Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor

In this episode, the hosts discuss their experiences with Deep Rock Galactic Survivor, a game that combines elements of survival and roguelike mechanics. They explore the gameplay features, meta progression, and the variety of challenges the game offers. The conversation also touches on comparisons with other survivor games like Megabonk and the absence of multiplayer options, highlighting the game's strengths and areas for improvement. In this conversation, the hosts discuss various aspects of the game, including multiplayer dynamics, game mechanics, audio and stability issues, the indie game landscape, and the visual design of the game. They share their thoughts on the game's strengths and weaknesses, ultimately concluding that it stands out as a top contender in the survivor game genre.

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Hello again everyone, welcome toanother episode of Game Pass
Grab Bag, your weekly podcast reviewing games from the Game
Pass collection, bringing you 3 unique perspectives from varying
skill range. I am the rocker of this episode
Andrew. With me are Stoner Keith.
Hello. And with us are Carl Aaron.
OK. All right.

(00:26):
So you got, you got a good one there.
I mean I. I was curious if you're going to
if you had good names here. And oh, it actually got your
approval. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I like Carl. OK, this week was my pick.
I we played Deep Rock Galactic Survivor.
I did not pull up the studio Ghost.

(00:48):
Ghost Ship is the publisher. They're the publisher.
Dang it. I saw the name pop up like 15
times at the beginning and you'dthink I'd remember.
For some reason Ghost Ship was the only thing that stuck out.
Fun Bay Games, that's what it is.
Yeah. Ghost Ship Publisher.
They're, well, the ones who originally did it.
It's Coffee Stain who does the original Deep Rock Galactic.

(01:08):
So I'm I'm assuming Ghost Ship is the one that actually owns
the IPC? This is a totally different
studio that made this one. Yeah.
Interesting. I mean, I guess it, I guess that
kind of makes sense. I mean, yeah, it's just you're
borrowing the like. They Yeah.
The assets, well that's not eventhe assets because it's kind of
like new assets anyway. Deep Rock Galactic Survivor is

(01:30):
obviously based off of the Deep Rock Galactic Survivor or Deep
Rock Galactic IP. We are playing four different
dwarf classes, which of course have three different
subsections, but this is a survivor game.
So it is a top down dodging enemies while your guns just
shoot enemies and you are tryingto get deeper and deeper to
complete the run. Level up your character, level

(01:51):
up your weapons, try to get somemasteries to improve your
weapons or your characters in your classes.
Ransom, repeat. Typical survivor game.
But I going around to whether ornot this is a game or pass, I
guess I will start this off for me.
This is a definite game. This actually might be my
favorite survivor game. You know, I really, really
enjoyed potato, really enjoyed Vampire Survivor, but Deep Rock

(02:13):
Galactic survivor really just hooked me.
And it's it is weird because I'mplaying this and I'm like, oh,
that's the exact same thing overand over again.
This really does not change much.
And then I went, you know, I really don't care.
I'm going to keep playing this because I remember when I had
that thought I was like, oh, youknow, I'll probably play this
for a couple more hours and you know, I'll probably get sick of
doing the same thing over and over again.
But I was like, no, this is a lot of fun.

(02:34):
And I was surprised too, becauseit's like, oh, the Deep Rock
Galactic IP like isn't really going to add that much flavor,
but the mining mechanics in thisgames are a ton of fun.
So this is a definite game. I had a blast with this game.
Yeah, I I'm going to have to go ahead and just make it an easy
echo on that of a of a definite game.
It's a survivor game, so and it's a rogue like and it's got

(02:54):
all those things. So naturally, you know, I'm in
like that's at a baseline, I'm there.
And so going into it, I, I knew I was going to enjoyed they've
this game has been either out ortalked about for a while.
Is that right? It's been early access on Steam
for a while, OK. As I said, I feel like I had
seen it and I remember thinking like, boy that sounds like a ton

(03:15):
of fun, I would like to do that.Javier for Nerdtalk Plus kept
mentioning in her discord because he knew he was coming to
to game pass. He's like you guys should check
it out. And he absolutely was right.
OK, OK. So that makes so that'll make
sense. But anyways, yeah, it's 100% a
definite game for me. If you, if you even remotely
have ever liked a survivor game,you're going to like this.

(03:37):
I think Andrew's right. I really think this might be one
of the best ones I've played. There's there's some really,
really good ones out there. Obviously, I, you know, plunged,
I don't know, stupid amounts of hours in a protato.
I'll still every now and then pick it up for like one run or
so. Just just something to to play.
I really like that game. Aaron recently put me on

(03:59):
Megabonk. That's going to take hours of my
life for sure. But truthfully, like this is
just there. There's so much fun that in it
and it really does hinge on the mining mechanic, as you said,
Andrew, like it just it creates a different flair to the game
that while you're doing the samething over and over again, it
doesn't change it so drastically, but it it makes

(04:20):
every run feel just a little bitdifferent because because of and
what we can talk about that a little bit more, but it's it is
one of the best survivor games that's available right now and
it's on game pass. It's actually still available.
I think on the lowest tier, which we haven't talked about
that we don't. Well, we can talk some of that,
but I I believe this one is actually still available on the
lowest tier. So maybe that's going to be a

(04:42):
whole new category of how we rank games because yeah, this is
this for for that value. This isn't absolutely worth the
game because I think at the end of the day too, it's like 15
bucks. So if it's goes to leave, just
buy it with your 20% discount. If they didn't take that from
us, I want. To say it's 12 bucks.
It might be, but again, but cheap, but I'm just saying, you

(05:04):
know, take your 20% discount if it's still available and and buy
it if it ever leaves Game Pass because it's it's just a good
game to have in the catalog. Yeah, it's it's $13 on Steam.
Yeah, that's a crazy good bargain.
This is one of those games that was going to be a no brainer
slam dunk for all three of us. So this is obviously a definite

(05:26):
game for me as well, my evolution into this type of
genre of game. That was kind of funny.
Vampire Survivor is the first one.
I like that. I had a lot of fun with that.
What that was? Was that your first episode with
us? Vampire Survivor.
I think it might have been actually.
Good good memory. If that was the case, you guys

(05:47):
had me get into your bro yeah, bro potato.
Yeah, bro bro tato. Yeah, I was like, it's not bro
potato. Why is that sound wrong?
I do kind of like bro potatoes though, and I like that's the
game that anytime my son suck mylike the guy, the guy the egg
guy. And I was like, yeah, I don't

(06:08):
know why he's an egg, but that one always throws me off.
So I like that one enough that Iactually bought the DLC for that
one. Yep, same here.
So I played a crap ton of the DLC because that was super
cheap, and then two bangers back-to-back here, Deep Rock
Galactic Survivor and Megabonk basically at the same time.

(06:29):
So, Aaron, which one's better? Here's where.
I'm at Deep Rock Galactic Survivor is better than Megabonk
and we'll get into the reasons why.
And the gameplay is going to have a huge.
I think Megabonk might have a bigger ceiling.
I think that it's still got legsto grow, and I think Megabuck

(06:52):
will be amazing in the long run.And it's much more community
driven. It's much more about a giant
leaderboard everyone's kind of fighting over.
But Deep Rock Galactic Survivor,it's meta progression is
outstanding, and it actually offers more variety in gameplay
than you're actually giving it. You're talking about, oh, let's

(07:15):
just dig through the floors. Sure, there's that.
There's also the escort missions, there's also the
mastery missions, the class mastery missions.
So there's the bio mastery missions, yes.
So there's all sorts of additional stuff there.
And I think that's truly where the secret sauce is, is actually
built into all of that. So right now I think the 2

(07:38):
greatest survivor games you can play right now it was either
Megabonk or Deep Rock Galactic Survivor.
I would slightly give the edge to Deep Rock just because of its
variety, but no, definitely. Correct, correct me if I'm
wrong, Vampire Survivor was the game that real really kind of, I
don't say created the survivor like but really made it take off

(08:02):
actually like. I think it was one that
popularized it. Yeah, like bullet Hells.
And this kind of games had been around for a little or I guess
more like bullet Heaven because you're you're the the, you know,
massive bullets. But it's like, because yeah, you
had games like and enter the dungeon and stuff like that, but
those were more twin stick shooters.
But the, the actual was actuallytwin the survivor where all you

(08:24):
do is move. And like, because I mean, let's
be honest, there's no story. I don't I don't, we don't really
have to talk about that, right? Like you're you're going down
the mines that you that always. Finds a way to pull some.
Story I will say this. Story.
Well, the actual story of Deep Rock Galactic is, you know,
you're a mining corporation thatfinds this planet that of course
is enriched with a whole bunch of minerals.

(08:45):
And dwarves, being dwarves, are going to mine those minerals.
But of course this planet is also infested with aliens that
just are trying to defend their home and essentially just try to
kick you out and kill you. So you are trying to basically
just work for an evil corporation.
Where, where are you getting that story, Andrew?
Well, that was the actual story of Deep Rock Galactic.
Yeah, that's a different game. What's the story of this one?
This one does nothing, so yeah, OK, so they're.

(09:09):
Sending. They're sending you down.
They're sending you down a solo.Path, but to be clear.
Also I should note though, you do not need to play Deep Rock
Galactic to understand Survivor 100%.
But yeah, the, the, the aspect of the survivor game itself is
that it's, it's A1 stick and it's, and it's one of the
wildest things about this whole genre.

(09:32):
And I think even the deep Rock survivor in particular, for some
reason, all you do is you hold astick and you move and you move.
There is, but there is so much skill involved in that one
little motion and the game is just so crazy dynamic around
such a simple mechanic. It's it's the thing about these

(09:53):
games that I think are just so wild to me and it makes them so
much fun. I, I want to study these games.
I want to understand this because, you know, kind of
pointed to it too at the beginning of it's so repetitive
and yet it gets its hooks in youso quickly and I don't know why.

(10:17):
It was like you said, the meta progression.
This game is really good. The meta progression is really
good in this game. It it is.
And that for me is like 100% of of the draw where look at Rotato
Rotato's metal progression is basically, can you master the
characters? Can you beat them in the highest
difficulties? That's it.
And you unlock other characters by doing certain things in the

(10:40):
game. Mega Monk, kind of similar.
You're kind of doing these challenges, You're unlocking
things with those challenges. This one, you can upgrade your
character, you can upgrade equipment, you can get
equipment. So it's got a little bit of
looter quality in there. You can upgrade that equipment.

(11:01):
And then you can go through these masteries and these
masteries put permanent upgradeson your weapons when you're
completing those masteries. So yeah, it's that meta
progression I think is part of it.
But it it is repetitive. Like the game is a play.
It's all so challenging. It's it's really hard to put a
finger on why these games are just so Dang addicting.

(11:25):
Well, one thing about survive Deep Rock and, and a lot of them
do this some, some variation, but you pointed it out.
It's the different game types. It's the masteries, it's the
escort missions. It's the different types of
masters. It's, it's all those different
levels. Cause like the anomaly dives is
the furthest I've gotten. Andrew had it just had the
screen up. The lethal operations are the

(11:45):
highest of them. I think that's like a weekly
challenge. And they just throw in these
wild variants and it's like you can only use these four weapons
And you know, one of them was like, I think actually that
one's like a level up master. But it it you know, things like,
you know, everything is like double strength.
They're like everything's the explosive bugs.

(12:06):
Like it makes it so much fun while you're still doing the
same thing over and over again. They're absolute variations in
the gameplay and all again, all you're doing is just pushing the
left stick or the right stick too.
That's something I like about this game.
If you're going to be, if you'rejust going to be a game where I
move the stick around, let me let me choose which one I want
to use. Sometimes I want to give my left

(12:26):
thumb a break and just use my right thumb.
I didn't know you could change the sack.
I don't know you could either. Literally mid game it just you
don't have to do anything it's just they both are active at all
times. I see.
I didn't even think about that. Like even though we are
complaining that it's repetitivefor a survivor game, this game
has a lot to it. Like if you look back at like,
you know, Vampire Survivor had different levels and some of

(12:48):
those levels kind of like littlehidden Easter eggs and stuff you
could find. But essentially you're kind of
doing the same thing. And then with Bro Tato 1 map,
you're just different characters, same enemies square.
Yeah. But when it comes to Deep Rock
Galactic Survivor, you have the five different biomes, which
obviously in the Deep Rock Galactic you have the different
enemy types that are kind of varied between each level.
Like you have obviously a lot ofthe same generic ones, but

(13:10):
there's certain ones where like the little explosive guys are
only on the Weld. I think it was the the cavernous
Weld or something like that. The rolly guys are only in the
salt area. So like you actually have these
different Emmy varieties every mission.
Also you have there's three types of side quests you can do,
but side quests are easy. It's either mine a specific or
collect mushrooms or collect flowers.

(13:30):
But it there is actually a lot of variety in this game on
paper. And when you look at it, you
don't think there is like you'restill going around mining,
shooting bugs, you know, upgrading yourself.
But it's just like the little variety of it is awesome and
super addictive. Like there's the weapon catalog
in this game is super impressive.
And like already, what I always hate about a lot of survivor

(13:51):
games is RNG. You know, if you're just not
getting the stuff like that, you're going to lose.
But this game surprisingly has alot of skill because if you play
any other survivors, there's usually a point where you can
just stand still, literally put the controller down and you will
win the game. You can do that in potato, you
can do that in Vampire Survivor.It is almost impossible in
Debroc Galactic Survivor. There was like one or two builds

(14:13):
runs I had where I was smoking everything.
But the game throws a good amount of elites at you.
Even generic enemies right off the get go take quite a bit of
damage. So like you have to move, you
have to kite people by mining and it like it just works so
well and it's so fun. Yeah, I, and that's kind of
comes down to like I, I kind of wonder if in the long run, if

(14:40):
Deep Rock Galactic will be knownmore for this game or for its
main game. Because to me, this feels like
such a natural fit for such a survivor game.
And it's it's like you said, I think they were really smart and
kind of sending kind of elites to you pretty early on and
forcing you to move. It wants you to move and it

(15:03):
wants you to explore through thewalls.
And I, I do love that about thisgame so much again, to the point
where you're like, man, I like, I hope this is kind of where the
direction of this game kind of continues to grow just 'cause I
think it's such a natural and good fit for it.

(15:25):
I, I will say, I think right nowthis is an area though that I'd
still say Megabonk is a little bit better.
Megabonk is 100%. You have to explore the map and
the map is totally different allthe time.
And it's, it's, it's totally vertical.
So it's not just like a horizontal plane like this.

(15:48):
So it is a little bit more interesting because every map
you, you have to move just like you do in this.
You cannot stand still. You have to move and you have to
collect things and discover things on your map as quickly as
possible. But man, this one's, this one's
darn close. And this does a good job with
just walls. Walls are just a part of of this
process like you need them. So yeah, just a ton of fun.

(16:13):
Just a ton of fun. So I think to the end and
there's like no more walls. It gets pretty hairy.
Yes, ohh it's that's the worst because especially if you're if
you've got a build that's like ricochet weapons that you're
expecting them to go off. Also, you're just you're, you
are toast. But I have an important question
for Aaron. When you first played this, did
you in fact think that you needed to clear out the entire

(16:35):
map before you could proceed? I just, I did not because this
game was very clear in its instructions.
There is a dwarf. No instructions.
What are you talking about? Yeah, but the dwarf always tells
you what to do. He always tells you the elite is
out, you need to kill him, and he warns you every time that the
the monsters are getting stronger.

(16:55):
And then the moment literally a giant green arrow appears on
your map telling you a giant timer and a giant timer it is
impossible to miss. So the instructions are very
very clear in this game on what you're doing.
In fact, I don't know if there was a single thing I was
confused on in this game. Some things.

(17:20):
All right, like one thing I still don't fully understand
whenever you over clock all right, so when you anytime your
character levels up in the game,you're collecting these little
little blue chips. Sometimes they're purple, but
you have an experienced Bart. Once you start leveling up, you
are given three options for an upgrade.
They could either be an upgrade for your weapon or they could be
like a general upgrade, like allweapons were low 9% faster.

(17:42):
Anytime you pick an upgrade for a weapon though, it has these
little like little pings on the side of it and it builds up a
meter. Anytime you get a weapon to
level 5 increments of five, fiveor six, yeah, you have an
ability to over clock the weapon, which is a very strong
upgrade. So let's say in the gameplay
show footage I'm showing, you know, it's a laser gun that

(18:04):
ricochets off a bunch of enemies.
I can increase how many times itricochets or I could like, you
know, maybe reduce its reload speed but increase its fire
rate, like kind of weird things like that.
They're very strong upgrades. But one thing that was always
confusing to me, I don't even notice at the bottom you could
salvage the over clock and I didn't get the purpose of that.
Like right, right on the screen right there, there was a salvage
option. I never saw that and I think it

(18:27):
just gives you either a rare or an epic or legendary.
Yeah, I think it might. Instead it might depend on what
level of over clock it is. Like I'm wondering if you
sacrifice the top level 1 if youget like a guaranteed legendary
and it's something like that. But why?
Why would I want to? Because the over clock
abilities. Are so good.
Yeah, none. None of them are really worth

(18:49):
giving. There are some.
Negatives to them. But they they come, they almost
always come with such a positivebecause a lot of the negatives
soon will actually change the guns.
So like one of them, at least one of my least favorite
starting guns. I can't remember the name of it,
but it's got like the four way shot and it's just like a quick
semi auto, pretty quick reload load damage.

(19:10):
But that thing when you hit the overclock where it gets the
spiral shot and it's basically like a like constant fire it
man. That thing just absolutely
kicks. And it's so much fun.
And like a lot of them kind of have that.
So yeah, I have no real understanding why you would not
take them. A question I have and it you
won't see it until the next timeyou pick a weapon.

(19:32):
When you're selecting a weapon, you'll sometimes notice that
down on your weapon bar there's these little like whitish yellow
dots and each weapon will have adifferent number above them.
I think it's like a brotato typeof mechanic of like a you're
picking a heavy weapon and have like 2 heavy weapons already so

(19:52):
it's giving you 3 dots but I haven't figured out how it works
or what it does. Oh, all right, sorry.
Find that. Cause doesn't affect your speed.
No. All right, so every weapon has
a. Bonus.
So everyone has tags to it like it'll be like oh, is this a
light gun, a heavy gun? Is this a throwable?
Is this an explosive? Every gun usually has about like

(20:13):
5 different tags, you know, doesit do kinetic damage, which is
just basic or does it do fire, plasma, whatever.
So a lot of upgrades that I saidthat you get are generic, like,
oh, improve really loads of all guns by 9%.
That'll specifically say all guns.
But then you'll get one that says improve kinetic guns by 9%.
And if you put your curse over it, it shows at the bottom which

(20:35):
guns have that tag. So if you were saying, oh, I
want to upgrade fire, it'll showat the bottom.
It'll do a blip on them. It's showing, Oh, these are your
fire guns. Is that every time I.
No, that's when you're, that's when you're picking upgrades.
I'm talking specifically about when you're picking guns.
And I think it still has to do with the tags.
Like it's like, OK, you have twoheavy weapons already and you're

(20:58):
picking potentially 1/3 heavy weapon versus not.
But where there's so many tags, which one is it specifically
going off of? I don't know.
And what does that bonus give me?
Like in Protato it's very clear,like if you have 4 soul weapons
you know you get this bonus. I don't I At least I didn't look

(21:19):
too hard for it to, truthfully, but I didn't see where it was
telling me that either. Well, it's the same thing.
So it'll have multiple dashes ifit shares multiple tags because
like I said, every gun is about like 4 different tags.
So if you're hovering over a gun, it's like oh, it'll share 2
tags. Like it shares the kinetic and
it shares the light style gun tag.
So that's. Like so it's about 1:00.
Dash some will have multiple dashes.

(21:40):
So in it, so this makes sense and I think you're answering my
question. It's more of a strategic thing.
So you can. So you're trying to see, OK,
this is going to give me like 4,you know, yeah, you, you're
building higher on that thing sothat when you're picking these
upgrades that are global, you'relikely upgrading your whole
arsenal, not just one gun or twoguns.
Correct. Yeah, yeah, because that's the

(22:02):
other thing too. So as we said, there's four
different classes. If you play Debroc Galactic,
it's the same four classes, but each one also has three mods
each. So with the scout, you have
classic Scout, all he does is hegets like increase move speed
and I think increase health. Then you have the what's this
next version of it? Oh, it's the like light scout,

(22:23):
he has increased dodge, then thelast one's sharpshooter, he has
increased quick chance. So each one of them has their
own kind of different class, butalso that only certain weapons
are available with certain classes.
So the scout can't carry any heavy guns.
He will never get the chain gun,he'll never get the
thunderstorm, he'll never get the rocket launcher.
So that's well, unless there's there is a park where you'll get

(22:43):
a random weapon, there's an artifact you can get with it'll
equip 1/6 random weapon is that's one way to do it.
But yeah, also the scout I don'tthink uses any throwables.
So that's the other cool thing about this game is like
depending what class you're picking, you're kind of stuck
with some weapons you can get. I think some of the items
actually can do that too becauseI'm pretty sure I got one.
I saw it said it unlocked like elementals or something like

(23:07):
that. Yeah.
I will say I am I, I, I think it's just going to be a matter
of of opinion, but I did think the class differences work
great. Like I don't, I don't notice
that much of a difference of a run between each of the classes.

(23:29):
I understand that the guns you get are different, but you can
succeed with any of those those guns.
I think the biggest difference Inoticed is with the driller just
because of the mining speeds right off of the bat.
Yeah, and that mining speeds. Awesome.
Everybody else just feels similar and, and this is maybe,
and again, maybe this is just something I really haven't

(23:51):
tested out because I think I've just been progressing in the
game, but I don't feel like a lot of these upgrades I'm doing,
I'm noticing a difference in game from them.
I. Probably need to go back into a
hazard one just to feel the difference.

(24:11):
So the game play I'm showing is Hazard 5.
Yeah, I'm curious if I go back to a hazard one, if like, oh,
OK, now I feel it because I wonder if I'm just progressing
naturally as I'm going. So it just doesn't, I'm not
noticing. But you're kind of, I'm always
waiting for that moment, which is kind of normal in a survivor
game to where like you're dominating everyone.

(24:34):
I don't, Andrew, you kind of mentioned like you've had some
runs and yeah, I've had a few runs where like, oh, I'm kind of
ripping everyone to shreds rightnow.
But it's pretty rare in this one.
Yeah, yeah, I definitely lose more than I went into this.
Yeah, I feel like this is this is leaning into the survivor
element of that of, of just trying to to live.

(24:56):
But I, I, I don't know, maybe I need to go back to the go back
to hazard one, go to the lowest level and just see if I can feel
it then and be like, oh, OK. I mean, it was challenging once,
it's not challenging anymore. A little bit.
And I think it's it's all about kind of rolling bonuses that you
get across things too because ofthe different areas that you can

(25:18):
get all this meta progression. You know, where you can get the
bonuses from the bio masteries and the bonuses separately from
the class masteries and the bonuses from the gun masteries
and just the normal bonuses. Like you, you have all these
different things. They, they do start to compound.
And you're right, it's you're going to notice that most going
back to those lower ones. But yeah, it's I, I think that's
kind of one of the things that Ilike most about Deep Rock is

(25:42):
that it feels just much more engaged.
Like I don't, and it doesn't feel too hard.
It doesn't feel like, man, they're outpacing me like, but
it, it absolutely has a feel to it where you're kind of always
on that edge of survival. And, and I, and I do enjoy that
about it. But yeah, and I can't tell you
how many of my runs end with really just me making boneheaded

(26:06):
moves and that, and that's, it'slike the most frustrating part,
but it's, it's part of what makes you want to go back so
much more, I think. Because I'm just like, man, I
was just about to hit the ship and I didn't see those 4
explosive guys and I ran right through him and died.
Yep, Yep. Like the amount of dumb times I
do stuff like that, I'm like well now I have to go again
because I know I can beat this. I just have to not do that thing
next time when I don't encounterthat situation next time.

(26:29):
That's not the the dumb thing I wasn't doing is I have a bunch
of aliens chasing me. I go to the ship and then I see
a big cluster of of cubes over there that I can go collect.
I go to collect them and realizethat all those aliens now are
cutting off my pathway to the ship because I just kited them

(26:50):
in front of the ship. So that's my stupid like gosh
darn it. And now I'm I'm blocked off of
it. The worst is when.
You go to collect that stuff, realize you're too slow to get
back to the drop pod, and the drop pod leaves without you and
you lose your run. I have never had the drop pod
leave me behind. I've never.
Really. Now I have I, I shared a clip in
the discord. I accidentally, I was going to

(27:12):
select one of my last skills andI went to pick it was like a 4%
move speed and I was like, I think that's going to get me
just enough to get there. I accidentally hit the jump
boots instead. Hit the jump landed I swear on
the the the ladder as it was going away and it flew off
without me. I was like, if I just had that

(27:33):
extra 4% move speed, I would have been there.
I mean the moment it tells me toget to the ship.
You don't have to move it. You don't do anything.
I, I always stretch it now and Ithink you want to because
there's at least 4 score bonuses, but I, I don't know, I
don't pay attention as much to the score.
Bonus. I will.
I will go around and around in circles.

(27:54):
OK, Yeah, Andrew just got it up for me.
But yeah. You didn't even have the drop
pod at this point. No, no.
It's there. See 12.
Seconds. I had plenty of time here.
No, you do not. What's wrong with you?
Accidentally at the jump boots. You asked for that.

(28:16):
You No, I had this. I absolutely had that if I.
No you did not. Just standing dead.
Sorry. I'm sorry.
That is 100% your fault. You didn't even have this.
You didn't even have the drop pod you just live with.
No risk, Aaron, No risk at all. This is why you guys are like,

(28:39):
oh, I've missed the ship and I'mlike, I don't.
I'm always there. It's because it's always pretty
close. They always keep it kind of
close to you. There's plenty of time to get
there on my way there, but I've never outright just missed the
ship. See, I've only, it's only been a
couple times because I will say it was like my first or like it

(29:02):
was one of my first three runs. I missed it because also I
didn't know. So that was obviously a learning
thing where I was like, oh, whoops.
But there was a couple times that happened.
It's the enemy literally was between me and the ship.
So I'm trying to kite people around.
There was more walls I got to quickly dig through and I just
didn't have time. I didn't have enough dig speed.
Oh, to me. It's only happened like a
couple. Times and like I said to me,

(29:23):
I've died on my way there. Like so I've had situations
where I've been cut off, but I'mlike, well, I'm going through
the crowd and going to see if I can make it to the other side.
And most times you will, but there's sometimes you do not
have enough health to make that push.
But I do want that to. I want that noted right now.
Andrew didn't understand the very simple instructions to.

(29:44):
Get to the ship and I was like get to the.
Ship what happened if you missedit?
Did you have to watch a tutorialfor this game Andrew?
It's not that hard. He literally says get to the
ship with a giant green arrow ona countdown.
And it does say it'll. End your run if you don't get to
the. Ship it.
It doesn't think. Happens it.
It does say it's going to leave without you.
Actually, he didn't say that yetfor me.

(30:04):
He always say that. He didn't say yeah, for me, I'm
pretty. Sure, he says that every time.
Get out of here. I want redemption for my
blueprints episode. Andrew didn't know how to get to
the drop pod. Interesting.
When it was 1. Of the worst things I I won, I
killed the final boss and you still have to get to the drop

(30:25):
pod to complete and finish your run and I died.
I died trying to get into the drop pod.
I was I was pissed because it was to unlock the hazard 4,
which anytime. So as you're progressing, there
is like a campaign where you know, you hazard one is
obviously or hazards you where you start at, you have each of
the biomes, the five biomes and you have side quests on them.

(30:46):
Everyone, of course, at least one of the side quests is
complete a dive. But then it'll be like, oh,
upgrade this gun to level 12 or,you know, jump through the sky
and land on 12 blocks and like clear stuff out, harvest 100
gold. Like these random kind of side
quests. And you have to do a certain
amount of side quests in order to unlock the ability.
The game literally gate keeps you.
You have to get to the gate in order to unlock hazard one,

(31:08):
which is like a harder like run.It's a preset run in order.
And if you complete it, you unlock hazard 1 and so on and so
forth up to hazard 5. But of course, you also will
find random drops. You can equip armor and
different pieces of equipment onyour character, so you'll get
stronger. So obviously if you're playing

(31:29):
on a higher hazard, you have a higher chance of getting a
higher gear score. So there's obviously a much
greater incentive to keep playing on higher hazards.
But yes, so do unlock like one of those main hazards like those
missions are usually super hard and I completed it and right at
the end I died. I was quite furious, but that's
a great thing too about this. The runs are quick.

(31:50):
They're a basic run is five layers.
Each layer usually takes about like a minute or two.
Oh, I will say this is another thing I'm kind of confused on.
As soon as you start a run, there's a giant bar in the top
of the screen that's slowly filling up and even it has these
marks on it. So you know, it's like a timer.
Oh, once the bar hits this, a drop pod will come.
If a bar hits this, a swarm willcome or an elite will come,

(32:11):
something like that. I don't quite know what fills
that bar. I want to say it's time, but I
think it's kills I I think it's well, I think it's a little bit
of both. I think it's always progressing
up, but I think if you're killing the floor really quick,
I think it feels faster. But I don't fully know I I.
Thought it was time. Time definitely is a factor

(32:31):
because you there's moments where I have a lot of speed and
I run from the people and I'm not shooting and it's still
filling, but I think it feels faster for killing.
So on the escort missions in particular, it's directly tied
to where Bob 33 is. So it only that only progresses
with Bob 33. Now with the regular one, I, I

(32:54):
assumed it had something to do with the kills, like how quickly
you clear out the swarm and things like that.
Because I think in particular with the swarm, like if you're
on like the welds or melds or whatever it's called, that area
in particular, like you'll have like a certain number of those
ones that spawn them the the little guys.

(33:15):
And I think it's like, you know,they're almost like checkpoints.
I think that you can move along faster, like make it move
faster, but it will slowly progress over time, if that
makes sense. I yeah, I.
It might be 100% time, but I think it's a combination.
That's what I think it is. It just seems to progress at the
same amount of time every time like well.

(33:35):
The exception of the last one, the last one is the difference
and and This is why I think it'sa combination because it's
specifically I can tell you thatif you clear out all of the
cocoons and then it open, it unlocks your ability to kill the
final cocoon so you can start the final boss early.

(33:55):
Thank you Alex in the chat, I desperately needed someone.
Just to tell. Me that I was OK for my takes on
blueprints. I desperately needed that.
Thank you. But well, Alex in the chat also
brought up a thing I really wantto complain about and that is
the lack of multiplayer in this game.
But yeah, Alex didn't mention that Vampire Survivors getting
online Co-op. But yeah, it's.

(34:17):
Weird that Deep Rock Galactic isa very multiplayer focused heavy
game and this is strictly singleplayer.
That feels this I. I honestly assumed that this had
multiplayer I. Assumed it did.
Kind of crazy that Vampire Survivors.
I think it's going to be the first one to do it.
Nope. Rotato in this genre.

(34:37):
Rotato did it. Yep, Rotato has I want to.
I think it's just two player. It might have thought it was.
Just I thought it was just couchCo-op for a rotato.
I don't know. It might be couch Co-op because
Vampire Survivors. Yeah, it's only couch Co-op, but
either way, it's multiplayer. So what?
Tell me this With that all said,because I I totally get what
you're saying. Like this is such a social game,
it feels like it should naturally have it.

(34:59):
Would you want it? Yeah.
Why not? I don't.
Know if this would like? Two reasons.
Because do you know if this would be fun?
It would because you could Bill,you could put in like like like
have what's like raid style bosses.
You could do stuff like that. You could like, how much fun is

(35:21):
it? Like you're sitting here
laughing at me, not making it back to the ship, just watching
that run. What if we're all playing
together and I'm the one who doesn't make it to the ship
because I'm off doing something stupid like that?
You're going to laugh, but it's also going to throw off the
whole run now because you need the four people on the run your
app. And this is just one of those
types. Like I think this is sometimes a
hard game to just watch as an observer because so much is

(35:45):
happening on the screen. I feel like if you add another
person here with all of their weapons, all of their upgrades,
all of their explosions, I feel like the game just becomes.
Oh my gosh. Well, that is going.
To be your time elemental build.Yeah, your screen is littered.
I know that's where I'm just kind of wondering, like, I don't
know, does this just kind of getwashed out and noise at that

(36:07):
point? So I am kind of curious because
it's the same thing with VampireSurvivor.
So once once people start playing Co-op with that, I'm
kind of curious to see what thatlooks like.
Like, does that actually work? Is it sort of a cool idea?
But in practice it just isn't asfun.
Well, so I think one thing that Vampire Survivor and I think
Rotato do does as well as you just everyone levels up at the

(36:29):
same rate at least so that it takes away that aspect of like,
you know, how do you handle the the selection screens?
Sure, maybe you wait a couple extra seconds because Andrew's
trying to figure out what he wants or whatnot, but the end of
the day, everyone's pauses and goes back in at the same time.
So it makes that easy. But again, I think if you just
make the maps big enough, because think of Diablo, I mean,

(36:52):
you have 30 people fighting, youknow, these world bosses and
those are just chaos. But those track pretty well
because in because you're right,Like if you don't know what's
going on, none of this makes sense.
But if you're playing it and youdo know what's going on, you
know that none of the enemies put down fire on the ground so
well, Yeah. It takes up a lot of visual
space. You know, I that fire is always

(37:14):
safe because it's that's always friendly.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm just curious to see it
in in action. But again, I'm with you.
I thought naturally this was going to have it.
Can I also just list one of my very few gripes on this game?
I don't necessarily love the variety, or lack thereof, of

(37:35):
bosses. Because.
There's game, the game's concept, it's core.
How you're progressing through the game is the same.
How you get through that level changes, but at the end you're
really faced with it. Is it really just two?
Yeah, you're either fighting theTwins or you're fighting the
Gargantuan. That was it.

(37:56):
Yeah, I wish it was a little bitmore to that, but again, it's
kind of a small gripe just because it's not like the end of
the world for me. But it would have just helped if
there was a little bit more variety.
I have a couple gripes. Another gripe I have is
stability. I had this game crashed me

(38:17):
handful of times which was very infuriating to me.
It seemed like the more you played like a longer session you
have I. I'm curious if this game suffers
from a memory leak because that's usually what happened.
If I'm if it was like A2 plus hour, it would crash on me and
also I had a couple frame rate ahandful of times where frame
rate dip. I was getting that even on PC

(38:38):
and I have a beefy PC so I wouldget random like just stutter
where it like almost froze for like a half second.
It's froze on me a couple times.I've played this yeah, I've
played this on console too. I haven't run into issues, but I
haven't gone that long of a session on console.
I've got that long of a session on PC and it's it's been fine.

(38:58):
But yeah, obviously memory leak issues.
Very similar issues are happening with Borderlands on
Xbox and PlayStation. See the console versions of that
are having that same thing. The longer you play it, the
worse it starts to perform. I don't know if that's all been
fixed, but I, I think those are all fixable issues.

(39:19):
They just. They are, yeah, Have to do it.
I mean, another one of my complaint, which we'll get into
a little bit later, is the audio.
The audio in this game is awful.I think the I mean, I might as
well just jump into it. Yeah, I mean.
I think the music was kind of a let down.
Yeah, it's fine at best and. It honestly just turns off at at

(39:40):
certain points, like if you're if you're levels on high, it'll
just it'll just go away. Like this is one of those games
you could absolutely just. Turn it off.
They did not tell. They repeat tracks but and then
I was just like, talk over. And, and, and 2025, we got, I
think, a handful of some of the best game soundtracks we've had
in many, many years. This won't be one of them.

(40:02):
This one will be very forgettable.
No one's pulling this up on Spotify, I'll put it that way.
I will tell you what, and, and Idon't know, I'm curious.
If this game had the soundtrack that DOOM had, we would be
praising the soundtrack of this game.
But because that soundtrack fellon the Doom title, it was such a
let down. Well it's it is funny you say

(40:24):
that because they do say rippingand tearing at one point so they
do make a Doom reference. That would also kind of drives
me a little crazy in this game. I just assume every line that is
said is a reference to somethingand I don't know if it is.
But yes, OK, that is my complaint.
The audio that's in this, the voice acting is exactly ripped

(40:49):
out of the main game. Yeah.
Which at first was like, oh, huh, It's a reference to that
other game. But then I'm like, oh, this is
all of the dialogue from the other game.
I already got sick of it from playing that game, and now it's
here. Oh, that guy in Mission Control,
he has a cushy job. Oh, this one's for you, Carl.
Like, I was just like, OK, I've heard these.

(41:10):
Like, I got it. Yeah, I turned this game's audio
off. The So here's a funny thing that
I it's it's going to sound like I'm going to be talking negative
about the game, which is, you know, complete opposite of
everything I've said in this game.
I feel like this was an opportunity, like a lazy
opportunity for them to cash grab on a growing and popular

(41:32):
genre, be like, hey, we could probably skim a game into it.
And they actually, I don't want to say lucked out, but managed
to pull off a fantastic product.But it's like without I don't,
I, I, I don't want to say luckedout.
I, I, it's, it's for lack of better words, but it's just like
the IT actually works so much better than maybe they expected

(41:56):
going into it. And it's like they and it's like
with the things like the audio that it was just like, yeah,
just throw that in there becausewhatever, we're just going to
make this game to make it. And then it actually took became
something really good as this part of the play.
This is why I said at the beginning, I wonder if you know
if you want to call it the the legacy of Deep Rock Galactic.

(42:16):
Will it be known as this like more than it will its original
game? I don't think so.
Deep Rock Galactic has a very strong community.
I I get it. I just think that this, like we
had all kind of mentioned, I think right now this is
currently the best survivor gameon the market, but nobody's.

(42:37):
Talking. About it #2 except for us, I
mean, people were it. It was running on Steam for a
long time. Everyone's talking about
Megabonk, but I, I I don't. Besides, like I said, Javier
from Nerd Talk Plus, I would nothave heard this game.
I. The only reason I heard about it
is when it was coming to game pass someone had mentioned that
it was a survivor game built in the deeprock.

(42:59):
Oh you're not it's title. It's title didn't give it away.
That was a survivor game. You can't always go on that,
Andrew. We've talked about this with how
many games put Rogue in their title, and it's not.
So your little snarky remark, Andrew.
Andrew is just off his game tonight.
He didn't know how to play this game.
It's just bad takes. Keith, your take of they

(43:19):
accidentally made a good game. It's almost similar to your
Assassin's Creed Minaj stock. I'm going to.
Defend Keith on that. I understood what Keith was
saying there. Was it like you don't expect it
to be a hit? It's supposed to be kind of like
a cheap spin off. And so maybe you don't focus so

(43:39):
much on the music because like it's, it's just supposed to be a
fun little. Knock off thing.
I would say that they actually put more thought into this than
that. I would give them a little bit
more credit because there is waymore depth in this than your
traditional survivor game. But I understood what Keith was
saying when he said lucked into it.
I think he just meant like they fortunately made themselves a

(44:01):
really good game. Like even like that, even if it
was just like as they're making it, they were like, oh wait,
like let's actually like put a little more into this because we
realized that this is more than just like a, you know, just a
throw into the genre type of thing.
And I'm not saying they did that.
I'm just saying it it like it almost feels like it could have
been with with the music. But I will say I think that when

(44:22):
it comes to people's perspectiveof the games, that is what they
look at when they see Deep rock survivor versus what they see
when they see Mega Bonk. I mean, if I understand Mega
Bonk, at least from what I saw of like it started popping up on
videos like a week before it released.
And I think the guy who created it like started promoting it.
He had this weird little viral promotion of it.

(44:44):
And it's like very like campy. It's very much like small studio
and people are going to go, oh, that's I want to give my money
to that guy. But they don't.
Want to give their money to DeepRock Collecting?
You know, not everyone, but I think that if when people are
looking at it and they're makingthe choice with no information
at their hand, they're going to choose Megabuck for that reason.

(45:06):
Yeah, Megabuck just went viral. It I don't necessarily mean, I
don't think it necessarily makesit a better game.
I, I do think how that guy has marketed the game has been
brilliant because he's, he's literally shown he was addicted
to Vampire Survivors. And then it's just create a
series of videos of I want to make my own Vampire Survivors.
So here's what I'm doing. And it's him just making these

(45:27):
really quick edits on how he created enemies, what stupid
things he wanted to add to the game and that I think built into
its virality. So when it got to lunchtime, you
know, it was him kind of making jokes about his game, his stupid
game, and it just kind of exploded.
I think that's the only thing itwas like.
Palatro. A little bit palatro.

(45:50):
Takes itself slightly more serious.
Yeah, slightly. Again, being the keyword there.
But I just again, an outstandingyear for indie games, by the
way. I know, I just got to keep
noting that like. Is this considered an indie?
Yes, I would. I mean, I mean this I'm.
Arguing that it's not. I'm not curious.

(46:11):
Obviously he's big, but can you name another game made by Fun
Day Games? I'm going to guess that Studio
is 15 people tops. That would be my guess.
I mean that could that could lead to some of the music point
too. I would guess the guys that made
the original game probably aren't all that big too.
I think that's still a pretty independent studio.
I think the studio has one othergame under their belt.

(46:33):
It says 14. They've been around for barely
14 years though. Doing what?
Well, that's. Actually making this game.
I mean, didn't. They ever gave them wild indigo
ranch. The Deep Rock Galactic came out
in like 2017 didn't. It yeah, it's not that old.
No, OK. Yeah, but deep rock, they didn't
make it deep rockalactic. No.
Oh, that's. True.
That's coffee Studio. You did not listen to the

(46:55):
beginning, Keith. I listened.
I listened to a very good listener on this episode.
I would like it noted. I don't really lock in until I
start talking so. Don't worry, Andrew.
I listened. I heard it.
Oh man, their other game is kindof cool.
It's literally like Stardew Valley in the wild Wild West.
Sounds stupid, I won't play but.Oh, but real quick, what I just

(47:16):
also discovered too. This is a mobile game.
No way. Why didn't you tell me that?
I think it's free too. It says, yeah, free with in app
purchases. But Keith, yeah, you said, you
know, people not buying this game, this one of the things
that you said earlier, man, I would love if you could just tip
the developers and they actuallyhave that.

(47:37):
They have a support the developers pack, which give you
gold skins for the dwarves. And it's like 5 bucks, but it
literally says go straight to the developers.
I bought it. They say to the developers, did
you see the check in their hand,Andrew?
I don't believe it. I mean you false advertisement
rich. Fat Cat took that money.
And that's not some stupid like,oh, but I just want to give you

(48:00):
more money. It's here's $5 for ADLC pack and
we're going to acknowledge that it's, you know, let let you have
it as an acknowledgement, but you're still getting something
out. You bought skins, Andrew, you
didn't tip the developers. You bought skins?
I guess. That I'm assuming.
You have to. It's not because I don't think

(48:21):
there is. A just a tip button, I think
Microsoft is like now you got togive.
The black something, you're definitely not going to get it
through Microsoft, but I bet youon mobile there's probably some
sort of option like that. I cannot believe this game is on
mobile. I did not need to.
I just feel like this. Is Laurie's going?
Burn my phone? No, it sounds like he's excited
about it. Yeah, the problem is, is now it

(48:42):
gives me a reason to just never stop playing it.
I mean, I've been playing it. I mean, right now we're just
getting crushed with games. So I've been playing
Borderlands, I've been playing that, and then we've got
Battlefield coming out on Fridayor by the time you're hearing
this episode, it would have comeout last Friday.
So I just, there's so much to play right now and I'm liking

(49:04):
all of it. I know, yeah.
So it's just it just kind of setlike it's what a what a horrible
problem to have. It's too many games.
I wouldn't maybe argue this could possibly be one of the
best year in video games, not for the industry.
The industry definitely, definitely has some issues.
But I for, well, games that havecome out this year, like I I

(49:24):
because I remember last year looking at the years for game of
the year nominations and a lot of them just like, yeah, like,
OK, like 1 was yeah, like the game awards, the Vgas, one of
them was like the Elden Ring DLCand it's like what ADLC is
nominated like, yeah, it's kind of a rough year.
That's not really. It was a good DLC, but come on.
And the other one was like a remake was, yeah, Resident Evil

(49:46):
4 or something like that. It's just like, OK.
Well, I, I go back to again, it's the Indies.
The Indies keep killing it. Now they're just, they keep
coming out with these games thatare just hooking everybody's
attention. And I, I think if anything, I
know that the game industry's kind of sucked in general.
There's been layouts all over the place.

(50:09):
You know, some of those big gamereleases have not lived up to
the expectations that they had placed upon them.
I still think this year ends up becoming big because my hope is
that these big companies see what these Indies are doing.
Yep. And trying to figure out why did

(50:29):
a game like Expedition 33 could We kept the streak alive.
We've mentioned it in every episode.
Which is getting free DLC. Why did?
Why did Megabonk sell millions of copies?
Like, why did all of that stuff work?
And it's a combination of of smart people just making a fun

(50:49):
game and understanding what is actually enjoyable to people and
then selling it at a price, if that makes sense.
Yeah. To me, I think it's pricing is a
big. Thing, because that's that's the
thing you mentioned Deep Rock Galactic Survivor, if you want
to go buy it right now, it's it's nothing, yeah. 30 bucks.
Megabonk was $8, $8 so of courselike there's 0 resistance in

(51:13):
doing that. I will drop that without
anything about it. Heck, I bought the Brodado DLC
because it was like 6 bucks and it was like of course why
wouldn't I? I know that I20.
Hours out of it like. Yeah.
And so I, I do think again that that there will be a lot of
lessons learned. I'm hoping a lot of lessons will
be learned in 2025, because here's the thing, if they don't,

(51:37):
then it doesn't matter because the smaller guys will just go
ahead and take them over anyway.They're doing it right now.
So either they do learn to adapt, or the indie guys will
continue to just create excellent games.
The indie game doesn't have a choice.
If it doesn't make an excellent game, it dies.
Doesn't have a choice. If Call of Duty makes a bad Call

(51:59):
of Duty, no big deal. Call of Duty comes out next
year. They got they got DLC, they got
skins that are gonna. Sell it comes out next year.
So maybe that's maybe that's it,maybe the desperation plays into
it. Maybe that's just an A weird
kind of mix into all of this is that if Expedition 33 sucks and
nobody buys it and nobody cares about it, well, they're done.

(52:20):
They don't have anything to fallback on.
But either way, new studios keeppopping up, we'll continue to
have amazing games. But I agree with you, I think
2025 was a sneaky outstanding game year for games.
Yeah, it's not done yet. We're only in.
October not even done. But anyway, we we haven't talked

(52:41):
about the art style, art style. This game is is really good.
Like the biomes are all very unique and distinct.
They play differently. They look great.
The dwarves look great. The aliens look great.
I mean, it's obviously a lot of the same artistic style graphic,
you know, kind of assets borrowed.
I mean, obviously you have to make new assets of the smaller
versions and whatnot. But yeah, it's the game looks

(53:03):
good. Yeah, my, my rule is at this
point, if you're not pixelated art, I'm pretty much happy with
you. Megabox Pretty.
Pixelated, Aaron. And it's actually surprisingly
really sharp in certain areas, but I it's not 8 bit pixelated.
That's true. It's kind of got its own little
like stick to it. It's got its own little style to

(53:26):
it, but yes, at least this game does it.
It's not super dark. There's some splashes of color
in it, but you are in kind of a lot of dark caves.
No. And actually one of the really
like Speaking of graphics and the light, I thought one of the
coolest little features of like graphically was as you're mining

(53:49):
and you start to breakthrough a wall, like it doesn't change
your visual like ability to see like in terms of light, but you
can see the light start to crackthrough the walls as you start
to break the walls until it finally opens up and then you're
light fully shines. Like I just thought that was a
really cool little visual. Again, nothing to the gameplay.
But yeah, I mean, the biggest thing with any of these games,

(54:10):
it's frame rates and it it does all right with it, except until
it crashes. You know, as Andrew said, I one
of the achievements I was I was trying to get was clearing the
well, I was trying to do it all in one shot.
But I it's hard to hard to do was clearing out the entire map
of all of rock and stone, but also clearing it out before you

(54:30):
even move the Bob and then winning the dive.
And I think I was at like hazard12 or something because we
didn't really talk about this like it really.
Doesn't live. Or not hazard.
Oh, the threat level like once the timer runs out on a run,
Yeah, the enemies. Get out and harder yeah like and
it which really only happens more on the escort missions than

(54:52):
anything because, you know, as we said, it kind of runs the
time. But the.
Yeah, I was like, it was like hazard level 15 and there was
just so, so many aliens all overthe screen and all of a sudden
just block close and I was back at the house.
I was not going to make it anyway.
So I wasn't too mad. I like I was about at the point
where I was about to die. But it's still, yeah, it seems

(55:15):
to be an issue once you get intothose like like the frame rates,
but that's kind of on Megabon to, at least from what I saw.
First of all, my computer sucks.I dropped it down, I think like
720P, but it does run on full windowed screen.
And the frame rates were good. And that's the biggest thing.
Again, if you're going to throw hundreds of enemies on the
screen, tons of projectiles, I don't really care how much the

(55:37):
graphics look, I need the frame rates to stay consistent.
Otherwise it just gets, I don't know what's the point of playing
the game. Yeah, yeah, pretty miserable
experience when it's kind of stuttering all over the place.
The achievements though in this game are pretty awesome but
there's there's 2000 gamers score to be had.
There's like 250 achievements, but any time I'm playing a run,

(55:59):
it's just achievement, achievement, achievement issue.
Like it's just throwing stuff atyou.
All these achievements are worthlike either 5 or 10 gamer score.
So that that's why there's like 250 achievements available.
But I to me, I think you could easily 2000 this game.
So obviously take a lot of time.I think I've I've I'm probably
about like 30 hours of this gameand I am almost at 1000 gamer
score. But you essentially need to

(56:20):
unlock the hazard 5 to really kind of get everything.
But yeah, it's it's very obtainable.
Just take time, yeah? See, that's, I think your words
are a little funny there. It's it's obtainable.
It just takes time. Yeah, a lot of time.
I don't know if you call it AI say.
That because of like let's case of point Silk song beat the game

(56:42):
on like the Super duper difficulty without dying once.
That's not obtainable like besides like a few cycles.
One with like without even taking damage or is that just
something like that secret challenge or something?
But I, yeah, I I get, I agree with Andrew on this one.
That's your one good take of thenight, Andrew.
What? I've got plenty.
I, I, it's not about it being the game is challenging, so it's

(57:06):
not like, Oh yeah, just sit downfor the evening.
When you say it's, it's obtainable like that makes it
seem like it's, it's really easyto run through.
Time is a huge factor in it. Time.
You're talking about 30 hours and being halfway through it
challenge and you're you're talking about hazard 5 like it's

(57:29):
going to get really difficult. So I don't know, we're splitting
hairs here, but I agree with you.
You do get a lot of achievements.
That is the good feeling. You will get the dopamine hit of
getting a lot of achievements because there's just a lot of
them. I I will never 100% this game.
I think you could, but yeah. Sure, sure, in a long time I'll

(57:55):
get there. But you know me, I'm never
looking at the achievements, so I'm not even seeing what I'm
looking for. It's just I'll get one.
It's like, oh. Nice.
I mean, that's the thing. I don't look at them either, but
it is just like here you go, youdid that, you did that.
You're just. Getting them because I think I'm
somewhere, I think I'm around like 400 gamers score on it.
You know, I was gone all last week, but holy smokes I still

(58:17):
played a crap ton of this game. So yeah, yeah, games like this,
I don't necessarily always look at them as much.
I'll look at them more in like story driven games.
I don't know, I'm not going to like rinse and repeat over and
over a game. But like, I don't know, Survivor
games, like I'm going to do 150 runs of this no matter what
happens. So I'm sure I'll get the
achievements, yeah. Yeah, this is definitely going

(58:39):
to be again. Let's go sit on my Xbox for a
while, then I'll just pop in every once.
Well, Oh yeah. Well, let's get our final
thoughts here. Deep Rock Electric Survivor.
As I said, this is a definite game.
This is, yeah, like I said, probably, you know, I'm just
gonna say it is my favorite survivor game I actually loved.
I think Bro Tato to me at this point, Vampire Survivor is my

(59:00):
least favorite. I love Vampire Survivor at the
time, but looking at it now, I'manytime they keep coming up DLC,
I'm kind of like, I'd rather play Bro Tato.
I mean, I've already maxed out Bro Tato, so I don't play that
anymore. But Deep Rock, Electric
Survivor, there's just a ton here and it is it has just the
the digging mechanic in it just adds so much flavour to it and

(59:20):
requires a lot more skill. This game is a blast.
I have so much fun with it. I want to keep playing it
Definitely frustrating when it crashes.
Audio is pretty awful, but it's been great.
Like I said, I turn the audio off.
I've I've been watching one piece.
I finally got into that. I'm on episode like 720 and I've

(59:40):
been watching with it like a month.
It's because of games like this,you know, first started with
Factorio. I could turn the audio off in
Factorio and watch one piece while playing the game.
Now deep rock electric survivor is that game.
I can play it and watch TV and do just fine.
So it's been a it's a super fun game.
Also great cloud play as well. As we said, it just takes one

(01:00:01):
stick. Technically there is another
button you can press Y to taunt,which is an achievement.
I don't know if you guys did it.I did it by accident.
I hit it and there's an achievement called Rock and
Stone for it and I was like, sweet.
But yeah, you can taunt. But for me, yeah, this is a 90.
Yeah, I mean, I, I think my onlyreal complaint because I don't

(01:00:27):
like if I can turn off the audioand lose nothing of my gameplay
from a sound cues like we talkedabout, yes, the the MC or
whatever of the game, he's telling you what to do.
But after you've played five or six runs, you don't need him
telling you to run to the ship. You know, to run to the ship.
Maybe in nature's case, you needa few more runs, but you, you,
you generally said it happened like twice.

(01:00:50):
You said it was your third run. You still didn't know.
That's all I'm saying, loser. But my point is that you, you, I
don't, I'm never going to knock a game for its audio being
annoying or repetitive. If I can shut it off if I need
it for some reason and it's likethat, then I hate it or I can't
shut it off or whatever the casemay be.
So I'm not I'm not going to takethat away from it.

(01:01:13):
I love survivor games. I love them.
Aaron was asking, you know, likeyou want to study these games.
I think, and, and maybe this is just for me, I have this dumb
brain thing with like idle gamesand you guys know this about me
already, but I think that Survivor games have, there's it.
They're like idol games in the aspect of you have this meta

(01:01:36):
progression where it's just numbers go up and you just, you
constantly make the numbers go higher and higher and higher.
You're, you want to get the nextrun cuz they're going to go
higher than the last run. And you do that over and over
again, but with just enough activity that it's not truly an
idol game. And I think that maybe there's
some connection there. That's my theory, cuz that's how
it does to my brain. But I love these styles.

(01:01:56):
I love this, this. I agree with Andrew.
I think this is my favorite one I've played so far.
I was all in on Vampire Survivors.
It's what made me love all of these games.
But man, it's kind of boring now.
You can just so outpace the game.
And yeah, I like just another point of this is like a good
friend of mine who does not playthese games.
He plays like Call of Duty and NBA2K.

(01:02:18):
Those are the you, you know, Hunter Andrew, he does not play
these styles of games. And he actually, I'd already
been playing it, but dude, you have to check out this game.
It's so much fun, like people who don't normally play these
games have picked it up, at least that that I know and have
enjoyed it. So I if like I, I just
absolutely give it a try out. If you're still on Game pass, if

(01:02:40):
you're still, if you're still stuck around with it with the
rest of us. And again, I think it's on the
cheap tier, so it's available for everyone.
So I'd give it a 92. Yeah, so I'm with these guys.
I think that this is probably the gold standard and survivor
games right now. I again, I think Megabon could

(01:03:03):
get there. I still think that's kind of a
growing and developing game at this point.
I know it hit 1.0, but I'd imagine that game looks a lot
different, you know, a year fromnow than it does today.
But as far as it goes for on Game Pass right now, you
literally cannot do better than this right now.
So I highly recommend downloading this game and giving
it a try because it's a ton of fun.

(01:03:29):
Really just minor gripes here onthe audio on some performance
issues and then some variety on some of the bosses.
Outside of that, it is really hard to find a lot of issues
with the game here. I'm going to go with Keith on
this one. I'm going to go with the 90.
Two man, so I'm the lowest score.

(01:03:50):
I mean, that's your place. And I mean, you had a hard time
understanding the game. It makes sense.
Oh. My yeah, you didn't know how to
get to the drop pod, loser. I mean, I think that's what
that's what Aaron Duck blueprints for his inability to
figure it out. So that makes sense.
So Keith, for the longest time, if anyone ever told me, you know
what was Keith's favorite genre,I'd always say roguelike.

(01:04:13):
But I'm curious, is it still your favorite genre or is it
idol games or survivor games? Overall rogue like still because
they because survivor games if they're at at worst, what
cousins to a rogue like. I mean, it's true.
They're basically that is just adifferent aspect of them.
So I think they encompass all ofit.

(01:04:34):
So I think yeah, I would still say like rogue likes rogue
lights would be my my top tier, but because of their kind of
offshoots idol. Well, idols aren't aren't like
that, but yeah, Survivors. All right, everyone, thank you
all so much for joining us this week.
Alex in our chat. I'm glad you're also One Piece
fan. I've been your hardware gamer

(01:04:55):
host, Andrew. You can find me on Xbox Live at
Firebird 0952. Please make sure you go to
gamepassgrabback.com. Check out our past reviews, go
to our link tree, which will also be in the show notes.
Come join us under Discord, Chatit up with us.
Like I said, we always love getting.
It's easy for us to get game recognitions for people within a
Discord. It's easy for us to kind of keep
track of it. But yeah, Minky, they're quite

(01:05:15):
active on there. You know, check out our YouTube,
We stream quite a bit on there. Also check out our live, you
know, whenever we record these every Wednesday around 9:00 EST.
But yeah, I can't remember what I said, but yeah.
I'm Andrew, hardcore gamer host.You can find me the Xbox Live at
Firebirds 0952. Yeah, I've been Keith and well,

(01:05:36):
Aaron just answered my question in the chat.
Sworn is also a really cool one,but we'll get to that another
day probably. I played the first 3 minutes, it
seemed a little clunky. We'll get to that.
That guy, you want to say something?
Teaser No, I don't want to say anything.
No, I just don't want to say anymore.
It's no teaser. Guy Well love you all.

(01:05:58):
We'll see you again next week.