrap it up box, start playing, you know, in the last bit-
Joseph: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Taylor: [chuckling] -when you see, he's like, okay, now the story goes to crap and is rushing through whatever, like this dude probably saw it from beginning to end.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Also, also a colored person in the gaming industry, dude, this is how I felt about Ember Labs with, uh, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, dude just like, this is like one of the only black owned video game studios in the whole fucking industry.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Like hell yeah, and the game's amazing. The game and the animation is incredible.
Taylor: Yeah, it's one of those things you also want to support. You know, like 20 bucks is not a lot to say like, hey, I want, I want to see more shit like this.
Joseph: Yeah, exactly.
Taylor: I want to see more stories and more people exposed like this because it just makes us all better.
Willie: I thought it was cool that it is picked up by EA Originals to like be one of their titles to put out.
Taylor: Oh.
Willie: It's cool that he found a place to do that.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: It was also interesting that the second slide in that, or the second like part of that video is just like with support from Ridley Scott Creative Group and Critical Role, which was the thing that I thought was really interesting that like-
Taylor: Wow.
Joseph: I forgot about that.
Willie: -they're dipping their feet into, to back projects like this-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -and video game projects in general. That's...both of those things are interesting.
Joseph: I assume. Yeah. I assume because, um, Abubakar was in Assassin's Creed.
Willie: Yeah. He's a voice actor. He's in all kinds of shit.
Joseph: Yeah, yeah.
Willie: And he was in, he was in Legends of Vox Machina for, with Critical Role. Like-
Joseph: Oh, okay.
Willie: -in the Amazon series, he played a character there.
Joseph: Okay. So the connection is even more direct than I was going to mention.
Willie: I think he's friends with the cast.
Joseph: Right, right.
Willie: -is... at least Matt Mercer. Like I'm pretty sure.
Joseph: Yeah. All of that makes total sense. Like the, voiceover connection.
01:03:16
Willie: Yeah. Real quick, we don't have to talk about this last one so we can wrap it up. There's another platformer called Mariachi Legends that's developed by Halberd Studios. It's a game I Kickstarted like a month or two ago.
The Halberd Studios says they explore the fusion between Mexican and Japanese tradition.
Joseph: What.
Willie: And their team is out of Guadalajara, Mexico. And it's like a, they list it as a combat oriented Metroidvania.
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: They made some other game called, uh, Nine Years of Shadows, which is like mostly positively reviewed on Steam.
Taylor: Huh.
Willie: It's got some negative reviews for sure saying it's like not that original or it doesn't quite hit the Metroidvania aspects, but it was like 25 bucks to kickstart this thing. So I was like, yeah.
Joseph: Interesting.
Willie: I should check it out, but it's set in Mexico, there's a gang called the Mariachi Legends-
Taylor: Nice.
Willie: -that are threatening the town that this is, and you like make a deal with Lady Death. You're a detective. She gives you the power to become La Sombra, this like mariachi looking character, and you get all these powers like to just deal with this cartel or this-
Joseph: [chuckles] This is a sick ass mashup, man.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Yeah, and it's like a... interesting like pixel art. I think that's a really cool style.
Joseph: Nice.
Willie: There's like, building powers means like getting tarot cards from Lady Death or whatever. And they can either be things to help you or things to like make it harder for you. And you can like trade them out at some points or buy the different ones. But the sword you have is badass.
It's like, uh, I think, what's it called? La Espada de Animas, which is like the Sword of Souls that like summon something to like, it can change into different styles of weapons, depending on like what you put as the core of it.
It seems really interesting. There's also this weird thing about eating Mexican cuisine in the game will give you different power ups, basically.
Joseph: Hell yeah.
Taylor: Dude, that's a winning formula. [Willie laughing]
Joseph: Hell yeah.
Taylor: We've seen that in the Final Fantasy 15. Like, I feel like they, to me, they really kicked that off because they made their food look so good. Like, that's been a big thing with Monster Hunters and a lot of these different games where they want to make that food look amazing. Like, make you hungry as fuck while you're playing that game.
Willie: [chuckles] Yeah.
Taylor: And it works. That's cool.
Willie: Anyway, that one's, that one's like September, I think is the expected release date, but it's a Kickstarted game, so who knows.
Taylor: What was it called?
Willie: Mariachi Legends.
Taylor: Nice. That's a great name too.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Yeah, nice.
Willie: I already got some like artwork from it for like some digital art wallpapers and stuff for backing it.
Joseph: Nice.
Willie: I'm looking forward to that soundtrack. Anyway, that seems like that's going to be a solid one too, but another platformer, another Metroidvania.
Taylor: Oh, I love their visual style.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: But, uh, I think, yeah, that's a good place to call it. There are so many other things we could talk about-
Joseph: Pfft.
Willie: -but, uh, thank you for being here with us kicking off the new year. We appreciate every listen.
[Outro theme begins to fade in - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell]
Taylor: Yeah everybody, that was a lot of fun. Thanks for, uh, hanging with us and, uh, if you have any games that are on your horizon that we didn't talk about, please let us know and we'll probably bring it up in the next episode or one of the future ones.
Joseph: You can send us a message on Instagram before you ship us the PS5. That'd be fantastic.
Taylor: Yeah, definitely double check that addy.
Joseph: Yeah. Alright, anyway, peace.
Taylor: Peace.
Joseph: P P Peace.
[Outro theme continues - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell]
01:06:23
Joseph: Berries and Blades is an independent podcast created by Joseph Bullard, Willie Garza and Taylor Garratt. Thanks for tuning in, and consider subscribing if you enjoyed listening to this episode. You can also support us by telling your friends about the show, and we hope to see you in the next episode of Berries and Blades. Until then, thanks again.
[Outro theme fades out - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell]
Taylor: Don't go chasing water balls.
[Joseph humming Waterfalls by TLC]
Taylor: Yeah.
[Joseph continuing to hum Waterfalls with more emphasis]