Explode into gold coins, a Battle Pass that's 95% worthless, and a gladiator-type arena filled with casino sound effects. Join us for a conversation about a free-to-play first-person shooter called THE FINALS.
Explode into gold coins, a Battle Pass that's 95% worthless, and a gladiator-type arena filled with casino sound effects. Join us for a conversation about a free-to-play first-person shooter called THE FINALS.
Welcome back to Hip Fire, a mini-series where we share our first impressions about a game after 5–10 hours of gameplay. In this episode, we talk about our co-op experience with THE FINALS. Taylor had a blast playing this game—like, literally a blast—since you can blow up almost everything in this game and found the lines for the in-game announcer poorly written. Willie was the only one of us to make it to THE FINALS in the game's tournament mode and thinks the game's XP progression is too damn slow. Joseph derails the conversation with Gerard Butler and thinks the starting cosmetics are garbage. So, spending money on the battle pass is probably a waste, but all three of us had a lot of fun playing one of the game modes called Bank It. Overall (considering it's free-to-play), we recommend this game to anyone who enjoys first-person shooters. Watch out for Orbital Lasers!
Here's the full transcript for this episode.
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00:00:00
[Alienated by ELFL plays in background]
Willie: When the game first came out back in December or maybe November, I don't remember when I was first reading about the game. I know that they were like sort of under fire for having used AI to record all the voice acting.
Joseph: Oh for real?
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Oh, wow.
Willie: And it's interesting because like I didn't dig too far into it, I know a little bit about it but I know that they hired people to do the voice acting to build a bank of stuff and then used AI to recreate a lot of things.
Joseph: I wonder why they did that.
Willie: I don't know. You know, it's one of those things that's definitely a mark against it, but at the same time, it's interesting because Steam has some pretty strict rules on what they'll put on the Steam store. You can't use AI to develop a game and put it on steam, like in that way.
Like if it's exploitive, they'll fucking take it down. Like very quick. So like whatever they did doesn't quite go against Steam's rules on using AI.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: So it is worrisome if they like are, Taylor, you could probably explain this better than I can, but it seems, it seems like they used actors to teach whatever AI model they're using, right?
Taylor: Yeah. Yeah, they trained it.
Willie: They trained it with that, with those voice actors, and then use that.
[Alienated by ELFL fades out]
[Intro theme plays - Tiger Tracks by Lexica]
00:01:26
Joseph: What's up? Welcome to Berries and Blades. Thanks for joining us 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 how many years it'll take to get our hands on a piece of technology like HoloTile, but I digress.
So what do y'all think about the video? The demo video for Holotile.
Taylor: I dug it. I think it'll be something that I want as soon as it's affordable, um, and has a lot of implementation into games. It's a pretty crazy looking piece of tech. Dude almost busted his ass, we all determined when we watched the video, but didn't quite. So it may have saved him.
Joseph: Looking like a brittle neck.
Taylor: Yeah. Yeah, that could have been a bad situation, especially like a right in the middle of your prezo, your live prezo. I just immediately imagined playing a Fallout game whenever I saw it the first time, like even replaying Fallout 4 or something. That would be a whole different game, because then you're exercising.
That's the dream. And I think we established a price point. We thought it would be like a thousand bucks, Willie.
Joseph: Oh, y'all did?
Willie: Yeah, it's a guess. Who knows?
Taylor: Yeah, absolute guess.
Willie: Yeah, there's no, no information on what it'll actually cost at all. My guess would be like a thousand.
Taylor: And it will have at least six ads. You'll have to... [laughs]
Joseph: The floor lights up-
Taylor: Everytime...
Joseph: -and it shows you ads.
Taylor: Yes, exactly.
Joseph: So how many years, if it was going to be a product that would come to market for consumers, how many years do you think it would take?
Willie: I'm gonna guess no more than three.
Taylor: I think that's a good guess. I think if, uh, if the hype is insane on it, maybe two years.
Joseph: Okay. I would say five.
Taylor: Probably a good guess.
Willie: I'm going to say three. In 2027, people will be walking around on HoloTiles.
Joseph: Would I buy one? Probably not. I mean, who knows?
Willie: I don't think I really need one. I mean, I definitely would never buy a omnidirectional, like, treadmill,
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: Though I've, like, watched people play them with VR stuff, and they seem cool, but, you know, the cheapest one of those is like $1,000, I'm pretty sure, which is why I think maybe they'll, they'll mass produce that thing and try to get it in at the lowest tier of, of all of that.
Joseph: Taylor, would you rather have, would you rather spend money on Apple Vision Pro or HoloTile?
Taylor: Ooh, that'd be a tough one. Probably the HoloTile, because then you could, you could get, instead of the Vision Pro, you could just get yourself a Quest, like the Quest 3, and play with that on it, at least comfortably.
Seems like the, the Vision Pro is a little bit heavier, so. Or, or no, the Vision Pro is lighter, I'm sorry, than the Quest, so might be the preferred device. But man, at 3, 500, I didn't see anybody leaving the store with less than like 4, 000 or 4, 200 worth of product, so that-
Joseph: Mm hmm, that's a lot of money.
Taylor: Give me that HoloTile, especially if it, if it was $1,000, I would, I would be all over that, and then 500 bucks for the Quest 3, that'd be a lot of fun.
Willie: I can't tell from that video how, like, thick that thing is.
Joseph: It looks pretty damn thin.
Taylor: Seems thin! It looks thin.
Willie: It does but it feels like, like what is what's going on there that it allows it to move like that because you don't really get to see the movement on the the tiles themselves like how they're like rotating or whatever.
Joseph: And they're small.
Taylor: Well, you do get to see that box. That carries the box around and then the guy sits on the box and it carries him around on it, if I'm not mistaken.
Willie: Yeah, I don't know what's going on on that part of the video.
Joseph: I didn't understand that part either because it looked fake.
Willie: It looks fake, but also, it looks like the person who's standing off camera with their hand out is like moving the person.
Joseph: That's what I thought too.
Willie: Somehow, something in the room-
Taylor: Probably is.
Willie: -is reading his hand movements, to move the box on the tiles and it's like, what the fuck is that?
Joseph: But it was moving fast.
Taylor: That would make sense. They're using some kind of Magic Leap or something to like AR, some input to move it that, I didn't even notice that.
Joseph: I was wondering if they like sped the video up because of how fast it was moving. Also, that's a lot of fucking weight, dude-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -to move at that speed. I didn't, I didn't understand that. It didn't seem like it was real.
Taylor: It seems cool though. It definitely, I've never even thought of tech like that, which is always the coolest tech to me as something that comes out and I... I'm like, Oh shit. I hadn't, I didn't even consider that it could be done this way.
We just, since Ready Player One, we all just assume that for the foreseeable future, it would be some sort of, uh, what, what'd you call it? Omni-directional... treadmill.
Joseph: Treadmill. Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah. Like that makes sense, but also as dumb as fuck. I would never get that. That's silly. But, um, something like this, I would get a mat that you could just lay down and it works for multiple people. It's... they're ticking off a lot of boxes, which is good.
Joseph: That part was definitely impressive when there was two different people on the mat at the same time and they could both go in any direction. Like, that was pretty sweet.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah, that was really cool.
Joseph: The thing about the demo video is that if you, if you look at either of those two, person on by themselves or together, is that they're taking the shortest little fucking baby steps on that thing.
Taylor: [chuckles] Right, right.
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: I'm like, yo, what happens if you walk like a real fucking person?
Taylor: That's a great point. I'm watching a gif of it right now and it's, that's exactly what it's showing, is baby steps.
Joseph: Which is fine, right? Because this is just like, I mean, it's obviously experimental and like a prototype and stuff like that.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: And it doesn't even have a fucking real end purpose other than just being fucking cool to work on and build.
Taylor: It's also an older dude and I didn't want to judge him and his steps.
[Taylor and Willie chuckle]
Taylor: Did we see him walk around off of the HoloTile? Because he may just walk like that. And I don't want to, I don't want to be a jerk. It looks cool though. Like the, the way that he pivots and changes direction and just continues to walk is, but yeah, you're right.
He does have to go pretty darn slow with it.
Willie: I'm very curious about that thing.
Joseph: Open up that gait, homie.
Taylor: Yeah, step up that gait. Let's break into a trot, please.
Joseph: Stretch it out. Stretch it out. Stretch out that P organ.
Taylor: Oh, snap. [Joseph chuckling] Are we talking about Lies of P, uh, DLC rumors? No. No, no, no.
Willie: I did watch that, uh, speedrun, did y'all watch that speedrun at, uh, Games Done Quick?
Joseph: I didn't.
Willie: It was good. I mean, I've been watching that guy on YouTube, like, every, every time he's been doing it.
Taylor: How fast was it?
Willie: Every time he's broken the record, I've been watching.
Joseph: It's been steadily coming down, man.
Taylor: [simultaneously with Willie] What was it, three hours or something? []
Willie: [simultaneously with Taylor] Yeah, the records like 41 minutes.
Taylor: Oh my god, 41 minutes.
Willie: 41 minutes something, I forgot the seconds. I think it's almost 42 minutes is the record right now.
Taylor: Does it involve a decent bit of glitching and stuff like that?-
Willie: Oh yeah.
Taylor: -Or is it? Yeah?
Willie: I mean, it's just skipping the entire game. Like there's only like [Taylor laughs] five fights you have to fight total, I think. And that's including like the original like police officer you have to fight in the very first part of the game.
Like not the boss, but just the like-
Joseph: The tutorial spot.
Willie: Yeah. There's that one. And then there's, you do have to fight the Parade Master, right? And then-
Joseph: Black Brotherhood. First fight-
Willie: Yeah-
Joseph: -I think.
Willie: -But you don't even have to-
Taylor: Okay, gang fight.
Willie: -You can skip both now.
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: Huh. Dang.
Willie: The only other fights you have to fight are the Door Guardian-
Joseph: Taylor's favorite.
Willie: Laxasia and-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Taylor's second favorite.
Willie: -Simon Manus.
Taylor: Ooh.
Willie: I'm pretty sure it's only five bosses now that you have to fight. Everything else gets skipped.
Joseph: Both phases of Simon Manus?
Willie: Mm hmm.
Taylor: Wow.
Joseph: Interesting. Yeah, Taylor, you should watch one just so you can see how demolished that first police officer gets at the beginning of the game. [Willie chuckles]
That's actually kind of satisfying because you know, like we all sucked at that, the first time we played through. So to see that-
Taylor: Yeah, it took a lot of times.
Joseph: -see that puppet just get annihilated is fun.
Taylor: Golly. It's wild to me that people can condense such a long game, down to so little time.
Willie: Yeah. I think the, the run that he did at games done quick was, um, 55 minutes, I think, basically 55 minutes and like 56 seconds or something like that.
Taylor: Sheesh.
Joseph: Nice. Hmm.
Willie: Not their fastest, but definitely pretty close.
Taylor: Just an hour sitting. I'm just going to beat this game real quick.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Be there in a sec, babe.
Joseph: It's a pretty good speed run to watch because when you glitch through the levels, you get to see like all of the unrendered parts of the stage, you know, so like there's... the space on the map is accounted for. Space behind buildings that you see as you go through the streets and stuff.
You see all of that stuff, but then there's space behind it and it's like unfinished walls and unfinished buildings and stuff. And it's like, it's pretty cool because I don't know. I just like that there are spaces in between these areas of the map.
Taylor: Yeah, you're getting to see that unused art, like shit that is tucked away behind something. That's always great because you get to see the, each piece of art, 3D art in its entirety whenever it's done like that. That's, that is sometimes the beauty of being able to poke your head through a wall in a game and suddenly seeing right behind the curtain.
Joseph: Yeah, that's exactly what happens in that speedrun.
Taylor: Wow. I will check that out at 41 minutes. I could 2x the speed run, uh, playback and be done with that in a quick sesh. So yeah, we'll check that out.
00:10:15
Joseph: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Well, we're back with another episode of Hip Fire, which is a mini series we use to share our first impressions about a game after five to 10 hours of gameplay.
Today's edition of Hip Fire is about a free to play first person shooter called THE FINALS in all caps. It's a game that features team based matches on maps with a destructible environment where players are encouraged to use that environment to their advantage. You can find this game on Xbox Series, PS5, and Microsoft Windows.
Overall, I think this game is interesting, and I found at least one of the game modes fun. But initially, the sound effects came across as super fucking cringy, and I almost turned the game off immediately. I kind of forgot about it the more we played. So that definitely helped. Uh, but Taylor, I wanted to start with you.
You should kick things off by talking about what it's like to blow shit up in this game.
Taylor: I couldn't tell you, man. I've never blown anything up in this game.
Joseph: Fucking lie.
Taylor: I actually was [chuckles] issued a cease and desist order on blowing shit up in this game by the judge of, uh, yeah, it's, uh, That is definitely my favorite part about it is the destructibility.
It's based on what it looks like the, or at least a version of the Battlefield engine so that you can knock down enough walls or support pillars in a building and actually bring the whole thing down. You can circumvent enemy defenses by rolling around. If, if you're getting shot, uh, one of the best tactics I've found to not getting murdered...
is, whenever someone's shooting you in the back, just turn into a wall and run straight through as many walls as you can. And it almost always results in the person chasing you either saying, well, I'm not going to follow the Cobra into his den, or they start getting shot from a different direction because it's just straight up mayhem.
So. Uh, just having that ability is pretty cool. Um, you can pick up explosive canisters and launch them like a rocket into anything, which is very satisfying.
Joseph: What is cool about that is that any, any class you play can pick up those explosives. I do like that. Even though the heavy, the heavy class has the most tools to destroy. It's nice that you can, anybody can pick up the canisters and there's plenty of them laying around.
Taylor: Yes. Yeah, they are. They do a great job of having every, probably 20 steps you take, you see a canister somewhere, just some kind, either a explosive goo that creates a barricade or poison explosives or fire barrels.
I think those are the four.
Willie: There's that one that's just powder. It's like just-
Taylor: Oh, right.
Willie: -creates a smoke. Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah. Fire extinguisher in a l....
Joseph: Really?
Taylor: Yep.
Joseph: Huh. It's like a fire extinguisher blowing up?
Willie: Yeah, yeah, basically.
Joseph: Hmm. Uh, Willie, what do you think about the game? How do you think it compares to other free to play shooters?
Willie: It's fun, for sure. Like, I'll probably keep playing it because it's fun. It definitely relies a lot on communication, to like, actually score points in that game because it's not just get as many kills as you can. It's get as many kills as you can, collect coins, take the coins to a deposit, and deposit the coins. And if you're not working together to do that, you'll lose the coins before you make it there, or everyone's converging on the place to deposit coins, so it's a lot of strategy involved.
Joseph: I was gonna say, I feel like I can get better at the healing for, like, the medium character. Willie, if you were medium, I was medium, and Taylor was heavy, I could focus on healing, Willie could be the person to collect the coins, we protect Willie, I can heal him, Taylor's destroying shit, maybe that's our best play at, like, actually getting to deposit points.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Or maybe one of the builds we could use to, to be a little bit more successful.
Taylor: Yeah, and Willie uses the turret as well, as his, instead of the healing beam.
Joseph: Yeah, and that's a good way to mix up the, the skills.
Taylor: Yep.
00:13:54
Willie: I dig it, it's fun, but like all free to play games, it's got its problems. I mean, the biggest stuff to get out of the way is just the, like, It's a free to play game because it's got built in microtransactions and a battle pass.
And that progress is so, like, I don't know if you had a battle pass, if progress is faster, like the progression is faster. But the progression in that game is so fucking slow.
Joseph: It's fucking garbage, man.
Willie: Like, there's an XP bar. That you get XP for every match and challenges or contracts will give you more XP. But then there's the credits or whatever that you get are like, well, the VRS is what they're called actually. Cause there's VRS and then there's some other credit, which I think was called micro credit or something like that. I don't know.
Joseph: Multi bucks.
Willie: Multi bucks. That's what it was. [Joseph and Taylor laugh]
Taylor: Multi bucks.
Willie: They're little coin shaped things that are called multi bucks.
Taylor: And they cost real world bucks, right?
Joseph: Yeah, yeah.
Willie: Yeah. Multi bucks costs real money. [chuckles]
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: And the VRS. You earn so little every game, and that's what you use in the equipment section to unlock different guns or different gadgets. I will say, and this is also a sort of another knock against it, is I haven't found more equipment that I want to buy after having collected the first few pieces.
That I, like, really wanted. There's so many other things in the game that I haven't used because it's like, I don't, I only have four slots to use my gadgets. Well, I have, you have a little more than that based on your reserves or whatever, but I don't want to replace the things I already am using, like, at all.
Joseph: The only thing I would buy in the game, I think, is the cosmetics, but I'm not going to spend real dollars on multi bucks so that I can buy cosmetics.
Willie: Not at all.
Joseph: The range between the starting cosmetics and the stuff you can buy. There's too much range. Like it's too great. Like the stuff you start with is fucking absolute trash. Like you look like you're going to a fucking gym. Everybody looks the same.
Taylor: The cult gym, even worse.
Joseph: There's almost no cosmetics you can get without spending real money on, you know, I guess you can get it. Some with VRs, but it takes a billion fucking years to get any VRs so that you can get a fucking fanny pack and put that on your back and you can walk around with a bucket hat.
Taylor: Yeah, I was gonna say, don't forget those stupid hats. The cowboy hats, like nobody wears a cowboy hat like that.
Joseph: What's interesting is that I do actually like some of the stuff that you can buy, like the cosmetics that I've seen other people wear because I'm not spending any money on it. It's pretty fucking cool.
Taylor: Yeah. Elvis.
Joseph: Not that one. Not that one, but.
Taylor: LED face mask, man.
Joseph: Yeah, that's pretty cool.
Willie: I looked at the Elvis one. I... well I was looking at the battle pass. Cause I was like, what's in here that would e...? Like, there's nothing in here that could possibly be worth it. But Elvis is one of the ones that's later. It's six of 12. Yeah, I think it's like the sixth thing on the battle pass lists. That's what you unlock.
Joseph: Is battle pass. You have the pass and it just gives you the ability to unlock other cosmetics with more VR.
Willie: I think it's just XP. It's just level, right? Cause I think that's how a lot of the cosmetics are-
Joseph: oh, right, right, right.
Willie: -and you just reach a certain level of XP and you'll, you'll unlock stuff. But so a battle pass, I don't know that you've ever really played that many games that have had a battle pass. But like there's basically always a level of progression in XP.
Joseph: Mm hmm. Kind of like what Destiny does and like what Fall Guys does.
Willie: Yeah, and there's like a level of stuff, but there's also another level below that that's also, you know, if one and three and five are upgrades in the regular game, then maybe-
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: -two, four and six on the battle pass also have more upgrades, you know?
Joseph: Mm hmm.
Willie: So if you're paying for that other section, you just get, you're getting stuff twice as often.
Joseph: Right, right. So you get a whole second stream of stuff that people without a battle pass don't get.
Willie: Yeah, they're just passing it up with XP. So like if you were to be like a level 10 or something in the game and get the battle pass, you would get everything that you've already passed in the battle pass, everything that you had for levels two, four, six and eight or whatever would also unlock-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -but I'm not going to spend money on that.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Yeah, the game is fun. My biggest issue with the game biggest problem is that I'm not good at it [chuckles] and I can't get good at it with only by only playing five hours of it.
Willie: I'm getting better at it. I looked last night before we played and I think I had like 15 hours so far, you know, Taylor and I started playing over Christmas break.
Joseph: [Mm-hmm] Damn. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, that's right. That's right.
Taylor: Probably around there, 15 to 20 hours.
Willie: I think we played like the day after Christmas.
Joseph: Oh right, because you played when you were visiting family.
Willie: Mm hmm.
Joseph: I do think it's fun. I think it's pretty freaking impressive that there are only like four maps. There's only four maps in the game.
Taylor: Really?
Joseph: Yeah-
Taylor: Huh.
Joseph: And it still like has, it still has variety. There's still, it doesn't feel too static or too stale. I think a big part of that is the fact that you can literally destroy any part of the environment, crash through floors, blow through ceilings, knock holes in walls.
By the end of the match, they're not very long, but by the end of the match, it's like, it's like a pile of rubble.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: But visually, it changes the game. Like it changes the visuals of the game quite a bit. And that's on top of the other, the other like environmental factors that can happen, like the things that can happen during the game, like meteors falling at the deposit points or the high rise version of it, where like the center of the map is like elevated and you have to jump up there that combined with destruction I think is... makes it pretty interesting that there are only 4 maps. I assume that they're going to be updates and like more maps will be added.
Willie: Yeah.
00:19:16
Taylor: Yeah. I think they, they have enough popularity going with this game. People really like it. We mentioned while we were playing or I was mentioning that. It reminded me of Rogue Squadron, or no...
Joseph: [chuckles] Rogue Company.
Taylor: Rogue Company. Yeah, where they took the good parts, like the good shooter aspect of it, and the hype, music, and kind of video editing and everything between matches to keep it visually interesting and entertaining to some extent.
And then they just kind of went their own way with it and added this destructibility and the and the pickups and all that kind of stuff. I just feel like they took that... the good things that that game had going for it and then implemented it better, better with like just more stuff to do. And the destructibility adds a ton of different dynamics that can happen in each battle.
They don't pull any punches when it comes to the powers that everybody can have. They're pretty powerful. We found that out last night playing against teams that were using multiple invis people. That can get real annoying real fast when everybody can simply vanish and disappear and then reappear wherever and if they're good enough they're just destroying you, so.
Joseph: It seems like that's the best way to play the Light class-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -is to try to stay as invisible as possible and maybe have the sword equipped so that you're doing just close hand to hand combat because when I played the light class, like, uh, it definitely doesn't feel like there's enough balance for that class. Like you just get shredded.
Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. I felt the same way.
Joseph: There was almost like an immediate uptick when I moved to medium last night when we were playing. I was like, first two shots, kills. And I was like, okay, okay.
Taylor: Yeah, I noticed that one explosive mine would kill a light build, I believe. So if you run over one mine, you're donezo.
Willie: I noticed after we got off that there was one more piece of equipment that I wanted to unlock, which was like, uh, I don't know what it was called, maybe I wrote it down, but it's a vanishing bomb or grenade or something like that.
Joseph: Oh yeah.
Willie: That I think it was a light class thing that you can throw at your teammates-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -and they all disappear for a short period of time.
Joseph: I was curious to how long it would last.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Or what the, the range, like how, how close, like how, what is the radius of this thing when you-
Taylor: Right.
Joseph: -you detonate it to like make your team invisible.
Willie: I did buy it after we got off. So at some point we'll need to try it. See what happens with it. Cause it does seem like it's great to just go invis.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Another interesting thing about this game is that there's only the two modes. There's just a quick cash. And then what is it? Bank It.
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: There doesn't seem to be a lot of variety in the game modes, even though that the maps seem fun enough.
Taylor: There's those two. And then you got a solo mode where people can go in solo and try to do the same, uh, Bank It style. That was my thought plan as I've gotten to the point of it's fun, especially now that you guys have joined, but I could see where it'll run out of legs in, you know, until it starts adding content.
But, one thing I, I thought would be really cool is almost like a super mode or superhero mode where every person gets to choose two powers, you know, like you could have invis and a grappling hook or something like that.
It, I feel like they could get fun with it, especially something like that may be fun if they maybe added more characters and took away the entire Bank It thing entirely, you know, do like a team death match or something like that, but with more powers.
Joseph: Where you don't have to deposit coins or what?
Taylor: Yeah, something like that. Maybe there's just a score. I, I think that they could really play on what they've got and make it fun because even a team deathmatch, again, you're going to have all the same excitement. The main exciting aspects of it. You're going to have all that, but team deathmatch. Less worrying about the coins.
I'm sure as they pick up more community, more people playing it, they'll be able to create other game modes. And as long as they can fill the, the lobbies, that'll be the main thing.
Willie: Yeah. I do assume that they'll, they'll add more game modes. I don't know if they'll ever go just straight up team deathmatch just because it's like, it seems to be the way that they're separating themselves from everything else is to have a game mode that is something slightly different.
Joseph: I think the coins are the differentiator.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: The coins like collecting them and depositing them is like the thing that it's really the only thing saving me from saying it's just like all the other shooters that are like free to play games.
Taylor: Yeah, there's that gaming aspect of it. Like I was mentioning, I think last night where when you die, your whole body turns into coins. And I, I got to see either the last game or the next to last game, I got killed right as the final money was drawn, which puts everything in super slow motion. Right as that happened, I got killed and I saw I had a wall in front of me. And so I saw all of the coins that my body turned into splash against the wall and they all had physics against the wall.
And it's impressive. That was probably a thousand coins that your body turns into or more. It's a lot. But you can see, like, if you say, get the kill on somebody and they explode into coins. The coins are all exploding from their exact shape at that moment. So if they were running or about to swing something, boom, that's what all the coins look like until they kind of explode outward and that's a really cool effect.
Joseph: I agree, man. I would say the sound effect for that, that animation when you die and you get turned into coins is one of my favorite things in the whole game.
Taylor: [chuckles] Yeah.
Joseph: It just sound... and when you collect coins too because it just it just reminds me of like playing Sonic the Hedgehog something.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah, collect'em all. Yeah, I totally agree on that man.
00:24:47
Willie: Yeah, and beyond that I think the the whole thing is set up as sort of a game that takes place in arena. Going into the game, you can hear, like, the crowd chanting, like, a countdown as you're getting ready to go in. But every time you respawn, there's, like, a press start to continue thing that comes up on the screen, like you're playing an old school, like, arcade machine.
The world that they've set up is very strange, in that, like, this is the thing you do for people, go to watch for entertainment.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: And I was looking at the Battle Pass stuff, and I was, like, looking through some of the things you can unlock. And the final one is the person who's on the cover for the artwork for the game.
Like when you look at it in Steam or wherever, I guess. There's this character with wings dressed in all black. And apparently that character is a legend of THE FINALS games.
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: It's like the Hunger Games, dude.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Or it also reminds me of that movie Gamer, where it's a society where there are I think they were prisoners in Gamer, but they're like forced to compete in this game.
And the only way that you can basically get yourself out of prison is by winning it, like the whole thing. [Taylor chuckles] But the whole world is watching.
Taylor: That definitely is the feel.
Joseph: Man, that's, that's a really unique concept for that movie. Have you seen that Taylor? I don't think so.
Taylor: What was the name of it? Gamer?
Joseph: Gamer.
Willie: Mm hmm. From 2009. I haven't seen it either. I don't think.
Taylor: Oh, yeah. I probably did see it, but I don't remember it at all.
Joseph: Dude, we should, we should do an episode on that fucking movie, man. Since y'all haven't-
Taylor: That'd be cool. I'd be down.
Joseph: Since neither of y'all have seen it?
Taylor: I would be down.
Willie: I don't remember it.
Joseph: It's pretty good. The concept is fascinating. The concept behind like the, the entire plot of the film is. Pretty dang good, but this kind of reminds me of that where it's just brutal, right? Like this, these are gladiator games where like the world is watching and cheering you on to just fucking annihilate people. And this game is set up like as a TV show with the announcer and the crowd.
Willie: It's probably fine. It's probably worth watching for sure. But when you look it up, Google is like, people also search for, and the two first options are Crank and Crank: High Voltage. [Joseph and Taylor laugh]
Taylor: Nice.
Joseph: It's funny. They're both Jason Statham movies.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Before you got here, Taylor and I were talking about his new movie, the, uh, The Beekeeper.
Joseph: Oh.
Willie: It's apparently the highest grossing movie right now, globally.
Taylor: Yep.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: Anyway, I don't know how that dude gets in so many ridiculous movies. I mean, obviously-
Taylor: That's all he does now.
Willie: -that's just what he does.
Joseph: Dude, that's his thing. White House Down 5.
Taylor: Yeah, and once you've gone Fast X, you can't go back.
Joseph: White House Down Again.
Taylor: Oh man, of course. [chuckling] White House Down Again. [Willie chuckles]
Joseph: What was that movie he was in with Jamie Foxx? Jamie Foxx was playing his lawyer and like trying to get him off of some charge.
Willie: I don't know.
Joseph: Dang it.
Taylor: The Lawyer. [Taylor and Willie chuckle]
Joseph: It might have the word loyal in it.
Willie: Okay.
Joseph: Uh, what is that? I don't know. Dang, that's going to bother me if I can't remember what it's called. He was in a movie called Plane. Wow. Great, great title.
Taylor: Meg. I mean, that's the best.
Joseph: Law Abiding Citizen.
Willie: Mm.
Joseph: Law Abiding Citizen.
Willie: I do remember that title, but I have never seen it.
Taylor: Yeah, I do too.
Joseph: So that one, that one's pulled back a little bit where it's not like he's just, you know, beating people's asses and protecting the president. It's not so much that.
Taylor: Oh, wow. I didn't know he had that kind of range to not do all that.
Joseph: Yeah, yeah.
Taylor: Wow, that's impressive. I will have to check that out. That's more of an artsy piece for him.
Joseph: Oh, wait, has, has he done some rom com stuff?
Taylor: [whispering] What?
Willie: I feel like he's been in one or two.
Taylor: No way.
Joseph: I just saw the film poster for, I lost it. I lost it. Uh, Bounty Hunter. Is that one more of like a rom com? [Willie chuckles]
Taylor: Oh, he was in Gnomeo and Juliet. So, of course, dude.
Willie: Yeah. [Joseph and Willie chuckle]
00:28:26
Taylor: Of course. Yeah, so anyways. Yeah, this game is, uh, pretty cool. Has anybody zoomed in on the fans yet? Like on the fans up in the stands like I'm... I suddenly had a curiosity to know how detailed they are
Joseph: [chuckling] They don't even look like they're anything.
Willie: I haven't looked.
Taylor: Are they little egg people?
Joseph: They look like they're poster fucking cutouts.
Taylor: You think so or did you look at them?
Joseph: I think so, like there's no definition back there. I doubt there's anything.
Willie: While you're looking that up, what we haven't talked about is that there is a tournament style of the gameplay that we didn't play together, but I did play separately a couple of nights ago. That is, I think, where the game actually gets its name from.
Joseph: I think so, yeah.
Willie: There's like three rounds of gameplay in this tournament where the first round you're still playing, Bank It style game where you have, you can eliminate people or open vaults and then you deposit cash. It's like you're playing in a game with three other teams, I believe, and the top two teams move on past the first round.
So like you're playing in a game of four teams and then there's another game happening at the same time of four teams playing each other. Top two teams from each of those games move on to the second round and play against each other. The top two teams from that game. Go on to the finals to just play against each other.
One team versus another team, just three versus three. And you're having to go to vaults, unlock them, hold them down for like a minute or two minutes or whatever, while they unlock, take the money, go deposit it, and then hold that down for like two minutes or whatever the timer is on it while that is, um, you know, depositing.
There's only one other team at that point, but they can come kill your team. And there's also a limited number of respawns in that game type. I think you share them, but I'm not 100 percent certain how it worked. But we had one team who, one teammate who saved our asses like twice, both in the second round and in the third round.
They were just like staying alive, reviving people, because you can revive people, but you can't automatically respawn in that game type if you run out of credits. But, uh, it was interesting, because they were holding it down for a while, and they got us through the second round, and in the third round, we just couldn't quite pull it off.
We got really close.
Joseph: So, do you bleed out in this game? Like, in this? Like, since you don't auto respawn, is there a timer for how long you can stay alive to be revived?
Willie: No, I don't think so. As long as somebody can get to you, they can revive you.
Joseph: You can be revived. That's cool. Thinking back to Fall Guys, when you get eliminated out of Fall Guys, you're like still locked into the game. Where you have to watch the end of it.
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: So is this game like that? Where if you get booted out of the first round, you get locked into watching the entire tournament? Or does it spit you back out to the lobby?
Willie: I don't know if you can, I'm not sure, because, like I said, I only, I only played it once and our team made it to the finals, so.
Joseph: Oh. Hmm.
Willie: So I don't know.
Joseph: I can imagine that getting annoying, just like, every time you get booted, like, you have to all, like, all three of you have to, like, exit out of the game, instead of just being, like, recycled back to the lobby.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Mm hmm.
Willie: I also think for some people, you would want to watch a team deathmatch sort of thing happening.
Joseph: Yeah, so maybe there is an option where you can choose to leave or not, but make it easy, right? Just make it like a press B, you know, or hold B to exit the game, not like open the menu and then go to return to lobby and then say fucking okay, you know, just one click.
Willie: I will say the other thing about that tournament that I didn't know and I fucked up, which is the reason I think we lost. If I had picked my class correctly, we probably would have done better. But I accidentally picked the heavy guy because. I was just looking at my menu-
Taylor: Oh man.
Willie: -and the game started and you're locked in for the entire fucking tournament with that one class and there's no like pulling from your reserves either.
Joseph: Mmm, I was about to ask that.
Willie: Even when you die, you can't, you can't even change out what guns you have.
Joseph: That's pretty brutal. Well, I mean, I guess if you win, you have, it's less likely if you win in the first round that you're going to want to immediately change your build. I mean, be nice if you could, but if you're winning, you're probably just gonna keep going, keep doing what you're doing.
True.
Willie: But I definitely would have changed after that first.
Joseph: And if you lose, then you're just out.
Willie: I would have changed after that first.
Joseph: Right, right.
Willie: If I had the opportunity to.
Joseph: It is interesting that they lock you into it. Just to, uh, increase the strategy.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: And it would make you think harder about, the three of us if we're going into the tournament, like what do we really want to have in our arsenal and like how do we balance this in a way that can get us to the finals?
Taylor: Just like any other, uh, team verse team game like this. Um-
Joseph: Mm-Hmm.
Taylor: -what do they call 'em? MOBAs. I forget what the technical term is for it, but like Overwatch and a lot of the other ones, if you don't have the right balance, you will just get completely steamrolled.
Willie: Yeah.
00:33:16
Joseph: And we did start playing better last night because we, we actually started sticking together. Like I was trying to stick with y'all a little bit more and this is definitely the kind of game that if you go run off lone wolf style, it's just going to annihilate yourselves.
Taylor: Yeah, none of the characters have enough firepower to just take out multiple teams.
Joseph: Too easy to get double teamed, triple teamed.
Taylor: Yep.
Joseph: When you're off alone.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: I think the only person, the only, well, let me, let me rephrase that. I think the light character has the best opportunity to go off on their alone and kind of scout forward because they can go invis and they're fast. Or if you have the dash, you have the dash, you can, the dash is ridiculous, dude.
I don't think I saw the dash until, uh, for the first time until last night. And it looked like you're like fucking Alan Wake ghost or something, dude. Like zapping across the screen multiple times. I was like, this is. This shit looks OP.
Willie: Yeah, I think you get like three dashes with that or something, with each charge.
Joseph: If you have that dash with the sword-
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: -you can do some fucking damage, which is what happened to me.
Willie: I just like that zipline with the, with the sword. That's, that's a pretty solid move.
Taylor: Oh, cutting the zipline with the sword? [Joseph and Willie laugh] Is that what you're talking about?
Willie: No.
Taylor: Oh.
Willie: I just like using the zipline.
Joseph: Zipping on the line.
Taylor: Oh, okay.
Willie: No, but Taylor definitely saw me break my own zipline a couple times last night. [Taylor laughs]
Taylor: Yeah, you did, as you were going across it.
Willie: Well, so I guess that's, that's the grappling hook that the light person has, but the-
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: -the medium class has the zipline. You can create a zipline for anybody to use. And I definitely have been on it a couple of times and been like, Oh, I'm going to shoot at the person on the other end of the zipline that I can see over there waiting for me and just hit my own fucking pole.
Joseph: Mm. Nice.
Willie: And then my zipline just fucking falls from the sky.
Joseph: While they're zipping across it.
Willie: While, I'm zipping across it.
Joseph: Oh, while you are?
Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. [chuckling] While, he's going across it. So I realized last night that we could destroy zip lines after I saw you do that. And, um, I, I started making that my main to do, was looking for people going across on them and then shooting your grenade at it when they're halfway across and then forcing them into Davy Jones street locker. [Willie chuckles]
Joseph: Nice. I didn't know you could do that.
Taylor: And, uh, that was a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah. And you could C4 them, all kinds of stuff. So, you put C4 on it, and then as they're coming across, pop the C4 and it knocks them down, or just stick a mine to it. And then as soon as they get across, they break the, they break the line and get blasted. Pretty interesting techniques that you can do there.
00:35:46
Willie: We've sort of been talking around it, but there's like a light, a medium, and a heavy build that you can choose from. As Joey said, the light's fast, but has low health. The heavy is much slower than the other two, but has the most health, and then the medium is in between.
But each one has like a specialization that they can use. I've been using the medium for a while now too, but the specialization I have been using is that turret, like Taylor was saying. I just like throwing that down when you're like trying to cash out or something, just to watch the room. Uh, it takes a second to charge up though, and it sometimes is completely, it's useless if you're in a fight, there's almost no reason to put it down.
If you're already engaged with somebody, because it takes so fucking long to start up-
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: -you'll just die before it ever even takes its first shot.
Taylor: Does it just disappear when you put it down and then get killed or does it stay until you respawn?
Willie: It stays for a little bit. I don't know. I don't know how long. I haven't been able to tell, but it stays for quite a while.
Joseph: Hmm. Interesting.
Taylor: Even after you die?
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Like if they, if they kill you? Oh. Yeah. Might be like the mines.
Joseph: It sort of reminds me of the, the turrets in space rock galactic. Is that what it's called? Dwarf game.
Willie: Deep Rock Galactic.
Joseph: Deep Rock Galactic. Yeah. It reminds me of those turrets.
Willie: Yeah. And then Taylor's always playing with the heavy and using the, it's called the charge and slam-
Taylor: Oh yeah.
Willie: -which basically the person just tucks their shoulder and then rams through walls.
Taylor: Yep.
Joseph: Berserker mode.
Taylor: Yeah. I have not unlocked either of his other powers because-
Joseph: [chuckling] Really.
Taylor: Yeah, I, I can't see myself using the heavy. I guess he does have a lot of explosive power, so you can still really take buildings down. But man, that thing is so satisfying. Like I said earlier. The way that you can duck out of the action using that, I mean, you may bring a whole building down on yourself.
And the cool thing about this game is that doesn't kill you, it just literally brings the debris right down on you and can provide cover. You could just sit there for a couple seconds, letting your health go back up. You can, you know, jet off using C4 or something else and blow through other things.
Joseph: Does the health even regen automatically?
Willie: Mm hmm.
Taylor: Yeah, it does. It's just slow.
Joseph: Okay.
Taylor: And you have to be out of the action for 10 seconds or something.
Joseph: 10 seconds is like an eternity in this game.
Taylor: Yeah, it is. I find myself a lot of time I'll be running around trying to get my health back. And somebody peppers me in the back and stops the process. And that's another great reason that you can run through the walls because while that's going on, you could just bash through walls, bring stuff down and between you and them and sometimes get away.
You know, throw some minds down and then they run off into the room you're, you're in trying to chase you and they get merc'd.
Joseph: I haven't played the heavy build, but I have seen on camera after a death other people charging with that ability and it was making me wonder if there are iframes in it. Does it give you iframes when you're charging so that you don't actually take damage?
Taylor: No. Hell no.
Willie: I think you can take damage for sure. I've definitely killed a charging person.
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: Yeah, I've been shot in every different mode of that charge. [Joseph and Taylor chuckle] Like starting in it, after, I've been murdered many times. Before I forget, I also saw in a, I was trying to see what the audience looked like, but could never get a close up, but I did see someone bring down the crane, that giant crane on-
Willie: Oh shit.
Joseph: Oh wow.
Taylor: -on that one map that... Yeah, you could evidently just hit that with a sledgehammer at the bottom or blast it with whatever. And it will bring the whole crane down on the map.
Joseph: Wow.
Taylor: Yeah. That's gonna get done.
00:39:13
Willie: Joey and I played a map last night that had a modifier on it that was called Duck and Cover.
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: And it had a giant inflatable duck above the map. And we didn't actually see it while we were in the game. I didn't see it while we were in the game. But in the, like, preview, there's just a giant inflatable duck floating above the map. And apparently what it does is it just crashes down on the map at some point. And like, destroys part of the map, I think.
Taylor: Oh, wow.
Willie: But we didn't actually get to see that part happen. We just saw a bunch of rubble on one part of the map at some point. So I assume that's what happened-
Taylor: Wow.
Willie: -but we didn't see it.
Taylor: It just destroys everything in the vicinity.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Wow.
Joseph: I assume you can see it, you know, like if you're actually trying to find it, drop, I assume you could see it happen.
Willie: Yeah. And I assume that the teams could bring it down to like drop it strategically-
Joseph: Oh, that's interesting.
Willie: -at a time, you know, because I don't know if y'all have even paid attention to the boxes hanging in the arenas.
Joseph: Oh, yeah, I shoot those fuckers down.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: If you bring those down and then that'll be filled with those explosive tanks or the gas tanks or something else. I assume the duck is kind of the same way.
Joseph: Yeah, I haven't even seen the duck though.
Willie: Yeah, that's the only time I've seen that modifier and we didn't even see the duck itself.
Taylor: Huh, that sounds wild. I can't believe I haven't seen it yet.
Willie: Yeah, that was the first time when Joey and I were playing. That was literally the first time in the like 15 or something hours that I've seen it come up as a modifier.
Joseph: I don't remember where I was in the game, but at some point I remember seeing a menu that had all of those modifiers-
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: -listed with an explanation about each one, but I don't know where to go back and find that.
Willie: It's just whenever you select the game type. When you go to play and then go to the... cover over one of the game types, you hit X instead of hitting A, to like pick the game-
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: -and it just shows you more info and it'll tell you like, Oh, this is Elimination and, and Cash Outs are how you get money, or this has unlimited respawns or doesn't have unlimited respawns , but then it has the list of all the modifiers, like the map has modifiers itself, and then there's the in game events that happen as well.
So sometimes you'll just be playing and then they're like, Oh, there's an Orbital.
Joseph: Lasers.
Willie: Orbital Lasers. Yeah, that come on.
Taylor: Yeah, that just shoots through the ceiling or wherever.
Willie: Yeah, that's if you're standing still too long while you're outside, the fucking laser will just drop down on you.
Taylor: No, if you're in a building, it'll also drop down.
Willie: Oh, okay.
Taylor: It'll go straight through the ceiling, [Willie chuckles] the floors, everything.
Joseph: Shit.
Willie: That would be a fun way to take out stuff.
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: Yeah, what just let it, just let it kind of zone in on you and then cruise off? And yeah, that's true. I might try that.
Willie: Yeah. And then I was mixing that with the alien invasion when I don't know what that one does actually. There's one that's called alien invasion and I don't know what happens.
Joseph: I think it said something about there being like a. A ship that beams down something like a laser or something.
Willie: Okay.
Taylor: Huh.
Joseph: So it must like hover around the map in different areas and then just like shoots down a beam.
Willie: Yeah. I'd actually like to see that at some point, but I don't know what it is.
Joseph: I don't know. It's so difficult to see it because the chaos.
Taylor: Is that stuff maybe on the tournaments only or something? Because I just. I feel like I've never seen it.
Joseph: No, no, because we, these modifiers are in all the games we play.
Taylor: Huh.
Joseph: Like the high structure, that's a modifier.
Willie: That's a map modifier, right?
Joseph: Map modifier, right.
Willie: The in game events are like-
Joseph: The meteor showers and-
Willie: -The low gravity or the meteor shower or the mega damage.
Joseph: Yeah, or when the bodies explode.
Taylor: Yeah, yep, that one too. Those are the only ones I've ever seen. Now I'm definitely gonna have to be watching out for them. There can only be one per game, right?
Willie: I think yeah.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Huh.
Willie: Yeah, somewhere in the middle of the game, that event will take place.
Taylor: Yeah, I'm gonna have to watch.
Willie: Dude, I hate the fucking The drop dead one, whatever it's called, the like dead bodies exploding one.
Taylor: Yeah, because you got to run over those coins.
Joseph: Bodies go boom or something.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: You got to go get the points, the coins from them, and every fucking time I forget that that's on and get blown up.
00:43:00
Taylor: Yeah, speaking of things we hate, if we're going to throw those things out there, for me it's the announcers, the stuff that they say is so stupid. It's incredibly stupid.
Joseph: Like cheesy?
Taylor: I think it was Willie that mentioned that a lot of that stuff may have been either written or made with AI and it definitely sounds like it sounds like last year's AI wrote this stuff [Joseph chuckles] and it was real bad.
Willie: I don't know if they wrote it, but. When the game first came out back in December or maybe November, I don't remember when I was first reading about the game. I know that they were like sort of under fire for having used AI to record all the voice acting.
Joseph: Oh for real?
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Oh, wow.
Willie: And it's interesting because like I didn't dig too far into it, I know a little bit about it but I know that they hired people to do the voice acting to build a bank of stuff and then used AI to recreate a lot of things.
Joseph: I wonder why they did that.
Willie: I don't know. You know, it's one of those things that's definitely a mark against it, but at the same time, it's interesting because Steam has some pretty strict rules on what they'll put on the Steam store. You can't use AI to develop a game and put it on steam, like in that way.
Like if it's exploitive, they'll fucking take it down. Like very quick. So like whatever they did doesn't quite go against Steam's rules on using AI.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: So it is worrisome if they like are, Taylor, you could probably explain this better than I can, but it seems, it seems like they used actors to teach whatever AI model they're using, right?
Taylor: Yeah. Yeah, they trained it.
Willie: They trained it with that, with those voice actors, and then use that.
Taylor: Yeah. Yeah.
Willie: If they didn't know the source of that stuff, then Steam definitely wouldn't allow it. But they hired people to teach the AI, and then the AI is doing some of the rest.
Taylor: Yep.
Willie: But, if they did that, I do wonder, like, are those really shitty lines also written by AI? Is that like, just something that they did?
Taylor: It smacks of AI. Like, either that or bad translation, or straight up a bad writer. The stuff that it says is just annoying and maddening.
Joseph: I think it's kind of intentional, man, because it is like this game show.
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: Like the whole game is that there's a crowd of people in the stadium watching THE FINALS.
Taylor: That's true.
Joseph: It almost seems like they're leaning into this fucking cheesy-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -casino sounding knockoff Hunger Games.
Taylor: Exactly. That's exactly what it reminds me of is that announcement type.
Willie: I turn that shit down so I don't ever really hear it anymore. [chuckles]
Joseph: It is ridiculously loud.
Willie: Yeah, I just turned it all down. I didn't, I didn't want to hear it anymore.
Taylor: That's a great move.
Joseph: I've even tried to turn it down and it's still too loud. I was like, I don't even know what I'm doing. Like this volume stuff should work, but it's not effective. My question is, why do you hire voice actors and then not use the performances from the voice actors, like what's the, what's the decision making behind that?
Willie: So that's the part that I do feel like probably exploitive, right? They hired them to do a certain number of lines and then are just using their voice to make new lines.
Joseph: Oh, okay. Yeah, sure.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Now they're trying to. They're trying to get a whole game's worth of voice acting out of fucking three hours.
Willie: Probably. So that's, that's the other major problem with this game, for sure.
Joseph: Yeah, that's fucking weak.
Taylor: They were doing that stuff probably right around the time that it was in its hottest moments too. Like with the strike going on for a lot of valid reasons. So who knows how much they actually paid the voice actors and all that stuff.
Joseph: This is that bullshit we were talking about, like how AI gets used in the gaming industry. And like, if that's the case, like this is a, you know, a BS use of talent with AI to pull a fast one.
Willie: See, but that's the thing about, again, Steam doesn't allow that shit. So. If it's on Steam and has been on Steam-
Joseph: Like, how did they get past that?
Willie: -they got past it for some reason. Like, Steam has validated whatever they're doing.
00:46:42
Taylor: That's the speculation that I saw was that they, they did train their own models. And at that point, it doesn't matter. I mean, even if If the art in the game, one per one, is all based on a trained model from one artist or from multiple artists that consented to it, then that's okay.
From my understanding, the Steam, the Steam rule is if they, if you can't prove that that isn't copyrighted material, then it shouldn't be on the store, which is, I think that's a fair, I think that's a pretty fair rule-
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: -to have, but also, It doesn't need to be so heavy handed that it's everything that says the word AI either, you know-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: -like there's, there's about to be an influx of reasons to use AI and a lot of the biggest uh, developers and publishers are going to be using it in lots of different ways. But I mean, that was the whole point of the, of the strike was that, hey, yeah, we can, you know, it's here and we understand that, but we also need to get paid more for it. And from my understanding, it's going to be the games industry is like the next in line for that same kind of treatment.
So that they can, I guess, set a threshold or a bottom line of like, hey, this is how you need to treat people even if you are using their likeness for AI-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: -or their art or whatever, you need to, you need to pay them. There needs to be an amount of livability on that kind of stuff and not, hey, you can do 20 times the amount of fucking art that you could before this, but we're still going to pay you dirt.
I mean, that's not how it works as someone who makes a ton of AI art for projects. That's one thing you learn along the way is like, you really have to stand up for yourself in the industry. Cause a dude will have you work in 20, 30, 40 hours a week for a hundred dollars a week thinking that it's easy so it's, it's definitely a weird world, but it's, it's only going to get weirder, man.
We saw AI in a game recently or something? If we're on the subject, I'm trying to remember. I don't know if I just came across it and didn't share it with you guys or what, but there was some AI in a game news. I can't think of it right now, but if I do, I'll pop in with it.
Joseph: What I feel like could happen is that, I mean, when we think about establishing guidelines.
Taylor: Oh yeah.
Joseph: Who, who does that in the gaming industry?
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: But then also like, it feels like it'll just follow the same path as the music industry. So like, okay, well then we'll pay royalties and it's going to be like a fraction of a fucking cent.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: It's, it's not going to be enough, in terms of compensation for likeness and performance and stuff like that.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Probably won't. You could say like it's the deals that you make, but in the end, only certain people are getting those big deals. And that's few and far between.
Joseph: It's a problem in the system in which the deals are created-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -is the thing that's fucking broken.
Taylor: Well, they're made to be like that. Yeah. If you can bring in the, the, uh, ad money. Then we want you and if you can't then fuck off basically and get nothing.
Joseph: You know, cause it was like, it's, there's no choice, right? It's like same thing in the music industry and why deals can't be made certain ways anymore because they were just like the only choice you could take, it's either you get like a 360 record deal or nothing. And it's like the artist is screwed.
Willie: Yeah, for sure. It's only going to get more and more complicated to regulate. Like I said, Steam has some rules and apparently they just updated their rules at the beginning of January of 2024. I haven't looked at what their new rules are, but there are no new rules about AI there, but that's just one company, just one distributor of games, right?
So you, there are people who don't use Steam as a platform too, not just people because they use Epic or because they use Origin or anything like that. It's just because they'll just release it from their own website.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: You know, if they can, and it gets enough traction. That's the, the weird part about all of it. And it could be helpful that... it's a small studio, it's only two people, and they're using AI to help-
Joseph: Yeah, like straight fucking indie.
Willie: -them make their... Yeah-
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: -and they're just releasing their game on their platform. But there's no way to know right out the gate. Who is this person? Why are they making this? Are they being exploitive, like, without other people finding out first that they're exploitive, right?
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: That they're like, this program they're asking to run is not great, or they're using really terrible practices to make this thing. And there's really no way to know, because there's so many fucking avenues for people to deliver new content to people.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Unless you get a whistleblower or something. That's basically the only way.
Joseph: Yeah, exactly.
Taylor: Somebody coming out and saying, that's where we've kind of lucked out, I guess you could say, in a lot of these bigger cases where you really see people were being exploited in a bad way. The only reason you knew that was because somebody came out either directly or anonymously or whatever and like said that that was the deal so...
00:51:22
Willie: Yeah, this one has been interesting for me because this game, because it's like, like I said, I knew the stuff about the AI from like the f...outset, so like, I didn't check it out immediately when I first heard about it. I was like, oh, that sounds cool, it's ex Dice people. They built a thing that has fully destructible environments.
And then like, the next thing I heard about it was, oh, they used AI to train these things. And people were like, is this okay in this version? And then. After some time, I was like, I'll check it out. But this is like one of the first cases where I've been like, I'm not sure about this development of this game.
I'm not sure what, what's going on with it, but I'll, I'll check it out just to see. But then you get into the game and it's like, fucking progression is so slow. There's a battle pass that like, I'm never going to buy.
Taylor: Yeah, it's, there's definitely the questionability about legs on this one.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: I was the same way, like you mentioned earlier, when you went through the battle pass, I did the same thing and it was so silly, dude. Most, 95 percent of it was stuff I did not care about, and that's not ever going-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: -to sell me on a 10 or 20 dollar battle pass.
Joseph: Yeah, I feel like that's where they need to make the most adjustments, is in the cosmetics that you get by leveling up, and then the amount of XP it takes to actually level up. Bring a little bit more balance to it so that you keep more people playing the game.
Taylor: Yep. Yeah, you want to keep that population. That's what we saw with Rogue, uh, Rogue Squadron or Rogue Company. [Joseph chuckling] I can't ever think of the name of that. That's what we kind of found with that one.
At some point, I want to say I got in there and it was taking two or three minutes to find games.
Joseph: Oh, wow.
Taylor: So once you, once you lose that community, if you don't keep up with the demand and just the necessity to keep putting new in front of the players, then it can be a bad time.
Joseph: So, and uhm, of course, a free to game... a free to game... a free to play game is going to have some type of in game transaction.
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: I wonder how much money they're making-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -in this game right now, because that's the only thing that's going to keep this game supported, I assume.
Taylor: That's a good point.
Joseph: But I think that's why they bring a little bit more balance to it so that it's not so off putting to people like us, which are going into the game just to see if it's fun. We're not planning on buying anything. You have to give us a little bit of something to stick around so that maybe we do decide to buy something because it's kept us playing for 30 hours.
Taylor: Yep.
Willie: I do... I think the, uh, I don't know what the word I'm looking for is, but I think we'll find out how well it's going once the first season is over.
Joseph: Word.
Willie: If you look in the, when you, when you're in the game, it'll tell you in the top left corner, like there's whatever, how many days left in the season. And I think it was like 50 something yesterday whenever we were looking at it.
Taylor: That's true. If it plays the Call of Duty way, it will, well, that second pass will be bangers. It'll be like 50 percent of the items you want instead of 10%. I do specifically remember Modern Warfare, like they're, the Battle Royale being the same way.
Joseph: Hmm.
Willie: No, I'm curious though, what we see then from that, if the battle pass gets better, still won't buy it, [Joseph and Taylor laugh] but it might bring people [chuckling] back. Like-
Joseph: Yeah, yeah.
Willie: It's, it's fun. But it's fun on its own. I don't need... like the gameplay team... the collaboration that it takes to be successful in the game is, is the part that's fun for me. And I've missed playing first person shooters.
So like, it's funny though, because I did play this game and then the other night after we got off, I went and just played some Halo
Joseph: [chuckles] Really?
Willie: I went and played some Halo Infinite and got in the Halo 3 playlist.
Joseph: Aah.
Taylor: I've been hearing good things about Infinite, like did you play any of the, do you know what any of the scuttlebutt is about it being... Because I've just heard nothing but positive things when I do hear something about it over the last couple months.
Willie: I mean, right now, there's, there's Halo 3 playlist that's been live for a couple months now that is great. I got on and played, you know, in remake of the Narrows and Guardian, and those were both fucking awesome.
Taylor: That's great.
Willie: Everything's scaled to be bigger now because, you know, movement is so much faster and you can, you have a grappling hook or whatever, you can move across the map really fucking fast.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: So everything's slightly bigger than it used to be, but um, it's good.
Joseph: Interesting.
Taylor: I do want to check that out. It's been a while. I, every time I hear something good about it, I think to myself, I better update that because it's probably got a 60 gig update.
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: Needs to be taken care of.
00:55:38
Willie: So if anything, this game has given me a, given me a want to keep playing more, more first person shooters again.
Taylor: That's cool.
Willie: I just like team based shooter stuff. That's all.
Taylor: I miss it. I miss Overwatch. I, I kept hoping that...
Willie: That's one that I just, I could never get into. I just don't like it. Everyone loves that game and I hate it.
Taylor: Really?
Willie: I think it's garbage. I just don't like it.
Joseph: [chuckles] Damn.
Taylor: I, I mean, if I got on there and didn't have a decent team at any point, I would be saying the exact same things. [laughs] I have said the exact same things.
Willie: So I like some of the characters. I just don't like the gameplay or the styles. Like, I don't know-
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: -it's just not for me. And I think when we played with Joey that one time, it was fucking impossible for Joey to fucking see anything on the screen [Joseph chuckles] because of the way the text is on the screen. So it's just like.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: I forgot about that.
Willie: It's not built for everyone to play.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: It's built in a very niche way that a lot of people really fucking love. I just don't. I just don't like it.
Taylor: Oh, I definitely fell out of love with it. Like, as soon as it started taking three to five minutes to get a match-
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: -I immediately said, no more. No more. There is no game that's worth that for me. Like, you start equating that.
Joseph: Yeah, that's excruciating.
Taylor: Yeah, if you start looking at that and you're thinking, okay, so tonight we're going to play. Six games and every one of those is going to have a five minute wait between each game.
Willie: Yeah
Joseph: PS2 loading times.
Taylor: Yeah, that makes zero sense. I can't do that.
Willie: For me, I think it's just the like, I just want to play team deathmatch, that's all.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Willie: I just want a based arena shooter. That's it. That's all I need I don't actually need a bunch of other game types, a bunch of other stuff. And it's funny because I still do like Halo's other game types.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: I still like playing Oddball, or Capture The Flag is fucking fun as hell to me.
Joseph: That's how I felt about... Rogue Company, man.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: That's why Rogue Company was appealing to me.
Willie: I do like it.
Joseph: Cause it's like, this is just a straight up fucking shooter, man.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Like there's some powers, but we're not into like wacky fucking weird game types.
Taylor: Yeah. You don't have to learn a bunch of stuff. You can just go in there, you know. Merc the dude in front of you.
Joseph: Yeah, and it's not trying too hard to, like, come up with this groundbreaking formula for game types-
Taylor: Yep.
Joseph: -stuff like that. Sometimes I think they just go too far for me.
00:57:47
Willie: So here's the question for this game to end it out. Are we gonna keep playing? Are we gonna play some more of this? Or are we gonna find a new shooter? Or another shooter to go play?
Joseph: I think we're gonna go play Palworld, man. That's what everybody's doing. [Willie chuckles]
Taylor: Yeah, we're gonna do what everyone is doing.
Joseph: Shit.
Willie: I'm down. It's also a shooter. I don't know if you noticed, but in some of the promotional images, there are guns. Like you can...
Joseph: Bro, it's fuckin Pokemon with guns.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah. You gotta break their will by shooting them in the face [Willie chuckles] and then catching them with your Pokésphere.
Joseph: Yeah, man.
Willie: No, we're gonna treat them nice, to have a nice farm.
Taylor: Oh, okay.
Willie: And live in peace with them.
Joseph: I mean, isn't the game literally killing them?
Willie: There's in the... damn, I'm not going to be able to find it quick enough.
Taylor: That sheep had X's on its eyes, bro. I... [Willie chuckles] he was definitely dead.
Joseph: Wait, wait, so is it PVP? Like you're, or you're just after animals?
Willie: It's just animals, but it's interesting like, when you look on Xbox Game Pass and you look in the description, there's like the first question is what kind of game is this? [Joseph and Taylor chuckle] And it says, In this game-
Joseph: A Pokemon game. [laughs]
Willie: [chuckling] In this game, you can peacefully live alongside mysterious creatures known as Pals, or risk your life to drive off a ruthless poaching syndicate. Pals can be used to fight and breed, or they can be made to work on farms or factories-
Joseph: Oh.
Taylor: Wow.
Willie: -You can even sell them or eat them.
Joseph: Oh.
Willie: It's like just a [Taylor chuckles] wide range of stuff that they're telling you, you could do.
Taylor: Yeah, you can keep them on earth or you can send them to space. Wow. [Joseph laughs] Okay. I guess choices will be made. Oh man.
Willie: [laughing] But anyway...yeah.
Joseph: One of the, I'm just looking at top stories and just looking at the headlines on Google for this game, and here are a few of them. Palworld is a smash hit. Gamers claim it's Pokemon with guns.
And then there's another one that says Palworld players shut down criticism of game being a reskin of Pokemon and ARK. [Taylor chuckles] Palworld, Pokemon with guns sells 5 million copies in three days.
Taylor: Wow.
Willie: Yeah, because everybody's been waiting for a Pokemon game that's like this.
Joseph: Yeah, now they have money for litigation-
Willie: [laughs] Yeah.
Joseph: -with 5 million copies in the first three days. [laughs]
Taylor: Do you think there will be a, uh, Palworld AR game where you have to run around with some sort of-
Joseph: Oh...
Taylor: -toy gun-
Joseph: Palworld Go.
Taylor: -shooting Pals? Yeah, Palworld GO. [Joseph and Willie laugh] Except they'll call it Palworld Gone or Palworld Stop.
Joseph: Pal.. PalGo.
Taylor: You have to walk around your city looking like you're holding a weapon and shooting at the Palworlds.
Joseph: Oh my gosh, this is-
Taylor: And then... [laughs]
Joseph: -Idiocracy-
Willie: Fuck.
Taylor: Yeah, it really is.
Joseph: -Come into reality.
Taylor: It really is. I could see this happening because it's right at the point of AR hitting shelves in a lot of different ways. Oh my God. This could be terrible.
Joseph: Here's Reddit. Is Palworld actually a good game or is it just a meme that's going to die out?
Taylor: Damn.
Willie: I wonder what the conclusion is there.
Taylor: Yeah. Some spicy fire.
Willie: I've watched people play it.
Joseph: You have?
Willie: Yeah. Yeah. I've watched a couple people play it. Like I've seen so many people playing it in the last three days.
Joseph: Uh, here's somebody, I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't advise comparing it to Pokemon. It has base building and not much of a story. I compare it more to Ark or Rust.
Willie: Mm-Hmm.
Taylor: Will the lead character be named Sash? Will...
[all laugh]
Taylor: Will there-
Joseph: Dash.
Taylor: -Will there be a Birtle? A lovable Birtle who's a bird, but also Squirts?
Joseph: [in high pitched voice] Birtle.
Taylor: [in high pitched voice] Birtle. Birtle.
[in normal voice] Yeah.
Willie: Alright.
Taylor: [laughing] Do they, do they talk like that. [Joseph and Willie laughing]
01:01:11
Willie: Before we go [Taylor laughing] get on some Palworld, any closing thoughts on THE FINALS?
Joseph: I was talking about the differentiator for this game compared to other free to play shooters, first person shooters, and I mentioned the coins and depositing them. But I think thinking back, the biggest differentiator is probably the environment and how you can destroy it and rubble from buildings can come crash down on your head and then you can literally get trapped and have to like explode your way out.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Uh, that's. Pretty interesting. I think it definitely keeps the game fresh. It keeps the game fun. I would recommend it to other people that like this type of game for sure. Like 100 percent go play it. Uh, you probably won't spend any money in it. Like we won't, but it's free to play. So if you have hard drive space, then try it out.
Taylor: Yep. Yeah. Especially if you're a Battlefield fan or you're a shooter fan, anything like that. I think it's going to be fun. Uh, as far as if I'll play it. Or keep playing it. I will play it until I get bored. For now, it's been a lot of fun, a lot of variety and being able to blow up all the environments and bring them down on you and change the aspect of the battlefield.
But just like we saw with Battlefield, actual Battlefield. Sometimes that can get old or sometimes if they don't, if they don't build on the formula or make the right decisions, it can definitely lead to stuff that makes you just want to leave that one alone until either there's some sweeping change or something else.
But for now having a lot of fun with it.
Willie: Yeah, I'll just close out by saying I agree with all of that, and the, the building destruction is definitely the thing that drew it to me, drew me to it first, just because I've missed that in Battlefield for so many years.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Back in Bad Company, there was so much destruction of the, the buildings, I'm pretty sure that was that one, and it was just, it was game changing then, when you could change the map in that way, that you could, someone was locked inside of a building, but you could just take your tank and just blow the, the wall down-
Taylor: yep.
Willie: -and get to the objective. That's amazing. And there's some of that in this as well.
Taylor: And there's been a gap in Battlefield playability because the last one just seemed to be a major flop and every... kind of the opposite of what Infinite has been doing. It seems like every move that they make with that game, it just is, ends up in negative feedback.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: That's unfortunate because we did, we have played many hours in Battlefield. We love those games.
Willie: Yeah. It's been, it's been fun. I will play again till Taylor said, till we're bored of it and move on to the next thing. I think that's, I think we. We covered it. I would definitely, as Joey said, play it if you like first person shooters.
If you want to see something a little, slightly different take on it, check it out. I think you'll have fun with it. It's definitely better in a squad. Teams of three. So if you got two friends to play with or find up, find some people. I will say the in game communication to like ping stuff does work pretty well when I've been playing with people who don't have microphones.
Because you can also confirm someone's ping. So like, they'll either confirm your ping or they'll ping somewhere else. Like, No, let's go here.
[Outro theme begins to fade in - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell]
And then you just click on that. Like, okay. And then you just go, but it's, it's been a lot of fun so far. And, uh, yeah, we'll play some more and let you know how it goes later.
Probably be talking about Palworld, probably not a whole episode, but you'll probably hear us talk about that soon in the future, but, uh, if you've been with us this whole time, we appreciate you listening to us and thanks for following along.
Taylor: Yeah, everybody. Thanks for tuning in. Hope you're having a great month.
Peace.
Joseph: Pe Pe Peace.
[Outro theme continues - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell]
01:04:37
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]
Siskel, is that, is that, what's his name? Thong song? Siskel?
Taylor: Thong song? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's him.
Willie: Sisqó.
Joseph: That was his name, right? Siskel?
Willie: Sisqó.
Joseph: Siskel. Siskel? Sisqó!
Willie: Sisqó.
Joseph: Sisqó, yeah.
Taylor: Sisqó. There you go. Close. Real close, Grandpa.