1Upsmanship: Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (Feat. Cody Johnston)

Vwoom and jedi-leap your way through Respawn’s latest with Adam, Mike, and special guest Cody Johnston! Will this jedi survive to the end of the episode, or even score a spot on the Celestial Hard Drive? To find out, young padawan, you must use this zipline to go over there. This is very important. The fate of the galaxy itself may depend upon you being cool at zipline, can you do that? Use the force if you need to, just get it done.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, okay, pew pew pew, wein.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Uh and so on. It's a rich mill you we're
all familiar with. That's right, the one Upsmanship MILLU. This
all those all those nostalgia chemicals are flooding into your
brain because you hear all the things you associate with
this podcast One Upsmanship, Lightsabers, the Unforgettable Character Book, a Boo,

(00:56):
and so on.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Three versions of him, what I say, coming soon on
Disney Plus.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
That's right, it's one ups And we've got three old
pals talking a Star Wars game, which you know if
you clicked it. Let's sound off, old pals.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
I'm Michael Swam, I'm Adam Gancer, I'm Cody Johnston.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
That's right, nominally a guess, but what's up man? Open
door policy for Cody.

Speaker 4 (01:22):
Yeah, and he comes into the Old Space Saloon anytime
he feels like it.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yes. Of course, people may know him from some more news,
even more news all his time it cracked, but people
who followed his crack stuff especially may know that he's
a legit Star Wars boy. Right, you like Star Wars?

Speaker 4 (01:38):
I do? I love it?

Speaker 2 (01:39):
I love it good, great?

Speaker 3 (01:40):
I mean, I think it's stupid and bad, but I
also love it and like you also.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yeah exactly, you like some of it's bad, that's funny,
some of it's good. I like that, Yeah exactly, Cody,
and you followed it with interest.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, since I was the first time I saw the movie,
so you love it so much.

Speaker 4 (01:58):
Cody and I once shared a taxi ride. He explained
to me why Star Wars is important. It was like
a thirty minute probably right, And yeah, you're right, it
was very good. I'll never I'll never forget it, I did, right, So.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Nice. Well, I guess we'll find out if Jedi Survivor
is important to the cannon and to game cannon as
a separate bucket. So let's dunk ourselves in all those
buckets as we pass our very first checkpoint, which means
we meditated, something I now do every day. Good and
so I see your game, I see you, and you

(02:32):
see me U.

Speaker 4 (02:36):
Well, we just scale points when you meditate, do you
like branch out?

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Well, my killing power increases every time I meditated, that's
the thing. Yeah, I completely forget the guy's name now
because we just we just rewatched Cody's brilliant Star Wars
crack series. So I really was like, this dude's name
is Jenks sun Moon. Is that that's the aspiring anyway? Yeah,

(03:02):
calcasts the Star of Jedi Survivor. Of course, the follow
up to Jedi Fallen Order. I think it was called,
but you know it was. That was the first one
of a new IP. And we're gonna ask Cody to
describe this second installment in a nutshell if he could.
To people who you don't, please don't feel the need
Cody to describe in detail all Star Wars lore, because

(03:24):
this guy's gotta have hour. But what is just Star
Wars Jedi Survivor about? Gameplay and plot wise?

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Please hop in the cab with Cody.

Speaker 4 (03:36):
For travel to the information party.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
Star Wars Jedi Survivor is a sequel to Fallen Order.
It's an action adventure game pretending to be an open
world game that is more of a linear narrative in
a large world where you get to be a Jedi
and fight all the bad guys you want with your
Jedi powers while you reunite with old friends and take

(04:09):
on the bad guys to save the Jedi Order for
the future of the galaxy.

Speaker 4 (04:17):
More or less simple.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
I thought it was going to be all like, well,
interestingly enough, and all the kids with the Silmarillion.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
But the part you're.

Speaker 4 (04:27):
Thinking of.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Kisses.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
Everybody's favorite.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
Star Wars was originally kill cast this. I'll explain f well,
well said, you mainly fight with a lightsaber. They added
a limited use of blasters in this one, which was
kind of neat, and we'll discuss further. The only other
thing I'd say is it's a three D metroidvania if
you're familiar with that genre.

Speaker 4 (04:54):
And it's a it's a Soul's leg as well.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Well, it's kind of yeah, it's got it's got from
God of War and dim, it's got Detroid world building,
and it's got the from Soft checkpoint system. It's I
think those are the big three. It's it's those three things.
And they're like, that's a good mix, is it. Let's
find out as we pass our next checkpoint and head

(05:18):
into the gamer rants, Adam, you want to go first
or last?

Speaker 4 (05:21):
You called, okay, I'll go first. This is I normally don't,
but I'm gonna plug right in and take the first swing. Hey,
this game is really mid, it's super mid. And what
I mean by that is it's fine. It looks great,
But ultimately I think it's it's just borrowing from games

(05:42):
that do everything better. I know there was a lot
of praise arounding this game, and I think it's because
we all love Star Wars and want every Star Wars
thing to be great. And there's about an hour and
a half where just being in Star Wars and doing
Jedi stuff is very cool, And once that subsides, there
are just some questions about it that kind of feel

(06:03):
like they deserve our time. One of them is why
do I care about Calcastus as a character and where
they've placed him? He is extremely disposable. I would argue
they put this timeline in the middle of the end
of the prequels the beginning of the Star Wars proper trilogy,

(06:24):
which means, ultimately, no matter what happens, probably nothing that
comes from these games is going to matter to the
overall narrative canon Like probably, you know what I mean, Like,
maybe it'll end up being retconned into a sentence that's
in Star Wars somewhere like oh, that was the Calcastus thing,
But ultimately, like nothing they do is going to matter,
And the ambition of the narrative here is they're going

(06:46):
to try to re establish the Jedi, a thing we
know doesn't happen so.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Right because of the other things. And then it's funny
how lazy it's gotten. Yeah, that's the thing, and like
eight parsex or whatever. Yeah, yeah, it's are Still it's
a real.

Speaker 4 (07:00):
Problem because the game expects you to be very invested,
and remember cal Kesses' wants, his desires, like his purpose,
and it's like, nah, he's just kind of a guy
who's running around who has Jedi powers and isn't gonna matter.
The game also made a narrative choice, and I'm folks
on the narrative first, because I think that's the appeal

(07:22):
of Star Wars. They made a narrative choice to split
up the team before this game started, and there's absolutely
no reason for that, absolutely no reason. The coolest character
in this franchise for me is Seir. We don't get
that much of Sir, and the stuff we do get
of Sere is very good, and I would argue, hey,
maybe more Seer, you know what I mean, Hey, maybe

(07:44):
bad decision. I do like all the cast of characters here.
I like Grease, drittis Uh played by that guy who
died from Dynamite.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
And we should say Deborah Wilson very good. Yeah, yeah yeah,
classic character.

Speaker 4 (07:58):
Yeah. I'm just mentioning this for Cody's benefit. He's just
played by the guy who blew up from Dynamite and
lost season one.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
Uh oh wow, yeah yeah.

Speaker 4 (08:06):
Isn't that great?

Speaker 3 (08:07):
Arts? Arts?

Speaker 4 (08:08):
Yes, art, He's played by Daniel Roebuck. But anyway, so
the narrative is ultimately not that compelling, and it takes
a very long time to get to what the point
of the game is in the larger structure of the story,
which is they're trying to find a safe place that
no one can find them to raise Jedi again, a

(08:28):
thing they kind of abandoned at the end of the
first game if you remember, you know, And it's like
a magic home world that they find and they have
to go through a series of things and spoilers. They
don't stay there. So that's fine. Now, the game itself
is better than the last time in that they have
improved some quality of life stuff. Cal Castis is very nimble.

(08:50):
I like the I like all the stances that you
invest points in. I think that being able to switch
between stances and choosing two that you like and invest
your you know, skill points into that worked, and you know,
you were able to sort of specialize your play style toward,
you know, the version you like. And every version of
a Lightsaber configuration is cool. They're all very cool. I

(09:13):
like them. I like the customizability of it. But I
also I felt the same way that I feel about
the first game, which is I feel like I'm not
going that many places, and I feel like I'm going
to the same place over and over and that place
isn't actually that interesting. And it's a problem with in
the Star Wars universe trying to make it a metroidvania.

(09:34):
In Star Wars, I want to go everywhere, and I
want to go places that are either famous or more
new things. And this felt like those yeah yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah yeah, give me Star star Vegas please. It
just kind of felt like we repeated things a lot.
And also this matters, the game ran very poorly on

(09:55):
the home world because it was too big for the
game to process, has it at the frame rate and
you know, uh and graphic fidelity that the rest of
the game shows us, and that really bummed me out,
Like I like, the visual fidelity was very seriously hindered
by the home world a place you kept going back to,
and that was a big problem. And then last thing,

(10:18):
and I know this is like seems very petty. There's
a lot of good things about this game, but the
last thing is I'm tired of games deciding to amp
up difficulty by making things spongy. That's a complaint I
see a lot. It really sucks when you're a Jedi,
when you have a lightsaber, everything should be sliceable everything,
you know. I mean, that's the dream of being a

(10:38):
Jedi is I want to be able to behead and
decapitate and slice people into pieces with a flick of
my kill.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
Death.

Speaker 4 (10:47):
Instead, you're like, you know, it takes like eight shots
to kill anything in this game, and you're like, well,
then why be a Jedi not? You never fight barely
you know, you barely fight them. It's just again, it's
designing against what makes a Jedi seem powerful. They dilute

(11:07):
Jedi to make them fit into this video game structure.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
Have you played a Force Unleashed?

Speaker 4 (11:13):
I have, and I liked the idea of it. It
doesn't hold up very well. I played like an hour
of it maybe two months ago, and I was like,
oh yeah, I have idea.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
A lot of time, I was wondering if that sort
of combat approach to Jedi is like more what you're
like because I'm appreciated you can like plow through people.

Speaker 4 (11:31):
That's like the point, yes, right, I think I want
something that's between the two of them to feel like
a Jedi. I know that a lot of people disagree
with me. I'm and I'm open to that, but I'll
leave it there so that the rest of you can
make your points. That is my rent.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
Great. We are the tube that exudes Cody, so that
man's Cody. You're in the middle. If you'd be willing,
I will.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
Get squeezed out of the tube.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Just got.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
Yeah. I don't fully disagree with a lot of what
Adam said. I I find this game to be very
fun for all the Jedi reasons. It is inching closer.
Video games are inching closer to my perfect game, which

(12:21):
is a legit open world like uh sort of GTA
or even like a Breath of the Wild type game.
That is, you're also a Jedi or a bounty hunter
with a lightsaber or whatever, and you're hopping along a
very large uh not like you know, stable open world.

(12:43):
I did like a lot of elements of it. I
don't care about Calcastus, uh, for many reasons. I do
think it's actually going to probably like dive into cannon
stuff in the third one that they're inevitably going to make,
which doesn't matter to me. I don't really care about
canon stuff or like the connections of the shows and

(13:05):
the movies. But it does seem like they're leading to
because they stay on the planet and they're gonna build
the little Jedi refuge on the planet with I don't
know quite do spoilers a lot. So Bode's daughter is
going to be a Jedi, right, Like, you'll get Calcastus
and the people will be like teaching the Jedi and

(13:28):
she'll be older and a Jedi. Maybe you'll yeah, and
so you'll have this planet that is like a Jedi
temple or whatever, and fucking you know, Grogu will probably
be there, will get we'll get connections to I think
the sequel trilogy and the post sequel trilogy stuff, probably

(13:51):
because it seems like that's where they're going with this.
We're like, oh, actually, like Anakin's apprentice has been hiding
all along, and she's back and she's gonna fight Mandalorian
who's saving Grogu for the Jedi school, like all that
kind of stuff. So it's all that kind of crap.
I don't really care. I was actually slightly disappointed because

(14:12):
the game felt very short to me. It really ended abruptly,
I got to because the whole game is sort of
building up to this, like, Oh, you're gonna go to
Tannelor this magical, ancient, mystical planet. And also the game
is sort of built. There's a lot of uncharted in
there too, not just sort of some of the platforming,

(14:34):
but also some of the actual vibe like.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
And got or two I got a note was about
trying to get to a secret, hidden realm where you
can be safe from your persecutors exactly.

Speaker 3 (14:47):
So yeah, so there was this sort of leaning into
this idea, and I was expecting, like, Oh, we're gonna
go to Tanalor, and then that'll be another place you'll
go there and you'll be able to like swing in
the trees or do whatever. You'll be ancient ruined that
kind of stuff. Maybe, yeah, maybe the Empire will show
up and maybe the planet will explode and you'll have

(15:07):
to escape the planet before it explodes, and you'll be
sad because you're Indiana Jones in space and you had
to You wanted to save the magic thing, but you
had to let it go, that kind of thing. But
I got to the planet and it's like, you gotta
fight Bode and then the game's over and I put
it off. I was like, what, all right, I guess
the game's over. I won't do this fight. Yes, yeah,

(15:29):
So I was kind of disappointed with it. Seems like
an unfinished game in a lot of ways, where not
necessarily like there were I had a major glitch which
I can talk about later on that almost fucked my
entire experience. So it did seem like a shipped early
but there was a missing stuff that didn't quite give
the oomph of like the Star Wars of it all.

(15:54):
You know, obviously there's no like space battles in this
game or like you know, dog fights or whatever. So
I don't know this game was fun. I had fun
on the first one. I do like a lot of
the improvements, a lot of the combat stuff. Obviously it's
fun to snap his voom and yeah, all around the world.
I think the open world elements need a lot of

(16:16):
work to make it feel.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
Not.

Speaker 3 (16:19):
So I get a little anxious with this kind of
game because they have like these like you can go anywhere,
you can go like and look in this little corner. Okay,
so I guess I have to look at all the
corners now, that's right, you know, Like I just feel
it doesn't feel open in the fun way. We're like, oh,
I can do whatever. You can go here and go here,
and the story will sort of like go along with you.

(16:40):
So there's this linear thing going on you have to do,
but then there's this nonlinear sort of brush they've painted
on the game that doesn't really do it. So I
just find myself like I gotta do everything right now.
So yeah, all those artists say I do. It was fun.
I do have mild hopes for the third one because

(17:05):
I think thee God seriously, because I think the ideal
version of a game like this is you have, like
I said, like this open world or like Ganser you
were talking about, like just give me a planet, give
me one planet. And there's a big city there, and
there are all these like different kind of locations. There's mountains,
there's the beach, there's all these Star Wars vibes on

(17:27):
one place that feels open, that feels like you're traveling
back and forth and not just like, I guess I'm
on this planet and it's only dusty, a very only
dusty planet. Not that interesting. But yeah, it needs a
little more for me.

Speaker 4 (17:42):
I don't know, Tody, would you be thrilled to discover that?
In twenty twenty four, there is a new Star Wars
open world game called Outlaws, where you can just explore
distinct planets across the galaxy new and iconic as a
a Han solo type out law who's like trying to,
you know, make deals and steal ship.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
Yeah. I saw that trailer today. I'm mildly interested in it.
I know it's you soft, we'll see. I know it
was only like cutscenes and like it didn't show any
of the gameplay, so I don't know. My ideal version
is like a bounty hunter scoundrel h type character that

(18:24):
also gets the Force later.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
Uh, so you get a little bit of both.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
And also I think that to really truly do like
the like this is like the Star Wars game. It's
got everything. It's Star Wars. You do need the blaster
scoundrel stuff, you do need, uh, Jedi Force, laser sword
kind of crap, even if it's not like, doesn't need
to be oversaturated with that, but these those two things,

(18:50):
and I do think it needs like.

Speaker 4 (18:52):
Like that's the problem. That's the problem is that to
make a I mean, this is a game on stuff.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
What's going on.

Speaker 4 (19:00):
I'll save it. I'll save it.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
I'm sorry, I'll forego my rant because it's no. No,
I really think we should because we're getting into game
on and I don't want it to go too too
long because the essence of my rant is it seems
like we all line up. But yeah, it's mid and
I will have my reasons why, I think after the break.
For the most part, I'll just say that that's what

(19:25):
I'm interested in. Unpacking is my watchword for this game
is sloppy. There's a bunch of things that I think
would be fine if they were better, Like that would
be cool, Like that sword fighting. If it was as
tight as Tsushima but it was lightsabers man, that would
be great. But it's not. I keep getting hit from
behind in ways that feel unfair, et cetera. And there's

(19:45):
all these gripes and I think they're interesting grapes to
talk about at every level, but that's basically all. My
take is that it's mid because it's sloppy. I do
like Star Wars, I wish it was better. I also
think the one thing that it proves that I as
time and again. I talked about this with Blood Born
is Bloodborne is tighter, but mechanically also but of course famously,

(20:07):
but the sound design, like when you hit one of
those zombie crows, it makes a sound that is not
realistic but is so crunchy. Is it's like a wildly
distorted speaker affecting sound when you kill stuff in Bloodborn.
And I actually think low key that these people who's
it called Respawn are masters of feel, which is like

(20:31):
I always go back to GoldenEye the first time you'd
shoot someone in their leg and their leg would jerk
like you shot them in the light, and you'd be like,
everything is refreshed. Now this feels so crunchy.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
They nailed, and I feel like they know it's all
they had to nail. Is when you press this button,
the character swings the lightsaber and the sound is right,
and when it hits stuff it sounds like huge, like
and they're fucking limb and you're like, Okay, you just
made a billion dollars the add animation and sound correctly. Uh,

(21:04):
and now the rest of the game is like whatever. Yeah,
and I want to talk at length as we will
about why after this, so we'll kick it to the
other side of the break. Wow, and we're back. Yeah.

(21:25):
We also didn't touch on lots of like running forward, jumping,
hopping around. But if I could lead us down, I
want to talk about all the things that are mid
and to kick it off checkpoint checkpoint or in game
on where we just chat. It was wildly a let
down and hilarious to me how this open world element everything,

(21:45):
like the payoffs were always wanmp womp for the open
world extra earning shit like there's a garden. I went
through that whole cycle. Nothing cool happens from it. And
trust me, stalking the aquarium it does nothing. Yeah, every
you work so hard on these puzzles, and I'm okay
with this a bit because the journey is that that's

(22:06):
the game. Like if the puzzle's good, that was the puzzle,
and I'm satisfied doing the puzzle. But it is a
funny letdown that you're like a wizard in space and
you do all this shit and all these ruins, and
you get to like a secret chest that you've upgraded
your droid friend enough that they can finally hack into it,
and they're like, it's a leather jacket. Like all they
have is vanity items. That's all they have. It's weird.

Speaker 4 (22:29):
I think that they want that. They must know that,
like a big percentage gamers who are playing a Star
Wars game want that.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
I do, right, But also like Destiny two, I love them,
Ghost of Tsushima, I love them. These vanity items were
not good enough. When I got a new one, I
didn't look at it and have that joy of an
action figure, Like I didn't go, that looks so cool,
Like the Jedi pants are just like loose fitting tan pants,
Oh my gosh, like Rogue pants that are tight fitting

(22:59):
gray pants.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
Basically, like my whole time with that stuff was just
like finding like trying to find the least stupid looking
outfit and facial hair and hair.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (23:12):
I did that for a while, but then then like
I got the thing, I was like, Okay, fine, now
he doesn't look so stupid, and I stopped caring because
the like I thought the the all the temples and
like those puzzles. I did enjoy those. Now that I
am playing Breath of the Wild, it really does feel
like that. A lot of the actual like even like
some of the puzzle mechanics.

Speaker 4 (23:33):
But a lot worse.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
Yeah well yeah, like a lot you know, less complicated
and less interesting, less fun. But it does have that
element and I do enjoy that. But then yeah, just
all the it's difficult, I think, and I understand why,
but they need to figure this out for the third game,
because well, you're a Jedi. You have a lightsaber and
that's all you need. You have the Force, which you
upgrade with skill points and stuff, but like there's no

(23:58):
I mean, it's hard to sort of do like an
armor system or a weapon system that upgrades that kind
of stuff. Because you're a Jedi. You get the lightsaber
and you're done. So I think they struggle with like
what rewards do we have for these and so they're like, well,
it's all cosmetic and which can be okay if it
has to be perfect.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
Though it's like on those food shows where they go, well,
if you only have one ingredient, it has to blow
my mind. Yes, and I do think it's a tough challenge.
That's interesting to discuss because all games have this. What
did we just some Oh? Oh you know link, Link
gets all of his heart's taken away right at the
beginning of Tears the KINGO of course time honored thing
that in the sequel, your tech tree resets because you

(24:38):
got concked on the head or someone siphoned your life
for us or whatever. I think that is starting to
get old and dated, and so new franchises are being like,
this game is a power trip. Any Jedi think is
a power trip? Cal can't go back to baseline. I
admire that.

Speaker 3 (24:54):
Oh I love that.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
I'm here to say I don't know the perfect solution,
but what a difficult balance between You're like, we don't
want to do the thing where he gets busted down
to rookie. But then what can we give you? Like?

Speaker 3 (25:06):
What do you like? What they can give you is
And this is what the game is missing, aside from
a lot of other stuff. I'm sure we'll talk about,
uh the space battle stuff. Give me a cool ship,
Let me upgrade my ship, let me fight in that ship.
If I get like bounty discs or whatever. Oh, you
get a new cannon on your ship or like something
that's a little more tangible and affects the game a

(25:29):
little more, because I'm not going to do a puzzle
that requires me to go into some little corner of
the world. If all I get is well, now another beard,
Now BD eight can have these antennas out of this
which I'm never going to fucking look at or use
because he's perfect. This is the droid I got. Why
would I want to change the wonderful droid that you
gave me.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
So even the colors are very cautious, they're like you
unlocked beige.

Speaker 3 (25:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
Different, it is Star Wars. It has to look Star Wars. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (26:01):
So this is where Star Wars presents a problem for
a video game developer. And the problem is that the
promise of Star Wars is actually four different genres of game, right, Like,
there's a space fighting game, there's a there's a Bounty
Hunter RPG version of the game, there's a Jedi version.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
Of the game, and there's even the cinematic or like
you kind of you're gonna also want to be a
story driven game Star Wars people, that's the problems.

Speaker 4 (26:30):
And yeah, the problem is that to give the Star
Wars experience video games have forever divided the experience between
genres and said, you know, this character basically only does
these things and then kind of giving you illusions or
hints at maybe doing other stuff.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
Like like you ship crashed, you're just walking across hof
shooting at people.

Speaker 4 (26:51):
And that's and those aren't very good, you know. And
Cody's saying like, yeah, I want Grand Theft Auto the
version of Star Wars. It's that is like, yeah, yeah,
that was like a half billion dollar game, Like they
spent so much money to make that happen, and.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
They should spend they should spend two billion dollars because
they'll make nine billion, would make so much money if
they made that.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah, Star Wars MMO did exist. I never got into it.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
Yeah, I think it's just called galaxies galaxies.

Speaker 4 (27:19):
There has been a long history of successful and failed Uh.
Star Wars tries everything day right, right, Yeah, but I
do think that we're at a point where we expect
Star Wars to deliver everything we love about the movies
if we're going to buy the game and not feel disappointed,
Which means that a lot of these ideas that are
like oh, you know, dark soul Star Wars and like

(27:41):
oh two D cute c metro Vanus, Star Wars like whatever,
these you know, franchise genre ideas they pomp out, there's
never gonna be one that's like changes the video game
landscape until they're like, we're going to make a definitive
Star Wars game, and it's going to be the one. Yeah,
you know. And I honestly think the only game company
it's even trying to do that is Bethesda. A Starfield

(28:04):
like Starfield is seems to be the only game that's
actually trying to make the it's not Star Wars but
a Star Wars everything.

Speaker 3 (28:12):
It seems like, yeah the closes.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
I held out as long as I could before bringing
the word Trek into this conversation, But we're about to
cover Mass Effect too also, and I will say I
kept this was new while I was replaying Mass Effect Too,
and I kept shutting this game off to go I
gotta get back to Mass Effect. And maybe it's just
that I'm a trek boy at heart, but I just
found it not It needed to be more engaging. It

(28:35):
just needed to be There's a lot of little things
that contribute to that. It's not shot really at all.
Everything is all dialogue scenes or Cowboys, whereas I was
going back and forth between this in Mass Effect too
or Mass Effect two, obviously more primitive graphics, but at
least when something intents happened, it cuts to a close
up of the person's face and then out to a

(28:56):
wide shot and then this is a tiny thing, but
it's not. But it's like I it makes them seem
like you're looking at a diorama. It's less invested, like
you rarely ever see close ups of people's emotions in
this game, which I just thought was weird. And then
I wanted to ask, what do you guys think about
the from aspect, because I think they kind of bungled

(29:16):
that in the sense that there were so many shortcuts
so frequently. I don't know who's going around the galaxy
setting up thousands of ropes like Homish style ropes.

Speaker 3 (29:28):
Every every planet has, like everything. This is the universal
shortcut technology.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
And we all love ziplining, that's the way of the
future is to jackline everywhere. But the shortcuts were so frequent,
it was why not just have a silent checkpoint like
every game does now. I didn't understand the difference from
has tension because it's so hard that you're like, fuck,
I gotta start over. Fuck, I gotta start over. This

(29:54):
game didn't really hit me that hard because it's trying
to be not from because it wants all everyone's mine.

Speaker 4 (30:00):
It's Star Wars, So.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
Then why every time I meditated? It was literally just
like having manual checkpoints versus if you know what I mean.
There was no from like tension. I never felt like
thank god, I finally got to a checkpoint, and in fact,
like I guess I'm a freak for liking this, but
like the checkpoints were set up in such a way
that the combat was repeated frequently, Like there were difficulty

(30:25):
spikes where a room would be really hard and you
do that five times and finally progress. But they never
repeated the traversal puzzles, which is the other half of
the experience. When you finished a traversal puzzle one hundred
percent of time, there's a shortcut, as if they want
to say, we know you don't want to do that
more than once? Am I the only one who was like, no, Actually,
the running and flowing moves together part was more fun
than the combat. I wanted to do that again. I

(30:46):
don't want to do the combat few times.

Speaker 3 (30:48):
I really enjoyed the platforming aspect of the game to
do a lot of good stuff with.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
That party good at running and jumping. That's the part I.

Speaker 3 (30:56):
Like, well, this is really fun and satisfying.

Speaker 4 (30:59):
This is the that invented titan Fall. I think you
can see why why they are also Apex legends obviously
if you guys play that game.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
Adding extensive wall running to the strategy of shooters.

Speaker 4 (31:14):
Yeah yeah, and verticality to them so like they're really
good at it. It's weird that they feel beholden to
eliminate the puzzle, like the traversal puzzles. I think the
combat is fine in this game. Ultimately, when I'm a Jedi,
I want to kill stormtroopers, like the fundamentally.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
That's cut them down, Isn't that what it is?

Speaker 4 (31:35):
Like?

Speaker 3 (31:36):
Oh yeah, well so that's the thing also about this
game that I think they're they're like they're getting there,
they know what they're missing, and they're they're trying but
not hard enough or like you know, I think also
that they didn't have enough time necessarily, but like the
idea of what the there's the main planet you're on,
and there's like a sort of like open area that

(31:59):
leads to all these other places you have to go to,
but there's this sort of central uh space that's like
in the little desert, and you can kind of yeah,
there's outside of Reeze's Bar, like undown, the downs or
something undown to areas something like that where you can
kind of just patrol and find little camps of like oh,
stormtroopers fighting some robots take those out, and so there

(32:22):
is that element that they know that they need where
you always have this opportunity to I want to go
through a little short, little battle. I'm gonna go fight
that guy. And so they gave these like spawning patrols
throughout the world, but only in kind of one area
because that was one Like with the first game. I
was like, wait, that's it.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
It was weird that not each planet was open world.

Speaker 1 (32:45):
It was weird.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
Oh, if you want to do open world, you go
back to you go back to most let's.

Speaker 3 (32:49):
Be right, you know, like you got to go find
like this the one spell Like, oh, I remember there
were a lot of stormtroopers in this one part of
the narrative, So if I go to that place, maybe
I can redo that. But like them, I think.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
They didn't have Force Tears, which was basically the realm
tars from God to War. But it made me realize
I kind of wanted an arena like Ratchet and Clank
had the most recent one where it's just like a
series of challenges or Batman has a series of challenges
fighting increasing because like in moments, they That's what I'm
saying is they're good at feel. They totally understand the
power trip because they introduced in this game of move

(33:24):
where you can suck thirty guys from all over the
room into a tight unit around you and slash in
a circle and they just all fall in half. Like
that felt awesome every time, So they know what they're
going for. I just thought they were like pawing at
it more than surgically striking at it.

Speaker 4 (33:42):
Right, the Metroidvania idea and the open world idea are
diametrically opposed.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
They're trying too many things and some of them are
at odds. Yes, yeah, there's a lot.

Speaker 4 (33:53):
Of things that are odds at odds here, Like I
actually think the God of War style opened the Door
puzzle are weird for a Jedi.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
To have to do what Jedi decided hey to open
this door. We should have a crystal ball in a
long track and you push the ball around the room
anyway uncharted Ship.

Speaker 4 (34:14):
But they ruin the vibe of being a Jedi, you
know what I mean, Like, like this game is promising
the vibe of being a Jedi and then the game
mechanics continue to take away from it. It's a big problem.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
Yeah, yeah, it definitely.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
Digging not that interesting as a Jedi villain. Also, I
would argue, after we've had people like Ryan and Ship
and Boulder and God of War is even more interesting.
Like he says Ship like, you will not stop me.
You are pathetic. How does it feel to know you
are about to die? Like yawn? Dude? Oh my god.
I love that though, Like that great actor, cool character

(34:49):
design here.

Speaker 4 (34:51):
So this is maybe a spoiler for everybody. So the
big bed in this game is Boda is bowed. And
Bode was played by the actor who played Charles in
Red Dead two, which I think is like one of
the best performances in video game history. It's so good,
and uh man, I just we just don't care about Bode.

(35:13):
Like there's they try really hard to make him an
emotional anchor by giving him a daughter that we meet
and like the she's.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
Not real, that's the problem. Right, even after spoilers, the
bad guy dies, meaning she's just been orphaned. Her The
only other line that character voices after that point in
the game her dad just died. You killed him? Is
you go, are you cool if like we adopt you
and you're just with us now, And she goes, let's do.

Speaker 4 (35:42):
It, let's do it.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
You need more than that, man, her dad just died.
You want pathos, This was your chance. This is where
you explore that he.

Speaker 4 (35:51):
Just felt so manipulated. Ultimately, you know, like it's like
you know, kid equals care, right, and she's a knowledge. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:57):
Also, even the sort of like the turn the reveal
about Bode was because like the daughter stuff sort of
drove the last half and the first half what was
like try to what was trying to drive the first
half was look at this guy in your crew who's
like friendly and you're having these conversations with him and look, ah,

(36:21):
you're like a team. Like it was building this idea
of this like just new guy.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
Who perhaps he's your han solo, right.

Speaker 3 (36:30):
But like they did a bad job at that. I thought,
like the whole time I'm like, I don't give a
shit about this guy.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
I thought he was a red Shirt. I thought he
was there to die, Like.

Speaker 3 (36:39):
He has like a conversation every once in a while,
and it's just just like a JetPak guy, very bland
sort of thing. So yeah, the whole thing didn't really
work for me. Although, like the other bad I thought
was very cool idea. At least I thought.

Speaker 4 (36:54):
That was yeah, the jet the the Jedi who discovered
the place, and was.

Speaker 3 (36:58):
Yeah, it's interesting in the cool character design and stuff.

Speaker 4 (37:01):
Yeah, but and then they disposed of him, which was weird. Yeah,
so weird. Another weird thing about this game is that
they like so they kind of know that they need
more iconic characters to boost the cred of this cast,
which is why you.

Speaker 3 (37:16):
Know iscast is not doing it for you.

Speaker 4 (37:18):
Well, I mean they know that because they keep bringing
Vader in, and Vader's the best part of the game.

Speaker 3 (37:22):
You know, Like that was dope?

Speaker 2 (37:23):
Okay, we now I gotta ask sorry. So you guys
both found that dope because, as people have heard on this,
I have weird difficulty things. Some things Adam finds hard.
I'm like, oh word, and then there's these things so
I saw the Darth Vader fight as as like pure
fan service in the form of a fight, meaning like
I felt like I was a kid on the playground
and the kid's going no, no, no, you can't Darth

(37:45):
Vader his skills ten thousand, no, because he would even
beat that. You don't understand how my point is. I
decided to count I killed sayre seventy seven times before
passed the Darth Vader Fight. And I didn't find this
game difficult. That's what I mean by that seems weird,
Like that's quite a swing.

Speaker 4 (38:06):
There were a few. There were a few that took
ten to fifteen tries.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
There were rooms that took me eight to twelve. Yeah,
but Vader, I was like, this is nuts.

Speaker 3 (38:15):
Vader was rough, but I kind of appreciated that.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
But I get that that's the point. But I was like,
that's all calm down now.

Speaker 3 (38:24):
Yeah. But at that point, like like up seventy, it's like,
I just let me play the fume.

Speaker 4 (38:29):
Yeah I might.

Speaker 3 (38:30):
I know, I know he survived, but I.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
Was having an off day or whatever.

Speaker 4 (38:34):
You know, No, I no, you weren't. That was a
really hard section of the game that I remember getting
irritated with when I was streaming it, but then I
forget it when I moved past it, because that's how
these games will get.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
And it was cool.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Oh I love to have a full fight with Vader,
and I feel the excitement of just being in Star Wars.
It does give you that well real.

Speaker 3 (38:51):
He is, like he is like this massive, like movie
monster too. He's so good the idea.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
Of like he's as iconic as Dracula and Frank.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
You know, and it's just very effective in especially especially
video games. But also like you know, when whenever he
randomly kind of shows up in like a movie or
something where it's like, oh, that guy lives, he is
like he's that much more terrifying because you know how
he ends. So it's like, oh, this gigantic monster is
just showing up and I know he survives, so there's oh.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
He also is wearing plot arm or anytime he shows up.

Speaker 4 (39:24):
Yeah, he's great for being like an indestructible force that
forces the plot in a new direction.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
Yeah, but I was like, oh sear no.

Speaker 4 (39:33):
Yeah exactly.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
But that's what's good about Vader.

Speaker 4 (39:36):
Of course.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
That's what I mean about the playground mechanic where you're like, no,
Superman Superman ten thousand.

Speaker 4 (39:42):
Yeah, fair enough, But this is where see I think
Darth Vader also exposes the mistakes they made with the
story here in that we all know as soon as
Darth Vader shows up again, another spoiler for everybody that
Sear is going to die, right, you know that's going
to happen. So it's weird that we and the entire
game without her on the team. It's really the first two.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
Acts or whatever, I just flying around picking up your
kids from soccer practice, like it's just assemble the team
for reason, limp. It was pretty shitty till stuff actually
kicks off.

Speaker 4 (40:15):
More than that, the love interest in this game is
one of the I want to say, Night Witches. Is
that right, Maren, Maren Night Sister, That's what it is.
So like she so I know I saw online the
people this thing of.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
All to Star Wars, which is the doctor Strange element.
She does magic, but not like the Force magic, a
new different magic.

Speaker 4 (40:34):
She also is played so emotionlessly, like so deadpan and unemotional,
and then she's like, I love you, Cal and then never.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
It's supposed to be like a Leah Luke kiss, and
you're like, what.

Speaker 4 (40:46):
Why would I care about me? Yeah, a journey.

Speaker 3 (40:51):
Yeah, and like I know, like that's her character, like
that's how she speaks, but like it does take away.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
I wrote the note when she came in. Oh yeah,
she was like the main deal of the first game.
I totally forgot she existed. I only remember see her
and Grease. It's like Maren's like so forgettable.

Speaker 4 (41:10):
There's versions of that character that we've cared about who
like underplayed, Like not my favorite version, but say Aubrey
Plaza's character from Parks and Reck is an under is
an underplayed character where the emotions are like ooh when
they come out, they're very potent.

Speaker 3 (41:24):
Guardians does it too?

Speaker 4 (41:26):
Yeah, well that's right Guardians as well.

Speaker 3 (41:28):
Nebula obviously, like they develop over time.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
But I'd say, you know, fragile and death stranding too,
because I'm the she's very deadpaned, but you really feel
it when their time rain makes her she is.

Speaker 4 (41:43):
But so here's the thing, Like, Okay, so they have
this love interest story they want to tell you, right,
and I just want to I'm harping on this because
it matters. So they they want to like have this.
You know, we've been building toward it for two games,
they claim, and then sure, okay, so then they have
this kiss and then she's never on another mission with you.
That's the first thing. And the second thing is Jedi

(42:05):
aren't allowed to have relationships. Yeah, so like this means
he's no longer doing Jedi stuff.

Speaker 2 (42:11):
And the thing which they should it would be interesting.

Speaker 3 (42:14):
That's they're also not allowed to embrace the darkness, right,
which he does a couple of So I feel like
that is it's just I think going back to the
keywords lobby, like yeah exactly, where like there are all
these elements that like they want to have come together
and they could, and there is a theme going on

(42:35):
like underneath everything because yeah, the Jedi order is destroyed,
well maybe you have to like sort of like break
the rules and maybe adjust the rules. And they're all
you know, like some of the last Jedi stuff, the
sequel trilogy, and there's the new movie they're gonna make
with Race Skywalker or whatever where it's sort of like

(42:56):
we're gonna take what didn't work with the Jedi and
fix it. But they're not really dealing with that or
discussing it in any way. It's just sort of happening
on screen, and it doesn't have an effect because they
don't seem to want you to notice, or like they're
not bringing anything.

Speaker 4 (43:12):
They don't want to change things because everything that came
before is more important than what they're doing now.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
Right, you know, And like they can do all they
want on this like mystery secret planet, but like ultimately
they're gonna have to go back to the way things
were probably of course. Yeah, it's just like it's just
a lot of like mixed signals and like disparate ideas
that want to come together to be a thing, but
they don't really do it.

Speaker 4 (43:38):
I just feel very passionately that you can't. If you're
going to cash in on a big ip like Star Wars,
and there's lots of companies that are gonna do it,
you have two options. You can either recapitulate the stuff
we've already seen and gamify it and make the game
version of the thing we've already seen, which is no problem.
There's been tons and tons of great Star Wars games
that are in that zone right where it's like, you know,

(44:00):
here's the Force Awakens video game. Okay, great, yeah, yeah,
play it fine, Yeah, Yeah, that's fine. There's no problem
with that, or you create a new Star Wars story,
but you have to put it in a time where
we have not yet scripted the future.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
Or place it could be far far away. Yeah, it's
built in, you got it a lot, yea.

Speaker 4 (44:19):
Or or it's literally just stealing from us in the
sense that you are you are pretending like this is
gonna matter, but really it's just it's just.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
But the the problem then is the temptation, because that
means you can't do the thing where you cash in
by panning over and Gredo is in the background as
a baby, like if it's far far away, it's all
on you to come up with new sci fi shit
that everyone thinks is cool. And I think people are
scared of that. They're like, no, let's just bring Brita,
Grido back, will bring Boba back? You know that?

Speaker 3 (44:52):
Do we have access to?

Speaker 4 (44:53):
If any of the three of us were designing the
game and they were sitting and they said you need
to make it Star Wars, I would say the joy
of it would be going fifty years in the future
from Force Awakens or.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
Years and extrapolating and contributing to that tapestry. This is
why I prefer Star Trek is all I'll say is
at least in Star Trek, the franchises were like, we're
colonizing space, but then all but then we control a
border checkpoint between this part of space and a part
of the galaxy we haven't seen with all new alien
races you've never seen. And then the next one was

(45:25):
we're lost in space in a different galaxy with all
new aliens that you've never seen. They were they're willing
to start over, and Star Wars is like, don't worry,
Boba FET's still here. Don't worry. It's still that there's
a giant fascist ball in space and we shoot it down.
Don't worry. It's all the same. Don't worry. It's all
the same.

Speaker 4 (45:43):
But that.

Speaker 2 (45:46):
You want.

Speaker 3 (45:47):
And they didn't even do that, Like there was no
I never felt that like that, like oh, there's a
giant death orb in the sky, or like something is
like even in destruction.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
Changing of the whole universe like the first or or Ship.
I was so disappointed when they Disney unveiled like we're
going to now investigate the High Republic era and the
First Order era, where a microcosm of the original Star
Wars trilogy played out exact cases.

Speaker 4 (46:12):
Okay, great, Yeah, it's well again, it's like and I
know we sound like sort of jaded old fans and
that's wrote for cracked and sound.

Speaker 2 (46:23):
Like people who have seen many many Star Wars and
were tired Star Wars.

Speaker 4 (46:27):
But I got to be honest with you. I like
the every time at Star Wars video game pops up
that has a premise that sounds cool, I'm excited for it.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
I was excited to play a game that's just curissan
like an and or game.

Speaker 1 (46:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (46:40):
Sure, Like that's the thing is. I don't think that
I'm so jaded that I think it's always going to
be bad. I think that I am the target demographic
inasmuch as I really want there to be a great
Star Wars thing and still until it. Yeah, you know,
and I just think they I feel like they don't.
There's not a lot of courage here. Like these are

(47:02):
safe games, and it's like, no, man, safe games are
not how you how you change video games which Star
Wars should be doing.

Speaker 3 (47:09):
Yeah, yeah they can, and they can synthesize some stuff,
and like there's so many things you could do to
add like even like you were saying, like yeah, like
a They're like, have some sort of like gladiator mode, right,
We're like, yeah, I want like the waves to come
at me. I want to have easier access to it.
You could have that there's a colosseum on this planet,
and that's an element of the game where you can

(47:30):
return there and do that part of the game. There's
you know, an RTS sort of element to it, where like,
because it's also Star Wars, right, you're in the middle
of a war. You have armies against each other. That's
another aspect of the game or not the game of
Star Wars that I think needs to be there, Like
the space battles. You got your force, you got this,
and then you have the war, right, and so you

(47:54):
can do all I don't think it would be overbearing
to do a lot of these elements and try to
integrate them and have like almost mini games within this
to make it feel like a very fleshed out, big, expanded,
fresh sort of thing.

Speaker 4 (48:10):
But yeah, I mean say.

Speaker 3 (48:11):
It takes time too, and they definitely didn't have a
lot of time for this, I guess.

Speaker 4 (48:16):
I also think Dark Souls is not the right is
not the right engine to put Star Wars onto. I
do like dark souls, as we all know, and I
do like Jedi stuff. I just think that dark souls
as a concept is about a painful grind toward like
meticulous perfection. That's not what a Jedi fight is. Jedi's

(48:39):
walk through villains, That's that's what they do.

Speaker 3 (48:42):
Yeah, but that is what so that is what.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
It's dragon ball Z, right.

Speaker 3 (48:48):
It is what Padawans do though.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
Which is what he was inspired by originally.

Speaker 3 (48:53):
Yeah, but then you also have to then that would
involve See, this is why I think, like you start
with a bounty hunter or somebody and they train because
you're gonna have You start out, oh, I got guns,
I can I can take care of myself. I'm I
can survive, and then you slowly are introduced to the grind,
because becoming a Jedi is a grind, right, that makes
a Padawan period of time is like, yeah, you you

(49:15):
don't have relationships, you folks. You only do this. And
that's maybe an element they will try to bring in
the third one, because I assume the third is gonna
be like Jedi Academy or whatever it is, right, I.

Speaker 4 (49:28):
Don't know, I mean, I know Calcastus the character is
gonna be in Live Action Star Wars.

Speaker 3 (49:33):
Yes, that is true also, and they are making a
third one of this definitely, which is why I sort
of have hope for it, because I do think as
much as like this was fine, it was a big
improvement on the first one I thought, and way more fun,
albeit like too short and all.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
Those loss a lot, I feel like something about the
little design.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
Yeah, the map, the map and level design, that's the
thing I think about.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
It's not as helpful as like it was in Metroid
Prime for whatever reason, and inspire weird obviously. Yeah, that's why.

Speaker 3 (50:07):
Yeah, Well, the conflict between the linear narrative and puzzle
stuff and the idea of an open world, because it's
not either. It wants to be both, and so you
have these like little corners where it's like do I
gotta do I have to go here to do this? Yeah,
it's just like it's not. And again I am playing
Breath of the Wild finally now, so I've got like

(50:27):
that traversing that world is just so much fun, and
there is an element of that in this, but not
as much. And then it gets very tedious. I do
want to mention on the subject of sloppiness. So in
the game. You know, there's the bounty hunter side stuff.

Speaker 4 (50:47):
Yeah, yeah, that's that's inspired. It's inspired by the God
of War Valkyrie.

Speaker 3 (50:54):
Right, Okay, very cool. I mean it's a fine idea.
It would be fun, it would be I would have
I didn't do all of them because at a certain point,
I'm like, do I need to make my blaster look
a little neater? You know, I like, I just didn't
care about the actual reward wasn't enough. But in the game,

(51:15):
you run into your legs when you're like floating down,
there are these geysers. It's the geyser area, and you
flow down and then you fight a bounty hunter for
the first time, and that sort of triggers the character
who's like, yeah, come to me and give you these bounties.
So I fought that bounty hunter and we had a

(51:38):
battle and I shot that bounty hunter dead, and then
half a second later, that bounty hunter shot me dead,
and then the cut scene started, but I died, so
the game reverted me back to the beginning of my
save point, and then I went back to the spot
where the bounty hunt hunter was, and it wasn't there.
Because you can only fight the boss battles once in this.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
Game without dropping the reward.

Speaker 3 (52:02):
Right, So the cut scene ended early and then I
got reverted back the boss battle couldn't happen again, so
I couldn't do that part of the game.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
Yeah, it was actually quite buggy, and.

Speaker 3 (52:13):
It was very buggy and broken. I was very lucky
that I like had uploaded like a save. I didn't.
I didn't have to restart the game, but I almost
did because of just these little things where it's like
that shouldn't happen. There should be something in play that
if I, if we kill each other around the same time,
I don't lose an entire part of the stamm Yeah.

(52:36):
So like, yeah, just that sort of sloppy, Like you
could have used a few more months to to work
out some of these.

Speaker 4 (52:41):
Issues, and yet people would have lost their mind, right, Like.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
You, Yeah, delay every game. I don't know why. Like
I understand people want games right away, but like, if
it's being delayed, it's probably gonna be better.

Speaker 4 (52:54):
As unfair as it is to mention this, Tears of
the Kingdom was delayed a full year and all they
did that year was polish it. That's literally all they did.
The game was apparently finished in twenty twenty two, and
they polished.

Speaker 3 (53:05):
For a sting. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
Interesting, well, and you can see it from ninety five
to one hundred.

Speaker 4 (53:10):
You can see it, and it's like, oh, I see
that now.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
Speaking of getting from ninety five to one hundred, may I,
of course, may I leap us over to our closing
comments and vote. So yeah, you're not. I'm not shutting
out conversation. You still have you can get your last
little punches in. But when we return from this break,
we will determine whether what's it called Survivor makes it

(53:34):
onto the celesteal hard Drive. I had to scroll up
after this, We'll be right back. Hello, back again, one upsmanship,
passing another checkpoint, the quick meditation section to clear our minds,
pick our stances as we go into the final segment,

(53:56):
where we decide whether this game makes it on a
list of one hundred of best I don't know. We
like to think of it as like artistically notable rhessorkly
notable important games of all time called a Celestial hard drive.
And we also like to throw in a few closing
comments so that this isn't like a sixty second segment.

(54:17):
So I'll just do my crack style Rye observations and
then I'll vote if that's all right.

Speaker 3 (54:21):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
There's a part in this where to complete a challenge,
you go into a cave or get some bobble or whatever,
and you slay and you kill thirty monster dogs, like
you clear out their whole civilization. It's just funny imagining
a Star Wars movie where Luke hacks like thirty leopards up,
or like take it to modern day, like a guy
with a sword kills thirty leopards and he's just surrounded

(54:43):
by bloody leopard corpses and we're like, that guy's a hero.
I like that. It's cool how he did that. But
I guess that's all video games. Yeah, And it also
made me wonder speak of giant ips like this, are
we gonna get another had Over Mortar game? I liked
those games? Or with the franchise reboot, is that dead now?

Speaker 4 (55:05):
I think there is another one in the works. I
know there's like, so Gollum came out and that was
apparently very bad. I've played it, and then there's another
one on the way that it might be in the
family of Shadow Mordor. I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
I love it when a dev has to release I
shouldn't love it because people's jobs are on the line.
But when they release statements where they go did not
meet expectations as the code word, but where they basically go, yeah,
and the game's bad. We're sorry, we know, no, we
know it's bad. We tried. It's truly bad. And that
was one of those yeah.

Speaker 3 (55:38):
Or they apparently did a second Yeah they did.

Speaker 4 (55:40):
Yeah, but I'm waiting for that. I haven't played the
second one. I need to play that one.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
Did well anyhow, I hope we covered one of them.
If not, I think we covered the second one with
whatever system, the Menace system or whatever it's called. I
don't think we covered I remember talking about it with
somebody jack maybe as my memory good anyway. Shout out
to Turgle the little frog boy, who is obviously voiced
by Raz from Psychonauts. Yea, yea, and I will delete

(56:08):
the game for the reasons elucidating.

Speaker 4 (56:10):
Okay, yeah, I'm not trying to be a complete troll
when I say this, But the more I think about it,
the more I think a grease game could be good,
like a grease role playing game where he like, you know,
he's like running, managing.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
Your ship, inventory, building a bar. Yeah, totally.

Speaker 3 (56:26):
And I also think he's tell him that these Star
Wars games should have right focused down on place lived in,
like you can be a Jedi and do that kind
of stuff. You know.

Speaker 4 (56:35):
Has there been a Star Wars sims There must have
been something like that, right, I'm sure.

Speaker 3 (56:39):
There have been Star Wars sims, like skins, like versions
of it, like, oh, you're the kind of Star Wars
the Star Wars pack.

Speaker 4 (56:46):
Yeah, anyway, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
There's the sims for Star Wars Journey to Bout to
DLC pack.

Speaker 3 (56:51):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's what I was thinking of.

Speaker 4 (56:55):
Yeah, there are many Star Wars games that deserve consideration
on the hard I've at least a few that I like,
three or four I can think of offhand.

Speaker 2 (57:04):
There's a really underrated indie game called Impact Winter where
it's just post apocalyptic nuclear winter and all you do
is gather fuel and food and try to survive. I
would love a hot skin of that. Sure, I like that,
just trying to survive. Cutting to times open.

Speaker 4 (57:19):
I do want to see Cody's vision of a grand
Theft Auto and Star Wars. I think that's a good idea.
But I also I think the thing that has endured
the best in video games from Star Wars is the
space dog fighting stuff. I think there's been several games,
including saber fighting.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
Lightsaber fighting is I don't think they've made a great
slight big arcade cabinet where you lightsaber thought Vader in
first person?

Speaker 3 (57:43):
Was the Jedi Academy games. The Jedi Night games. Uh no,
there's a so it's a dark sort was the original
It was like very doom but Star Wars dark forkery Yeah, yeah, yeah,
and then eventually that series turned into Jedi Knight and
Jedi Academy.

Speaker 4 (58:05):
I haven't played that, so maybe that one's good.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
I guess I'm saying, even if it hasn't been done perfect,
lightsaber fighting will always be something Star Wars games are chasing.
It's expelled, yea, that get.

Speaker 4 (58:15):
I just don't know that we've ever had the one
that I'm like, oh, yeah, that's the really good one.

Speaker 2 (58:20):
Agreed.

Speaker 4 (58:20):
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I haven't played every game ever,
but Tie Fighter and some and like some of the
Rogue one games, a Rogue Squadron games are very good.
This one Battlefront to Battlefront is the original like, yeah, yeah, anyway,
I'm deleting this.

Speaker 3 (58:39):
I understand. Yeah. I So one final thing about this game.
I finished it last night because I was like, I'll
do the fucking final battle finally, I guess because I've
been putting off for so long. Uh there's the part
of the end that we discussed where Kata has her
her big line at the end of the the end

(59:00):
of the story, uh Cal has the uh one of
the like the mcguffin, Uh you got you gotta chase
the keys to get to Tannalor. And it had been
a while since I played it, and uh, I was
watching this cut scene and he pulls out this like
the most boring cylinder I could imagine, and it's like

(59:23):
this the music swells and he pulls it out of
his pocket and he looks at it meaningfully, and I'm
just like that looks like shit, that's the stupidest looking
fucking like mcguffin. It's Star Wars make it look interesting.
I don't remember what this is. Why is he holding
this like thermis in his hand? It looks like a
thermis you'd get at target.

Speaker 4 (59:40):
And then he like.

Speaker 3 (59:41):
Holds it to where he's like you wanna let's go
on adventures like yeah, and it just it's just again
one of those like there's some design elements that could
be a little more interesting or Star Wars. I don't know,
just the whole thing was a little underwhelming. I do
think it's an improven on the first one. I do
think that there's a version of this game that maybe
the third one will do well, please do Space Battles.

(01:00:05):
There are other Star Wars games that definitely belong I
think on that hard drive, or at least, like you're
saying consideration, I don't. Unfortunately, I don't think this is it.
I did have fun playing it, But let me ask
you played it again.

Speaker 4 (01:00:20):
Are you willing to get a PC and a joystick
to play Tie Fighter? Are you willing to do that?
Because that's the one Oh.

Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
I've played tie Fighter. I love that game. Meto the
like there's like an era of Lucas Arts games that
are so good. So yeah, the tie Fighter x X
win games, yes, and like taking take that and put
it in another game, and then like there's like there's
a combination of like five different Star Wars games that

(01:00:48):
have been made that exists now that if they just
mashed them all together and you know, had a good
story and it was made well and so on would
be the game because they, like you're saying, like they
focus on one element, like and then the other stuff
is going on in the background.

Speaker 4 (01:01:04):
But I think we're under estimating the resources necessary to
do that. I mean, Mike, Mike has leveled the criticism,
and I think he's right at least to a degree.
I think he's right at Grand Theft Auto five that
it's basically a library for full of mid tier game
played loops. And I think what like what you want is,
please give me Doom meets tie Fighter meets uh, you know,

(01:01:28):
third person action.

Speaker 3 (01:01:30):
A little bit of a little bit of StarCraft, Yeah,
a little bit of I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:01:34):
Man, please give me the everything game. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:01:37):
I want it. I want it, I want it now.

Speaker 4 (01:01:40):
I actually think that's the problem with adapting Star Wars
is that Star Wars as a franchise crosses over so
many types of genres that you kind of want a
game that does that, and it's a problem.

Speaker 3 (01:01:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:01:53):
Anyway, I think Michael has uh has ziplined out of
here already. If he's not already.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
Gone, did code say his actual Oh yeah, you deleted?

Speaker 3 (01:02:02):
Oh yeah, I would do I would. I don't want
to say I would delete it because I had fun
and I like playing it and so on. But if
it is this sort, you know it's this, it's special.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
There's only two options, dude, it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:13):
Would I would get well, it's not great, we did
it that, I won't play it again. I'll delete it.
It's cool, fine, it's fine.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
Thanks for chatting about it with us, Cody. Let people
know where they can find all your latest shit online.

Speaker 3 (01:02:27):
Cody Johnston is the name. Google it. I'm on websites
and I have a show called some More News and
even More News where those things are also found.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
Dope, and you can find more from us by pointing
your podcast device at the phrase small beans or over
at patreon dot com slash small beans. Most of those
pods are about movies and other media. If you only
care about video games, you're in the right spot. One
upsmanship is that spot to sing to n